Herman Ambrosius Jan Baanders

Baanders' most significant contribution to the development of the Amsterdamse School style was a number of buildings outside Amsterdam during the early phase of the movement.

His firm was also the starting point for the careers of a number of prominent Amsterdamse School architects, such as Michel de Klerk, Cornelis Blaauw, J. Zietsma, and Willem Maas.

Like his father, he studied architecture (bouwkunde) at the Industrieschool van de Maatschappij voor den Werkenden Stand in Amsterdam.

His business network as head of the Nederlandsche Grondbriefbank and his prominence in the architects' society Architectura et Amicitia led to larger and more prestigious commissions, and in the years that followed, the company grew to become one of the largest architectural firms in Amsterdam.

In 1911 his brother Jan Baanders joined him as a partner in the firm and from 1915 the company operated under the name "Architectenbureau H.A.J.

These stately homes were located mainly around the Vondelpark and in affluent areas around Amsterdam, such as Bloemendaal, Aerdenhout and the Gooi.

Major projects of the firm in the period up to the mid-1920s included the district of Heijplaat in the harbour of Rotterdam (1912-1921) — originally built as a garden city (tuindorp) to house the employees of the Rotterdamsche Droogdok Maatschappij shipping company — and the Amsterdam secondary school Amsterdams Lyceum (1917-1922).

The Baanders brothers' designs in this period include the Blauwe Theehuis ("Blue Tea House"), a Modernist circular pavilion in Amsterdam's Vondelpark (1937).