Formed through the collaboration of two Dutch groups of architects out of Amsterdam and Rotterdam respectively, De 8 en Opbouw was a magazine that oscillated between the mature criticism of the monthly reviews, and the day-to-day reporting of construction newspapers. Published as a bi-weekly between 1932 and 1943, the magazine showcased the bold character of Dutch modernism, as well as the social changes that it expressed. From its graphic design, to the confident functionalism in the designs of Dutch architects (like Duiker, Brinkman, van der Vlugt, Stam, Oud etc), the magazine’s impact has left a mark in the cultural production of Dutch architects to this day.
When the magazines of two Dutch avant-garde collectives merged in January 1932, the editors — Ben Merkelbach, Mart Stam, Gerrit Rietveld and others — were explicit about the project's politics. The journal would not "discuss" architecture; it would document the New Building as a working programme.
Typographically, the journal sat at the frontier. Paul Schuitema and Piet Zwart contributed covers; the inside pages used a tight functionalist grid that anticipated post-war Swiss design. The 1937 special issue on industrial photography, edited by Cas Oorthuys, remains a milestone in Dutch visual culture.
By 1939 the political climate had begun to fracture the editorial board. Mart Stam had left for the Soviet Union; Rietveld had drifted toward the artisanal. The German occupation imposed paper restrictions and, eventually, censorship. The last full issue appeared in 1943. The journal's archive is deposited at Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam.
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The editorial board shifted significantly across the journal's lifetime. The list below is partial; the full board is being compiled.
Named explicitly as "Redacteur" in the October 1941 colophon. Earlier issues (1932, 1933, 1936) credit no individual editor by name.
The 1932 and 1933 colophons list only the association's secretariat (Keizersgracht 574, Amsterdam) as the editorial address — no individual is named.
Amsterdam entrepreneur who financed and published the journal in its first years, per the KNOB Bulletin history of the title.
Took over publication from 1935; confirmed by name in the 1936 and 1941 colophons examined.
Credited for cover design on surviving copies (e.g. 1938, 1941 issues), working alongside Piet Zwart on the journal's typography.
Selected scholarship on the journal, and the institutional sources from which the database draws its scans and transcripts.
The reproductions are sourced at the IADDB database as individual scanned pages, used here by permission. They were collected and assembled into PDF booklets, corrected for pagination, processed for Character Recognition, and re-uploaded as flipbooks. Similar copies also exist at Delpher.nl, including a search function.
Copyright status varies by contribution. Under EU law (Directive 2006/116/EC), protection for a named author's work lasts 70 years after that author's death; unattributed or corporate content is protected for 70 years from publication. Many of De 8 en Opbouw's individual contributors lived well into the 20th century, so parts of these issues may remain in copyright. The Architectural Periodicals Database does not assert ownership of the original creative content, only of the database itself, and republishes this material on the basis of permission obtained from IADDB. If you are a rights holder and believe your work has been used without appropriate permission, please contact us at info@architecturalperiodicals.com.