Building took place from 1254 until well into the 16th century. But calvinism came and took its toll. In 1572, during a wave of calvinist inspired vandalism that spread all over the Low Countries, much of the ornaments on both exterior and interior were destroyed, and when the church was finally taken from the catholics and given to the protestants much of the enormous building was neglected and left to fall apart, and so it did. The still unfinished and insufficiently supported nave collapsed in a storm of 1674. What remains are the transept and the Dom Tower. Where the rest of the cathedral used to stand is now a square, and differently colored stones indicate the original outlines of the church, and of its predecessors.