Woekeren met de ruimte. Nieuw licht op de middeleeuwse plannen voor zuidwaartse voltooiing van het Domschip te Utrecht

Abstract

The nave of Utrecht cathedral was never completed, which contributed to its collapse during a heavy storm in 1674. The vaults in the central nave and the flying buttresses to shore them were not executed. On the southern side the Heilig-Kruiskapel (Holy Cross Chapel), which belonged to the adjacent chapter of Oudmunster, prevented the complete extension of the nave according to the original seven-aisle layout. Attempts of the dean and chapter to have the chapel moved came to nothing. After the storm of 1674 three realized southern nave chapels survived. The westernmost of them, the Zoudenbalch chapel, was demolished after all in 1847. On plans and illustrations dating from before that year a spring of a wall is to be seen against the west wall of this chapel. We may conclude from this that the exterior wall of the nave should have receded according to an adjusted design, in such a way that the Heilig-Kruiskapel as a whole would be spared. It is understandable that the dean and chapter developed an alternative plan. It was not just the provisional state of the southern wall of the nave that required completion in southward direction. The extension was also necessary for architectural reasons so as to be able to mount the brick vault of the central nave. In theory two versions of the alternative plan are conceivable: one with a second aisle, for which a transept of the Heilig-Kruiskapel would yet have to be demolished, and a version with three chapels, in which case the Heilig-Kruiskapel as a whole could be spared. The demolition of the Heilig-Kruiskapel was not the only point of conflict between the two neighbouring chapters. At the start of the building of the nave of the cathedral a conflict had already arisen: a pillar of the nave partly stood on Oudmunster territory and further building was stopped for the time being. In view of the attitude of Oudmunster in this “border conflict’’ it is not likely that this chapter would soon agree to the demolition of the northern transept of the Heilig-Kruiskapel for the sake of the dean and chapel of the cathedral. An almost unknown reconstruction plan of the nave of the cathedral by Christiaan Kramm from 1823, when the ruin of the nave was still partly standing, shows an interesting version – though not practicable in that form - of the alternative plan with nave chapels based on the receding wall spring at Zoudenbalch chapel. The question is to what extent Kramm based himself on field tracks and old sources. It was known that territorial problems existed between the two neighbouring chapters about the extension of the cathedral, which caused the delay in the construction of the nave on the southern side. As it turns out now, the dean and chapter of the cathedral then developed an alternative plan for completion. The fact that this design was never executed may have to do with the phasing of the construction of the nave, so that the southern extension had not been started yet when the financial resources dried up around 1525 and the construction was definitely stopped.