Working on the Dom Tower for five years!

Sculpture Workshop 't Oud Erf

Well it's almost ready, the Dom Tower. And we have been working hard at it. As subcontractors of Slotboom Steenhouwers in Winterswijk we were asked to carry out a large part of the ornament work. The stonemasons took care of the complete measuring package, ordering the stone, consultation, 3D drawings, and cutting and carving the stonemasonry parts , and we were asked to sculpt the ornaments where there were still some square blocks left for us to carve.

We, that's first and foremost Jelle Steendam and myself, who started on this journey. Later also Nico Hogervorst and Tim Kaarsemaker joined in, and later on, Martha Onderwater and Martijn Linssen also assisted us temporarily.

Caarying all the stuff up the narrow stairs

In 2019, when there was no complete scaffolding around the Dom Tower yet, Jelle and I both climbed the stairs with kilos of tools in order to carve a number of test ornaments in Monte Merlo trachyte, and in Peperino Grigio and in Ledesteen. To our delight, fortunately the decision was made to not have the ornaments carved in Peperino (way too dead looking) or in Ledesteen (“Stonemason's sorrow”, that's what I call it. Rock hard and glassy).

Why the need to restore it?

Well, you can have long meetings about that, but it just was necessary. I'll show you above. You don't even want to think about pieces falling from a height of over a hundred meters onto the people walking blow….

Three times on video

After a period of silence, our work started with carving huge finials in Portland stone. RTV Utrecht came to visit to record the first inspection round.

You can watch the video here at timestamp 04:49 in the video.

Later, nephew Tim was interviewed by a reporter from RTV Utrecht, where I was also asked some questions, also by RTV Utrecht. A short part of it was captured in a video as well.

Later we were approached by the TV show InsideOut (Binnenste Buiten) of the KRO/NCRV, that ended up making an extensive report of our studio. Koen with the finials and crockets, Tim with a big block for the Dom Tower, Jelle with a family crest and Nico with two statues that he was restoring. We were very happy with the end result, that was a good portrayal of our work. A photo report has also been made, that you can find here at this link.

The Little Cloud Man

Finally, there was one more journalist from the newspaper Trouw. She came by because she was making a report about the restoration work on the Dom Tower (click on the images on the left to read a small part of it). Based on 1 block she highlighted the role of the architect, the contractor, the stonemasons and the sculptor in this project. My work naturally attracted attention again, because I'd inserted a little 'cloud man'’ in the pinnacle.

Where an ornament should have been, I used that space to hide tiny figurine. It's just a little thing, but of course it caused a bit of a stir. The idea behind it is that the tower can now defend itself. Anyone who criticizes this restoration of the Dom Tower can expect a snowball from above. I just didn't expect that this corner of this large block would exactly face the Town Hall… Please don't suspect me of ill intent.

We've made a lot of work for the Dom Tower in those five years, such as tiny finials and enormous crockets, gargoyles, ornaments on all kinds of pinnacle blocks, sometimes of nearly 800 kilos, and occasionally something other than ornaments. Very occasionally we were able to hide a little surprise among all the endlessly identical ornaments. That Little Cloud Man, a scene with wolves, little faces that lift a tip of the veil…

A Wolf Capital

Above is one of my very last blocks for the Dom Tower. It is a capital in Monte Merlo trachyte, a quite hard and brittle stone, and the tiny flowers are only a few centimeters tall.

But if you look closely, you can find a wolf on the right, and to his left a man with binoculars, a fat photographer and a woman with a shotgun, who threatens to shoot it. On the other side of the block we find someone with a protest sign (“Go Away Wolf”). But behind him, a wolf in a top hat is hiding, grinning.

You can see what you want in it, but I had- when I carved it- never thought it would become so connected to actual news, because the week after it was installed a wolf snatched a small dog from a hiker who had it on a leash, and a toddler got a warning nip from a nursing mother wolf. In the province of Utrecht, less than 15 kilometers from the Dom Tower. You can, if you look carefully with binoculars, find the blocks on the Zadelstraat side, at 20 meters up.

Jelle has incorporated the departing architect of the Dom Tower on his capital block, Erik Jan Brans. Architect Brans passed the baton in July 2023 to his successor Karlijn de Wild. With this, Jelle pays a small tribute to a modest, friendly person, on one of the last works in which he was intensively involved. There are also a few blocks with animal figures incorporated at approximately 6 meters up, on the Dom square side.

Gallery: Capitals and blind tracery Dom Tower

Apprentice project

The work on the Dom Tower has gradually developed into a apprentice project. I started in 2019 started with colleagues Stide Vos, Serge van Druten and, in my workshop, Jelle Steendam. Later, Nico Hogervorst and Tim Kaarsemaker came to work for me, and later on Martha Onderwater and Martijn Linssen joined us for a shorter period, while Stide and Serge withdrew from work.

So now I was the only one of the 'old guard of the 90s', and hopes were pinned on the younger generation, as can be seen in the documentaries.

Jelle has stopped being an 'apprentice sculptor' for years’ now, he is a fully accomplished sculptor, and I am pleased that the profession is getting a good continuation with this batch. My dream is that there will be enough work for each of them with inspiring commissions. Not just restoration work, but especially new sculptures and reliefs of their own design, in stone and bronze, and probably also in other materials such as cast iron and ceramics. I just keep doing my thing, but I especially enjoy it when these newcomers to the profession push their boundaries and develop new skills in previously unexplored areas. The future belongs to the computer, or so it seems, but I hope with this blog, newspaper articles and video reports to convey that the human hand remains essential to maintain liveliness in carving.

Photo gallery: Collected works Dom Tower