Shell House - J.J.P. Oud

A small portion of the Shell Oil Building in The Hague, completed just after the war by Dutch architect J.J.P. Oud.

This was the building of which Oud was most proud -- "a step forward" he called it -- and the one that had him virtually thrown out of the modernist moverment for apostasy. 'Just imagine darling, all that ornament! All that beauty! Uugh!'

Oud wrote Ayn Rand a fan letter after reading The Fountainhead, after which she requested and received an autographed photo of this building.

Of his "battle with the alleged modernists who object to ornament,' Rand told Oud, "I can see they criticized you precisely for the best things about the Shell building -- for the fact that it is beautiful."

Sadly, very few online pictures of the building exist. This comes from the cover of a book celebrating the building.

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