A healthy and comfortable indoor climate as nineteenth-century design task

Abstract

Thus far, the nineteenth-century history of the technical control of the indoor climate in buildings (ventilation, heating, regulation of humidity) in the Netherlands has received scant attention. This article shows that the topic requires an interdisciplinary approach because it entails cultural history, scientific history and technical aspects. Cultural history because the demand for greater comfort and the growth of night-time entertainment in the nineteenth century reinforced the demand for some form of indoor climate control. Scientific history because both the causes of a poor indoor climate and its impact on human beings were the subject of intensive research and growing understanding. And finally technical, because technical solutions aimed at improving the indoor climate (up to and including establishing workable air, ventilation and heating standards) became increasingly important for Dutch architects and for a professional group that made unprecedented strides in the nineteenth century: the engineers. After first introducing the reader to the theoretical concepts of the above-mentioned aspects, the article proceeds to test and illustrate this ‘paper reality’ in light of an actual case, the construction of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam from 1883-1886. Architect A.L. van Gendt and engineers worked together here, employing a combination of architecture and technical systems to create a ‘climate machine’ capable of further enhancing a concert hall with excellent acoustics. The ambition was to turn the Concertgebouw into a cultural temple in which an ingenious ventilation and heating system ensured that the orchestra was as comfortable during rehearsals and performances as the audience during the concert and the interval. To give some idea of this ‘climate machine’: the heating system consisted of bricked-in furnaces in the building’s basement. Fresh air was channelled from the garden into the heating chamber. Once heated, a large ventilator pushed the warm air through a humidifying chamber and from there into all the rooms and spaces in the building. In the concert hall the removal of stale air was linked to the gas lighting system: the caissons in the hall’s coffered ceiling were fitted with ventilation rosettes; the heat from the open gas lighting helped to create sufficient draught to remove the stale air naturally. As a consequence of the huge technological advances in air conditioning during the twentieth century, many of the original nineteenth-century innovations and technical systems have since disappeared. Knowledge of and insight into the way people in the nineteenth century tried to create a healthy and comfortable indoor climate can help historians, architects and consultants involved in renovation and repurposing to correctly interpret and appreciate surviving elements of such climate designs.