Cuijpers

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Cuijpers or Cuypers, Petrus Josephus Hubertus (1827–1921). Roermond-born Dutch architect. He designed many Neo-Gothic churches in The Netherlands, and in the Church of St Willibrordus-buiten-de-Veste, Amsterdam (1864), demonstrated his interest in honesty of materials and construction derived from his readings of Viollet-le-Duc. As an RC from the province of Limburg he was ideally placed when the RC episcopal hierarchy was restored in 1853, and an ambitious programme of church-building was set in motion. His best-known works are the Rijksmuseum (State Museum—1877–85) and the Central Station (1881–9), in Amsterdam, both powerfully symmetrical, in a free style, and with lively sky-lines. The Rijksmuseum was much influenced by the University Museum, Oxford, even in respect of its iron roofs and interior galleries. His Picturesque compositions and principles of truth to materials and expression caused him to be labelled the ‘Dutch Viollet-le-Duc’. Among his finest polychrome works were the Heilige Hart, Vondelstraat (1870–3), and the Maria Magdalenekerk, Amsterdam (1889–91—destroyed). The sophistication of his brick polychromy demonstrates that his work was at least as original as anything by Butterfield or Street.

Bibliography

Cuypers (1917);
Hoogewoud et al. (1985);
H. Rosenberg (1972);
Jane Turner (1996)

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