Photograph: Brepols

Book Review

Krista de Jonge and Konrad Ottenheym, editors
Unity and Discontinuity. Architectural Relationships between the Southern and Northern Low Countries (1530-1700). Architectura Moderna 5

Turnhout: Brepols, 2007, viii + 428 pp., 342 b/w illus., € 89

ISBN: 9782503513669

PDF version

Unity and Discontinuity abundantly demonstrates that close international collaboration between architectural historians produces results capable of undermining entrenched scholarly paradigms and altering our perception of history.  This volume is the culmination of a decade-long research project conducted by the editors Krista de Jonge (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) and Konrad Ottenheym (Universiteit Utrecht), centered on the architectural relations between the Northern and Southern Low Countries during the early modern period.  The architectural history of this region greatly profits from such a cross-border examination: it has long been dominated by the nineteenth-century nationalistic vision of two solitaires, divided by a different appropriation of the classical ideal in distinctly Catholic (Belgian) and Protestant (Dutch) cultures.  The authors reject these clichés and present instead an integrated history of the region and its built heritage without overlooking the inevitable change and discontinuity caused by historical conditions.  Their account does not impose a forced unity, but rather provides a sensitive analysis of complex processes transforming built form in diverse cultural milieus, focusing on formal change, the development of specific building types, and interaction between patrons and architects.

The work is divided into four thematic parts arranged chronologically from “The First Reception of the Antique,” through “Architectural Theory, Antique and Modern (1560-1640),” “Patrons and Patronage (1600-1700)” to “Building Materials and Trade.”  The core texts were written by the editors, with a chapter on religious architecture by Joris Snaet and an essay on materials and building trade by Gabri van Tussenbroek.  The final conclusions are followed by an epilogue by Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, setting the discussion in a broad, European context. 

This ambitious revision of earlier scholarship begins by demonstrating the shared foundations of Dutch and Belgian visual cultures, rooted in the formal pluralism of Netherlandish architecture around 1500.  The authors focus on the assimilation of the classical idiom in this environment, and trace the negotiations necessary to introduce “antique” forms among patrons appreciating “modern” architecture (Flamboyant Gothic).  The gradual emergence of classicizing architecture in the sixteenth-century Netherlands—encouraged by the Habsburg court centers and Antwerp elites—was underpinned by factors common to both northern and southern visual cultures: a preference for simplicity, an interest in specific three-dimensional concepts (such as centralized buildings), and the subsequent widespread adoption of Vredeman de Vries’s decorative system based on the five orders.  It was sustained by close links between the patrons in the entire region, and by the pervasive print culture, shaping architectural taste of the aristocracy as well as patricians.

The apex of this “shared” classicism was the period around 1600, which produced a localized version of “modern” classical architecture, rooted in Serlio’s legacy and the formal language of the Fontainebleau school, later enriched by motifs generated in Michelangelo’s circle.  This new classicism, adopted throughout the Low Countries and adapted to local cultural expectations, then began to diverge.  The North and South thus agreed on Vitruvian principles, but after 1630 their application differed increasingly.  Such independent inflection of architectural idiom is best defined in rhetorical terms – magnificentia in the South and modestia in the North.  In the South, ornament was the driving concern, vital for representation of court and church; in the North, an emphasis on perfect proportion and simplicity, mandated by a different form of stateliness for burghers and civic authorities.   This critical division was sealed around Peace of Westphalia (1648), which sanctioned political separation, and continued until 1700, becoming most pronounced in the late seventeenth century.  Nonetheless, interiors remained virtually identical in both regions even during this period, proving that “unity” had not entirely disappeared. 

This persuasive narrative is complemented by discussions of several topics fundamental to current research on early modern architecture.  The book addresses patronage and professional practice and asks important questions about the status of architecture and the social position of architects at the time, with an enlightening contribution by Tussenbroek on the building industry.  The authors enrich the debate concerning the conflict between “antique” and “modern” in architecture.  As elsewhere in early modern Europe, Netherlandish intellectuals, not practitioners, introduced the initial interest in classicism; print culture is thoroughly analyzed therefore, from Coecke van Aelst’s Vitruvian manual and Serlio edition (1539), through Simon Stevin’s book on rational design, De Huysbou (c.1610), to Scamozzi and Palladio emerging as authorities in seventeenth-century Holland.

The authors update information on architects and artisans who only recently caught scholars’ attention such as Jean Mone or Jan Andreszoon Leeghwater, and offer fresh interpretations of well-known artists like Vredeman de Vries and Hendrick de Keyser.  Patrons and intellectuals are also considered, with Huygens’s part in elevating classicism to the role of court style and in initiating serious study of Vitruvius nicely balanced by a text on Rubens’s interest in Roman antiquity and architecture.  Substantial interpretations of major monuments (e.g. Antwerp and Amsterdam Town Halls) include results of recent archaeological work (as at Boussu castle) and deploy computer-generated renderings to illustrate reconstructions (Mariemont).  Separate sections on court residences, public buildings, and religious works thoroughly analyze traditional building types, with equally thoughtful discussion of newer genres such as commercial exchange buildings and trade halls.

Remarkably, such a substantial paradigm shift is achieved without breaking with methodological traditions.  Although the authors reject tired stylistic labels and define the “Classicism” versus “Baroque” division as an “anachronism, a forced classification” (160), they return instead to the equally venerable term of artistic “schools” in North and South (160-161).  This strategy is unexpected in a book that otherwise engages a number of issues vital to the most recent architectural history debates, including intersections between built form and social hierarchies, treated here with rare sophistication.  Regrettably, the authors disregard gender issues, despite their relevance in this field renowned for its women patrons.* 

These are but minor flaws in a work that presents an alternative version of history with considerable authority and elegance.  The book is handsomely produced, with clean typography and organization as well as well-chosen illustrations which clearly support the arguments.  Noteworthy for a collaborative volume are its coherent structure and voice as well as lucid and persuasive writing style.  In short, this is a study magisterial in scope and scholarship, simultaneously stimulating and provocative; its ideas and insights should prove influential for the study of early modern architecture throughout Europe. 

Barbara Arciszewska
Uniwersytet Warszawski

*See for instance Alexandra Carpino, “Margaret of Austria's funerary complex at Brou,” in Women and Art in Early Modern Europe: Patrons, Collectors and Connoisseurs, ed. Cynthia Lawrence (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996), 37-52.