February 01, 1993
If there are any post-modern architects in the Netherlands, then their country’s nineteenth-century architectural heritage seems to have passed them by. It was the art historians who were interested in and theorized about the Gothic Revival, a movement especially suited to their historical constructions and their desire to link the past to the present with as much meaning as possible. The Gothic Revival is indeed a subject to grab the attention, with its stress on tradition, ideology and ethics. However, the interest aroused during the past decades has created a rather selective and unbalanced picture of nineteenth-century architecture. And not only because of the domination of Gothic Revival: for the image of that movement itself contains many strange abridgments and distortions.
The essential element of the Gothic Revival is the problem of tradition. In mid-eighteenth-century England, classical architecture gradually lost its sacrosanct status among a growing number of patrons. The Gothic style gained in popularity among the cultural elite: in contrast to the refined persuasion of the classicists, it offered architectural freedom (with Nature as its alibi). Moreover, it was wonderfully evocative in its reference to a vague and distant past. By 1830 the rules of classical architecture had ceased to dominate in the cultural centres of Western Europe. From then on, the struggle to achieve Beauty was to take a different route. Theorists and architects in England, France, Germany, Belgium and, later, the Netherlands, devised the canons of the Gothic Revival to fill the conceptual vacuum. They based their philosophy on nationalist, religious and moral imperatives, or on a homogeneous mix of all three. Thus, as one, Vitruvian, tradition was lost, another came in its place: the revival of an old native tradition – that of craftsmanship, of corporate organization. The concept which developed was that of a modern, mid-nineteenth-century architecture, linked in spirit with the noble Middle Ages. `Archaism is not at odds with the sound principles of art, but it is useful and necessary. Only a person who loves art with no other goal than to reach his own individual ideal hates archaism; not one who takes tradition as their guide and teacher of an ideal. The first is a parvenu; the other a nobleman, the inheritor and guardian of his ancestors’ class and fortune.’1) This we read in the minutes of an address given by Dr H. Schaepman to St Bernulphus’ Guild, the Utrecht association of art-loving clergymen founded in 1869 by the Roman Catholic priest G.W. van Heukelum.`The aim of this brotherhood is to achieve a thorough knowledge of the true principles of church art by joining together in the study of Christian works of art in general, and in particular our own native artistic creations.’ To help reach this goal, in 1872 Van Heukelum founded the Archiepiscopal Museum in Utrecht (now part of the Catherijnenconvent Museum). The collection included medieval sculptures and paintings and was intended to provide material for study and emulation.
St Bernulphus’ Guild was founded along the lines of the long-standing Belgian St Luke’s Guild. In many ways, Belgium prepared the way for the Gothic Revival in the Netherlands long in advance. National independence in 1830 accelerated the demise of classicist doctrines and led to the search for a national style. By 1840 historian and archaeologist A.B.G. Schayes of Louvain had published his research on Belgian Gothic art and, as he was later to point out, between around 1837 and 1857 more than six hundred Belgian churches had been restored or built in medieval style.2)
At that time in the Netherlands the Gothic Revival had only just begun to take hold. P.J.H. Cuypers, artistically nurtured at the Antwerp academy – the very centre of the Belgian Neo-Gothic movement – began to play a prominent role in the Netherlands after finishing his studies. His brother-in-law Alberdingk Thijm was an invaluable support.3) At first, in the 1840s, the Gothic Revival played only a modest part in the emerging Dutch debate on architecture. But with the vigorous campaigns of Cuypers and Thijm it began to find itself labelled as the house style of a revitalized Catholicism. Both fought for the reinstatement of a number of selected idealistic and craft traditions. By 1900 the Gothic Revival had passed its peak; designers could no longer take it seriously and it vanished in a final eruption, secularized and transformed into Art Nouveau – an art form which disclaimed all association with the old traditions.
In the years after the Second World War, instead of being the aggressor, the Gothic Revival – once responsible for the downfall of classicism – itself became the victim. `Only movements which genuinely belong to this age are worthy of our consideration; that is why Archaism must be rejected’ wrote Het Katholieke Bouwblad in 1958.4) At the International Liturgical Congress (Rome 1956) Pope Pius XII dealt with modern church architecture (fine examples of which had already been realized before the war). This was soon interpreted as an implied denunciation of traditionalism and adherence to old styles.5) This cautious papal blessing of modern church architecture marked the beginning of an orgy of violence against the Gothic Revival Gesamtkunstwerke. Many Catholic churches were `modernized’ by whitewashing polychrome pillars, arches, walls and vaults, by smashing or stripping Neo-Gothic woodcarvings and sculptures such as figures of saints, pulpits, communion rails and altars, and by selling wrought iron and precious metal ornaments by the pound.
Beautiful stained-glass windows were replaced by modern abstract compositions or plain glass, and richly coloured flagstones made way for neutral, grey floors. And so, in the name of the late-nineteenth-century credo Il faut être de son temps, an assault, as thorough as it was massive, took place on the `inferior’ church furnishings, silent witnesses to the `bad taste’ of all that those former generations had built up through years of dedication and personal financial sacrifice. This Cultural Revolution, which is itself deserving of research and documentation, wiped out much of the nineteenth-century heritage of Catholic emancipation, liturgy and art. The fact that any Gothic Revival interiors have escaped unscathed at all is probably more to do with lack of funds than anything else. These modernizations were far from cheap: indeed, they provided a good living for many Church advisers, architects and builders. An element of religious fervour may have contributed to their preservation, that or sheer conservatism. The Second Vatican Council (1963) introduced a whole new approach to the liturgy (stressing simplicity, a sense of community and hospitality) which meant that in addition to questions of taste and the need to be modern, there were also functional reasons for altering church interiors. And that was by no means all. Where Catholic services were held in old medieval churches the Historic Buildings Trust facilitated the removal of any nineteenth-century additions.6)
However, just as this wave of cleaning up began to subside and the priests were congratulating themselves on their sober church interiors, people started moving away from the inner cities and church attendance entered a sharp and inexorable decline. The rising price of land in town centres, shrinking congregations, and the fact that many churches now needed major renovation work, led in a great number of cases in the 1970s to the arrival of the demolition team. St Willibrord buiten de Veste’s and Mary Magdalene’s in Amsterdam, St Hippolytus’ in Delft, St Michael’s in Zwolle, as well as the cathedrals of Rotterdam and Breda, are some of the principal examples of buildings that disappeared at that time; Groningen cathedral was closed and later demolished. Throughout the Netherlands dejected parishioners could be seen poking around in the rubble, searching for souvenirs: a tile, a Neo-Gothic door handle, or perhaps even a face from a stained-glass window.
The early 1970s saw the start of a reaction, and not just among Catholics who were unwilling to put up with their priests’ newfangled ways. `The demolition of Gothic Revival churches in the Netherlands is once again the subject of discussion and action’, wrote the Catholic newspaper De Tijd in 1973. `This is not people motivated by nostalgia or wounded religious feelings letting off steam; they are genuinely concerned with establishing the value of a piece of history and historic art.’7) The article was written to mark the exhibition in Utrecht’s Centraal Museum entitled Het gat in de Biltstraat, the gap in the Biltstraat left in 1972 after the demolition of Our Lady’s Ascension church. The exhibition was accompanied by a special issue of `Forum’, and together both were meant to `publicize the problems around the existence and survival of hundreds of Dutch Gothic Revival church buildings and their monumental decorations and furnishings.’8)
In the meantime the Historic Buildings Department had made an inventory of Dutch nineteenth-century churches (not just Gothic Revival ones) and selected about a hundred and thirty of these for legal protection. This illustrated selection was published by H.P.R. Rosenberg, together with an introduction and copious documentation under the title De 19de-eeuwse kerkelijke bouwkunst in Nederland (1972).9) `Since this period of our architectural history is now the focus of attention, with so many churches closed and demolished and further closures threatened, it is time to take stock….This book sets out to try and change the general prejudice against “Revival’ styles and to encourage interest and understanding. It is certainly not true that Neo-Classical and Gothic Revival styles are simply imitations or an “architectural masquerade’.’10)
This reevaluation was part of a wider movement: the foundation of the Netherlands Centre for Architectural Documentation (Amsterdam 1971) formed a milestone in research into nineteenth-century architectural history, indeed, in England and Germany the fact that nineteenth-cnetury styles were not necessarily `inferior’ had already been discovered some twenty years previously.11)
Until the appearance of Rosenberg’s book, anyone wishing to examine Dutch Neo-Gothic church architecture was dependent on a book whose title translates as `The Catholic Churches in Holland: the present state of those churches with their furnishings and decorations described and depicted’ (1906), a heavy and outsize folio edition by J. Kalf. The book’s importance lay not so much in Kalf’s opinions as in the copious documentation of the buildings. In fact, it has recently been discovered that he obtained his information from the priests through questionnaires (not always a reliable source).12) The book was not much help to anyone wishing to get an idea of the atmosphere of the Neo-Gothic movement: the protagonists, their ideals, theories, work and conflicts. A book by the scholar and prolific writer G. Brom of Nijmegen’ Herleving van de kerkelijke kunst in katholiek Nederland (1933), more than made up for this. Brom’s history of the revival of Dutch Catholic church art begins in the early nineteenth century with decline, conservatism, and bad taste all around, leading to a rapid revival after 1853. It is a history of lame ducks, opportunists, idealists and heroes, written by an apparently all-knowing and all-seeing judge who, strangely enough, had relatively few printed sources and no records at all. Brom’s achievement is even more remarkable when one realizes that he was equally at home in such subjects as the history of Catholic science and the Catholic temperance movement.13)
Rosenberg saw no need in 1972 for a critical revision of Brom’s opinions and outspoken historical images; on the contrary, he went along with the views found in The Revival, which gave a new lease of life to pejorative appellations such as `stucadoorsgotiek’, `waterstaatskerk’, and the so-called feud between P.J.H. Cuypers and the Utrecht Gothic Revival School about the priest Van Heukelum – three points which by 1972 should have been rejected as mere Brom rhetoric. Since then, hardly any research has been done on the Gothic Revival and its protagonists. Only a handful of monographs (mainly dealing with Cuypers’ work) have appeared in twenty years.
In 1992, however, a fundamental change can indeed be discerned. This dates back to 1973, when the art historian Evert van Uitert suggested that Neo-Gothic art be considered camp, a trendy term in those days for the hip twilight zone between art and kitsch.14) However, the Gothic Revival was `de-Catholicized’ by a different process: the interest in `romantic-Catholic symbolism’ gradually disappeared. Both these terms are Jan de Heer’s, who used them to show how Berlage made Cuypers’s spiritual heritage accessible for discussion and use; and he rightly pointed to the crucial role played by references to Viollet-le-Duc in this interpretation.15) Of course Cuypers himself had started this: almost from the start he presented himself as an architect (and not as an advocate of Catholicism) by posing as a follower of the atheist and rationalist Viollet-le-Duc (and not of the fiery English convert A.W. Pugin, whom he had good reason to choose).
Cuypers’ `de-Catholicization’, which gained even more momentum after 1970, was probably due to more than just one factor. During the previous decades Viollet-le-Duc’s international reputation had increased considerably; it is now clear that his significance for the theory of architecture was far greater than might have been supposed from his rather dull image as a rationalist.16) In addition, violent discussions erupted around 1960 about the proposed demolition of the Amsterdam Exchange: Berlage himself was turned into a monument, the father of modern Dutch architecture.17) But this father needed forerunners – and of course he had pointed these out himself: P.J.H. Cuypers, and through him Viollet-le-Duc. This construction was documented scientifically in the handbook, excellent for its day, by G. Fanelli.18) At that time modern architecture was mainly defined in terms of style. During the later 1970s a new ingredient was added: modern architecture as a path towards awareness of social and moral problems. All this awakened a tremendous interest in the history of the `Nieuwe Bouwen’ (the Modern Movement in the Netherlands). It also gave new recognition to Cuypers’s Gothic Revival style. The Nieuwe Bouwen had also held him sacrosanct, although they had little praise for the nineteenth century as a whole.19) In 1926 J.J.P. Oud referred to him as having prepared the precursor of modern architecture, for which he had `spiritually paved the way’.20) The architects of the Nieuwe Bouwen had substantial arguments for this opinion – or perhaps it only seemed so: mentioning Viollet-le-Duc’s rationalism was in fact sufficient. There was more at stake, of course, than purely historical interest, it was a search for legitimacy, for `roots’. `Is it just Gothic Art that we want?’ Alberdingk Thijm asked in 1858, the answer being that the discussion was not so much about Gothic Art as about logic, `We want logic quand-même’.21) In a ruthless essay David Watkin described the congenial relationship that has existed between the champions of Gothic Revival (e.g. Viollet-le-Duc and Pugin) and the advocates of modernism (e.g. Nicolaus Pevsner): both parties were defending a principle of ethics rather than just a style.22)
His admirers continued to champion Cuypers’s technical and moral superiority with the constant repetition of anecdotes from his early years as an architect. His fight with the Inspectors of Public Works who distrusted his honest stone vaults – after all, the art of vault building was supposed to have been lost – and who wanted to force the young hero to make `sham vaults’ with slats and plaster. In 1907 Professor J.F. Klinkhamer presented Cuypers with an honourary doctorate at the Architecture Department at Delft University of Technology. In Klinkhamer’s `laudatio’ address he praised Cuypers’s victories over the authorities, proving him to be a pioneer in the struggle for sound architecture.23) A.J. Looijenga has recently looked more closely at the records of this heroic fight against sham vaults and found these famous stories to be mere fabrications. Public Works had been quite happy with the stone vaults (although they did object to the faulty detailing of one of Cuypers’ roofs).24) This discovery confirmed my original distrust of those anecdotes. After all, nineteenth-century engineers were not unused to dealing with vaults: these had been employed time out in mind in hydraulics, in military architecture and in the foundations and cellars of large buildings on soft ground. And incidentally, the fact that Cuypers never made any attempt to deny these dubious stories, throws an interesting light on his ideas about honesty in architecture.
With his recent dissertation on the Utrecht School in Gothic Revival architecture Looijenga is the first since Brom to have attempted a description and analysis of the ideals and theory of this major section of the Dutch Gothic Revival, and the first since Kalf to take a close look at a large group of church buildings, how they were commissioned, their construction and furnishings. He has not tried to de-Catholicize the Gothic elements – which would not have been very sensible in this case, since St Bernulphus’ Guild and its corollary, the Utrecht School, was pre-eminently a clerical milieu. There was virtually no theorizing about Viollet-le-Duc, but all the more about the German Domdekan Dr G. Jakob and his book Die Kunst im Dienst der Kirche. Ein Handbuch für Freunde der kirchlichen Kunst, a `handbook for friends of Church Art’ published in 1857 and enjoying its fifth edition in 1900. Working in this milieu were such architects as Th. Molkenboer and H.J. van den Brink, who used Gothic, Romanesque and Classic details wherever they required them and who finished their timber frames in the form of plastered pillars or vaults. For years, Van den Brink was the leading architect at Utrecht and Haarlem; around 1870 he found himself relegated to the sidelines, and became disillusioned.`I was foolish enough not to use my profession to make money, like some of my colleagues who became very rich in a few years.’25) Alfred Tepe succeeded him and joined Cuypers as the second great Catholic church architect.
The admirable quantity of Looijenga’s archive research (only part of which has so far been published) provides a detailed picture of St Bernulphus’ Guild, and corrects Brom’s perspective on a number of important points. It was clear, however, that he has not attempted to place the Guild and its associated architects within the context of the Dutch architecture of that time. Thus he states at one point that to begin with, the Guild was predominantly anti-Renaissance, yet nowhere does he mention that there was an air of stiff opposition to the Gothic Revival within the debate about Dutch architecture, and that the architect I. Gosschalk and others were instrumental in encouraging a significant pro-Renaissance trend.26) The Guild remains as historically isolated as it was in Brom’s work; in other words, it has still not been integrated into architectural history.
There is another possible approach, that is to place the architecture and applied art of St Bernulphus’ Guild within the context of social history. True, the Guild was founded to further church art, but the church building and its furnishings were not the ultimate goal, only a means to an end. The real aim was the edification of the faithful, which is why it is essential to see the Gothic Revival not only in association with church building, but as part of a Christian community-linked art, as Pugin did in his Apology for the Revival of Christian Architecture in England (1843) – Christian meaning Catholic. The `romantic-Catholic symbolism’ and the presentation of Gothic art as a moral principle had many theological as well as social and emancipatory connotations; `Christian art’ may be interpreted as an expression of genius loci for liturgy, or as a theological `scenario’, but it is also part of denominationalism.27) Where better to place the link between denominationalism and the Gothic Revival than in St Bernulphus’ Guild, with its close association with Dr Schaepman, the epitome of nineteenth-century Catholic politics?
Thus it seems that there are two kinds of Dutch Gothic Revival. On the one hand there is the image of Neo-Gothic art as an expression of the rules of architecture, of norms regarding constructional and functional clarity and referring to the art of building itself. It is this architecture that works independently despite (lip) service to the patron, based on a `logic quand-même’. This conception of Gothic Revival architecture, usually presented as monopolized by Cuypers, is now a permanent link in the current version of Dutch architectural history after 1800. On the other hand there is the image of a Gothic Revival accepting as its highest authority not the rules of architecture, but those of the Catholic church. In the mainstream development of architectural history this view of Neo-Gothic art – of Alfred Tepe, Wennekers, Te Riele and all those others in and around St Bernulphus’ Guild – plays a very minor, and essentially superfluous role.
There is as yet no explanation for this difference. Was Tepe less creative than Cuypers, less honest, did he reject Viollet-le-Duc’s lessons in Dictionnaire and Entretiens, or was he not reçu in the Amsterdam coteries in the ‘Society for the Advancement of Architecture’ or Arti et Amicitiae, or was he doomed to obscurity by the mere fact of never having been mentioned by Berlage?
The principal question is whether the dichotomy in the Dutch Gothic Revival as defined by Brom, correctly represents nineteenth-century reality, and whether it aids conceptualization of the historic processes of the past century and a half. Further critical thought is necessary on the significance not only of Tepe and his fellows, but especially on that of Cuypers – a theme I have harboured for some time.28) It has also gradually become clear, that the Gothic Revival could well be losing its key position in architectural history. The first detailed studies of the Dutch Neo-Renaissance movement would seem to indicate that this little-known nineteenth-century trend may turn out to be at least as significant from a historical perspective29); not only for the image of the nineteenth century, but also, in view of Berlage’s development, of the years round 1900 – the period which formed the background to twentieth-century architecture.
I sometimes think that, once the dominant position of the Gothic Revival in our thinking has itself become history, which is surely only a matter of time, the history of modern architecture will finally have shaken off the denominational influence.
1. Het Gildeboek I (The Guild Book) 1873, p. 158.
2. Jean van Cleven, `Neogotiek en neogotismen. De neogotiek als component van de 19e-eeuwse stijl in België’, in Jan de Maeyer (ed.), De Sint-Lucasscholen en de neogotiek 1862-1914, Louvain 1988 (Kadocstudies 5) pp. 29-31.
3. Wies van Leeuwen, `Alberdingk Thijm. Bouwkunst en symboliek’, De Sluitsteen V (1989), no. 1, pp. 3-43. Indispensable for understanding the many facets of Thijm’s significance is P.A.M. Geurts et al (ed.), J.A. Alberdingk Thijm 1820-1889. Erflater van de negentiende eeuw, Baarn 1992.
4.`Over de vrees voor het creatieve’, Het Katholieke Bouwblad XXV (1958) no. 25.
5. Constantinus O.F.M. chapter Eigentijdse Liturgische Kunst, Rotterdam 1961. Examples of postwar modern church architecture, e.g. Otto Bartning and Dominikus Böhm, and of innovations in the 1950s and 1960s: Geert Bekaert, In een of ander huis. Kerkbouw op een keerpunt, Tielt/The Hague 1967.
6. See, among others, C. Peeters, `Monument en Liturgie. Herstel en vernieuwing in de Sint Servaas in Maastricht’, Bulletin KNOB 83 (1984) no. 3 pp. 105-116; Wies van Leeuwen, `Het interieur van de Maastrichtse St. Servaas, een restoratieprobleem’, Bulletin KNOB 80 (1981), pp. 73-88; ditto `De Roermondse Munsterkerk. Van sprekende neogotiek tot zwijgende architectuur’, Bulletin KNOB 83 (1984) no. 3, pp. 159-169.
7. Marius van Beek, `Van jeugdsentiment naar historische waardering’, De Tijd 13 September 1973.
8. A.W. Reinink, introduction to `’t Gat in de Biltstraat. Neogotiek in Nederland’, Forum XXIV (1973) no. 1, pp. 2-3.
9. A place on the Historical Buildings List has not always saved important buildings, witness the recent demolition in 1990 of St Nicolas and Barbara’s church (P.J.H. Cuypers, Amsterdam). However, since 1980 ideas about the alternative use of the vacant historical buildings has come into vogue, resulting in the `rescue’ of many nineteenth-century churches (rescue of the exterior, that is: sometimes only the shell is left, with a few of the original details). For more information, see Heemschut 62 (1985) no. 9 (theme issue), `Behoud en beheer van 19de-eeuwse kerken’; and particularly A. de Vries, `Kerken maken schoon schip: hergebruik een zegen?’, Jaarboek Monumentenzorg 1990 Zwolle/Zeist 1990, pp. 17-29.
10. H.P.R. Rosenberg, op. cit., pp. 7-8.
11. See C. Peeters, `De Neogotiek tussen Nijverheid en Kunst’, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 104 (1991) pp. 356-380. For reappraisal and research in the Netherlands see also C. Peeters, Het schemerlicht van de Neogotiek. Wisselend orrdeel over een stroming in de negentiende-eeuwse kunst, in P.A.M. Geurts et al (ed.), op. cit. pp. 103-123. In his modesty Peeters has left out his own important, stimulating contribution to this reappraisal. For Belgian research from 1960 see Jan de Maeyer (ed.), op.cit. pp. 13-14.
12. Sible de Blaauw, Bouwen naar boven. De Sint Odulphuskerk van Bakhuizen 1857-1914-1989 , Bakhuizen/Leeuwarden 1989, p. 29.
13. G. Brom, Herleving van de wetenschap in Katholiek Nederland (1930); De nieuwe kruistocht. Drankweergeschiedenis van Rooms Nederland 1895-1907 (1909).
14. Evert van Uitert, `Neogotiek vertoont alle kenmerken van camp’, Vrij Nederland 29 September 1973, p. 25.
15. Jan de Heer, `De geest der neogotiek’ (The spirit of the Gothic Revival), Plan 1982 nos. 7-8, p. 37.
16. Geert Bekaert (ed.), A la recherche de Viollet-le-Duc, Brussels/Liège s.a. (1980); Joost Meuwissen, Architectuur als oude wetenschap, Amsterdam 1988, pp. 145 et seq.: `Modern, klassiek, gotiek’.
17. Manfred Bock, `Berlage, een monument opblazen’, Museumjournaal 1975 (series no. 20) no. 4, pp. 146-154.
18. Giovanni Fanelli, Architettura Moderna in Olanda 1900-1940, Florence 1968; Dutch translation: Moderne Architectuur in Nederland 1900-1940, The Hague, 1978, comprehensive second edition 1981 (Cahiers NDB 2), Chapter 2: `Dutch nineteenth-century architecture is of hardly any importance in itself. (…) But the only one to have applied himself to the problems of architecture really seriously and right from the beginning, is P.J.H. Cuypers’.
19. Compare Van Tijen in 1941: `This strange degeneration, this “cultural death’ begins in the nineteenth century’ (quoted by Ton Idsenga, Jeroen Schilt, W.van Tijen. Architect 1894-1974, The Hague s.a. (Cahiers NDB 7), p. 87.
20. In Holländische Architektur, see J.J.P. Oud, Hollandse architectuur (S.U. Barbieri etc., ed.), Nijmegen 1983, pp. 14 et. seq.
21. J.A. Alberdingk Thijm, `Willen wij alleen de gotiek?’, De Dietsche Warande IV (1858), pp. 171-180.
22. David Watkin, Morality and architecture. The development of a Theme in architectural history and theory from the Gothic revival to the Modern Movement, Oxford 1977, reprint Chicago/London 1984.
23. See Dr Cuypers Gedenkboek 1827-1927, Sittard 1927, pp. 82-92.
24. A.J. Looijenga, De Utrechtse School in de neogotiek. De voorgeschiedenis en het Sint Bernulphusgilde, dissertation, Leiden 1991, pp. 70-74. No edition of this dissertation is available for sale; for copies of the academic edition apply to the author, Dr A. Looijenga, Amsterdam.
25. Ibid., p. 291.
26. See Wilfred van Leeuwen, `Rationeel en schilderachtig. Isaac Gosschalk en het begin van de neorenaissance in Nederland’, Archis 1987, no. 2, pp. 30-39.
27. For an example of an analysis of these expressions: Geert Bekaert, Landschap van kerken. 10 eeuwen bouwen in Vlaanderen, Louvain, 1987, pp. 242-251. For an analyses of strategy (in Belgium): Jan de Maeyer, `Kunst en Politiek. De Sint-Lucasscholen tussen ultramontaanse orthodoxie en drang naar maatschappelijk-culturele vernieuwing’, in: Jan de Maeyer (ed.), op.cit., esp. pp. 91-103. Further: Luc Verpoest, `Neogotische architectuur en monumentenzorg in België en Nederland, De schaduw van Alberdingk Thijm’, in: P.A.M. Geurts e.a. (ed.), op.cit., p. 179, with further references. For the social historical context see esp. H. Righart, De katholieke zuil in Europa. Het ontstaan van verzuiling onder katholieken in Oostenrijk, Zwitserland, België en Nederland, Amsterdam/Meppel 1986.
28. `De Cuyperslegende’ Wonen-TABK 1985 nos. 16-17, pp. 14-15.
29. Wilfred van Leeuwen, op.cit., see also his article `Tussen droom en daad. Jan Springer als kwartiermaker van een visionaire architectuur’, De Sluitsteen VII (1991) no. 1, pp. 3-23; Coert Peter Krabbe, `Kasteel “Oud Wassenaar’ en het ontstaan van de “Delftse renaissance”, De Sluitsteen VII (1991) nos. 2-3, pp. 67-85.