Background
Bleijs was born in Hoorn as the son of a master carpenter who built several houses in that town.
Bleijs was born in Hoorn as the son of a master carpenter who built several houses in that town.
Bleijs was trained in architectural skills by architect B. Blanken and engineer H. Linse. In November 1859 he moved to Roermond to join P.J.H. Cuypers’ firm. After graduation he returned to Hoorn and started his own office, which in 1880 he moved to Amsterdam.
Foreign a Catholic architect of that period, Bleijs was unusually eclectic.
Besides fourteen churches he designed, among other things, two Amsterdam hospitals. His best known work is the Saint Nicolas Church in Amsterdam.
Among his students were such notable architects as Willem Kromhout and January Stuyt. After ca. 1900 no further assignments came, and in 1903 Bleijs closed his office and became a civil servant in "s Hertogenbosch.
He died in Kerkdriel and after a funeral mass at the Saint Nicholas Church in Amsterdam he was buried at the Catholic cemetery De Liefde.