Austrian family of architects. From the mid-17th century until well into the mid-18th, members of the Beer family were major figures among the architects and builders of the Vorarlberg, a small mountainous region south-east of Lake Konstanz and at that time part of the Habsburg lands. More than three generations are now documented; most came from the village of Au (now in western Austria). (1) Michael Beer undertook some important ecclesiastical commissions and in 1657 founded the Au Guild (Auer Zunft), where all the major architects of the Vorarlberger Bauschule, including Christian Thumb, Peter Thumb and Caspar Moosbrugger, subsequently trained. Apprentices worked for three years on site as masons, carpenters and stone-carvers but were also given instruction in building technology, materials, geometry, draughtsmanship and cost-assessment; the apprenticeship was followed by two years of travel. Michael's son (2) Franz Beer II was the most prolific of Vorarlberger architects, working over a wide geographical area, while Franz's son (3) Johann Michael Beer II produced some of the most sophisticated of the Vorarlberger projects. The success of the Vorarlberger architects, and of the Beer family specifically, lay in their mobility

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