Enlightening the World. Typografen-Gasthuis, Groningen, The Netherlands
Until relatively recently many people in Holland were taught that not Gutenberg but 'their own' Laurens Janszoon Coster (c.1370-c.1440) from Haarlem in the province of North Holland invented the movable-type printing press. By now that idea has been debunked, but in 1903 it was still very much alive.
In Groningen local booksellers at the end of the nineteenth century decided that they would do good by the often poor typographers working for the thriving printers of Stad. In the tradition of religious almshouses - of which there are many here - they established this entirely secular Typografen-Gasthuis, Almshouse for Typographers. The architect Kornelis Henricus Holthuis (1852-1942) was commissioned to plan the building. Appropriately he placed a quote above the entrance to honor the assumed father of printing, Coster: "Uit Haarlems Bloemhof ging het licht op over de aarde" (From Haarlem's fine garden light was cast on the world). The line - an alexandrine in Dutch - is attributed to one Jan van Walré (1759-1837). Van Walré was a partisan of the French Enlightenment, a much sought after poet, a bookseller and a sometime Haarlem politician.
Enlightening the World. Typografen-Gasthuis, Groningen, The Netherlands
Until relatively recently many people in Holland were taught that not Gutenberg but 'their own' Laurens Janszoon Coster (c.1370-c.1440) from Haarlem in the province of North Holland invented the movable-type printing press. By now that idea has been debunked, but in 1903 it was still very much alive.
In Groningen local booksellers at the end of the nineteenth century decided that they would do good by the often poor typographers working for the thriving printers of Stad. In the tradition of religious almshouses - of which there are many here - they established this entirely secular Typografen-Gasthuis, Almshouse for Typographers. The architect Kornelis Henricus Holthuis (1852-1942) was commissioned to plan the building. Appropriately he placed a quote above the entrance to honor the assumed father of printing, Coster: "Uit Haarlems Bloemhof ging het licht op over de aarde" (From Haarlem's fine garden light was cast on the world). The line - an alexandrine in Dutch - is attributed to one Jan van Walré (1759-1837). Van Walré was a partisan of the French Enlightenment, a much sought after poet, a bookseller and a sometime Haarlem politician.