Few people know the artist may have had other ideas.
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April 30, 2007
London Times
If you must build an Ark, make sure the better half designs it
David Charter, Europe Correspondent
A devout Dutchman has spent two years and a million euros rebuilding Noah’s Ark after a dream that the Netherlands was suddenly submerged under water.
Johan Huibers, 48, a believer in the literal truth of the Bible, made his replica three storeys high and filled it with life-size models of giraffes, elephants, lions, crocodiles and zebras – all two-by-two.
At 230ft (70m) long it is around half the length of the biblical vessel described in Genesis. But Johan’s Ark is drawing crowds to his home town of Schagen, 27 miles (45km) north of Amsterdam, from where he plans to sail it around the Dutch canal system to teach children about the Bible.
“I had a dream that Holland will become flooded. The next day, I found a book about Noah’s Ark in the bookshop, and since then, my dream has been to build the ark,” he said. “The design is by my wife, Bianca. She didn’t really want me to do this at all, but she said ‘If you’re going to anyway, it should look like this’.”
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I had done some digging and sent my Amsterdam correspondent to take a look. The Bible is one thing, but capitalism is quite another.
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There were rumors he had wanted to use the vessel to advertise somewhat old American products named after Hollanders. The over-sized billboard ads disappeared within three months.
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Instead of animals, the artist had considered representing every form of faux exterior siding as a genuflection to the conservation of wood and other building materials. Holland is known for its desire for a uniformity of street architecture. No dice!
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Muscle cars and hot rod auto parts just did not have the same draw for the Dutch as they did for Americans after World War II.
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Finally, before giving himself to religion, he had converted the ship into dockside
condominiums which sat unsold for longer than the bridge loan allowed.
The sign near the ship was unable to convince people to move. I have a larger picture of the sign. (below)
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Images: (12 cyl) Falconerengines.com;(Hurst) karbell.com; (Moon Equipped) pros.orange.fr;(ark hot rod) findaproperty.com; (flames) milezone.com; (car club stickers) yearwood.com; (unfinished ark) metro.co.uk;(various faux sidings) fauxpanels.com; (painting) worldwideflood.com;(sign ark) wnbc.com;(double dutch) img.alibaba.com;(old dutch) breweriana.com;(dutch masters) mr.bills.com; (dutch boy) packagingdigest.com; (fancy sign frame) homedecorators.com; (dutch chocolate) theimaginaryworld.com; (dutch reagan) amazon.co.uk; (dutch cleanser) plan59.com; (condo ark & first ark) AP via timesonline.co.uk
Please find the entire article here.