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The 19th Century
Baroque Style
Problems of Stability
Transept
Enlargement of the choir
Alternation to the lower church
The New Lower Church
How the Parish Came Into Existence

Between 1200 and 1300 Saint Nicholas’s church had witnessed three phases of construction works : first of all there was the lower church in early gothic style, secondly the middle and eastern wing in Scheldt gothic style and finally the adaptation of the nave to the principles of the fully fledged gothic style. In the 14th century the wish was expressed to get rid of all the regional characteristics of the choir in Scheldt gothic and to bring it into harmony with the international style. The only source of inspiration was the majestic choir of the bishop’s church in Tournai. The cathedral in Tournai had been built between 1242 and 1255 and illustrated the final stage of Gothic in the North of France : there was a lot of glazing and the apsidal chapels and bays of the ambulatory had been contracted.

The reason why this design was applied to the Ghent parish church is to be found in the social-political as well as in the religious-spiritual evolution. Ghent witnessed a transition from a patrician rule to a democratic government by guilds, trades and crafts. It was a period characterised by a movement of religious destruction in which the personal relation to God prevailed over the outdated scholasticism’s common spirit of determination. One wanted closed chapels where religion could be practised in private. At the moment when the ambitious construction programme was to become a reality, the City found itself in a turmoil of political and economic problems which hampered its smooth realisation. That is why the polygonal apsis and its chapels were not completed until 1432, according to a formula which was common, clinical and washed out. Nevertheless the late gothic dream was realized inside : sculptured keystones, polychrome finishing, the ethereal vaultal painting and the expressive frescos of the tombstones.