This doctoral thesis describes the cultural history of Dutch church architecture in the twentieth century, a period in which more than 5,000 churches were built in the Netherlands. The majority of... Show moreThis doctoral thesis describes the cultural history of Dutch church architecture in the twentieth century, a period in which more than 5,000 churches were built in the Netherlands. The majority of these houses of worship are not listed buildings and suffer from a lack of maintenance. Because of the country’s overwhelming secularization, more and more churches are vacant, for sale or slated for demolition. The absence of any general study of the function and significance of modern churches in the Netherlands complicates the discussion in religious, cultural and political circles about the future of this vulnerable group of buildings. One major factor in the design, decoration and organization of these churches was the liturgical renewal within the Roman Catholic Church and two Protestant religious communities, the Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk and the Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland. The democratic impulse to foster greater participation in services by the congregation had an aesthetic dimension. At the same time, demographic and urban developments put pressure on congregations to construct new churches at a rapid pace. Priests and pastors looked to architects to accommodate their liturgical and pastoral preferences by designing distinctively modern churches. In the late 1960s, both Catholic and Protestant churches became functional houses of worship, drained of their traditional sacred character. Show less
