Geert Medema

Training and working within the family business

Harman van Bolios and his family of builders

Harman van Bolios is known as an builder of waterworks and steeples in and aroudd Sint Petersburg. He travelled from the Dutch republic with extensive knowledge of the building of sluices and mills. It was this specific knowledge which helped him to be a success in his new adopted country.

The family Van Bol’es, Van Bolios is a russification of this Dutch name, meanwhile made a large impression on the small town of Schiedam. Hamens father, Cornelis Harmensz van Bol’es, was appointed as town architect in 1690. Three successive generations of his descendants would hold this post. Although a relatively small town within the province of Holland, Schiedam became very prosperous in the eighteenth century because of a blooming Geneva of gin industry. This new wealth made an ambitious public building scheme possible. As town architects the Van Bol’es family would meet this demand in varying degrees of success.

The lecture will focus on the family Van Bol’es, the training an education within the family business and the works of the successive town architects in Schiedam.