Van der Vlugt trained in Rotterdam and taught in Groningen before joining Michiel Brinkman's practice in 1925; Brinkman died that year and Van der Vlugt inherited both the office and its largest commission. Working with the reinforced-concrete engineer Jan Gerko Wiebenga and, briefly, with the draughtsman Mart Stam, he produced the Van Nelle Factory, the Bergpolder slab block and a pair of glass villas for the Van Nelle directors. His buildings set mushroom-headed concrete columns behind a glass skin hung clear of the frame, so that floors read from outside as continuous horizontal bands and the structure never touches the facade. He died at forty-two. Authorship of the factory was disputed for decades afterwards, and Stam left the office over it.
