Paperback, X+514 pages ., 350 b/w ill., 220 x 280 mm, Languages: English . ISBN 9782503543338. This book focuses on the diffusion of architectural inventions from the Low Countries to other parts of Europe from the late fifteenth until the end of the seventeenth century. Multiple pathways connected the architecture of the Low Countries with the world, but a coherent analysis of the phenomenon is still missing. Written by an international team of specialists, the book offers case-studies illustrating various mechanisms of transmission, such as the migration of building masters and sculptors who worked as architects abroad, networks of foreign patrons inviting Netherlandish artists, printed models and the role of foreign architects who visited the Low Countries for professional reasons. Its geographical scope is as broad as the period under review and includes all European regions where Netherlandish elements were found: from Spain to Scandinavia and from Scotland to Transylvania. Konrad Ottenheym is professor of architectural history at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. He is specialised in the architecture of the Northern Low Countries and its international relationships. Krista De Jonge is professor of architectural history at Leuven University, Belgium. She is well known for her publications on the architecture of the Southern Low Countries of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in a European perspective. Review "Since some decades now the research paradigms of Netherlandish art history have changed, a change in which editors of the present volume and some of its authors have participated as protagonists. (...) As so often, it is more difficult than anticipated to transform ideas into action (...). To overcome such resistance in a collective European effort requires not only scholarly excellence but also patience and first rate abilities in communication and organization, such as manifested by the editors of this volume. (...) It is this reviewer's wish that the book becomes required reading in the foundation course: "European Architecture of the Early Modern Period" for all students of art history (...). Even at the risk of practicing a form of political appropriation of the project, it should be stated that "Crossroads" is an architectural history of the Early Modern Period for an open society." (Thomas Fusening, translated by Kristin Belkin, in: Historians of Netherlandish Art, 2014, www.hnanews.org/hna/bookreview) "(...) the scope of the book is breathtaking." (Gordon Higgott, in: The Architectural Historian, 1, 2015) "The great interest of this book lies in the quality of every essay, demonstrating the leading role of the Low Countries in spreading the revival of architecture in Northern Europe. By connecting global analyses with detailed explorations of the careers of artists, building masters, and engineers, the contributors put the Low Countries in their real place, as central and dynamic, and certainly not inferior to France and Italy." (Roger Noel, in: Renaissance Quarterly, 69, 1, 2016, p. 249-250) "Dit achtste deel in de Architectura Moderna-reeks biedt een uitstekende stand van zaken van het huidige wetenschappelijk onderzoek naar de export van ?Nederlandse? architectuur in de rest van Europa. (...) De bijdragen in The Low Countries at the Crossroads blazen een nieuwe wind in de behandeling van dit onderwerp en is essentiele literatuur over de rol van de Nederlandse architectuur in Europa in de Vroegmoderne tijd." (Oliver Kik, in: De Zeventiende Eeuw, 31(2), p.353?354).
