[Erik Zwaan]

A short introduction
One of the great architectural achievements in The Netherlands is certainly the St-Bavo Church (also referred to as the Great Church) in Haarlem, the capital of the province of North-Holland. The church was built between 1370 and 1520. It is obvious that, unlike in my profession, schedule driven projects didn’t seem to exist in those days. Considering the time span of 150 years, they certainly took their time to complete the structure! This majestic cathedral towered 73 meters over the low-rise building of the time and could be seen for miles away in the flat and empty surrounding landscape. A true Arc of Noah rising up to the skies. Even in this age of high rise buildings the church still forms a landmark that cannot easily be missed.

Haarlem is the town of 17th century painter Frans Hals (buried in the St-Bavo), the place that gave its name to New York’s Harlem and the residency of a young Dutch aviation pioneer named Anthony Fokker. In 1911 Fokker made a daring flight in his “Spin” (spider) by taking off from a meadow just outside Haarlem and circling around the St-Bavo spire. What a magnificent event this must have been and it set off a long history in Dutch aviation.

The church is located on the “Grote Markt” (freely translated as Market Square), which is very busy on Saturdays when the square is packed with all kinds of market stalls. It’s a very lively scenery and a great tourist destination. I composed a few pictures from Google Earth to give you a general impression of the church and its surroundings. Note that the church is situated on an exact east-west orientation, with the main entrance facing west. Certainly no coincidence.

In the nineties Dutch publisher Leon Schuijt published several great quality architectural models, amongst others Dutch churches and wind mills (surprise!). Although the designs date from before the computer age, the fit in general is good and the print quality very attractive. The models are not extremely difficult to build and the logical numbering of the parts, together with clear building instructions, provide easy reference to the builder. This combination is the perfect mix for hopefully a relaxing build, much needed at the moment.

The attractive model consists of almost 500 parts and is printed on 9, semi-glossy A3 size sheets. The scale is 1:300. Interesting aspect of the model is the number of smaller buildings clustered around the church that over time have become part of the entire complex. This makes the finished model an interesting object to look at, with lots of things to discover and a small village on its own. A bit like Mont-St-Michel in France.

Anyway, time for the build to start.

Erik