Rebuilding Solomon’s Temple? The Architecture of Calvinism

Abstract

During the autumn of 1566 a series of Calvinist churches or temples were erected across the Southern Netherlands. These buildings attracted the attention and curiosity of contemporaries because of their unusual appearance and the speed with which they appeared. The polygonal ground plan of these buildings as well as the use of the term ‘temple’ led some observers to associate them with the Temple of Solomon. The English merchant Richard Clough commented that in Antwerp the Reformed had ‘layd the fondasyonss of syche tempelles more lyker the tempell of Salomon then hoder wysse’. Another observer also described these round churches as being built in the style of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. These comments suggest that Calvinists were perceived (at least by some) as linking their reformation of religion with an appropriation, possibly a recreation, of Jerusalem in the West. The purpose of this paper is to examine this contention, setting the architecture against the tradition of medieval conceptions of the architecture of the Temple, and of Calvin’s and Calvinists’ ideas of the role and use of space in the Reformed religion.