Vondelkerk, Amsterdam, Holland
Designed by P.J.H. Cuypers – the architect responsible for Amsterdam’s Central Station and Rijksmuseum.as well as many other churches. It was used as a church from 1880 - 1977 and is now used as offices and a venue for concerts and weddings. It is seldom open to the public.
Cuypers had a fascination with shape and unconventional ground-plans...many of his churches were built on tight, restricted urban sites, sometimes actually physically replacing the 'house-churches' that the Catholics worshipped in during the penal period before emancipation. Height is important to him...no longer were the Catholics going to hide in shabby barns...they wanted their churches high, loud and proud! The Vondelkerk is less usual in that he had a free site and indeed the church is the centrepiece of a planned urban enclave...it is important in his oeuvre in that axial views partly dictate the plan-form and the symmetry of the building. The tower is a replacement - the original burned in a fire (I think around the turn of the century - there are some contemporary pictures of the wreckage after the conflagration available online) and Cuypers designed a different centrepiece when rebuilding took place. The space under the crossing is a complex octagon and remains unobstructed by the mezzanine floors which have been inserted into the nave and chancel...it is richly decorated with many stars etc. The architect for the repurposing after redundancy was Joop Stigt, who also saved the Posthoornkerk when that was threatened with demolition. He showed that the buildings could provide usable office space without being chopped up internally in a way that destroyed the essence of the church...extensive use of light, transparent glass screens and a respect for preserving as much detail as possible mean the building still has an internal context rather than bring a mere urban object in the cityscape...
Caption kindly written by my friend Rob Robinson (Bear and Rabbit) who alerted me to the work of Pierre Cuypers
Vondelkerk, Amsterdam, Holland
Designed by P.J.H. Cuypers – the architect responsible for Amsterdam’s Central Station and Rijksmuseum.as well as many other churches. It was used as a church from 1880 - 1977 and is now used as offices and a venue for concerts and weddings. It is seldom open to the public.
Cuypers had a fascination with shape and unconventional ground-plans...many of his churches were built on tight, restricted urban sites, sometimes actually physically replacing the 'house-churches' that the Catholics worshipped in during the penal period before emancipation. Height is important to him...no longer were the Catholics going to hide in shabby barns...they wanted their churches high, loud and proud! The Vondelkerk is less usual in that he had a free site and indeed the church is the centrepiece of a planned urban enclave...it is important in his oeuvre in that axial views partly dictate the plan-form and the symmetry of the building. The tower is a replacement - the original burned in a fire (I think around the turn of the century - there are some contemporary pictures of the wreckage after the conflagration available online) and Cuypers designed a different centrepiece when rebuilding took place. The space under the crossing is a complex octagon and remains unobstructed by the mezzanine floors which have been inserted into the nave and chancel...it is richly decorated with many stars etc. The architect for the repurposing after redundancy was Joop Stigt, who also saved the Posthoornkerk when that was threatened with demolition. He showed that the buildings could provide usable office space without being chopped up internally in a way that destroyed the essence of the church...extensive use of light, transparent glass screens and a respect for preserving as much detail as possible mean the building still has an internal context rather than bring a mere urban object in the cityscape...
Caption kindly written by my friend Rob Robinson (Bear and Rabbit) who alerted me to the work of Pierre Cuypers