Refinement and enrichment of surfaces in stone, wood and plaster is a fundamental aspect of early modern architecture which has been marginalised by architectural history. Enriching Architecture aims to retrieve and rehabilitate surface achievement as a vital element of early modern buildings in Britain and Ireland. Rejected by modernism, demeaned by the conceptual ‘turn’ and too often reduced to its representative or social functions, we argue for the historical legitimacy of creative craft skill as a primary agent in architectural production. However, in contrast to the connoisseurial and developmental perspectives of the past, this book is concerned with how surfaces were designed, achieved and experienced. The contributors draw upon the major rethinking of craft and materials within the wider cultural sphere in recent years to deconstruct traditional, oppositional ways of thinking about architectural production. This is not a craft for craft’s sake argument but an effort to embed the tangible findings of conservation and curatorial research within an evidence-led architectural history that illuminates the processes of early modern craftsmanship. The book explores broad themes of surface treatment such as wainscot, rustication, plasterwork, and staircase embellishment together with chapters focused on virtuoso buildings and set pieces which illuminate these themes.

The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries represent a high point in the intersection between design and workmanship. Skilled artisans, creative and technically competent agents within their own field, worked across a wide spectrum of practice that encompassed design, supervision and execution, and architects relied heavily on the experience they brought to the building site. Despite this, the bridge between design and tacit artisanal knowledge has been an underarticulated factor in the architectural achievement of the early modern era. Building on the shift towards a collaborative and qualitative analysis of architectural production, Between Design and Making re-evaluates the social and professional fabric that binds design to making, and reflects on the asymmetry that has emerged between architecture and craft. Combining analysis of buildings, archival material and eighteenth-century writings, the authors draw out the professional, pedagogical and social links between architectural practice and workmanship. They argue for a process-oriented understanding of architectural production, exploring the obscure centre ground of the creative process: the scribbled, sketched, hatched and annotated beginnings of design on the page; the discussions, arguments and revisions in the forging of details; and the grappling with stone, wood and plaster on the building site that pushed projects from conception to completion.

Grinling Gibbons, the most celebrated woodcarver of all times, developed an extraordinary style of realistic foliage carving in limewood. He was a man of his time, born in Rotterdam to English parents, trained in the Netherlands and, as many artists and craftsmen of his generation, moved to England, where he embarked on a spectacular career working on some of England's most iconic buildings. This book, the result of extensive new research, puts Gibbons in the Anglo-Dutch context of the second half of the seventeenth century, shedding new light on his origin, and that of his style, and the work of his contemporaries in the Netherlands and Britain. The book emphasises the importance of Rotterdam and The Hague in Anglo-Dutch relationships and as leading centres for woodcarving. It also elevates the role of wood-carved decoration - ubiquitous in the period and intended to reflect the social standing and ambitions of those who commissioned it, whether it was applied in their apartments, on war ships, carriages or in churches. Last but not least, this book contributes to studies of migrant artisans and exchanges between Britain and the Netherlands - the subjects as relevant in the seventeenth century as today.