Craftsmen and amateurs in the eighteenth century

Authors

  • Freek H. Schmidt

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7480/knob.104.2005.5.262

Abstract

In Dutch history of architecture the first half of the eighteenth century is sometimes defined as the 'era without architects'. Prominent architects and building contractors from the second half of the seventeenth century lacked worthy successors, large commissions were not forthcoming and even the wealthiest private individuals put up with 'carpenter's designs'.

Work bosses, the heads of large building companies who worked with fixed workshops of craftsmen and artists, dominated the building production and acted as designers together with painters and sculptors. Apart from them, there were free designers, who did not work in the building trade and were not members of a guild, but who had acquired a position by means of their draughtsmanship.

Because of the lack of great 'building artists' the entire period is considered rather unspectacular from an art-historical point of view, the only bright spots being the work of a few artist-architects. In this picture of architectonic culture the role of the commissioner as definer, designer and supervisor, in brief, as architect in the contemporary sense of the word, remained almost unnoticed, whereas the role of the craftsman or work boss was reduced to that of executor of the designs of others.

At best, these trendsetters were portrayed as dilettantes, exceptions in a building trade dominated by artists and building contractors. In this article an attempt is made to reconstruct the crucial role of the commissioner in early-modern architectonic culture.

The publications that appeared on architecture, the so-called 'architecture in writing', were chiefly aimed at the large group of amateurs. By means of historiographical attention, the reasons are also examined why this commissioner was recorded in such a fragmentary way in the history of architecture and the craftsman reduced to a pragmatist utterly lacking in higher theoretical insight.

The roots of this view seem to lie in the nineteenth-century emancipation of the 'building artist'. At that time the concept of 'amateur' acquired a disparaging meaning, and the status of the craftsman/pragmatist declined to such an extent that both were no longer regarded as architects, but as 'unqualified' persons.

Author Biography

Freek H. Schmidt

Dr. Freek Schmidt is architectuurhistoricus en promoveerde in 1997 aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam op een proefschrift getiteld: ‘Pieter de Swart en Willem IV. Hofarchitectuur in de Republiek’, waarvan twee jaar later een uitgebreide en bewerkte uitgave verscheen: ‘Pieter de Swart. Architect van de achttiende eeuw’, Zwolle/Zeist 1999. Momenteel is hij als onderzoeker vanwege de KNAW en als docent verbonden aan de afdeling kunstgeschiedenis van de Faculteit der Letteren aan de Vrije Universiteit te Amsterdam, en betrokken bij diverse onderzoeksprojecten op het gebied van de Nederlandse architectuur ‘van de lange achttiende eeuw’.

Published

2005-10-01

How to Cite

Schmidt, F. H. (2005). Craftsmen and amateurs in the eighteenth century. Bulletin KNOB, 104(5), 138–161. https://doi.org/10.7480/knob.104.2005.5.262

Issue

Section

Articles

Plaudit