Dutch Baroque architecture

The architecture of the first republic in Northern Europe was meant to reflect democratic values by quoting extensively from classical antiquity.

In general, architecture in the Low Countries, both in the Counter-Reformation-influenced south and Protestant-dominated north, remained strongly invested in northern Italian Renaissance and Mannerist forms that predated the Roman High Baroque style of Borromini and Bernini.

The major exponents of the mid-17th century, Jacob van Campen and Pieter Post, adopted de Keyser's forms for such eclectic elements as giant order pilasters, gable roofs, central pediments, and vigorous steeples.

Dutch architects were employed on important projects in Northern Germany, Scandinavia and Russia, disseminating their ideas in those countries.

The Dutch Colonial architecture, once flourishing in the Hudson River Valley and associated primarily with red-brick gabled houses, may still be seen in Willemstad, Curaçao, although painted with more varied colors.