Manchester University Press Building Reputations: Architecture and the Artisan, 1750–1830 (Studies in Design and Material Culture)

Building reputations provides a new perspective on a well-known, but widely misunderstood, historic building typology: the eighteenth-century brick terraced (or row) house. Created for the upper tier of the social spectrum, these houses were largely designed and built by what is regarded as the lower tier of the architectural hierarchy, namely artisan bricklayers, carpenters, plasterers and related tradesmen. From London and Dublin to Boston and Philadelphia, terraced houses formed the streets and squares that served as the links and pivots of ‘enlightened’ city plans. Today, they remain central to historic and cultural identities. But while the scenographic quality of Bath and the stuccoed interiors of Dublin have long enjoyed critical approbation, the ‘typical’ house is understood less in terms of design and more in terms of production. Historians have emphasized the commercial motivations of the artisan class, overlooking the particular ways in which that class attempted to satisfy the demands of an elite, taste-conscious real estate market. Drawing on extensive primary source material, from property deeds and architectural drawings to trade cards and newspaper advertising, this book rehabilitates the status of the house builder by examining his negotiation of both the manual and intellectual dimensions of the building process. For the first time, it considers the artisan as both a figure of building production and an agent of architectural taste.