I was friends and connected with the Berlage family. So I had the privilege of meeting and talking now and then with Berlage. I admired his works, his buildings, and his building principles. In the beginning I tried to follow the latter, and, later, I strove after enlargement of his principles and came to ideas of my own. This did not really lead to conclusions other than the ones to which he came. I think that part of his principle was to build honestly. Not to build with adornments and so on, but to build exactly out of construction. That was what interested me in Berlage very much. It may be that I admire more what he did after his convictions than what he showed. I don’t think what he did is all beautiful. He also made ugly things, but the things were true. It was the first time you saw a true architecture. That was what interested me so much, you see.
J.J.P. Oud, quoted in The Oral History of Modern Architecture