Renovating early modern Leiden: new perspectives on the building trades

What is still missing in construction history is an understanding of the submarket for renovation, maintenance and repair work - a submarket that probably had a larger turnover than new construction, but bare-ly left any paper trails in the past. However, insight into the working of this submarket is required before we can even start analysing how building contractors and building craftsmen divided their activities between new con-struction and renovation. This paper uses 100 well-documented histories of houses along the Rapenburg in Lei-den (The Netherlands), detects renovation cycles and analyses their main characteristics and determinants. Ren-ovation offered the actors in the building process many opportunities but involved certain risks as well. At-tempts to manage risk can be seen in their entrepreneurial strategies.

ISBN:978-1-138-58414-3

Jaar van publicatie:2018

Trefwoorden:Private Housing, Renovation works, Entrepreneurs, Early Modern Period, Leiden (The Netherlands)