architectura, Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Baukunst (Journal of the History of Architecture), ist eine internationale Zeitschrift mit Aufsätzen – teils in englischer Sprache – zu Themen der Bau- und Architekturgeschichte sowie mit einem regelmäßigen Rezensionsteil. Neben der Historischen Bauforschung widmet sich die Zeitschrift Themen der Bau- und Stadtbaugeschichte sowie der Architekturgeschichte von der Antike bis in die Gegenwart. Die Aufsätze werden durch die Herausgeber und durch unabhängige Berichterstatter (peers) geprüft. Die architectura ist im Arts and Humanities Citation Index und im European Reference Index for the Humanities and the Social Sciences gelistet. Die Zeitschrift erscheint zweimal jährlich – seit 2018 bei De Gruyter, zuvor im Deutschen Kunstverlag.

Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Baukunst  /  Journal of the History of Architecture

architectura

Architectura

<article-title>Frontmatter</article-title>

{"article-title":"Frontmatter"}

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
Since June 2018 the treasuries of the Archaic and early Classical period at Olympia in Southern Greece were explored. The new study is based on the unpublished works of the researcher Klaus Herrmann, who worked about the treasuries since 1968 and died in 2015, with the intention to prepare all the material and information for a final publication. For this reason, a new general plan of all the foundations and new drawings of series of architectural elements not yet recorded as well as computer graphics of the reconstruction of the treasuries were worked out. In this paper especially the treasury of Sikyon and its reused elements in the early Christian walls of the so called Spolienhaus as well as the easternmost treasury of Gela will be presented. Important for these two treasuries are also the older works of the researcher Hans Schleif in the period between 1937 and his death in 1945.
</abstract>

Abstract

<article-title>Neue Forschungen zur Rekonstruktion der Schatzhäuser von Olympia – Ein Zwischenbericht</article-title>

Neue Forschungen zur Rekonstruktion der Schatzhäuser von Olympia – Ein Zwischenbericht

Nach Vorarbeiten von Klaus Herrmann und Hans Schleif

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
The author presents a newly discovered architectural drawing which shows one of the two identical portals in the reading room of the Biblioteca Laurenziana in Florence. The drawing is attributed to Michelangelo by the author and compared with two other drawings by the artist, one of which connects the Cloister with the vestibule of the Library and another that leads from the vestibule to the reading room. The present drawing has close visual similarities with both the drawings generally accepted as Michelangelo’s. However, it is distinguished by a double pediment that combines a triangular structure with a rounded one. In addition, it is designed in a perspectival manner that takes into account the depth of the opening and of its pediment. All three drawings have the same overall proportions, corresponding to the ›divina proportione‹. The openings in the three drawings have a quotient that is identical with the square root of five. The handwriting within the opening appears to be identical with Michelangelo’s hand.
</abstract>

<article-title>Überlegungen zu einer neu entdeckten Architekturzeichnung Michelangelos</article-title>

Überlegungen zu einer neu entdeckten Architekturzeichnung Michelangelos

{"article-title":"Überlegungen zu einer neu entdeckten Architekturzeichnung Michelangelos"}

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
This paper examines an unusual heptagonal floor plan drawing held by the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The drawing is identified as an early design plan (ca. 1606) for the heptagonal Marian Pilgrimage church at Scherpenheuvel/Montaigu (Belgium). After describing the drawing in detail and attributing it to Wenzeslas Cobergher, the paper interprets the ground plan against the backdrop of the design process of the domed Sanctuary as well as in the broader context of Scherpenheuvel’s transformation into a symbolic and programmatic Pilgrimage ensemble by the sovereigns of the Spanish Netherlands, Archduke Albert VII of Austria and Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia. With a view to the Italian architectural tradition, considerations are given to the ground plan’s geometry, its elevation and symbolic architectural motifs, before it is compared with the realized ground plan of the Pilgrimage church in Scherpenheuvel.
</abstract>

<article-title>Wenceslas Coberghers Grundrissentwurf für die siebeneckige Marienwallfahrtskirche in Scherpenheuvel/Montaigu</article-title>

Wenceslas Coberghers Grundrissentwurf für die siebeneckige Marienwallfahrtskirche in Scherpenheuvel/Montaigu

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
Our study focuses on the development of Central European town-hall-architecture from the 1860s to the First World War. We compare the town-hall-architecture of two countries: the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (1867) and Germany (1871). Both states were born pursuant to public law in this period, as well. This fact as well as the similar political, economic and cultural conditions led to similar public construction works. The increasing power of the bourgeoisie was also reflected by architecture; therefore a large number of town halls were built in this period.
In our study, we analyse the functional system and the architectural design of the town halls of this region based on their façades, style and mass, thus placing the close cultural relations of the two states subject to our examination into a new perspective.
</abstract>

<article-title>Parallels in German, Austrian and Hungarian Town-Hall-Architecture during the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy (1867–1918)</article-title>

Parallels in German, Austrian and Hungarian Town-Hall-Architecture during the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy (1867–1918)

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
The Casa Madre dei Mutilati in Rome is one of the lesser-known works of the architect Marcello Piacentini (1881–1960). Its history is closely linked to the dramatic events of the First World War and to the resulting association of Italian war invalids. The architecture reacts to the self-interpretation of the war invalids as living martyrs and has a meaningful and representative task. In the short period before the consolidation of Mussolini’s fascist regime, a modern style is manifested here, which attempts to combine classicism and avant-garde before the typical abstraction of the thirties. The tradition of Italian architectural history is still present without falling into a monumental formalism.
</abstract>

<article-title>Marcello Piacentinis Casa Madre dei Mutilati in Rom</article-title>

Marcello Piacentinis Casa Madre dei Mutilati in Rom

{"article-title":"Marcello Piacentinis Casa Madre dei Mutilati in Rom"}

<article-title>Physical Models. Their historical and current use in civil and building engineering design (Edition Bautechnikgeschichte/Construction History Series)</article-title>

Physical Models. Their historical and current use in civil and building engineering design (Edition Bautechnikgeschichte/Construction History Series)

<div>
Fritz Schumacher (1869 –1947) is undoubtedly one of the most important early 20th German architects and writers, though regrettably today he is little-known outside of architectural history circles in Germany. Perhaps the main problem is that he is difficult to categorize. He doesn’t fit into the usual modernist narrative dominated by the Bauhaus, and the rather nebulous label ›traditionalist‹, under which he and other architects such as Paul Bonatz and Paul Schmitthenner are typically categorized, is often defined primarily as being in opposition to modernism. Schumacher’s work demands more careful examination than this simplistic category would suggest; of course, the more serious problem is that any architect labelled a traditionalist is automatically associated with National Socialism by default. In Schumacher’s case in particular this is not really fair, but this negative association does explain to some extent why he is lesser known. On the other hand, it may be said that his most significant design achievement was not that he established an easily recognizable architectural style, but rather that he was able to brilliantly move between the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning to realize his synthetic vision of the modern metropolis. Finally, one of Schumacher’s career strengths is actually a limitation in terms of broader historic recognition: the majority of his important works are located in the city of Hamburg, where he was city building director from 1909 to 1933. He was not a significant player in the architectural scenes in the two German cities most celebrated for modernism, Berlin and Frankfurt Main, another possible reason why he has fallen through the historiographical cracks. Fortunately, we now have an excellent biographical study by Hartmut Frank that gives this figure the careful attention deserved, titled simply <italic>Fritz Schumacher</italic>. Frank is clearly the ideal person for this task, since he has been researching and writing about Schumacher over the past several decades, while living and teaching in and among Schumacher’s buildings in Hamburg at the same time. One of the main themes in Frank’s work is that more serious attention should be paid to the various manifestations of traditionalist architecture in early 20th Germany, as a field of equal importance to the more familiar Weimar modernism. In his seminal 1985 essay, »What Language do the Stones Speak / Welche Sprache sprechen die Steine«, for example, he argues that the virtues of architectural form may be analysed independently from the political rhetoric of the period, without detracting from political histories as such. <fn id="j_atc-2019-1007_fn_001" symbol="1">Frank, Hartmut: Welche Sprache sprechen die Steine, in: Frank, Hartmut (Ed.): Faschistische Architekturen. Planen und Bauen in Europa 1930 bis 1945. Hamburg 1985, 7–21.</fn>
For this biographical study, Frank employs an engaging narrative style, beginning with detailed accounts of the young architect’s formative years. An entire chapter is devoted to his stage set designs, for according to Frank, Schumacher’s architectural work cannot be fully understood without some appreciation of this background. Schumacher designed buildings as though they were »stages for everyday life« (in Frank’s words), which were not determined primarily by function and construction technique, but more significantly by the architect’s desire to create places with powerful emotive and spatial effects (p. 85). Frank explains that not only were his interiors thus designed as complex spatial sequences, but also that the interior programme was reflected in the exterior building form, which in turn shaped the surrounding urban space. In the early phases of his urban design thinking, Schumacher was strongly influenced by Camillo Sitte, but soon embraced Albert Erich Brinckmann’s emphasis on new perceptual theories, particularly <italic>Raumkunst</italic>, which may be translated as ›the design of space‹, or ›spatial art‹ (pp. 129 –131). When he began his urban design work in Hamburg, Schumacher was concerned not only with building design, but the sum total of urban spaces, including greenspaces, as part of the overall ensemble. However, the architect soon began to focus on technical and social issues, leading him to consider the spatial relationship between monumental public buildings and ordinary privately-owned ones as a social design problem.
Frank provides a lengthy illustrated analysis of Schumacher’s urban planning for the city of Cologne, arguably his most important work in the field. In 1919, the mayor of Cologne, Konrad Adenauer, invited Schumacher to submit an urban design proposal for the large inner and outer half-rings of land surrounding the city, where military fortifications had once stood; Schumacher’s scheme won favour over those by his colleagues Hermann Jansen and Alfred Stooß, and he remained in Cologne until 1923, whereupon he returned to Hamburg. Schumacher succeeded in creating a unified composition of apartment blocks, monumental buildings, and greenspaces, all thoroughly integrated within the existing city fabric. As full perimeter block structures, the apartment blocks were treated as constituent elements that spatially defined not only the streets, but also the greenspaces, thus creating a new urban landscape. Frank informs us that unlike many of his colleagues, Schumacher took a wholly positive attitude towards the metropolis; for example, he cited this passage from Nietzsche in support of his own views: »Someday humanity will become a tree overshadowing the whole earth, with many billions of flowers.« (p. 189). For Schumacher, it was a matter of redesigning the city as a socially-oriented <italic>Gesamtkunstwerk</italic>, which would serve as a future location of higher culture (p. 242). His Cologne schemes were his greatest gesture in this direction, yet many of his smaller urban design projects in Hamburg still actively contribute to the quality of life in that city.
In terms of architectural expression, from the time of his appointment as Hamburg city building director in 1909 until his dismissal from that position in 1933 in the Nazi era, his buildings were predominately faced in brick as a subtle gesture towards the historic building traditions in northern Germany. While his pre-World War I buildings incorporated creative references to historic models, his post-World War I buildings were increasingly abstract – yet the reference to historic brick architecture remained. Frank notes that even though he claimed not to understand the abstract paintings of Mondrian, Schumacher appreciated the work of the Dutch modernist architect Jacobus Johannes Pieter Oud. However, Schumacher reserved his greatest admiration for the Dutch architect Willem Marinus Dudok, who was influenced by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. Frank reminds the reader that Schumacher’s turn towards abstraction may still be understood as another manifestation of his work in theatrical set design, which he continued after World War I. Schumacher was not openly hostile to modernism and did not refer to it as being ›degenerate‹, rather he considered much of it tobe modish and superficial (p. 263). According to Frank, Schumacher believed that the modern was not an aesthetic phenomenon, but an aspect of industrialized society.
<fig id="j_atc-2019-1007_fig_001" position="float" fig-type="figure">
<caption>Fritz Schumacher: Hamburg-Ohlsdorf, New Crematory, view from west, 1930–1933</caption>
<graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="graphic/j_atc-2019-1007_fig_001.jpg"/>
</fig>
In a 1929 essay, Schumacher attempted to define his own theory of architectural composition, not in terms of functionalism or constructivism, but rather through essential principles:
»[…] our spirit is bound to measure and number. Its means of expression derive from measure and number, they are the means of expressing proportions. Relationships of numbers and measures form the abstract language of art in tones, in colours, in forms and in movements. If the art of architecture aims at defining space, then it is through the relationships among lines, surfaces, curves and bodies that it speaks.« (p. 290).
Frank discusses Schumacher’s Berne public school (1929/30) and Ohlsdorf Crematorium in Hamburg as examples of this later, more minimalistic work, which continues to attest to his compositional skills. Schumacher ceased to build entirely after he was dismissed in 1933, focusing instead on his writing.
In the years before World War II, Schumacher enjoyed international recognition, with the American architectural critic Lewis Mumford being one of his greatest admirers; Frank has located a letter exchange between them in the latter’s papers in the US. In Mumford’s 1946 book, <italic>Values for Survival</italic>, he includes a fictitious letter addressed »To Dr. Hermann K.«, whom Frank identifies as Schumacher. In this letter, Mumford gives what is probably the highest appraisal of the German architect’s work in English to that point:
»You were indeed a master builder and you had left a mark on Hamburg comparable to that which Sir Christopher Wren had left on London: at almost any point in the city, one had only to raise one’s eyes to see a school, a housing development, a museum, an office building which you had created. Before the first World War your buildings were […] perhaps the freshest expression of tradition: the old brick Gothic tradition of Hansa towns. After the war, you learned to play freely with materials and technical innovations; but your buildings, however <italic>sachlich</italic>, never lost the human touch: the most economical structure bore the imprint of your imagination […] When you retired in 1933 you were a man tobe envied.« (pp. 299f.).
However, immediately following these words of praise, Mumford strongly condemned his German colleague for not actively speaking out against the Nazis, which for him meant that he had been complicit – Mumford’s negative feelings are understandable since his only son was killed fighting the Nazi German army. Mumford’s open condemnation gives some idea as to why Schumacher has been largely ignored by English-speaking historians.
In fact, Schumacher had joined the group of architects known as the <italic>Block</italic>, founded by the arch-conservative anti-Semite architect Paul Schultze-Naumburg in 1928. Writing retrospectively after World War II, Schumacher claimed that he had made an »ostentatious exit«, due to his strong disapproval of Schultze-Naumburg’s radical, racist programme (p. 268). Yet in his writings of the 1930s, he did not mention this alleged episode in such terms. In any case, Frank observes that the architect had been a follower of the liberal German Democratic Party before the Nazi takeover; thus in spite of being somewhat conservative in the architectural sense, Schumacher cannot really be classified among those who openly collaborated with the Nazis. Nevertheless, the post-World War II situation was so heavily burdened by the recent Nazi past that anything remotely associated with traditionalism was suspect. Frank gives us a relevant anecdote: after World War II yellow bricks were brought in from elsewhere to clad a new housing block in Hamburg, in order to avoid using the local red bricks, which were then considered ideologically tainted. Some of Schumacher’s redbrick structures in the Hamburg City Park, such as an elaborate fountain with terraces, were demolished in the 1950s with no protest, which Frank blames on similar negative psychological associations.
Frank’s biographical portrait of this important 20th German architect provides us with a balanced, detailed treatment of the man and his work. If one may point to any shortcoming, it is Frank’s reticence to include any details from Schumacher’s personal life, which the author claims is due to the fact that the architect’s papers were destroyed by wartime bombing. However, given that some of Schumacher’s letters were located in Mumford’s own papers, for example, it seems that by consulting other collections, public and private, it would still be possible to construct at least a limited narrative on his personal life. And in the current era, it would clearly be appropriate to mention that the fact that Schumacher never married may reflect upon his sexual orientation. Hopefully an English-language edition will appear in the near future, which could benefit from an additional section devoted to Schumacher’s private life, as further augmentation to Frank’s thoroughly researched and considered study of this important figure.
<bold>Credit</bold>
Hartmut Frank: Fritz Schumacher. Hamburg 2020, 303
</div>

<article-title>Hartmut Frank: Fritz Schumacher. Hamburg: Ellert &amp; Richter Verlag 2020</article-title>

Hartmut Frank: Fritz Schumacher. Hamburg: Ellert & Richter Verlag 2020

{"article-title":"Hartmut Frank: Fritz Schumacher. Hamburg: Ellert & Richter Verlag 2020"}

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Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Klaus Tragbar <A href="https://www.uibk.ac.at/fakultaeten/architektur/mitarbeiterinnen/#bauarchiv">Universität Innsbruck, Institut für Architekturtheorie und Baugeschichte</A> Technikerstraße 21, A-6020 Innsbruck, Österreich <A href="mailto:klaus.tragbar@uibk.ac.at">klaus.tragbar@uibk.ac.at</A> Prof. Dr.-Ing. Andreas Schwarting <A href="https://www.htwg-konstanz.de/master/architektur/personen/professoren/professoren/prof-dring-andreas-schwarting/">Hochschule Konstanz</A> Brauneggerstraße 55, D-78462 Konstanz <A href="mailto:andreas.schwarting@htwg-konstanz.de">andreas.schwarting@htwg-konstanz.de</A> Prof. Barry Bergdoll <A href="http://www.columbia.edu/cu/arthistory/faculty/Bergdoll.html">Columbia University, Art History and Archaeology</A> 1190 Amsterdam Ave., New York, NY 10027, USA <A href="mailto:bgb1@columbia.edu">bgb1@columbia.edu</A>

Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Klaus Tragbar <A href="https://www.uibk.ac.at/fakultaeten/architektur/mitarbeiterinnen/#bauarchiv">Universität Innsbruck, Institut für Architekturtheorie und Baugeschichte</A> Technikerstraße 21, A-6020 Innsbruck, Österreich <A href="mailto:klaus.tragbar@uibk.ac.at">klaus.tragbar@uibk.ac.at</A> Prof. Dr.-Ing. Andreas Schwarting <A href="https://www.htwg-konstanz.de/master/architektur/personen/professoren/professoren/prof-dring-andreas-schwarting/">Hochschule Konstanz</A> Brauneggerstraße 55, D-78462 Konstanz <A href="mailto:andreas.schwarting@htwg-konstanz.de">andreas.schwarting@htwg-konstanz.de</A> Prof. Barry Bergdoll <A href="http://www.columbia.edu/cu/arthistory/faculty/Bergdoll.html">Columbia University, Art History and Archaeology</A> 1190 Amsterdam Ave., New York, NY 10027, USA <A href="mailto:bgb1@columbia.edu">bgb1@columbia.edu</A>

»architectura«, the German-English journal on building research has been published since 1971, edited by Professor Dorothée Sack and Professor Cramer (TU Berlin) since 2003. It focuses on historic and archaeological building research, as well as newer building history and history of architecture, until today.

Die architectura erscheint seit 1971. Von 2003 bis 2014 wurde sie von Dorothée Sack und Johannes Cramer (Technische Universität Berlin) herausgegeben.

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Wenceslas Coberghers Grundrissentwurf für die siebeneckige Marienwallfahrtskirche in Scherpenheuvel/Montaigu

Anke Naujokat

From the Journal: Architectura

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/atc-2019-1003

Published online:

19 Nov 2021

Abstract

Other Articles in this Issue:

architectura Issues

Volume 51 (2021)

Volume 50 (2020)

Volume 49 (2019)

Volume 48 (2018)

Volume 47 (2017)

Volume 46 (2016)

Volume 45 (2015)

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