J.Th.J. Cuypers (1861-1949) Josephus Theodorus Joannes (Jos) Cuypers was the son of P.J.H. Cuypers. He worked with his father, and for some time with Jan Stuyt. He built the St. Bavo Cathedral in Haarlem, many village churches, a cathedral in Rangoon, and in Amsterdam the R.C. Gymnasium, the Stock Exchange, and the Boerhaave clinic, among other buildings. As an urban planner, his projects included an expansion plan for Maastricht and the regional building plan for South Holland. The Stock Exchange in Amsterdam In the second half of the nineteenth century, the industrial revolution in the Netherlands gave a major boost to trading on the Stock Exchange in Amsterdam. The Stock Exchange building designed by J.D. Zocher (1791-1870) in 1845 soon proves too small and impractical. The stock exchange also boomed around 1880, necessitating its own space for securities trading. With the arrival of the Beurs van Berlage on the Damrak in 1903, the stock exchange was given its own trading floor. Even this space proves insufficient and the board of the Stock Exchange Association decides in 1910 to have its own stock exchange built. Architect Joseph Cuypers is appointed to create a design. Cuypers' ideas fit the wishes and needs of his conservative clients. The Stock Exchange became a classicist composition, composed of various historical building forms and richly decorated. As far as the board was concerned, the interior also had to have a rich appearance and emphasize the reliable image of the stock exchange. Joseph Cuypers therefore applied glazed ceramics, a precious finishing material, which came from factories such as De Porceleyne Fles and W.C. Brouwer. With this, he gives the stock exchange building the grandeur of a bank building from the United States, the young, promising trading nation where entire skyscrapers in this period are clad in richly ornamented terracotta. The use of expensive tropical woods and marble matches this. The luxurious look was further emphasized with the use of various styles such as Art Nouveau, neo-Renaissance, neo-Gothic and oriental accents. The Stock Exchange was festively inaugurated on December 22, 1913. New developments have necessitated renovations, which, however, have always been accomplished with respect for the tradition of the complex. The building has thus been able to withstand the advent of new information technology and the euro and the merging of the stock exchange, the options exchange and the agricultural futures market. Note: the oeuvre of J.Th.J. Cuypers has not been (fully) inventoried. Honors: H.C. member RIBA/; knight in the Order of the Dutch Lion/; knight in the order of Gregory the Great/; honorary cross Pro Ecclesiae et Pontifice/; silver medal of honor of the city of Roermond/.