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Thus far, the nineteenth-century history of the technical control of the indoor climate in buildings (ventilation, heating, regulation of humidity) in the Netherlands has received scant attention.
This article shows that the topic requires an interdisciplinary approach because it entails cultural history, scientific history and technical aspects. Cultural history because the demand for greater comfort and the growth of night-time entertainment in the nineteenth century reinforced the demand for some form of indoor climate control. Scientific history because both the causes of a poor indoor climate and its impact on human beings were the subject of intensive research and growing understanding. And finally technical, because technical solutions aimed at improving the indoor climate (up to and including establishing workable air, ventilation and heating standards) became increasingly important for Dutch architects and for a professional group that made unprecedented strides in the nineteenth century: the engineers.
After first introducing the reader to the theoretical concepts of the above-mentioned aspects, the article proceeds to test and illustrate this ‘paper reality’ in light of an actual case, the construction of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam from 1883-1886. Architect A.L. van Gendt and engineers worked together here, employing a combination of architecture and technical systems to create a ‘climate machine’ capable of further enhancing a concert hall with excellent acoustics. The ambition was to turn the Concertgebouw into a cultural temple in which an ingenious ventilation and heating system ensured that the orchestra was as comfortable during rehearsals and performances as the audience during the concert and the interval.
To give some idea of this ‘climate machine’: the heating system consisted of bricked-in furnaces in the building’s basement. Fresh air was channelled from the garden into the heating chamber. Once heated, a large ventilator pushed the warm air through a humidifying chamber and from there into all the rooms and spaces in the building. In the concert hall the removal of stale air was linked to the gas lighting system: the caissons in the hall’s coffered ceiling were fitted with ventilation rosettes; the heat from the open gas lighting helped to create sufficient draught to remove the stale air naturally.
As a consequence of the huge technological advances in air conditioning during the twentieth century, many of the original nineteenth-century innovations and technical systems have since disappeared. Knowledge of and insight into the way people in the nineteenth century tried to create a healthy and comfortable indoor climate can help historians, architects and consultants involved in renovation and repurposing to correctly interpret and appreciate surviving elements of such climate designs.
Thus far, the nineteenth-century history of the technical control of the indoor climate in buildings (ventilation, heating, regulation of humidity) in the Netherlands has received scant attention.
This article shows that the topic requires an interdisciplinary approach because it entails cultural history, scientific history and technical aspects. Cultural history because the demand for greater comfort and the growth of night-time entertainment in the nineteenth century reinforced the demand for some form of indoor climate control. Scientific history because both the causes of a poor indoor climate and its impact on human beings were the subject of intensive research and growing understanding. And finally technical, because technical solutions aimed at improving the indoor climate (up to and including establishing workable air, ventilation and heating standards) became increasingly important for Dutch architects and for a professional group that made unprecedented strides...
Thus far, the nineteenth-century history of the technical control of the indoor climate in buildings (ventilation, heating, regulation of humidity) in the Netherlands has received scant attention.
This article shows that the topic requires an interdisciplinary approach because it...
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Cornelis Ryckwaert is one of the few master builders who were active in Brandenburg in the seventeenth century and of whom more is known than just a name or a place of residence. This makes him especially suitable for a study of the export of Dutch influences in the architecture of Brandenburg.
An analysis of his activities should reveal the nature of any such influence, making for a more nuanced assessment of Ryckwaert’s work and contributing to the debate about what the concept of influence actually entails. This article begins with his origins and his arrival in Brandenburg in the retinue of Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen, and then moves on to discuss several of his building projects.
There are indications that Ryckwaert was born in Leiden. From 1662 he was involved in the reconstruction of the Johannieter castle in Sonnenburg (present-day Słonsk). Once work on the castle was finished, Ryckwaert was appointed master of Electoral fortifications in Küstrin/Kostrzyn, where he lived until his death in 1693. From this base he was involved in other building projects, chiefly for the Electors of Brandenburg and of Sachsen-Anhalt. In Brandenburg his works included the castle in Schwedt, the Junkerhaus in Frankfurt an der Oder and smaller estates owned by minor nobility, such as Groß Rietz and Hohenfinow. In Sachsen-Anhalt he worked on the castle in Coswig, the castle and Lutheran church in Zerbst, and the Oranienbaum castle. He traded in wood and built a shipping bridge in Dessau where he also worked on other projects.
In the literature Cornelis Ryckwaert is regarded as an example of a travelling architect who introduced Dutch influences in Brandenburg. However, an analysis of his activities failed to uncover any persuasive evidence that he was in fact active as an architectural designer. Moreover, he was not appointed as ‘architect’, but as ‘master builder’. The conclusion must therefore be that Ryckwaert’s activities were of a civil engineering nature and that he cannot be regarded as an architectural designer.
Ryckwaert’s influence on the building industry in Brandenburg should consequently be sought in the specific civil engineering expertise he possessed and that was needed in Brandenburg. His close ties with the Electoral court and with members of the minor nobility who usually held administrative offices, meant that Ryckwaert’s know-how was employed in many different places. Based on the written sources, the nature of Ryckwaert’s influence on construction in Brandenburg in the seventeenth century is more likely to be found in his activities as a fortification engineer.
Very little remains of the work of Cornelis Ryckwaert, or of related source material. Only the Junkerhaus in Frankfurt an der Oder, and more especially Oranienbaum castle, are still in a reasonably authentic condition.
Cornelis Ryckwaert is one of the few master builders who were active in Brandenburg in the seventeenth century and of whom more is known than just a name or a place of residence. This makes him especially suitable for a study of the export of Dutch influences in the architecture of Brandenburg.
An analysis of his activities should reveal the nature of any such influence, making for a more nuanced assessment of Ryckwaert’s work and contributing to the debate about what the concept of influence actually entails. This article begins with his origins and his arrival in Brandenburg in the retinue of Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen, and then moves on to discuss several of his building projects.
There are indications that Ryckwaert was born in Leiden. From 1662 he was involved in the reconstruction of the Johannieter castle in Sonnenburg (present-day Słonsk). Once work on the castle was finished, Ryckwaert was appointed master of Electoral fortifications in...
Cornelis Ryckwaert is one of the few master builders who were active in Brandenburg in the seventeenth century and of whom more is known than just a name or a place of residence. This makes him especially suitable for a study of the export of Dutch influences in the architecture of...
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Nicolaas Witsen (1641-1717) was not just a prominent administrator and diplomat, but also something of a polymath. He delved into geography, cartography, navigation and shipbuilding, as well as ethnography, philology, history, botany, zoology and astronomy. Apart from scientific curiosity, his choice of subjects was influenced by the interests of Amsterdam, of which he was lord mayor on several occasions: thus he took an interest in the expansion of trade, ship building technology and hydraulic engineering works.
This article discusses a manuscript by Witsen that we date to the second half of the 1650s: Natuer van de gront rontsom Amsterdam, door mij in de jeugt opgestelt (Nature of the ground around Amsterdam, penned by me in my youth). The manuscript consists of a series of detailed notes of his own observations, supplemented by ideas and observations at second hand. We discuss the themes Witsen touches on in a set order: firstly Witsen’s observations, then his own interpretation, and finally the modern interpretation of what Witsen observed.
Witsen described the soil structure in and around Amsterdam, both outside and inside the dikes, probably based on drilling data. He described the stratigraphy systematically, from bottom to top. He then tried to explain the variations in the soil structure, using not just his own observations, but also data from deeper drillings, such as the famous one carried out by Pieter Ente in 1605, which reached a depth of 73 metres. From this he deduced how the soil must have come into being under the influence of the sea. Witsen encountered large numbers of bog oaks – a subterranean forest – which he believed to have contributed to peat formation. He also described the discovery of a tree-trunk canoe, which he compared with the boats used by the Indians in New Netherland.
Witsen’s manuscript attests to keen powers of observation and a rigorous scientific method. He combines philology with empiricism, while giving considerably more weight to the latter. Witsen describes how, over the course of time, sand and clay were deposited and peat was formed and how those layers were influenced by one another and by human intervention. His manuscript reflects a view of the world as a dynamic system, an idea that underlies modern geology, which tries to deduce the age of layers of earth using stratigraphy. The basic principles of stratigraphy, laid out in 1669 in the celebrated Prodromus by Witsen’s friend Nicolaus Steno, can be found in Witsen’s manuscript, making it the first written record of the thinking behind the Steno Laws, which must have emerged from an exchange of ideas between the two men.
It is hardly surprising that these insights were gained in Amsterdam. For one thing, Amsterdam was evolving into a centre of scientific endeavour in the seventeenth century, for another, it was located in the West Netherlands peat region where the dynamics of landscape development were clearly visible in the soil. Urban expansions and hydraulic engineering and construction projects entailed interventions in the soil, leading to the inadvertent creation of ‘peepholes’ for studying the soil structure. Knowledge of the soil structure and landscape development was far greater in the seventeenth century than we realize. Thanks to the rise of an internationally oriented and scientifically aware urban elite, that practical know-how became part of a much broader flow of knowledge: the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century.
Nicolaas Witsen (1641-1717) was not just a prominent administrator and diplomat, but also something of a polymath. He delved into geography, cartography, navigation and shipbuilding, as well as ethnography, philology, history, botany, zoology and astronomy. Apart from scientific curiosity, his choice of subjects was influenced by the interests of Amsterdam, of which he was lord mayor on several occasions: thus he took an interest in the expansion of trade, ship building technology and hydraulic engineering works.
This article discusses a manuscript by Witsen that we date to the second half of the 1650s: Natuer van de gront rontsom Amsterdam, door mij in de jeugt opgestelt (Nature of the ground around Amsterdam, penned by me in my youth). The manuscript consists of a series of detailed notes of his own observations, supplemented by ideas and observations at second hand. We discuss the themes Witsen touches on in a set order: firstly Witsen’s observations, then...
Nicolaas Witsen (1641-1717) was not just a prominent administrator and diplomat, but also something of a polymath. He delved into geography, cartography, navigation and shipbuilding, as well as ethnography, philology, history, botany, zoology and astronomy. Apart from scientific curiosity, his...
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