SCHUURMAN ARCHITECTS
OUR OFFICE Contact Details Schuurman Architects E-mail schuurman.arch(at)kolumbus.fi
Staff 3-5
Office profile Originally founded in 1974 as the Architectural Office Aulikki and Martinus Schuurman, the office expanded in 1984 with the commission for the Wärtsilä-Strand Hotel as a Helsinki-based practice. Nowadays the office works under its present name in Finland but also on projects abroad, especially the Baltics and lately Russia. Although modest in size, the office has gained wide experience in large hotel projects, restaurations and private houses. In addition, the office has been working on extensive mixed-development projects in Tartu and Tallinn, Estonia, which have been put on hold for the present, due to the economic recession (2010). Characteristic of the way the office works is the meticulous attention paid to the programme specifications, before embarking on the architectural design.
Personal profile
Martinus Schuurman studied architecture at the Technical University of Delft (the Netherlands) and graduated in 1962 with honours on a design for a Music Academy in The Hague, under prof. J.H.van den Broek and the composer Kees van Baaren. In its strict organisation the institute, where Schuurman initially studied music himself the project shows the influence of his famous teacher. But also the thoughts of Van Baaren, particularly on the structure and balance of form in musical composition, were very signifcant. Both would have a lasting influence on his work. In 1963 Schuurman settled in Finland, working in various offices as a project architect for large industrial projects in Finland, such as the electronics factory of Nokia, as well as apartment hotel projects in Egypt and Ethiopia, and later in Saudi-Arabia and Vietnam. Gradually forming his own practice with his late wife, he worked especially on hotel projects, such as the Strand Hotel in Helsinki. Following the economic recession in Finland in the nineties, Schuurman turned his attention to other countries, securing restauration projects in Germany and Estonia. The now famous hotel the Three Sisters in Tallinn opened in 2003 and the new Euroopa Hotel in the harbour of Tallinn in 2007. At present the architecural work is shifting to St Petersburg with hotel projects in the old centre.
Martinus Schuurman in Rafael Moneo's Hotel in Berlin |
