Salomonische Architektur in den Niederlanden

Abstract

The Old Church at Amsterdam showcases a wooden model for a huge domed church with a centralized ground-plan, constructed circa 1700 on behalf of local lawyer Nicolaas Listingh. The enormous further expansion of the town in the second half of the 17th century made such a venture logical. Listingh’s project could meet the need for several new churches of a normal size at once. The never executed model was characterized by one special main feature with an important iconographic significance: the large concave buttresses that connect the high-rising central drum with the lower ambulatory. They should be interpreted as a reference to King Salomo’s Temple of Jerusalem. In contemporary reconstructions its substructure was supported all around by a row of gigantic concave buttresses. As the Dutch Calvinists regarded their country as the new Israel, not only a few synagogues, but also some protestant churches were fitted out with them.