Gerard Moerdijk

Gerard Leendert Pieter Moerdijk (Zwaershoek farm near Nylstroom, Transvaal, 4 March 1890 – Nylstroom, 29 March 1958), also known as Gerard Moerdyk, was a South African architect best known for designing the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria.

Both Moerdyk's parents were Dutch immigrants, who moved to South Africa in 1888.

During the Second Boer War (1899–1902) Gerard Moerdyk (then aged 10) was interred in the Standerton concentration camp with his mother, two brothers and two sisters. After the war, the family lived in Pretoria where Gerard went to the forerunner of Pretoria Boys High School. He matriculated with honours in 1909 and qualified as an architect at the Architectural Association in England. He also studied in France for a while and was exposed to classical Roman and Renaissance architecture in Italy.

Moerdyk was the first South African to be an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Moerdyk returned to South Africa in 1913 and received first prize for the design of a church in Bothaville. He started his own practice and received more than eighty commissions to design churches. In his designs Moerdyk broke with the traditional crucifix plan, and replaced it with an octagonal formation, and incorporated domes, crescent-shaped windows and Cape Dutch gables. Another Church the Nederduitse Hervormde Kerk was designed in 1935. Picture of Church and memorial plate insterted

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