A necessary insight into the contribution of artisanal work in early modern architecture.
The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries represent a high point in design and workmanship intersectionality. Skilled artisans worked across a spectrum of practices in design, supervision, and execution, and architects relied on this experience when building sites. However, this relationship has been under-studied in the architectural achievement of the early modern era.
Combining analysis of buildings, archival material, and eighteenth-century writings, editors Andrew Tierney and Melanie Hayes re-evaluate the social and professional fabric binding design to the act of making and reflect on the asymmetry between architecture and craft. They argue for a process-oriented understanding of architectural production that explores the scribbled and annotated beginnings of design; the debates and revisions in forging details; and the grappling with building materials that pushed projects from conception to completion.