The House of Cuypers

24 January 2008

Lecture by Bernadette van Hellenberg Hubar on the art studio of the firm Cuypers & Stolzenberg, a modern equivalent of the medieval building lodge.

Speaker: Bernadette van Hellenberg Hubar

Eind of 1852, the firm Cuypers & Stoltzenberg was established. The building that made the art studio come to life followed one year later, in 1853. This art studio was a modern equivalent of the medieval building lodge: artists and craftsmen collaborated there under the supervision of the architect (Cuypers). Bernadette van Hellenberg Hubar spoke about this special work studio and discussed the Cuypers code, an artificial realitygame (ARG) of which the introductory game was launched in the month September of Cuypers year 2007.

Not only buildings were designed in the studio, but also altars, stained-glass windows, furniture and sculptures were made there. The aim was professional craftmanship with medieval studios as an example. In 1892, as the consequence of an explosion and bankruptcy of Stoltzenberg, the firm Cuypers & Stoltzenberg came to an end. Cuypers and his son Jos continued under the name Cypers & Co.

Bernadette van Hellenberg Hubar (1956) studied art history at the Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht en earned her PhD from the Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen for her dissertation 'Arbeid & Bezieling, De esthetica van P.J.H. Cuypers, J.A. Alberdingk Thijm en V.E.L. de Stuers, en de voorgevel van het Rijksmuseum' (1995; handelseditie 1997). Besides her work at Res Nova she is co-founder of the Cuypers society that strives for the maintenance of architectural heritage from the nineteenth and twentieth century. 

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