Liefde voor de Hollandse bouwkunst (A love of Dutch architecture) studies and discusses the publications produced by the Amsterdam publishing house Kosmos on architecture and applied art in the... Show moreLiefde voor de Hollandse bouwkunst (A love of Dutch architecture) studies and discusses the publications produced by the Amsterdam publishing house Kosmos on architecture and applied art in the period between 1923, when the firm was founded, and 1960. The man responsible throughout this period was Jacobus (Jac.) van der Kolk (1887-1980). Van der Kolk began his career in 1916 in the technical bookshop of Weduwe J. Ahrend & Zoon, a supplier of drafting and office equipment founded in 1896 by Jacobus Ahrend. Two years later he was promoted to head of Ahrend’s technical publishing department, which had been founded in 1904. In 1923 the Ahrend catalogue became that of Kosmos, with Van der Kolk being made director of the new firm.The research questions emerged after drawing up as complete a catalogue as possible. The subsequent analysis was aimed at gaining an understanding of Kosmos’s publishing programme, which aspects of it were stressed and how the various segments of the catalogue developed. The most important question, the one underlying this study as a whole, concerns the circumstances, working methods and decisions that produced the Kosmos catalogue in the years 1923-1960, and how Kosmos rated in the competition with other publishers operating in the same fields Show less
