The Aldo van Eyck pavilion at the far end of the Kröller-Müller sculpture garden is well worth seeking out. It is actually a reconstruction of a temporary exhibition space for sculpture built in 1966. Van Eyck is not well-known in the United States, but his influence as an architect and theorist extends well beyond the Netherlands.

As I was walking around the pavilion I was struck by its similarity to Louis Kahn’s bath house in Trenton, New Jersey. The cinder block material, the way in which the roof was suspended above the walls, and the juxtaposition of geometric forms, all reminded me of Kahn’s temple of utilitarian changing rooms and showers. I photographed it some years ago before and after its restoration.

It turns out that the two architects met here at the Kröller-Müller in 1959. Robert McCarter, architect and professor writes in a 2018 essay: “The paths of these two architects – the Second-Generation modernist Kahn, then 58 years old, and the Third-Generation modernist Van Eyck, then 40 years old – parallel in so astonishingly many ways, crossed here for the first time, deeply affecting them both at a time of critical transition in their respective practices and thought.”

https://krollermuller.nl/en/aldo-van-eyck-aldo-van-eyck-pavilion
https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/6865075.pdf (PDF)