In the year 1903, Ghijsels studied at the polytechnic in Delft, where some of his fellow students included several future East Indies architects, Thomas Karsten and Henri Maclaine Pont among them.
[2] After his academic study, in 1909, his first appointment was as a government architectural supervisor in Amsterdam under the firm of GA van Arkel (1910).
By the end of September 1910, Ghijsels was accepted for the post of engineer by the Department of Municipal Works in Batavia, so he returned to the Dutch East Indies.
The AIA was considered one of the biggest architecture consultant in the Dutch East Indies, with a building contractor.
In 1932, the AIA bureau created an associate with another office in Bandung, led by architect FW Brinkman and GH Voorhoeve.
[1] Other AIA AIA'st famous works are the Kota railway station and Hotel des Indes (demolished in 1972) in Batavia.
In Bandung, Villa Isola of press magnate Dominique W. Beretty, was designed by Schoemaker who was affiliated with AIA.