theoretical, aesthetic themes; many of those about the Amsterdammers and their
work have been more concerned with sociopolitical-artistic relationships. The
Americans Helen Searing, Suzanne Frank and a few others established the creden-
tials of the Amsterdam School.

For many years a strident, exclusive propagandist of modernism, the American
architect Phillip Johnson wrote in 1984:

My loyalty to J.J.P. Oud, my friendship with Mies, kept me from ap-
preciating de Klerk's genius. Now all is clear. I love his mature and
wilful forms and above all the great brick craftsmanship that... we
have lost. Sixty years have straightened my spectacles. Hurrah to the
Amsterdam School! ³⁸

There were other omissions still to be redressed. The first extensive English-
language study of Berlage appeared as late as 1972: Singelenberg H.P. Berlage:
idea and style, the quest for modern architecture, translated from the Dutch.
Two years later an entire issue of the Nederlandse Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek de-
voted to the great architect included English summaries and an essay in English
by Searing which took up his domestic architecture after 1904, where Singelen-
berg had left off. Other venerable figures were also introduced to the English
reader, virtually for the first time, when in 1976 the Dutch government-sponsored
periodical Museumjournaal published two long, well-illustrated articles about "Ar-
chitectura en Amicita" introducing the arcane theorists Lauweriks and Walenkamp,
as well as de Bazel, , Kromhout and W.C.Bauer. ³⁹

Even more recently, the horizons of English readers have been considerably-
widened by the bilingual publication of Dutch books and journals, and of some
periodicals originating in Italy, the home of Dutch modern architecture's most
ardent, articulate and well-informed admirers.

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