This paper analyzes the role of master-builders in the practice of architecture in Brazil's colonial towns and cities,with its focus on the method of contracting by stages, and the role of sketches and outlines when designing, erecting and valuing buildings, and for rendering accounts. The notion of a single author is critically examined and the paper points to multiple actors and signatures, analyzes the knowledge required --of practical geometry in particular-- and discusses the dialectical relationship between theory and practice, as well as the tenuous boundaries between erudition and custom.
Villages and towns; Architecture; Master-builders; Colonial Brazil
