Innovation and Tradition in Seventeenth- and Early Eighteenth-Century Vaulting Techniques in the Southern Low Countries

Most studies of Southern Netherlandish religious architecture in the Early Modern Period still hold to the view that the ubiquitous rib vault does not have any innovatory character; i.e. is ‘still Gothic'. In this paper we offer a revised assessment, structured around the following ‘problems': 1. wood, stone and iron: composite structures; 2. cupolas and domes; 3. light, perforated brick vaults. Rare, surviving architectural drawings (mostly from the Jesuit milieu) indeed suggest that vault, roof structure and anchoring system constitute one structure conceptually. The most obvious test-case of modernity in vaulting is the (brickwork) cupola and its covering wooden dome, which is also considered a ‘vault' in contemporary archival sources. Thin-shelled brick vaulting pierced by oculi in all quadrants – still mostly unstudied as a technique – evolved towards the end of the seventeenth century as an alternative to ribbed crossing domes in wood and plaster.