Albert Aalbers

Who was Albert Aalbers?

Albert Frederik Aalbers was a Dutch architect who created elegant villas, hotels and office buildings in Bandung, Indonesia under Dutch colonial rule in the 1930s. Albert Aalbers worked in the Netherlands between 1924 and 1930 and then migrated to the Dutch Indies after which he returned to the Netherlands in 1942 due to World War II and political circumstances following Indonesian independence. During his stay in Bandung, in a period when the city was dubbed the city of architecture laboratory, a number of his buildings were considered architectural masterpieces. Aalbers' style was inspired by expressionist Frank Lloyd Wright and modernist Le Corbusier. In Bandung, the DENIS bank in Braga Street and the Savoy Homann Hotel in Asia-Afrika Street, still carry Aalber's ocean wave ornamentation.