In de marge van de canon: Over Nederlandse architectuur in de eerste architectuurgeschiedenisboeken

Abstract

The problematic relationship between, on the one hand, monographs and local and national studies and, on the other hand, general historiography is the subject of much debate nowadays. Informed by the postcolonialist theory of architecture and more recent attempts to write alternative world histories of art and architecture, the question arises how the history of architecture can provide insight into the vast diversity of our built environment. How can we develop alternatives for the stereotypical architectural canon and its persistent margins? The present article explores the origins of one of those margins: the Dutch architecture of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. It describes how Dutch architecture was characterized and evaluated in the first surveys of architectural history of the 1850s: J. Fergusson, The Illustrated Handbook of Architecture: Being a Concise and Popular Account of the Different Styles of Architecture Prevailing in All Ages and Countries (1855), W. Lübke, Geschichte der Architektur. Von den ältesten Zeiten bis auf die Gegenwart (1855); and F. Kugler’s fivevolume Geschichte der Baukunst (1856-1873). In order to make the immense subject of the history of architecture comprehensible, Fergusson, Lübke and Kugler constructed a continuous narrative through the ages in their books. Readers would follow the progressive development of architectural styles by means of the most representative and purest examples, such as the French and German cathedrals of the Gothic era and the Italian palazzi and French castles of the Renaissance. This descriptive method reduced all other historical monuments, including the Dutch ones, to buildings that were less pure in style and therefore marginal examples of the main style. Numerous more specific studies appeared to make marginal styles more widely known and sometimes neargued for their appreciation as well. For example, Auguste Schoy wrote in his Histoire de l’influence Italienne sur l’architecture dans les Pays-Bas (1879) that the Dutch Renaissance style ought to be judged on its own merits. According to Schoy, the influence of the Italian Renaissance on the Low Countries did not reside in formal similarities such as symmetry or the correct application of the classical orders and monumentality, but in the ornamentation. The non-monumental building in bricks that is so typical of the Low Countries was modernized by adopting Renaissance motifs from Italy in its ornamentation, which resulted in a picturesque beauty all its own. Acknowledging these studies, the general historiographies adapted their new editions: they became more voluminous and more richly illustrated, but they did not change the main order of the history of architectural styles and their selection of most representative architectural monuments also remained the same. One of the reasons for this was that the sub-studies did not question the narrative presented by the surveying publications. Schoy too accepted the superior status of the Italian Renaissance as a given and studied its influence on the Low Countries. The result of his research amounts to no more than the fact that the Dutch Renaissance was promoted from a negatively judged position in the margin to a positive one. This article argues that by adopting both the method and terminology of the general historiography of architecture, the more specific studies perpetuated the margins. They confirmed the narrative that Dutch architecture was an imperfect or at best fairly successful application of a style that was to be admired in its most perfect beauty elsewhere: at the most representative architectural monuments.