L | Around 1600 - Consolidation and Reordering of Faith

The Belgian pilgramage site Scherpenheuvel, founded shortly after 1600 by Spanish archdukes Albrecht and Isabella, was rooted in an ideal project that combined landscape architecture, city planning, architecture and pictoral furnishings to form a synthesis of the arts. Based on this current object of investigation being studied in the Department of History of Architecture, the lecture will give a panoramic view of architecture of "around 1600" – thus of a time, in which the catholic authorities were wrestling with Protestantism to gain the upperhand with respect to power and prerogative of interpretation.

Catholic reform lead to efforts of sacralization of city and landscape, a fact that can be observed by refering to specific individual examples. Likewise, the importance of the veneration of relics and marioletry for new developments in sacral building and pilgramage architecture will be portrayed.

Against the backdrop of the war experience that shaped the landscape, the city, the architecture, and the arts of the time period around 1600, the lecture will also address the melding of ideal city and ideal fortress and will point out the continuous increase in significance of fortress construction in the context of the religious dispute.

The lecture series will conclude with a monographic contemplation of the ideal architecture of the Escorial of Philipp II. of Spain, whose influence on the conception of Scherpenheuvel has to be taken into account.