Oude Kerk (Delft)
Encyclopedia
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
Protestant
Protestant Church in the Netherlands
The Protestant Church in the Netherlands is the largest Protestant Christian denomination in the Netherlands. With 2,000 congregations and a membership of some 1.8 million , it is the second largest church in the Netherlands after the Roman Catholic Church.It was founded 1 May 2004 as a merger of...
church in the old city center of Delft
Delft
Delft is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland , the Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam and The Hague....
, the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
. Its most recognizable feature is a 75-meter-high brick tower that leans about two meters from the vertical.
History
The Oude Kerk was founded as St. Bartholomew's Church in the year 1246, on the site of previous churches dating back up to two centuries earlier. The layout followed that of a traditional basilicaBasilica
The Latin word basilica , was originally used to describe a Roman public building, usually located in the forum of a Roman town. Public basilicas began to appear in Hellenistic cities in the 2nd century BC.The term was also applied to buildings used for religious purposes...
, with a nave
Nave
In Romanesque and Gothic Christian abbey, cathedral basilica and church architecture, the nave is the central approach to the high altar, the main body of the church. "Nave" was probably suggested by the keel shape of its vaulting...
flanked by two smaller aisle
Aisle
An aisle is, in general, a space for walking with rows of seats on both sides or with rows of seats on one side and a wall on the other...
s.
During it's build the foundations weren't strong enough to support the building, and the church began to lean. As they continued to build the church they tried to compensate its lean on each layer of the tower, but it remains to this day that only the 4 turrets at the top are truly vertical.
The tower with its central spire and four corner turrets was added between 1325–50, and dominated the townscape for a century and a half until it was surpassed in height by the Nieuwe Kerk
Nieuwe Kerk (Delft)
Nieuwe Kerk is a landmark Protestant church in Delft, Netherlands. The building is located on Delft Market Square , opposite to the City Hall . In 1584, William the Silent was entombed here in a mausoleum designed by Hendrick and Pieter de Keyser. Since then members of the House of Orange-Nassau...
(New Church). It is possible that the course of the adjacent canal had to be shifted slightly to make room for the tower, leaving an unstable foundation that caused the tower to tilt.
By the end of the 14th century, expansion of the side aisles to the height of the nave transformed the building into a hall church
Hall church
A hall church is a church with nave and side aisles of approximately equal height, often united under a single immense roof. The term was first coined in the mid-19th century by the pioneering German art historian Wilhelm Lübke....
, which was rededicated to St. Hippolytus
Hippolytus (writer)
Hippolytus of Rome was the most important 3rd-century theologian in the Christian Church in Rome, where he was probably born. Photios I of Constantinople describes him in his Bibliotheca Hippolytus of Rome (170 – 235) was the most important 3rd-century theologian in the Christian Church in Rome,...
. The church again took on a typical basilican cross-section with the construction of a higher nave between about 1425 and 1440.
The Delft town fire of 1536 and the turmoil of the Protestant Reformation
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
brought a premature end to an ambitious expansion project led by two members of the Keldermans family
Keldermans family
Keldermans is a family of Flemish artists, originating from the city of Mechelen in the Duchy of Brabant. The members of the family were mostly architects working in the Brabantine Gothic style...
of master builders. This construction phase resulted in the flat-roofed, stone-walled northern transept
Transept
For the periodical go to The Transept.A transept is a transverse section, of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In Christian churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform building in Romanesque and Gothic Christian church architecture...
arm that differs markedly in style from the older parts.
The great fire, iconoclasm
Iconoclasm
Iconoclasm is the deliberate destruction of religious icons and other symbols or monuments, usually with religious or political motives. It is a frequent component of major political or religious changes...
, weather, and the explosion of the town's gunpowder store in 1654 (see Delft Explosion) took their toll on the church and its furnishings, necessitating much repair work over the years. During one renovation, the tower turrets were rebuilt in a more vertical alignment than the leaning body below, giving the tower as a whole a slightly kinked appearance. The current stained-glass windows
Stained glass
The term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works produced from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings...
were crafted by the master glazier Joep Nicolas in the mid-20th century.
Furnishings
The church possesses three pipe organPipe organ
The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through pipes selected via a keyboard. Because each organ pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass...
s, from the years 1857 (main organ), 1873 (north aisle) and 1770 (choir).
The most massive bell
Church bell
A church bell is a bell which is rung in a church either to signify the hour or the time for worshippers to go to church, perhaps to attend a wedding, funeral, or other service...
in the tower, cast in 1570 and called Trinitasklok or Bourdon, weighs nearly nine tonne
Tonne
The tonne, known as the metric ton in the US , often put pleonastically as "metric tonne" to avoid confusion with ton, is a metric system unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. The tonne is not an International System of Units unit, but is accepted for use with the SI...
s, and because of its strong and potentially damaging vibrations, is rung only on such special occasions as the burial of a Dutch royal family member in the nearby New Church. The massive bell is also sounded during disasters, when local air-raid sirens
Civil defense siren
A civil defense siren is a mechanical or electronic device for generating sound to...
are sounded. This, however, does not happen during the siren's monthly, country-wide test, which happens every first Monday of the month.
Graves
Approximately 400 people are entombed in the Oude Kerk, including the following notables:- Elizabeth Morgan, daughter of nobleman Marnix van St. Aldegonde (1608)
- noblewoman and benefactrix Clara van SpaerwoudeClara van SpaerwoudeClara Jansdochter van Spaerwoude was a Dutch noblewoman of Delft who is chiefly remembered for her great wealth and various charitable funds from her estate...
(1615) - naval hero Piet HeinPiet Pieterszoon HeinPieter Pietersen Heyn was a Dutch naval officer and folk hero during the Eighty Years' War between the United Provinces and Spain.-Early life:...
(1629) - writer Jan Stalpaert van der Wiele (1630)
- naval hero Maarten TrompMaarten TrompMaarten Harpertszoon Tromp was an officer and later admiral in the Dutch navy. His first name is also spelled as Maerten.-Early life:...
(1653) - physician/anatomist Regnier de GraafRegnier de GraafRegnier de Graaf, Dutch spelling Reinier de Graaf or latinized Reijnerus de Graeff was a Dutch physician and anatomist who made key discoveries in reproductive biology. His first name is often spelled Reinier or Reynier.-Biography:De Graaf was born in Schoonhoven and perhaps a relative to the De...
(1673) - painter Johannes VermeerJohannes VermeerJohannes, Jan or Johan Vermeer was a Dutch painter who specialized in exquisite, domestic interior scenes of middle class life. Vermeer was a moderately successful provincial genre painter in his lifetime...
(1675) - painter Hendrick Cornelisz van Vliet, who had painted the church interior (1675)
- statesman Anthonie HeinsiusAnthonie HeinsiusAnthonie Heinsius was a Dutch statesman who served as Grand Pensionary of Holland from 1689 to his death in 1720.- Life :...
(1720) - scientist Anton van LeeuwenhoekAnton van LeeuwenhoekAntonie Philips van Leeuwenhoek was a Dutch tradesman and scientist from Delft, Netherlands. He is commonly known as "the Father of Microbiology", and considered to be the first microbiologist...
(1723) - poet Hubert Poot (1733)
External links
- Oude Kerk website
- View of the Oude Kerk painted by Jan van der Heyden, ca. 1660 (Web Gallery of Art)
