Paul Decker
architect and engineer; b. 1667 (at Nürnberg, Germany); d. 1713.
In 1699 Decker went to Berlin and was associated with Andreas Schlüter. In 1707 he was appointed court architect at Bayreuth (Bavaria). His Fürstlicher Baumeister was published after his death. It has been recently republished with an introduction by R. Dohme (Berlin, 1885, 1 vol. folio).
Johann Friedrich Eosander
architect; b. 1670, in Gothland, Sweden; d. 1729, at Dresden.
Eosander travelled in Italy and France, and, in 1699, settled in Berlin as court architect of the Elector Friedrich III, of Brandenburg. He was a rival of Andreas Schlüter, and superseded him as director of the works at the royal palace (Schloss) in Berlin. He enlarged Charlottenburg, and built Monbijou, Schönhausen (1704), and Oranienburg (1706-1709), near Berlin. In 1704 Eosander served as ambassador of the court of Berlin to Carl XII of Poland. In 1722 he served as general lieutenant in the army of Saxony.
Martin Grünberg
architect.
After March 24, 1699, he was royal director of buildings at Berlin, Prussia. He built the Kölnische Rathhaus, and the Garnisonkirche, and began the Friedrichs Hospital, all in Berlin.
Sir John Vanbrugh
dramatist and architect; b. January 24, 1664?; d. March 26, 1726
Vanbrugh devoted the early part of his life to literature and distinguished himself as a dramatist. In 1702 he succeeded Talman as comptroller of the royal works. His first completed works was a theater (1703-1705) in London, afterward destroyed. In 1701 he began for the Earl of Carlisle the palace called Castle Howard in Yorkshire, England. As a reward for the distinguished services of John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, the royal manor of Woodstock (England) was granted to him and to his heirs by act of Parliament of March 14, 1705, with half a million pounds to build the great palace called Blenheim, which is Vanbrugh's most important and characteristic work. In 1716 he succeeded Sir Christopher Wren as surveyor of Greenwich Hospital (London). Among the residences built by Vanbrugh are Eastbury in Dorsetshire (1716-1718), Seaton Delaval (1720), portions of Audley End (1721), Grimsthrope (1722-1724), etc.
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First, that what Vanbrugh and Hawksmoor did was, for their time, original, and that being original, it was difficult for many people to accept. And secondly, and more interestingly, that is a real sense their work was indecorous, that it traduced traditions while still using them and at a time when traditions were themselves a part of general culture and important and accepted.
David Cast, 1984.
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