Stedelijk Museum Kampen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Stedelijk Museum Kampen (lit. Municipal Museum Kampen) is a museum situated in the Old Town Hall[1] of Kampen. The collection has four main topics: water, religion, justice and the House of Orange-Nassau. There are also five to six temporary exhibitions on contemporary art a year.
Exterior
The original Old Town Hall dates from around 1350. Here, from the Middle Ages until the French occupation justice was spoken by magistrates and councils. The building was built in the Lower Rhine Gothic-style so characteristic of the German Hanseatic towns: a rectangular shape, simple decorations and windows in arch niches.
The building stood free with an entrance on the south side. This entrance is now closed by the construction of the New Town Hall next to it. On the south side was also the landing from which the city government announced decisions and where criminals were presented to the people.
Fire
During the night of February 4 to 5, 1543 the Old Town Hall burned out. Only the outer walls, vaults and a portion of the floor remained intact, but badly battered. Very soon the rebuilding began and one year later the exterior was finished. From that moment on the Old Town Hall has two different architectural styles: the aspiring lines of the late Gothic mingle with the horizontal lines that are typical of the Renaissance. The decorations are made in stone. The images on the west facade were created by the Amsterdam sculptor J. Polet jr. and date from the 1930s. They replace the badly damaged medieval images that are currently in the Koornmarkt gate on display. From left to right, they suggest: Charlemagne, Alexander the Great, Temperance, Faith, Justice and Charitas.
