The reconstruction of Amerongen Castle (1673-1685)

Abstract

The proceedings during the reconstruction of Amerongen castle in the years 1673-1685 were exceptionally well-documented thanks to the extensive correspondence of the client Godert Adriaan van Reede with his wife Margaretha Turnor, his son, his secretary and his friend Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen, and thanks to some well-preserved reports and drawings of the building contractor Hendrick Schut. From the start the client had probably formed a idea of his new castle; its design, however, was supervised by Schut, who was also the building contractor and master carpenter of the work, assisted by the master mason Cornelis van Rietvelt and the stone mason Jan Prang. In February 1673 the castle was set fire to by French troops and completely destroyed. From September 1673 Van Reede himself was in the Netherlands for a few years and could therefore prepare the reconstruction in person and supervise the start of the work. First it was mostly a matter of clearing rubble and chiselling off all the still usable bricks. In spite of permanent financial problems he succeeded in keeping up the pace.

In the autumn of 1676, two years after the commencement of the work, the shell of the building was completed. While the interior was worked at in stages during the subsequent years, from 1679 the stable building and the two staff residences were also erected on the outer bailey. With the placing of the marble chimneys in the large hall in 1685 the work was largely completed. Although the old foundations were used for the reconstruction, a completely new building, with a new plan was created, to some extent based on the example of The Hague Mauritshuis. Instead of a complex of four wings around an inner courtyard, a closed three-nave building block was constructed. This switch to a completely different type of house fits in with a wider tradition in the development of castle architecture in the Province of Utrecht in the seventeenth century.

The history of Amerongen castle shows that such a monumental building was the result of an intensive cooperation between craftsmen and clients, while both parties also consulted their own advisers: Schut and Van Rietvelt appear to have held consultations with Adriaan Dortsman in Amsterdam from time to time, while Van Reede and his wife were advised by their son and by Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen, who in his turn may have conferred with Maurits Post. In the preparatory phase various versions of the design circulated, in which different ideas for the spatial composition were demonstrated. Once the construction had started, there were constant consultations about all parts of the work, again by showing various versions on which everyone could give his or her opinion.