Architecture : $b nineteenth and twentieth centuriesHitchcock, Henry-Russell
History
Architecture : $b nineteenth and twentieth centuries
Hitchcock, Henry-Russell
Architecture, Modern -- 19th century; Architecture, Modern -- 20th century
The Baden architect Friedrich Weinbrenner (1766-1826) was already active
in Strasbourg in the 1790s, and his monument of 1800 to General Desaix
on the Île des Épis, Bas-Rhin, is so French in every way that it
properly finds a place in the official publication by Gourlier and
others of the public works of France in these years. Returning to
Karlsruhe, Weinbrenner began perhaps the most productive architectural
career of any German of his generation, transforming the Baden capital
into a Romantic Classical city somewhat less monumental, but more
coherently exemplary, than Petersburg. His own house there dated from
1801 and his Ettlinger Gate from 1803. In 1804 he began work on the
Marktplatz there, basing himself, however, on earlier projects that he
had made in 1790 and in 1797 (Plate 10A). A Baroque scheme exists on
paper for this square, closing it in with continuous façades and curving
them round the ends. Weinbrenner’s characteristically Romantic Classical
approach to the design of a square is quite different, similar to if
somewhat less open than Friedrich Gilly’s intended setting for the
Frederick the Great Monument (Figure 1). Two balancing but not identical
buildings, each more or less isolated, face each other across the centre
of the oblong space. The other less important structures appear as
separate blocks. Their relative geometrical purity is underlined by the
even purer form of the plain pyramidal monument erected in the centre in
1823. Such had for some time provided favourite decorations in Romantic
gardens, but this was the first to be used as a focal accent in place of
an arch, a column, or an obelisk. The City Hall on one side, with the
associated Lyceum, was begun in 1804 and completed some twenty years
later. The temple-like Evangelical Church which faces the City Hall was
built in 1807-16. Something of the grand scale of the Corinthian portico
on the front of the church is carried over into the interior, where two
tiers of galleries run along the sides behind giant Corinthian nave
colonnades. In the circular Rondellplatz, punctuated eventually by an
obelisk in the centre, there rose in 1805-13 Weinbrenner’s
Markgräfliches Palais, its portico set against the concave quadrant of
the front. His domed Catholic church of 1808-17 was unfortunately
entirely rebuilt in 1880-3.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Architecture : $b nineteenth and twentieth centuries — John Shaqi
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