Schoemakaer life was full of turbulence and rich experience as architect. The nicknames given to him were: Army Zeni Engineer, carver, architect, professor of architecture. His experience for 35 years ranged from army zeni engineer in Java and Sumatra, as East Indies architect, private architect and as professor in ITB.
Schoemaker was bor in Banyuwbiru, nearby Salatiga, Central Java, in 1882. He finished his study in Nijmegen from 1897-1902. Between 1902 to 1905 he went to Military academy in Breda. He was graduated as Lieutenant, he worked in zeni corp of Holland kingdom. He worked to build railway and telegraph network in Preanger, West java and later in 1908-1910 he worked in Padang and finally in 1910 to 1911 and positioned in corps quarter in Batavia. In that year he also ended his career in Holland kingdom officially. From Otober 1912 to June 1913, he worked as architect in Gemeente Bataia. He designed Gemeente Batavia hospital, that later evolved as Dr Copto Mangunkusumo hospital. AFter 9 months working at Gemente Batavia, he moved to Moojen & Company. He worked there for 9 months where he handled various designs such as small railway station, Madiun railway garage comples, water tower in Surabaya and so on. .
In February 1917, he worked in Gementee Batavia again but this time as director. He designed wide ranges of building from market, abattoir, chilling facility and Batavia city planning generally. He married 5 times, with Lucie Hofstede in 1916, with Nannie van Oppen in 1921, with Ouw Joe Hwa Nio in 1933, with Corona Hilgers in 1935 and the last was with Yetty van Brueghen until his death in 1949.
Schoemaker’s family was military family. His father and brother were officials of Dutch army. His mother was from Clarenbach family, also came from military family. Shoemaker and Clarenbach were originally from Germany.
Shoemaker moved to work in Carl Schlieper & Company, a technical equipments and machines company. This company sent him for comparison study to Europe and USA. He stayed in USA for long enough period as in Europe there was WW I. In USa he visited New York, Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit Chicago,
Washington, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Sacramento, Santa Rosa, San Franssisco to study their city plans, transportation plan, modern architecture and construction technology. He returned to Batavia on May 1918.
He then chose to work in Bandung, in 1918. When Sekolah Tinggi Teknik Bandung was designed by Pont, he taucht there and in 1924 he was promoted as professor of architecture, he had that title until 1941. He had also architect bureau , C.P. Schoemaker en Associate Architecten en
Ingenieurs. Sukarno, Indonesia’s first president, ever worked there in Bandung. He died in 1949, in 67 years old. He was buried in Cikutra cemetery , Bandung.
He has 35 years of experience as architct and there were many buildings he designed in Indonesia. Schoemaker works had been landmark in cities in Java, such as:
1. Sukamiskin Jail in Bandung (1919)
2. Jaarbeurs Building in bandung (1927)
3. Koloniale Bank , Surabaya (1927)
4. Hotel Preanger – Bandung (1930)
5. Mesjid Cipaganti – Bandung (1933)
6. Santo Petrus Church – Bandung ( 1922 )
7. Villa Isola – Bandung (1933)
His design always change. But the very obvious change happened after he returned from USA in 1918. USA modern architecture influenced him. Especially the style of Frank Lloyd Wright, famous american architect in that period. This can be seen from Koloniale Bank in Surabaya and Hotel Preanger in Bandung, where there are dominant lines parallel with ground surface, and details of geometric, the typical of Frank Lloyd Wright. But after 1930, his design had found his own style. Villa Isola was designed in 1933 and one of his masterpiece, showing romanticism and adventure. This villa is one of successful art deco of modern architecture.