On 31 May, Utrecht University is organising a symposium on "The Rise of the Architect in the Fifteenth Century" in collaboration with the Architecture Section of the Art History Research School and KNOB. This colloquium aims to bring together recent scholarship on the fifteenth-century architectural practice, and seeks to explore new approaches to the transition from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period.

THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY ARCHITECT
The renaissance is usually recognised as a defining moment for the profession of the architect. For the first time since Antiquity, the Vitruvian concept which distinguishes between builder and designer was accepted in architectural theory, causing a fundamental rupture in architectural practice. However, recent studies on masters working in the gothic style show that in the same period in the north the profession experienced a significant transformation as well. Masters like Rombout Keldermans and Hans Niesenberger – who are today mainly known among experts – were celebrated architects, who were sought after by the most prominent courts and ecclesiastical patrons of their time. Changes in their practice and position show interesting parallels to contemporary architectural practice in central Italy. Such parallels have never been studied in a European context.

After the symposium Dr Merlijn Hurx will present his book Architecture as Profession. The origins of Architectural Practice in the Low Countries in the Fifteenth Century, followed by drinks.

PROGRAMME
15.00 Doors open
15.30 Welcome by board member KNOB
15.35 Introduction by Koen Ottenheym (Utrecht University)

15.45 Anne Christine Brehm (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany)
Ulm Minster: Changes in Building Organisation in the 15th century in Southwest Germany

16.15 Elizabeth Merrill (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science Berlin, Germany)
Drawing, Copying, Treatises and Textbooks: the Education of the Architect in Renaissance Italy

16.45 Krista De Jonge (KULeuven, Belgium)
The Court Architect as Artist in the Southern Low Countries 1520-1560

17.15 Merlijn Hurx (Utrecht University)
The Origins of Architectural Practice in the Low Countries

Book presentation
Grote Kerk

18.00 Offer of first copy to Alderman Alkmaar

18.10 Drinks
19.00 End