Teacher Optical Grammatical Studies at KABK and AIVE
Van Blokland was teacher at the Royal Academy from 1955 to 1994 where he lectured Optical Grammatical Studies (the relation between size, shape and colour). He taught the same subject for many years in the program Industrial Design at the Royal Academy in The Hague.
From 1980 to 1985 Rokus was teacher at the Academy for Industrial Design in Eindhoven (AIVE), now the Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE).

Rokus was active in various fields which always were sources of inspriration for him and stimulated each other; designing for Sio and other clients, the classes at the Academy as well as his own work, making objects and paintings.

In his work everything is connected; size, shape and colour.

At Kiljan's request, Rokus took over his classes on Optical Grammatical Studies in 1955. Rokus became a colleague of Kiljan and Schuitema in the evening courses, and from that time on, he was involved in the Industrial Design course.

Rokus had a very good relationship with Kiljan; they often walked together to the tram or train in the evenings and had deep conversations about the profession. Like Kiljan, Rokus taught his students to observe and discover through assignments.

The way of working and thinking that Rokus learned from Kiljan, he has used in his own lessons at the academy for all those years.

The importance of Kiljan for, among others, the CIV program at KABK is evident from this quote from Marius Wagner to Rokus: Kiljan (1891-1968), who had already made the curriculum for the Advertising department under Plantenga in 1929 and was also the first to introduce photography at the academies in the Netherlands with Paul Schuitema, worked out the plans with Hey, determined the structure of the course, the subject matter, and theoretical aspects, and continued to correct them as necessary.

Important example for Rokus himself was Bauhaus, with its teachers of that time such as Johannes Itten, Paul Klee, Walter Gropius. But also Piet Mondriaan, De Stijl, Gerrit Rietveld.

Rokus has trained generations of industrial designers, in his own way, but in which the spirit of Kiljan, the spirit of Bauhaus, lives on.

Johannes Itten

Die Form ist auch Farbe.
Ohne Farbe keine Form, ohne Form keine Farbe.
Form und Farbe sind eins.

Die geometrischen Formen, die Spektralfarben sind die einfachsten, empfindlichsten, darum kräftigsten und feinsten Mittel der Darstellung eines ausdrucksvollen Formgefüges.

Quotes from Johannes Itten that were important for Rokus.