Peter van Dijk

Peter van Dijk (February 13, 1929 – September 7, 2019) was an American architect who designed many buildings in Ohio, including the Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Falls.

Early years van Dijk was born to a Dutch family in what was then the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia, where his father worked as an engineer for Royal Dutch Shell. After a couple years there, the family moved for another assignment to Maracaibo, Venezuela and spent about twelve years there, with brief sojourns in the Netherlands every few years. In Venezuela young van Dijk constructed toys and drew, and picked up swimming which would become an avocation for the rest of his life. When World War II started, the family stayed in Latin America, and sent van Dijk and his brother to Curaçao for boarding school, where he spent eighth and ninth grades. During the war, when van Dijk was 14, Shell transferred his father to New York City; van Dyjk attended Mamaroneck High School in Mamaroneck, New York for two years, and swam for the school's swim team.

He graduated from Mamaroneck High School at age 16, and then studied engineering at Cornell University. After two years there, he decided he did not want to be an engineer, and that architecture interested him. He spent a year working for an architect in New Rochelle, New York. van Dijk then applied as a transfer student to the University of Oregon, where he received a full scholarship "mainly for swimming," studied architecture, met Buckminster Fuller and led a 15-student team that created a geodesic dome under Fuller's direction, and graduated in 1953. He became a U.S. citizen in the same year. In addition to Blossom, van Dijk's designs included (all are in the Cleveland area, unless otherwise noted): buildings for educational institutions including Cleveland State University's music building, physical education building, and natatorium; Ursuline College; the University School upper school; and the chapel and rec center of John Caroll University, other performance spaces including Cain Park Amphitheater, Westlake Performing Arts and Rec centers, and the Buell Theater in Denver, medical facilities at the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospital and in Akron, Youngstown, Cincinnati, and Warren, Ohio, and Wheeling, West Virginia, and corporate headquarters for Parker Hannifin, B. F. Goodrich, Lubrizol, Invacare, and IMG. A 2016 award citation wrote that his "innovative designs continue to enhance the aesthetics, environment, and quality of life of Northeast Ohio and other cities."

Personal life van Dijk first married the former Donna Daley. They divorced in 1972. He married his second wife, Roberta “Bobbi” Steffey (née Skeivis), in 1974, and she survived him. He had three sons, a daughter, and a step-son.

He was a world class masters swimmer who broke international records into his 80s. He won 50 national championships in freestyle and backstroke, and 17 international gold medals (all as of 2015; in a 2016 interview he said 60 national championships and 17 world championships), including winning four gold medals at age 85 at the 2014 Masters World Championship in Montreal.

Recognition van Dijk was awarded the Cleveland Arts Prize twice: the architecture award in 1969, and a special tribute in 2016. He was a fellow of the Ohio chapter of the American Institute of Architects, and was awarded its gold medal in 2000. He received additional awards from the Cleveland Restoration Society, and National Preservation Honor Awards. In November 2011, the Cleveland Institute of Art, on whose board of directors van Dijk had served for two stints and a total of 31 years, gave him its Medal for Excellence. In 2015, he was inducted into the Greater Cleveland Sports Hall of Fame, for swimming.