In his ‘d'Algemene Bouwkunde’ (General Architecture) of 1681 Willem Goeree rightly concluded that in The Netherlands the most general aspects of architecture had hardly been studied, unlike the five orders of architecture. His treatise is in fact the first printed treatise on architecture in the Dutch language in which an attempt was made to find a connection between architecture of classical antiquity and contemporary architecture which surpassed the usual discussions of the columns or the presentation of designs by leading architects such as Post or Vingboons. Moreover, Goeree pointed out to the urban elite that its task did not just consist in embellishing the town with splendid palaces, but also in providing facilities from which all the citizens would benefit. Because of the wide range of themes dealt with and the attention for the public character of architecture ‘d'Algemene Bouwkunde’, more than any other seventeenth-century Dutch architecture treatise, also breathes the atmosphere of Vitruvius's De Architectura Libri Decem. Possibly due to the absence of illustrations this little treatise never attracted the attention received by the Dutch adaptations of the column books. An autograph handwriting of ‘d'Algemene Bouwkunde’, on the other hand, comprises many prints as well as some drawings by Goeree himself. As regards content, too, it is an important addition to the printed version. Because of the dozens of authors who are quoted, from a historiographic point of view the handwriting constitutes one of the major sources of Dutch theory of architecture. It gives a good picture of the reception of international theory of architecture in the Low Countries, in which the attention paid to Scamozzi and to the advantages and disadvantages of the many Dutch adaptations of his treatise is especially striking. Whereas for his discussion of the orders of columns Goeree could make use of many examples, in his treatise on ‘general architecture’, bringing up themes such as the private house, rural buildings, ...