Bulletin KNOB is a scholarly journal in the field of Dutch spatial heritage that appears four times a year, recognized in the Netherlands and abroad as an important source of knowledge.
Koninklijke Nederlandse Oudheidkundige Bond (KNOB)
Recently, the notion of material harvesting, collection, and reworking has gained significant attention as a crucial step in understanding essential aspects of building culture, particularly in relation to reuse, ma-terial scarcity, or, conversely, material availability. The ‘Recycling Beauty’ exhibition (Fondazione Prada, Milan 2022), which displayed Greek and Roman spolia, marble fragments, and pieces of sculptures placed alongside one other, alluded to practices of appropriation and possession, to the relationship between craftsmen and found resources, and to the need to store and preserve material in times of scarcity or political uncertainty. Similar questions have emerged in Dutch and Belgian contexts, for example, from research into the work of designer Marcel Raymaekers and his way of organizing salvaged materials (Marcel Raymaekers, pioneer in circular architecture, Vai, Antwerp 2023). Besides highlighting the relevance of practices linked to material reuse, exhibitions and installations also make clear by their very organization, how material collections take space and, at the same time, sculpt ever-changing landscapes. Building on these premises, and shifting the focus towards contemporary and less curated cases, this article critically examines the purpose, spatial qualities and configurations of three material storage typologies in the Dutch context – bricks and tiles, soil, and trees – highlighting their pivotal role in relation to material accessibility and availability. These sites, termed ‘material gardens’, are understood as experimental laboratories or ‘banks’, where the notion of availability is translated into the allocation and management of (material) reserves. Though often overlooked and considered marginal, such open spaces are in fact key sites where design and other creative processes are crucially tied to resource allocation and disposal, and impact collective imagination and practices. They are increasingly being positioned at the core of construction and deconstruction processes, raising relevant ecological questions and helping to shape tacit knowledge on material reuse.
Copyright (c) 2025 Chiara Pradel https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
In order to gain insight into the specifics of circular architecture as a necessary alternative to contemporary extractive building practices, this article examines the work of Marcel Raymaekers. Between 1962 and 2014, the Belgian architect and trader developed a practice in the reuse of building materials. In the post-war context, in which the construction sector began to rely increasingly on cheap, standardised, industrially produced materials, Raymaekers made a radical choice for alternative elements. His aversion to mass-produced elements stemmed from aesthetic preferences. A preference for sensory experiences as a guideline for living, and a great affinity with Assemblage Art, in which a design process starts from existing materials. His way of working was thus characterised by a totally different notion of 'availability' than is common today. Raymaekers started out as a hunter-gatherer, criss- crossing the country in search of material graveyards and demolition sites. For the first ten years, he worked extensively with materials from industrial waste streams, such as mesh stones (a residual product of sand and gravel extraction) and ship steel (recovered from obsolete ships for the steel processing industry). The immense demolition frenzy of 'Les Trente Glorieuses' also ensured the availability of materials such as bricks and roof tiles, which were recovered and processed in bulk. In addition, many high-quality, unique building components were released, which were finely crafted and ornamented and for which there was no longer any new equivalent on the materials market. In 1972, he founded Queen of the South (QotS), his materials stock and headquarters in Genk. From then on, Raymaekers became a permanent trader-designer. His established network of demolition contractors and wholesalers was crucial in this regard. During his career, he developed close partnerships with players such as reuse wholesaler Spinois and demolition contractors Scheerlinck, Leunen and Vander Elst, each active in their own geographical area and building niche. Raymaekers' architecture became increasingly baroque, but also more homogeneous due to his focus on architectural antiques. QotS was set up as a veritable machine for convincing people of the power of these elements. From the 1980s onwards, the supply of building antiques declined due to the mechanisation of the demolition sector, rising labour costs and the increasing clout of heritage protection. His supply chains came to a standstill. Raymaekers began importing more materials from abroad. His practice became increasingly exclusive, targeting wealthy clients, although he also continued to build for middle-class clients through self-build and long-term construction projects. Eventually, Raymaekers had to go as far as India to find building materials. After 2000, the influx of materials became too expensive and too difficult, and clients began to stay away. In 2014, QotS went bankrupt. Raymaekers' work shows how circular architecture depends on locally anchored supply networks, which are difficult to scale up due to the nature of the urban mine, where a wide variety of materials are released unpredictably, scattered and in small quantities. His practice was also strongly linked to a specific phase in the urbanisation and modernisation process: the period of unbridled demolition of pre-war buildings. Raymaekers' identity as a designer-trader was so intertwined with this period that his business inevitably ceased to exist with the demise of the ideology of progress that had given rise to it. This case study shows that the sustainable matching of supply and demand in second-hand materials will always have to be dynamic.
Copyright (c) 2025 Arne Vande Capelle, Lionel Devlieger https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Concrete Plant as a Terraforming Machine
This article reconstructs how the development of a dense network of concrete plants was crucial in making concrete the basic material of an urbanizing construction culture. Belgium is treated as a paradigmatic case to argue that one – perhaps the main – reason why concrete became the most dominant building material in the world was due to the intensive way in which it was distributed and made available as a self-evident consumer product. The article describes how the relentless output of horizontal rotary kilns compelled the cement industry to adopt a bold 'politics of realization' – ensuring that massive cement volumes being produced actually found their way to the market. The solution lie in the development of a dense logistics network of concrete plants that efficiently produced and delivered ready-mix concrete directly to construction sites – actively shaping urbanization regimes capable of absorbing large volumes of concrete. Spurred on by cement giants CBR (Cimenteries et Briqueteries Réunies), CO (Ciments d’Obourg) and CCB (Compagnie des Ciments Belges), together with the establishment of the BVSB (Belgian Professional Association for Ready-Mix Concrete, 1962) and the IB joint venture (Inter-Beton, 1967), this strategy was increasingly formalized. In the fragmented Belgian urban landscape, concrete plants spread rapidly across the entire country. During the 1960s and ’70s, this new concrete regime put a veritable form of ‘terraforming’ into practice. Important material flows of sand, water and gravel were rationalized and distributed in bulk to the concrete plants in the network. From there, concrete spread across the country, driving a surge in construction —from major infrastructure to everyday urban practices—that transformed the Belgian landscape. As Belgium’s construction recession in the late 1970s deepened into a full-blown crisis in the early 1980s, the ready-mix concrete sector was sustained through major public contracts and a strategic pivot toward specialized concrete mixes that unlocked new niche markets. In this way, the concrete plant became increasingly entrenched as an indisputable cause of Belgian urbanization’s ‘cement addiction’. By focusing on the concrete plant, the article provides a new spatial perspective on the political ecology of concrete and raises questions about the sustainability of a building culture in which the overproduction and overcon-sumption of this extractive material is a structural component.
Copyright (c) 2025 Tom Broes https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Housing programmes in the early twentieth century were meant to overcome shortages of dwellings for workers in many European industrial centres. Yet what was often overlooked was the fact that housing needed to be built by construction labour, and that labour also needed housing in order to be able to continue working. This article considers how housing scarcity intersected with the overlooked issue of labour scarcity: how the needs of construction workers were or were not addressed. It focuses on garden cities and related suburban settlements in England and Belgium – forms of development which, given their scale, required the mobilization of workers to remote sites, where workers often became the first occupants of what they were building. The first section considers the earliest garden cities in the UK, designed by Raymond Unwin and his associates: Letchworth, founded in 1903 by Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City Association; and Gretna, developed by the Ministry of Munitions during the First World War to support weapons production. The second section focuses on the post-armistice British housebuilding programme, when local municipalities were granted special subsidies to provide dwellings for workers on large suburban estates. The third section looks at reconstruction efforts in the devastated Westhoek region of Belgium, led by Raphaël Verwilghen and the Dienst der Verwoeste Gewesten (Department of Devastated Regions). In the British context, the contradictions in housing programmes were clearly articulated: cheap construction labour was needed for cheap dwellings, and this led to a paradox when the producers (workers) were also the consumers (residents). The underlying problem was that cheapness obscured actual costs. In Belgium, the connections were not so obvious: housing was promoted as a do-it-yourself activity, and even social housing was facilitated through a variety of special-interest groups. Nevertheless, in both cases, the unprecedented need for housing in both contexts prompted innovative efforts to house those who build.
Copyright (c) 2025 Jesse Foster Honsa https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Copyright (c) 2025 Tom Broes, Michiel Dehaene https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
De Gevelstenen van Amsterdam & Waar Haarlem in de Gevel Staat
Review of two books: the first one is written by Onno W. Boers (De Gevelstenen van Amsterda), the second book is written by Peter van Graafeiland (Waar Haarlem in de Gevel Staat).
Copyright (c) 2025 Dirk J. de Vries https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Berlages Indische Reis/ Berlage Di Nusantara/ Berlage's Journey to the Indies
Review of a book written by Angeline Basuki, Loes van Iperen, Ester van Steekelenburg, Petra Timmer (red.).
Copyright (c) 2025 Pauline K.M. van Roosmalen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of a book written by Jeroen Cornilly.
Copyright (c) 2025 Sophie van Ginneken https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of a book written by Arjan den Boer.
Copyright (c) 2025 Coert Peter Krabbe https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Jacobus Vrel is known as the painter of over twenty townscapes from the period 1640-1660, which is to say shortly before the active period of such specialists of the genre as Jan van der Heijden, Gerrit Berckheyde and Jan Abrahamsz Beerstraten. However, nothing is known about Vrel himself, and until recently it had proved impossible to pinpoint the location of his townscapes. Now a step-by-step analysis of a limited number of pictures using building history indicators, maps and other historical tools, has made it possible to decipher many of the topographical and architectural elements of the townscape depicted by Vrel. They point to the northern part of the centre of Zwolle. Although Vrel had scant mastery of mathematical perspective, his townscapes were convincing spatial compositions and while not intended as a topographical records, they clearly referred to a specific neighbourhood. The completely non-academic and nonidealized nature of his depictions also makes them interesting as authentic visual documents of street life in the medieval part of an East Netherlands town in the mid-seventeenth century. Four townscapes can be placed near the town wall along Waterstraat, and two others on the corner of the Broeren- and Nieuwstraat. An interesting detail in this respect is that Vrel painted the same bakery eight times, and that four of those paintings show the same man, wearing a red cap and white shirt, looking out of the first-floor window. Three bakeries have an awning with a sign reading ‘this house is for rent’. Historical research has revealed that the bakery belonged to a certain Reijner Gerrijts, who also owned a rental property located next door on the street corner beneath a continuous tiled roof. According to hearth tax records, that property stood vacant in 1641. This unique piece of information led to the precise location of the bakery and to the names of the baker and the tenant.
Copyright (c) 2025 Dirk J. de Vries, Boudewijn Bakker https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Legislative Power of the Belgian Construction Worker
Although no architectural project is built without construction workers, labourers remain woefully underrepresented in architectural and construction history. By tracing the emergence and development of the Algemene Centrale van de Bouw, the socialist construction workers’ union in Belgium, this article seeks to address that gap. It aims to move beyond the conventional emphasis on the relationship between workers and construction practice and to demonstrate how construction workers also had a significant impact on the legislative framework of the Belgian construction sector – far beyond the construction site itself. The article focuses on the union’s two main priorities: the struggle for fair wages and for improved safety on construction sites. Initially through strikes and later through more institutionalized negotiations, the organization succeeded in securing and protecting construction workers’ wages, while also helping to shape the development of safety regulations on site through bargaining and media campaigns. Furthermore, the union skilfully navigated the complex legal landscape of the Belgian construction sector. By strategically leveraging collective labour agreements and public procurement documents, it promoted alternative forms of regulation. This allowed changes to be implemented without relying on the often cumbersome procedures of formal legislation, granting the union a tangible influence on construction practices. These legal instruments also enabled the union to respond to the sweeping technological changes and new building materials that were entering the construction sector at the time. They valorised the new labour risks and technical skills these innovations entailed by incorporating them into improved wage conditions. In doing so, construction workers –too often overlooked in architectural, construction and social history – asserted their legislative power and laid the essential groundwork for improved wages and safety in the construction sector during the post-war development of the Belgian welfare state.
Copyright (c) 2025 Simon De Nys-Ketels https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Located in the centre of Brussels, Pachecolaan 44 is a remarkable sixteen-level office building (thirteen aboveground and three underground). Strategically situated on Brussels’ ring road, it acts as a landmark for the neighbourhood. The building is an eye-catcher owing to the wickerwork pattern of the concrete modules in the elevations. It was designed in 1964 by the architect Marcel Lambrichs and his team for the former Gemeentekrediet (Crédit Communal de Belgique) bank. Pacheco, as the complex was known, provided over six thousand square metres of office space and was the bank’s headquarters until 2015. Its plinth was a mixed-use arcade housing a cinema, restaurants, shops, exhibition space and an auditorium. In the 1970s, this ‘Passage 44’ had a reputation as a vibrant centre of cultural life. Today the tower is home to Belgium’s Immigration Department, while the plinth has been converted into a KU Leuven campus. Pacheco and Passage 44 belong indisputably to Brussels’ collective memory and by extension to that of Belgium, due in part to the well-attended exhibitions and lectures that Gemeentekrediet organized in ‘its’ arcade. The bank presented itself as a socially engaged business and regarded the promotion of art and knowledge as one of its core tasks. In addition, the building’s history is closely tied to post-war developments in the fields of urban planning and architecture in Brussels. Its historical and urban design values were part of the reason why the Gemeentekrediet’s former headquarters was added to the Brussels Capital Region’s official heritage register in 2024. Despite Pacheco’s heritage credentials, it has received very little attention in the literature. By placing Pacheco and Passage 44 in their architectural-historical context once more, this article aims to contribute to knowledge of Brussels’ post-war heritage. It does so by considering two key moments: the original design and construction phase in the 1960s, and the staff restaurant project by the designer Frans L. Van Praet, which was executed around the turn of the century. The works carried out in these two periods can be classified respectively as ‘modern’ and ‘postmodern’. The integration of these antithetical design concepts within the same building complex is unique in the Belgian context. As well as an examination of the past, this article offers an insight into future possibilities for large-scale post-war projects. In light of growing interest in the modern movement and in young heritage, the article considers theory, heritage policy and restoration practice within the Brussels Capital Region. Although young heritage has gained (academic) recognition and legal protection, the translation of theoretical heritage evaluation into restoration practice is faltering. The development of a broader methodology in the field of ‘value mapping’ can offer a solution to this. An analysis of the Pacheco case provides valuable insights of benefit to the sustainability of future projects.
Copyright (c) 2025 Emma Bekaert, Ryan Niezgocki, María Inés Tobar Palacios, Angad Ankala Rajasekar https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The new arsenal for the ‘Admiralty of the Meuse’, built between 1785 and 1788 on Reuzeneiland on the east side of Rotterdam, was one of the Dutch Republic’s largest structures, yet it has been all but forgotten since it burned to the ground in 1891. Fifteen surviving design drawings by its architect, the Italian Giovanni Giudici (1746-1819), provide insight into the design phases, technical detailing and the evolving design of the facade and interior. The arsenal’s primary function was to store naval weaponry and ship’s supplies. However, its architecture belied this utilitarian purpose. The symmetrical, monumental facade with checked pilaster strips, main floor, balconies and sculptures on the crowning attic block lent the building a palatial aura and explains why it was also known as ‘the Palace’. Giudici’s design differed from Daniël Stalpaert’s seventeenth-century warehouses for the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the Amsterdam Admiralty. Although also of monumental design, their warehouse function was clearly visible in the their exteriors. The palatial design of the Rotterdam arsenal had to do with the building’s hybrid nature: part warehouse, part office and part ‘events hall’. In addition to storage spaces, workshops and offices, a large part of the building was reserved for ceremonial rooms. The west wing included a grand entrance hall, a library room, an armoury and a salon overlooking the river. Another surprising presence in an arsenal was a huge kitchen equipped for large banquets. The central wing contained a huge multifunctional space with an eleven-metre clear span made possible by a massive auxiliary structure from which the floor joists of the second storey were suspended. This space could be used for storage, but also for large-scale affairs like the visit of Tsar Alexander I in 1814. Thanks to its location at the bend in the river Maas, with a specially designed water-facing facade, the arsenal occupied a prominent place in Rotterdam’s cityscape. As such it was in keeping with wider eighteenth-century trends whereby admiralty buildings, in addition to their function as logistical infrastructure, also gave expression to military and political ambitions. This Rotterdam example demonstrates how utilitarian architecture could be deployed for visual representation on an urban scale and an analysis of its building history contributes to a better understanding of the role of maritime architecture in the late eighteenth-century Republic.
Copyright (c) 2025 Merlijn Hurx, Agnes Kooijman https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of a book written by Natalie Dubois and Jessica van Geel
Copyright (c) 2025 Dolf Broekhuizen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of a book redacted by J. van Kesteren-Lok.
Copyright (c) 2025 Gabri Van Tussenbroek https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
‘Tweegesprek’ is een nieuwe, jaarlijkse rubriek in ons Bulletin waarin we een actueel en prikkelend vraagstuk binnen de interessegebieden van de KNOB (architectuur- en bouwgeschiedenis, stedenbouw, cultuurlandschap en monumentenzorg) centraal stellen. Op een Stelling volgt een Tegenstelling, waarin een vakgenoot reageert. Zo ontstaat een open dialoog tussen collega’s in het veld.
Copyright (c) 2025 Stijn Bussels, Marika Keblusek https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
This article discusses the use of tuff stone in the period around 1000-1250 in what is now the Netherlands. During the Middle Ages tuff was used from the Rhineland to Denmark. The historiography of this subject comprises a great many books and articles on tuff and the earliest tuff stone buildings in the Netherlands, but a lack of written sources makes it difficult to get a detailed picture of the trade in tuff and its use in construction. The dating of buildings from this period is also very challenging. This article draws on contextual information in an attempt to provide more insight into the extraction, transport and trade in tuff before the year 1250, while also discussing the principal actors and material characteristics. To understand the context of tuff in the Netherlands one must first look at its distribution in Roman times. Tuff is known to have been used in over a hundred places in the Roman context and that material was sometimes reused in the Middle Ages. Although this reuse has never been systematically investigated, it can have consequences for the dating of medieval buildings, since that dating was sometimes based in part on certain characteristics of the material (block sizes). The article then looks at medieval tuff stone quarrying near Andernach. Quarrying of the stone had resumed in the tenth century, although it is impossible to give a precise date. Buyers played a crucial role, in particular the Cologne archbishops. The article names a number of these bishops as possible initiators of the interregional tuff-stone trade from the eleventh century onwards. In the Netherlands it can be assumed that the church building campaign of the Utrecht bishop Bernold had a major impact on the import of tuff from the Eifel region, judging by the massive size and regularity of the tuff-stone blocks used in the churches he commissioned. Unfortunately, building-historical aspects like masonry composition and stone sizes offer few reliable indicators for accurate dating per whole, half or quarter century. Contrary to what some writers have suggested, large- and small-sized blocks were used interchangeably. The same applies to architecture. Features like spaarbogen (arches formed in the ground to save on building material), arch friezes and other architectural-historical characteristics were used over a longer time span, some as late as the thirteenth century by which time brick had become the main building material. So the architecture of the buildings discussed here does not furnish any hard evidence for dating either. The article provides an inventory of over 500 locations where tuff was used in the Middle Ages, augmented with some 250 examples of tuff stone use in the Rhineland, thereby shedding light on the associated tuff stone landscape between Cologne and the North Sea. It concludes with an appeal for further research into each object, including systematic investigation of evidence of primary or reused (Roman) material. It is also recommended that traces of finishing be documented and mortar research be conducted, with the aim of gaining more knowledge about the Netherlands’ earliest tuff stone buildings.
Copyright (c) 2025 Gabri van Tussenbroek https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Since its introduction in 1912, the Auteurswet (Authors’ Act .copyright act) has protected works that have an ‘individual, original character’ and ‘bear the personal stamp of the maker’. The act grants that maker exclusive rights, including the right to exploitation. This means that the maker can decide for themselves how, where and when the work is made public or copied. In addition, the act confers personality rights, which protect the maker against changes or other impairments of the work that might damage their honour and reputation. Although the Auteurswet did not have its origins in the building industry, the act has certainly demonstrated its relevance to that sector, given that architects’ designs also fall under the protection of the act. Since 1912 several authors’ rights lawsuits have been filed in the context of the construction industry. These have focused in particular on the question of whether alterations to buildings encroach on the rights of the architect. Nowadays the debate often revolves around the tension between the creative vision of the architect on the one hand and functional or social interests on the other, such as a change of purpose. This leads to a weighing of interests in which the key consideration is how these interests relate to the personality rights of the architect. This article focuses on conflicts arising from changes to existing buildings during their architects’ lifetime. Four case histories are considered: the De Maerle villa (1917‑1918) in Huizen, the Metropool multi‑tenancy building (1991‑1992) in Amsterdam, the Ministry of Agriculture, Trade and Industry (2015) in The Hague, and the Naturalis Natural History Museum (2017) in Leiden. The key question is whether the arguments used in the evaluation and outcome of these cases have changed over time. The analysis of the four cases reveals that legislation, including the Auteurswet, is constantly subject to interpretation. In summary, the cases demonstrate that the act continues to evolve, partly in response to social change. There remains the important question of whether the application of the act (in other words, the interpretation of the weighing of interests) to architects’ designs is still consistent with current practice. The societal importance of preserving existing buildings and retrofitting them for sustainability is increasing. Demolition has become less acceptable from the viewpoint of sustainability, which only serves to heighten the tension between architectural authors’ rights and societal interests. Yet the jurisprudence shows that there is still scope for these societal interests. In the weighing of interests, arguments in favour of preserving a design are set against reasons for change, such as changing uses, modern functional requirements and sustainability. The cases discussed here illustrate how the interpretation of the Auteurswet has evolved and adapted to social change. This includes a greater focus on the personality rights of the maker. Although that does not result in a complete interdiction on changes to buildings, it does help to clarify the scope of these rights. It ensures that the Auteurswet remains balanced between creative freedom on the one hand and societal interests on the other, with room for continued development in the future.
Copyright (c) 2025 David Keuning, Bente Peters https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of a book written by Thijs Weststeijn
Copyright (c) 2025 Caroline Baetens https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of a book written by Stefan Glasbergen
Copyright (c) 2025 Arjan de Koomen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of a book written by Kees Somer and Ronald Stenvert (eds)
Copyright (c) 2025 Inge Bertels https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of two books written by Sanne van den Breemer & Robert Winkel and Uri Gilad, Annuska Pronkhorst & Jan Peter Wingender (eds)
Copyright (c) 2025 Marie-Thérèse van Thoor https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Around 2000 years ago peat was present on a vast scale throughout the Dutch lowlands. Over the course of time, however, peat extraction and post-reclamation subsidence led to the disappearance of large volumes of peat. A quarter of the Netherlands ended up below sea level and a variety of peat degradation landscapes emerged: reclaimed peatlands, lakes and drained lakes, tidal inlets and tidal clay polders. Although these typical Dutch lowland landscapes were in large part man-made, the presence of peat played a crucial role in their formation. The spatial distribution of these peat degradation landscapes was to a great degree determined by the natural peat landscape prior to reclamation. The transformation of the peat landscape occurred in three phases. During the first transformation, which began during the Roman period, large areas of peatland, including in Zeeland, the kop van Noord-Holland (the northern tip of North Holland) and parts of the northern Netherlands, turned into tidal clay areas. This was a consequence of early reclamation efforts, which resulted in subsidence and seawater inundation. This was often followed by the formation of tidal areas with shoals and channels. This was a direct consequence of the fragility of the coastal peatland drowning that covered large parts of the coastal plain; the most vulnerable sections were located along a narrow dune strip or near a large inlet. Although some of the submergence was eventually compensated for by sand and clay deposition, large estuaries like the Westerschelde and Oosterschelde are lasting remains of those sea ingressions in former peatlands. From the ninth century onwards, a second major transformation of the coastal peatland landscape occurred, that of large-scale reclamation. Much of the natural marsh vegetation was removed, and the land was drained and used for agriculture. This put an end to natural peat growth and initiated a process of ground subsidence, which soon rendered arable farming impossible. Eventually measures like the damming and diking of watercourses and the draining of polders became necessary. Any peat domes and natural streams tended to have a strong impact on drainage channels and parcellation in reclaimed peatlands. Two thirds of total peat loss in the coastal plain can be attributed to oxidation of the peat following this wave of reclamation activities. Peat also disappeared as a result of lake shore erosion or salt mining. Some major land losses occasionally occurred in the vulnerable embanked peatlands during storm flood events. This was especially the case further inland, such as in the Biesbosch and Dollard areas. A third major transformation began in the fourteenth century with the widespread introduction of the ‘wet’ method of peat extraction using a hand-held ‘scoop’ dredge. Peat extraction occurred in places where sphagnum or sedge peat occurred, which were suitable peat types for burning. Many of the lakes that remained after removal of the peat were later drained again. Together, peat extraction and lake shore erosion accounted for around one third of peat volume loss. Due to these activities, half of the peat volume that was present around the year 1000 has been lost. It is estimated that this loss entailed 3.1 Gt in CO2 emission, making the Netherlands one of the biggest pre-industrial sources of human greenhouse gas emissions. The remaining peat is still present in the reclaimed peatlands, in young marine clay areas and, to a lesser degree, beneath urban areas and dwelling mounds.
Copyright (c) 2024 Harm Jan Pierik https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
In this article the authors draw on three case studies in testing the merits of an alternative peatland reclamation model – namely, from high to low – put forward by several authors in recent years. According to this new model, the drainage of the peatlands started from peat mounds built on top of the dried out peatland, rather than by digging ditches from natural waterways (low) to the centre of the peatland (high). Archaeological and other data for all three case studies – IJsselmonde, Roderwolde and Zeevang – have been analysed as systematically as possible. Roderwolde qualifies as a kind of comparative study. It, too, was considered indicative of an alternative reclamation model but, thanks to extensive archaeological research, we have a fairly detailed picture of this reclamation. In short, it proceeded in accordance with the established model and the peat mounds are a secondary phenomenon. Based on an analysis of the data for IJsselmonde and Zeevang, we conclude that there is as yet no evidence to support the existence of an alternative model. In fact, although the data are incomplete, the drainage methods appear to be consistent with the established model. As in Roderwolde, the peat mounds are a secondary phenomenon: they were created at a time when the peatlands had already subsided considerably as a result of drainage, but large-scale embankment building had not yet taken place.
Copyright (c) 2024 Marcel IJsselstijn, Jeroen Zomer https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
An excavation in Aalsmeer in 2013 revealed the remains of a building with most remarkable foundations, namely blocks of peat. Such blocks, cut from dredged peat and then dried, were widely used as fuel in centuries past. Because peat is sometimes encountered inside buildings, especially in the form of insulation, the question arose as to whether peat was used by builders as an ad hoc, pragmatic solution using a readily available material, or whether it was a more widely used building material in the past. This research question led to a large-scale survey of the literature and archaeological and building history reports. Because peat blocks turn up only sporadically in the course of renovating or demolishing buildings, it is difficult to gauge how widespread its use was. The same applies to the more innovative instances of the use of compressed peat moss. In building archaeological reports and the literature, such discoveries are usually treated as unique occurrences and described anecdotally. However, the survey revealed that the use of peat as a building material is a historical structural phenomenon that, having been rendered obsolete by twentieth-century innovations, was subsequently consigned to oblivion. Mentions of such use in nine teenth-century architecture handbooks and in articles in professional journals from the same period, suggest that the use of peat was far from ad hoc. Interestingly, the use of peat for foundations was specific to certain regions. This was due on the one hand to the ready availability of the material, and on the other to the nature of its properties: its lightness, flexibility and waterproofness made it ideal for building on soft peaty soils. It can be tentatively concluded that this method of construction became popular in the Dutch peatlands from the second quarter of the sixteenth century. One explanation for this is the growing use of hand-held dredges in that period, which greatly increased both production and accessibility. The peat as a building material was used because it was readily available and lightweight, notwithstanding the major drawback of its flammability. This article is an initial attempt to learn more about the use of peat in construction. Systematic survey research is still lacking, so questions regarding the precise extent of below- and above-ground uses, regions, periodization and building types remain as yet unanswered.
Copyright (c) 2024 Michel van Dam, Tijmen Kok https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
In the years 1540–1570, sluice construction in the Low Countries underwent an important transition. In addition to the introduction of mitre gates, the increasing use of stone was a vitally important innovation. The advantage of this building material was that it prolonged the lifespan of sluices and made it possible to build larger ones, with considerable benefits for shipping and water management. The improved sluices in turn contributed greatly to the rise and prosperity of the Dutch Republic. These new hydraulic works were much heavier than their wooden predecessors and needed to be securely anchored in the marshy clay and peat substratum. The structural aspects of sluice construction have been largely neglected to date. Sluice construction is regarded as a niche subject and as such cannot expect much attention from architectural historians. Unjustly so, because the construction of sluices did not evolve in a vacuum; it was a major task for municipal architects and contractors in the towns of the County of Holland. There are also indications that the structural challenges presented by building heavy stone sluices in the soft soils of Holland were crucial to the development of a scientific approach to building in peatland areas. Contemporary discussions about the best foundation engineering solutions for sluices shows that there were no standard solutions and that experts with a wide range of backgrounds were involved in their construction. We still have few details about the design of foundations in the sixteenth century and the extent to which the transition from wood to stone sluices contributed to the development of engineering solutions for improved foundations in general. Both experts and clients sought maximum certainty in an arena where knowledge was still evolving. Learning by example was essential and technical drawings and models became increasingly important tools for recording such acquired knowledge. A new, supra-regional knowledge network that included the southern Low Countries as well as Holland promoted the dissemination of new knowledge and expertise. The interconnection of sluice building with urban and church building projects means that rather than being a niche subject, the construction of stone sluices had wider implications. It provided a testing ground for building on soft soils whereby the exchange of knowledge, soil research, and concrete experiments during construction delivered vital knowledge and expertise for building in peat.
Copyright (c) 2024 Merlijn Hurx https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Het KNOB-bestuur blaast de traditie van zijn voorgangers nieuw leven in: op gezette tijden wendt het zich met Nieuws van de Bond in gedrukte vorm tot zijn leden.
Copyright (c) 2024 Korrie Louwes https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
De invloed van veen op de inrichting van Nederland
Copyright (c) 2024 Jaap Evert Abrahamse, Merlijn Hurx, Kim Zweerink https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
‘It is absolutely unnecessary, even detrimental, to embellish the façades’
Following World War I, Belgium faced a severe housing crisis, necessitating a comprehensive reform of social housing policy. Established in 1919, the National Society for Cheap Housing (Nationale Maatschappij voor Goedkope Woningen en Woonvertrekken, nmgww) aimed not only to repair material damage but also to address new social and societal demands. However, financial resources were limited, while there was also a severe shortage of (traditional) building materials and skilled labour. Progressive architects attempted to create a new, socially engaged architecture with a modernist vocabulary through the nmgww. They also advocated for the application of alternative building methods that had the added advantage of being financially favourable. The lack of expertise and experience with these alternative methods prompted the nmgww to set up an experimental project at Het Rad in Anderlecht in 1920. It entailed the construction of some sixty houses, employing eighteen different building systems. While most of these systems used concrete blocks, three utilized a prefabricated skeleton, and two opted for cast-in-situ concrete using monolithic casting systems. Nearly all utilized ‘lean concrete’, a type of concrete with a low cement content. Furthermore, in most cases part of the aggregate was replaced with industrial waste products to reduce costs and improve thermal properties. The intention was to perform an extensive evaluation and objective comparison of the different building systems. Yet even before the experiments had been concluded, the nmgww started to actively promote the German casting system Non Plus. For example, it invited local housing associations to participate in a study trip to Merseburg near Berlin to familiarize themselves with the system. Successfully, as it turns out as the system was subsequently used in the garden suburbs of Klein Rusland in Zelzate (1920-1923) and La Cité Moderne in Sint-Agatha-Berchem (1922-1925). The two districts were designed respectively by the architects Huib Hoste and Victor Bourgeois in a modernist idiom. The literature often refers to the economic benefits of the Non Plus system and to the impact of construction techniques on the aesthetics of these garden suburbs. However, in-depth research shows that the relationship between economic, technical and aesthetic aspects is not so straightforward: concrete was not necessarily cheaper than brick, while the plaster exterior often concealed a variety of systems. Moreover, both garden suburbs were initially designed in brick, indicating that there is no causal link between the material and the design language. It was not long, however, before the alternative building systems in lean concrete, particularly the monolithic casting systems, were abandoned. After 1926, as a result of political power shifts, the focus switched to small-scale projects and alternative building systems lost their scale-based economic advantage. Yet the experiment with alternative building practices, however brief, was an important phase in Belgian architectural and construction history. Projects like Het Rad and the modernist garden suburbs in cast-in-situ concrete show the interrelationship between societal, social, political, cultural and economic ambitions on the one hand, and the evolution of building culture on the other.
Copyright (c) 2024 Stephanie Van de Voorde, Robby Fivez https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
A large church in a village that failed to become a city
The Oude Jeroenskerk in the South Holland coastal village of Noordwijk is the largest, and one of the most perfectly preserved, late medieval village churches in the provinces of South and North Holland. Compared with the village in which it stands and the village churches in the surrounding area, the Oude Jeroenskerk is not just beautifully proportioned, but above all remarkably large. This phenomenon – a large church in a small settlement – is clearly interesting, yet it has never been the subject of specific research. Following the miraculous discovery in 976 of the bones of Jeroen, a missionary murdered in 856 by the Norsemen, the ancient Nordcha settlement developed into a place of pilgrimage with urban tendencies. The subsequent ‘discovery’ of Jeroen’s skull in around 1316 furthered the growth of both the village and the church. On 1 April 1398 the village was granted a city charter, but this was subsequently withdrawn on 12 March 1399.The applicants’ right to make such an application was challenged and those involved had plainly underestimated the costs associated with city status. What remained was an under-construction large church, which was eventually completed in around 1500. The construction and appearance of the Oude Jeroenskerk would seem to have been heavily influenced by the count and the local nobility, beginning with Count Dirk II, who granted permission to erect a church in 976. The architects of the brick church are unknown, but it is conceivable that the first element, a tower (1260), was the work of the master craftsman Albrecht van Velsen. In the same period he was involved in the erection of the Leeuwenhorst Cistercian convent in nearby Noordwijkerhout. The phase in which the church acquired its three-aisle, pseudo-basilica layout was possibly initiated by Count Albrecht van Beieren (1336-1404). It was he who heeded the desire of a group of ambitious villagers to elevate their village to the status of a city. This assumption is based on remarkable similarities in floor plan and elevation with the Sint Jacobskerk in ’s-Gravenhage before its radical renovation between 1434 and 1492. It is assumed that the transept (1389) in that church was commissioned by Albrecht. It was during Albrecht’s period of office that the current choir of the Oude Jeroenskerk was built (1389-1405), followed by the transept and three-aisle nave (1415/1425-1444/1500). The Sint Jacobskerk became the main church, located in the administrative heart of the county. The Oude Jeroenskerk remained an important pilgrim church up until the Reformation. A church of substantial proportions that reflected contemporary urban aspirations and still looks like an urban parish church. In terms of materials and detailing it was simple and sober and as such comparable with village churches in the surrounding area and with the Sint Jacobskerk in ’s-Gravenhage until the latter’s reconstruction in 1434. Noordwijk had the potential to grow into a small city. It had the status of a place of pilgrimage, was a religious centre and boasted a relatively large population, including members of the nobility. A large church capable of accommodating local residents and pilgrims corresponded with the urban ambitions of a group of locals. Although those briefly realized ambitions were soon dashed, what remained was the Oude Jeroenskerk: a gothic, pseudo-basilica cruciform church with a square-based tower incorporated on three sides in a three-aisled nave.
Copyright (c) 2024 Michel van Dam https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0