De wetenschap om de Delftse toga. Een verhaal van benoemingen en herbenoemingen

Abstract

Between drawing table and slide ride: 'shop culture' versus 'school culture' at the Polytechnic School of Delft Monte Calvert's concepts 'shop culture' and 'school culture' point to an important 'culture gap' in the early stages of the academization of mechanical engineering. 'Shop culture' denoted the professional world of the traditional, trained-on-the-job factory engineer; 'school culture' that of the theoretically trained and often academically schooled professors at the new polytechnic schools. In general, the gap divided the 'workshop' (practical, realistic, enterprising) from the 'academy' (theoretical, formal, circumspect), but in some cases it could also be found within the academy. Such was the case at the Polytechnic School of Delft, where a painful conflict between the protagonists of both traditions simmered from the establishment of a diploma in mechanical engineering in 1864 until the turn of the century. This conflict can also be interpreted as the gradual academization of mechanical engineering or, in other words, as the establishment of a social division of labour within mechanical engineering. In abstract terms this conflict could be found everywhere, but the technical, institutional and personal factors differed from place to place. At Delft the issue centred on the person of Adrien Huet, a trainee of the former Royal Academy and the first teacher of mechanical engineering at the P.S. His 'shop culture' conceptions of mechanical engineering persisted for a long time at the P.S., in spite of the appointment of one of his pupils (and adherent of the 'school culture') H.A. Ravenek, first as co-teacher in 1874 and finally, in 1879, as professor. Partly because of his views and his many open collisions with the technical establishment, Huet had to wait until 1896 to achieve the same position. Only after his death in 1899 was the way cleared for a full- fledged academization of mechanical engineering directed by Ravenek.