Drawing Berlage's Exchange

In the history of Modern Architecture, Dr. Hendrik P. Berlage is considered a monumental figure. The Amsterdam Exchange is his masterwork, a building admired by purists for its radical simplicity. When the American architect Daniel Castor first visited the Exchange, he was immediately captivated. But to Castor’s eye, Berlage’s reduction of ornament was only the beginning of the story. From this had emerged an elegance of proportion, a refinement of detail, and a complexity of space that would have been impossible to achieve in a more traditional design. This, somehow, Castor wanted to draw. This book records his attempt to capture, in two dimensions, the hidden life of Berlage’s Exchange.