Architecture of Nuremberg in 19 Century, Essay Example

The history of architecture of religious building

From the beginning, one of the most important parts of Christianity has been the gathering of people to worship together. By the virtue of the activity of worshiping, the question of the place of worship (church) has forever been endowed with a symbolic form. A church is a place where Christians gather to worship. A review of literature shows that, when believers build their place of worship, they look for the physical form that express their vision, faith and form.  The religion form, is supposed to reflect specific character, mission or the need of the congregation, while referring to the universal nature of the church[1]. The search of particular form is guided by a number of questions that the believers ask themselves. Such question include, how does our faith and worship shape our place of worship, what are our needs, how do we design and build our place of worship to reflect our faith, and worship, what kind of the resource will we require to build this kind of building. The manners in which the congregation examines this issue and implement their vision have generated a rich history of church architecture.  This paper document the evolution of architecture of the building with reference to the church building from 17 century to 19 century.

The 19^th century is referred to as the longer period in the history of architecture. This is because, in this era, the architecture turned from to the past and the previous style using them in a new approach.  This period roughly begins towards the end of the 18^th century and ended in about the second decade of the 20^th century.

The period of 1750 to 1870 was an era of changes and architectural evolution of all fonts.  Another architect suggests that the era reflected social ferment in the return of the past eras as well as a highly innovative search of other means of expressing new ideas and the way of thinking and living.  During this era much architecture observed and drew the existing building and carried home their finding for reuse in many other forms. At the same time, other architects turned away from the past abstract of thinking toward a new style. The result was that during this period a diverse body of architecture ranging from town planning, building designs such as Roman, Greek, Etruscan, Gothic and Renaissance, emerged[2]. This trend is also evidenced by the evolution of church building, as we will discuss in the chapter below.

Baroque as style

During the 18th and 19th century baroque was the dominant style in most of the Roman Catholic churches. Roman Catholic and the rest of Europe building in the 17th century, reveals in a new artistic style embracing architecture as well as painting and sculpture, in contexts such as building interiors –including churches. The baroque style combines all three arts in an unprecedented way to create a sense of emotional exuberance. The mood created by the style is dignified and often a severe masterpiece of the Renaissance[3]. Baroque is sometime referred to as barrocco – a Greek word. The termbarocco is often used to suggest disapproval. The baroque style indulges in unbalanced and excess qualities, which turned out to be advantageous in the Roman churches. The Roman Catholic is the natural home of baroque. This is because it moods suit the messages of the Counter Reformation. Here, the protestant reformers are seen as argumentative, unreasonable and distrustful of any authority other than that of the holy wilt.  Following the argument of the St Peters in Rome, numerous churches were built and decorated in baroque style, to match the church message. In churches with baroque style, the faithful is welcomed by a row of saints, gesturing eagerly in stone from a clove or roof. Inside these churches, the light falls on a mingling curve of columns and altars and sculptured groups breaking up the solidity of the sidewalls.

Giovanni Lorenzo is among the architect who played a greater role in the transformation of Rome to baroque city.  Lorenzo contributed in ways such as, in 1633, he completed building a bronze canopy held up by four twisting columns. The structure was known as the baldaccchino. It was at the heart of the St. Peter’s church- above the tomb and below the dome[4]. Benin is the other contribution of Lorenzo. It is a piece of pure theater above the alter at the far end of the church of the St Peters Church.

After the baroque style, the neo- classism style followed.  At this time The architectural taste  turned to a calmer architectural detail of the ancient Greece or Rome to the classical vocabulary. The name of classism originated from the Latin language. It refers to the classical ancient art and architecture.

The transition from the baroque to the classicism happened gradually. The architecture developed systematically to what is now know as Neo-Classicism or just classism. The geometry and architectural forms displaced gently the unbound, arched baroque and Rocco forms.  Another thing that fueled the shift from the baroque was the critics of Roccoforms, whose undisciplined frivolity was contrasted with the belle simplicity of antiquity. With the classicism the architectural details become gradually calmer and simpler, gradually replacing the baroque form. In fact the last phase of baroque existed to gather with the early neoclassicism.

In a around 1750 the archeological revival and the return of nature fostered the emergence of the new architecture idiom.  In this idiom certain features such as simple masses and monochrome surface and elementally geography, simple masses recurred constantly.

The neoclassic with their simple geometry form were contrasted with the surrounding landscape.  Romanticism appeared after the neoclassicism in about 1770. The word romanticism originated from French word Roman, which was taken to mean novel[5]. It is during the period of romanticisms when the architect turned into gothic style, medieval style and Romanesque style.  Opposite to the neo classism, the middle ages become the ideal of Christian civilization. The connection of Christianity and the gothic came into the architect theory and practice. Soon the European countries claimed gothic as its national architecture.

The Romanesque and gothic churches

In the 18^th century the Christianity continued to grow and develop. During this period an important shift in emphasis began to reshape social and physical structure. Christens developed the need to build cities and express them as city of God. This period is called Romanesque due to the reappearance of strong civic order. The architects of this period express such order. An example of such building is the protestant church of sant’Egindo. The church was probably built in 1711-1718. It is perhaps the only surviving church in Nuberemberg baroque and Romanesque style. The church is located in the piazza sant’Egidio in the transtevere district in Rome. The church was built on a site where another church called san Lorenzo de Janiculo stood. The san Lorenzo church was tone down to create space for an extra convent. At the same time the san Biago become sant’Edigo.  The church is characterized by a huge door and equally big widow. The pilaster supports the tympanum. The church consists of a single nave.

As mentioned above the 18^th century marked rapid growth of Christianity. During this period, the spread of Christianity was more rampant. More churches built at this age have a gothic style. The evolution of the religious building architecture toward gothic style was fueled by the hard task the architecture were facing.  Such need includes lighting, fitting more people into the nave and structural integrity of the large building.  Faced with these challenges, one of the options was to side aisles or a three party structure of the nave with clerestory.  Later, in order to improve lighting, create for more space, and dematerialize the stone building led to the adoption of the gothic form in most of the public building.

To improve the lighting, heavy Romanesque wall were replaced window screen; this design brought more light and created a feeling of immaturity and lightness of the wall. Further, to make the building more light heavy column were replaced by the ribbed shaft of piers that flow into the ribs of the vault and create a sense of lightness.

Moreover, incorporation of symbolism became a requirement in most of the religious building in this age. This is because; during this age Christians become more sensitive of the symbolism and theology in the church building. As a result Architect seriously took this vision seriously and incorporated a number of sculptures in the churches and other religious buildings. For instance; the Christ in glory, the triumph of Mary the Virgin in heaven and the last judgment sculptures were incorporated in most of the church buildings. The classical style was therefore well suited to public buildings and the Gothic style of the religious building. These ideas recurred throughout the 19^th century.

Through the 19th century, original gothic style, evolved into neo-gothic. The difference between the original-gothic style and the neo gothic was economic and technical. The neo gothic style competed with other style such as Greek revival, well since it had the economy by the stones lintels that are required to span large opening in the Greek temple were expensive. It cost conscious architectures pointed out that gothic arches could be build in brick and cheap clad stones. In England and wale more than 2500 Anglican churches were built between 1820 t0 1850. Most of these churches were in gothic.  When the struggle between the classes is and gothic begun to subside, other style took place[6].

The renaissance church

As mention earlier the 19th century, the architecture turned from to the pasts and the previous style using them in a new approach. In about 1830s and 40s, the new neo-style such as neo-renaissance and neo-baroque is applied. The renaissance period was characterized by increased faith in mankind as God’s creation.  From the appearance of the neo-renaissance, the next period is called the eclecticism.  The name Eclecticism, originate from Greek word which mean selecting according to the quality. It is in this era where electricity was discovered which influenced the architectural form. From this time the approach of the classical tradition underwent a renewal[7].  In this era, we find new social and aesthetic in architecture. The client in this era wanted aesthetic as well as quality.

In the beginning of the electric period was when the architecture turned into Renaissance style, the past architecture begun to reemerge. The Neo- Renaissance style was followed by neo-baroque, in this era, the architects begun to select from previous styles. During this time, in term of the topological eclecticism, there was an even distribution according to the type and style. Neoclassic style was particularly well suited to public buildings and neo gothic was well suited to the religious building such as churches.  This ideal constantly reoccurred though out the 19^thcentury.  During this time, it was common for building to use neoclassicism and neo gothic style. The already rich architectural culture continued to take different shade and form until the end of century.

Beside style, the material used to buildings also rapidly changed in the 19^th century.  Before the 19^th century wood and stone were natural materials that were available for the architectures. In addition tiles which were not natural material were also used.  During the industrial age new material such as iron, glass and concrete were introduced. However, in the early 19^th century the new introduced material did not bring a new form. It is only when it was possible to produce iron in large quantities that it changed the architectures.  The iron made it possible to enabled building of pen, linear and articulated frame[8].  The incorporation of this material gained momentum in the 20^th century.

In conclusion, the 19^th century is referred to as the longer period in history of architecture. This is because, in this era, the architecture turned from to the pasts and the previous style using them in a new approach. The evolution of the architect of religious building has moved from the baroque in the 17^th century. After the baroque style, the neo- classism style followed.  At this time, the architectural taste turned to calmer architectural details of the ancient Greece or Rome to the classical vocabulary. Romanticism appeared after the neo-classicism in about 1770. The word romanticism originated from French word Roman, which was taken to mean novel. It is during the period of romanticisms when the architect turned into gothic style, medieval style and Romanesque style.

Bibliography

Beat Kumin, “The communal age in western europe c. 1100-1800” University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999. Print.

Fraser, Valerie. The Architecture of Conquest: Building in the Viceroyalty of Peru, 1535-1635. Cambridge [England: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Print.

Paul M. Hohenberg and Lynn Hollen Lees . The making of Urban Europe 1000-1994″. Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, 2011. Print

Peters, Tom F. Building the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1996. Print.

Stephen, Brockmann, N. The imaginary Capital”. New York: Berghahn Books, 2008. Print.

[1] Fraser, Valerie. The Architecture of Conquest: Building in the Viceroyalty of Peru, 1535-1635. Cambridge [England: Cambridge University Press, 1990,p.166.

[2] Beat Kumin, “The communal age in western europe c. 1100-1800” University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999,p.130.

[3] Peters, Tom F. Building the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1996, p.120.

[4] Fraser, Valerie. The Architecture of Conquest: Building in the Viceroyalty of Peru, 1535-1635. Cambridge [England: Cambridge University Press, 1990, p.133.

[5] Stephen, Brockmann, N. The imaginary Capital”. New York: Berghahn Books, 2008,p.198-201.

[6] Beat Kumin, “The communal age in western europe c. 1100-1800″ University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999, p.120.

[7] Stephen, Brockmann, N. The imaginary Capital”. New York: Berghahn Books, 2008, p.188.

[8] Paul M. Hohenberg and Lynn Hollen Lees . The making of Urban Europe 1000-1994″. Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, 2011, p.133.