Fabritius School (1926)

Dudok's Fabritius School remains a pearl for its surroundings. The school earned the nickname 'the Thatched Roof School.'

The Fabritius School was a school for children from affluent backgrounds, very different from the primary school, the Ruysdael School, where mostly children from the Flowers Neighborhood, a working-class neighborhood, attended. The two schools were next to each other. The playground was shared by the schools, and they had separate breaks.

During the occupation years, many schools were taken over by the German army. The Ruysdael School became so crowded that the students had to be taken into the Fabritius School. Even so, the separation in classes remained. The children from the working neighborhoods only got lessons in the mornings. The original students of the Fabritius School received additional lessons in the afternoon.

Thatched roofs present a fire hazard. In the early evening of Tuesday, 23 April 1985, the greatest fear became a reality: the school caught fire. The cause was a cigarette butt from a wayward youth. Luckily, no one was injured. The extinguishing of the fire was a challenge and created quite a chaotic mess.The flocking crowds hindered the firemen. The water used on the fire caused a short in the nearby electrical station, with the consequence that parts of Hilversum were left without power. There was not much of the school left, but happily the school was rebuilt.

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