(b Rotterdam, 1892; d Haarlem, 1970). Dutch architect. He trained at the Technische Hogeschool in Delft. His first projects, from the 1920s, showed a conservative design approach that he would follow throughout his career. Apart from W. M. Dudok, Friedhoff’s chief model in the 1920s was the National Romanticism of contemporary Scandinavian architects, and he was among those architects sometimes referred to by their contemporaries as the ‘Swedes’. This is particularly visible in the Raadhuis (1930–33) in Enschede, whose design won a competition in 1929. It refers directly to Ragnar Ostberg’s town hall in Stockholm in its large closed brick wall planes with small, high windows, in its vertical proportions and curved lower edges, and in its refined siting and detailing. Friedhoff’s other work before World War II included a Christian Science church (1937) in south Amsterdam in an extremely plain traditional style. After the war Friedhoff was able to display his monumental style in several large government office buildings, of which the best known is the Rijksbelastingkantoor (1956–8) in Amsterdam; it has axial symmetry, a classicizing façade and detailing, and a composition of large closed volumes. Although Friedhoff has been regarded as one of the conservative architects of the DELFT SCHOOL (ii), his entirely personal, sober and refined formal language, his great sensitivity in harmonizing a building with its surroundings and his subtle use of light and shadow in both interior and exterior save his work from being simply historicist.