Japanese Occupation and Later Life
The Three-colors Villa was his last work in Indonesia. The Netherlands was on the brink of the World War II and the Dutch Indies was occupied by Imperial Japan. The Japanese Occupation Army sent Aalbers and his family to the Dutch intern camp in Cimahi and then were transferred to the Jatinegara camp in Jakarta. Even during his captivity he drew many sketches, including his dream of having a villa in a tropical environment with mountains in the background.
In 1946, Aalbers, his wife and his two daughters moved to Amsterdam. He opened a new architecture office with the name of 'Albers en De Waal, Architecten, Amsterdam-Bandoeng'. He put 'Bandoeng' in the name as a wish that someday he would be able to return to Bandung. His hope wasn't realized due to poor health and the unstable political circumstances in Indonesia.
Albert F. Aalbers died in 1961. Much of his work still stands in Bandung, such as the DENIS bank and the Savoy Homann Hotel. Some villas he designed have been destroyed during the war and also damaged due to subsequent renovations.
Read more about this topic: Albert Aalbers
Famous quotes containing the words japanese, occupation and/or life:
“The Japanese do not fear God. They only fear bombs.”
—Jerome Cady, U.S. screenwriter. Lewis Milestone. Yin Chu Ling, The Purple Heart (1944)
“For myself I found that the occupation of a day-laborer was the most independent of any, especially as it required only thirty or forty days in a year to support one. The laborer’s day ends with the going down of the sun, and he is then free to devote himself to his chosen pursuit, independent of his labor; but his employer, who speculates from month to month, has no respite from one end of the year to the other.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Art is not a treasure in the past or an importation from another land, but part of the present life of all living and creating peoples.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)