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PROTESTANT CHURCH ARCHITECTURE OF THE 16 TH-18TH CENTURIES IN EUROPE Jan Harasimowicz The task of presenting a comprehensive picture of Protestant ecclesiastical architecture in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries in the whole of Europe seems particularly complex not only for the diversity of artistic and technological traditions informing architectural developments in various countries (this factor being relevant to Catholic projects as well) but also because of the profound doctrinal differences between Protestant communities which arose as a result of the Reformation and Lutheran and Calvinist confessionalization. If one finds it difficult to identify the connection between the churches of Saxony and Wuerttemberg, both of them Lutheran countries, what common features would supposedly characterize the Anglican churches and those built by the French Huguenots, Dutch Mennonites, Bohemian Brothers and Polish Brothers (Arians)? The “Christian freedom” proclaimed by the Reformation warranted unlimited approaches to the creation of the place of worship, including, on the one hand, its virtual absence in the radical stream of Anabaptism or Spiritualism and on the other, enforcing strict rules concerning the church’s layout, architecture, and decoration, like in the case of the communities of the Moravian Brothers in architectural matters subjected to the supervision of the Supreme Building Council in Herrnhut. And yet, except for the Anglican churches which appear to have more in common with the Catholic churches of France and Italy than with the Protestant churches of Germany, Holland, Switzerland, and Poland, certain features may be identified as common to all those structures erected in the lands that came under the temporary or lasting influence of the Reformation. One of these features reflected the need not only to accommodate but also to sit on permanent pegs the entire local community. Another, equally important, was such placement of the pulpit (in Calvinist churches) or the pulpit and altar (in Lutheran churches) which would make them visible to preferably all community members gathered in the church. Obviously, it was easier to shape the interior with a single liturgical dominant than with two and therefore the Calvinist churches departed from the medieval tradition quicker and more radically than their Lutheran counterparts which for the long time would remain informed by the idea of identifying the church’s nave and choir (presbytery) with, respectively, the sanctum and sanctum sanctorum of the Old Testament Temple, the idea having been reiterated in Luther’s Sermon vom dreierlei guten Leben. Through the early 17th century, Calvinist church architecture developed in two separate modes. In the north of The Netherlands and in northern and western Switzerland, where the new confession quickly attained the domineering status, Calvinist churches were being set up first of all in extant medieval churches stripped of any vestiges of “papal idolatry”: altarpieces, pictures, and even stained glass windows. As their interiors’ originally longitudinal structure was altered to transverse arrangements focused on the pulpit, the former choir (presbytery) would be excluded from the space of worship (Emden). In France, Poland, and Lithuania, where the Catholic Church retained its position of influence, the Calvinist architectural tradition had to be created almost from scratch. This situation proved conducive to experimentation referring either to early Christianity, by employing the Greek cross layout (Oksa) or the rotunda (Lyon), or to innovative functional solutions, like the L-shaped layout (Secemin). Often, newly built churches had a rectangular or square plan. Devoid of any architectural detail, they appeared quite similar to secular buildings, for example the tower manor houses typical of Central Europe. The early Calvinist communities maintained quite lively contacts among themselves so it seems possible that they also exchanged experiences and ideas regarding the layout and function of the church. In the early 17th century, the aforementioned “adaptive” and “experimental” approaches were combined in Amsterdam, one of the period’s most dynamic European cities. Already the first church newly built there, the Zuidekerk (1603-1611) by Hendrik Cornelisz de Keyzer, employed the already known rectangular, choir-less layout with a nave and two aisles but their transverse arrangement was new as well as the decision to leave the space in front of the centrally placed pulpit free of pegs so that tables for the Holy Communion could be set up there. De Keyzer later used a similar solution at the more monumental and architecturally refined Westerkerk (16201631) which was finished by Cornelius Danckerts de Ry. Another version of the transverse layout, taking further the idea of two pretend-transepts featured at the two Amsterdam churches, appears at the Nieuve Kerk in The Hague (1649-1656). In this work of an anonymous architect the rectangular aisleless space has been masterfully combined with six apses to create a centrally-planned doubletrefoil layout. The same solution was repeated at the Reformed Evangelical Burgkirche in Koenigsberg, built in 1690-1699 by Johann Arnold Nering, a Brandenburg architect of Dutch descent. Hendrik de Keyzer’s stature as the great architect of Protestant churches emerges even more clearly as his third Amsterdam church is considered. In contrast to the Zuiderkerk and Westerkerk, with their transverse rectangular layouts, the Noordekerk (1620-1623), finished by Hendrik Staets, features a Greek cross layout with truncated corners and its interior is dominated by four massive load-bearing pillars. The pulpit’s placement by one of the pillars creates the diagonal principal axis thus ensuring very good visibility to all those seated on the amphitheatrically arranged pegs. This solution was repeated at the Noordekerk in Groningen (1660-1664) while the Marekerk in Leiden (1639-1649) employs a simpler octagonal scheme with an ambulatory. A very similar layout was first featured already in 1601-1608 in Germany in the double Wallonian-Netherlandish church in the New Town in Hanau built for Dutch religious refugees on a plan comprising an octagon and a dodecagon connected via towers with staircases serving both sections and a belfry. Regular polygonal layouts and even the rotunda form were widely used in French Huguenot churches. They did not use the transverse rectangular plan developed in Holland but instead they accepted the traditional longitudinal arrangement, of course without the separate choir. The church of the Huguenot community of Paris, built just outside of the city’s boundaries at Charenton sur Seine to Salomon de Brosse’s design (1623-1624), attained the model status and its fame would reach far beyond France and survive the structure’s demolition in 1685. The church was built on a rectangular plan with a large space in the middle dominated by the centrally placed pulpit and surrounded by two tiers of galleries with access provided by the staircases in the corners. This solution, inspired – as the commentators emphasized – by Vitruvius’ principles seamlessly combined function and exquisite proportions and was admiringly if not quite correctly regarded as a true copy of the Classical basilica with no connection to the architecture of Catholic churches. Its influence may still be felt in extant 18th-century Swiss churches: the Temple Neuf de la Fusterie in Geneva (17071710) and Holy Ghost Church in Bern (1726-1729). The Lutheran Churches that developed in the 16th century in the lands which continued to be ruled by Catholic monarchs: Germany and Scandinavia and also in the Habsburg’s dominion and in 2 Poland, would not evolve into fully emancipated national Churches. Consequently, the challenge they faced involved not erecting new structures but rather converting extant structures to the needs of the new cult or, when there was no reason for the extant church to continue as the place of worship, its demolition or adaptation to serve temporal functions. In some countries, for example in Saxony, several relatively modern Late Gothic hall churches were still under construction when the Reformation became victorious. Construction work (mostly at the vaults and roofs) would continue for many years thus keeping the late medieval architectural tradition alive. As late as the mid-17th century, the “kirchish” (as opposed to “welsch”) mode could indicate not only the prolonged life of post-Gothic or Gothic-style forms but also the continuation of the Late Gothic type of hall church with the polygonal choir as exemplified by the town parish church in Bückeburg (1615), Trinity Church in Copenhagen (1637-1656), former St Michael’s Church in Hamburg (1649-1651) and several town parish churches in Prussia. The Lutheran hall churches, adapted and newly-built alike, usually featured tiered galleries (porkirchen). They increased seating capacity and at least partially improved the visibility of the pulpit and altar. In the case of church interiors with the separate choir, like the town parish church in Nidda, Hesse (1615-1618), a more unified effect would be attained by remodeling the interior to look like an aisleless church with no separate choir. The ground for such solution had been paved by the first Lutheran castle chapels, from the earliest one at Torgau (1544), consecrated by Luther himself, to Stuttgart (1553-1560), Augustusburg (1568-1572) and Stettin (Szczecin; 1570-1572) to Wilhemsburg at Schmalkalden (1585-1590). Three of those (Torgau, Augustusburg and Stettin) represented the type of the elongated aisleless and choirless church with the altar located by the short side and the pulpit by the long side, sometimes quite far removed from the altar (as at Torgau and Augustusburg) or closer to it (as in Stettin). At the Stuttgart chapel, not only was the distance between the altar and the pulpit further reduced but the interior’s transverse arrangement was adopted. Unlike the Zuiderkerk and Westerkerk in Amsterdam, it featured galleries running along the rectangle’s three sides. At the Schmalkalden chapel, the pulpit was placed directly above the altar with the organ topping the arrangement which thus became the prototype of the so-called pulpit altar (Kanzelaltar) which would become one of the most characteristic furnishings of the Lutheran churches in Germany. Initially, the innovations introduced in the Stuttgart and Schmalkalden chapels had little influence upon Lutheran ecclesiastical architecture. The first parish church employing the transverse layout, the Church of the Saviour at Zellerfeld, would only be built in 1674-1683 probably after Dutch models. This does not preclude the search continued in many Lutheran communities for solutions that would successfully combine the longitudinal disposition of the church interior focused on the altar with the transverse layouts emphasizing the pulpit, like asymmetrically adding aisles or galleries opposite the pulpit. In a number of smaller churches, the arrangement of tiers integrated with the pulpit’s placement defined a new, diagonal axis which anticipated centrally-planned schemes. In some larger churches, like St Catherine’s Church in Frankfurt/Mein (1678-1680) and Holy Trinity Church in Worms (1705-1725), the interior appeared “turned” by 90 degrees thus approaching the already familiar transverse layouts. In a newly-established town, e.g. Freudenstadt in Würtemberg, founded for religious refugees from Austria in 1599, the Lutheran church might feature the unconventional T-square layout (1601-1608, architect Heinrich Schickhardt) which had already appeared in the Calvinist churches in distant Poland from the 1550s. The search for innovative spatial solutions likewise informed the design of prestigious structures, like the Holy Trinity Church in 3 Regensburg (1627-1631, architect Karl Ingen). In this case, the interior comprised a monumental hall with galleries, covered with a wooden barrel ceiling, with the much narrower and lower choir adjoining it on the eastern side. With its semi-circular layout and tiered galleries, the new Lutheran church in Amsterdam (1666-1668, architect Adrian Dorsman) was very innovative and unusual, its striking form very likely reflecting the desire of the Lutheran community in Amsterdam, the city of freely competing confessions, to impress. The longevity of longitudinal layouts rooted in the mediaeval tradition reflected the specific conservatism of Lutheran communities particularly in the countries east of the Elbe: Saxony, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, Pomerania, Silesia, and Poland. In the first decades of the 17th century, eager to preserve the integrity of the sacraments and traditional rites, local Lutheran communities were wary of any “novelties”, particularly those coming from major Calvinist centres. It was only the shared trauma of the Thirty Years’ War that gradually erased the hostility and prejudice accumulated during the so-called second Reformation. The religious refuges from The Netherlands and Austria who had already roamed Europe were now joined by those from Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia and later also from Huguenots expelled from France. The number of students from the Lutheran countries of Central and Northern Europe arriving in The Netherlands this time spared from the ravages of war steadily increased. Dutch universities, particularly the University of Leiden, became true “temples of learning” and oases of religious freedom. Study trips to The Netherlands and France, undertaken by those who would in the future commission the construction of new churches and those who would design and build them, doubtless resulted in the adoption of spatial solutions developed in these countries as exemplified by the two extant Churches of Peace in Silesia, erected in the mid-17th century according to the provisions of the Treaty of Westphalia to the designs of the well-travelled Albrecht von Säbisch. The original design for the Church of Peace in Jawor (1654-1655), featuring two tiers of galleries, referred to the aforementioned Huguenot church at Charenton sur Seine. With its layout based on the Greek cross, the Church of Peace in Świdnica (1657-1658) continued the tradition inaugurated by the Noordekerk in Amsterdam and continued by Church of Holmen in Copenhagen (1619-1641), Cathedral in Kalmar (1660-1699) and the parish church in Berlin (1695-1703). The latter church, built for the local Calvinist community, together with the contemporaneous Burgkirche in Königsberg, confirm the direct import of exquisite Dutch models to Brandenburg and Prussia. The import of spatial solutions developed in The Netherlands, supported by the Calvinist rulers of Brandenburg and Anthalt, was also encouraged by the profound changes in Protestant piety in the late 17th century spurred by the Pietist movement. The ideas of renewal of religious life advocated by Philipp Jakob Spener, August Hermann Francke and Nicolaus Ludwig Graf von Zinzendorf helped alleviate the once so bitter disputes between Lutheranism and Calvinism and nourished the emerging tendencies towards unification. It seems hardly accidental that the theoretical principles of Protestant ecclesiastical architecture, in contrast to earlier and current practice free of any particular confessional distinctions, would be formulated at this time and by a person of unequivocally Pietist views: Leonhard Christoph Sturm (1669-1719). Sturm was born at Aldorf as the son of the professor of mathematics at the local university. Educated first under his father’s supervision and then at the Universities of Jena and Leipzig, he was well versed in mathematics, philosophy, and theology. As the professor of mathematics at the Knightly Academy in Wolfenbüttel and the University of Frankfurt/Oder, commissioned by Georg Bose, a patron of the arts in Leipzig, he spent many years working on a manuscript containing a treatise on architecture 4 written by Nicolaus Goldmann, a native of Wrocław (Breslau) in Silesia who had settled in Leiden. Edited by Sturm, the successive editions of Goldmann’s Architectura civilis soon became the most popular instruction in the art of architecture in German. In 1711, Sturm was appointed building director at the court of the Mecklenburg princes in Schwerin. His first task was to issue an opinion about the newly-built St Michael’s Church in Schwerin, also known as Schelf-Kirche, and to present his conception of its interior arrangement. This inspired him to write a treatise on Lutheran ecclesiastical architecture featuring many variants of ground floor plans (square, oval, triangular, transverse rectangle, and T-square). It was published in Hamburg in 1712 as Architectonisches Bedencken von Protestantischer Kleinen Kirchen Figur und Einrichtung. Six years later, Sturm published a more extensive treatise (Vollständige Anweisung alle Arten von Kirchen wohl anzugeben) in Augsburg. There, he also addressed the architecture of Catholic churches. In his view, the principal difference between the Protestant and Catholic approaches consisted in the former’s rejection of excessive decoration and splendor, the restrain touching on – as the author observed – the very essence of the Protestant religion which “requires not splendor but purity.” The influence of Sturm’s treatises upon Protestant ecclesiastical architecture in the 18th century can hardly be overestimated although in some opinions – like his very critical view of the Greek cross plan – he remained isolated. The transverse layout, also referred to as transept layout, which Sturm had recommended as a perfect solution, soon became immensely popular in Brandenburg and Prussia and was employed for example in the former Berlin Cathedral (1747-1750), several garrison churches (Berlin, Potsdam, Neuruppin) and assorted parish churches (Zossen). It also appeared in western Germany, in the castle churches at Weilburg (1701-1713) and Kirchheimbolanden (1745). In the 2nd half of the 18th century, as the ban on the construction of Protestant churches had been lifted, it was also employed in Poland, for the first time in the Holy Cross Church in Poznań (1777-1786). This type of layout was also adopted by the Moravian Brothers, first in the prayer hall at Herrnhut (1756) which then became the model solution. The layouts resembling the T-square plan, employed occasionally, might be regarded as variants of the transverse layout. They could be found at the no longer extant St Peter’s Church in Berlin (17301733) or the Frauenkirche at Grossenhain by Dresden remodeled in 1744-1748 by Johann Georg Schmidt. The longitudinal aisleless layout remained widely used not so much because of Sturm’s recommendation but because it was time-honoured solution made functional by the important Lutheran invention of the Baroque period: the pulpit-altar (Kanzelaltar). Churches of this type were built by the Lutherans and Calvinists alike throughout Germany, e.g. in Nuremberg (St Egidius’ Church, 1711-1718), Erlangen (church in the New Town, 1724-1727), Berlin (Sophienkirche, 1712), and Dresden (Three Magi in the New Town, 1732-1739; Holy Cross, 1764-1792). Occasionally, the treatment of tiered galleries would give the church interior a more fluid, oval shape. Similar solutions informed the few but exquisite churches erected in Greater Poland (Holy Cross in Leszno, 1711-1730) and Silesia. In Silesia, in the late 18th century, the Calvinist Court Church in Wrocław (1750) inspired a series of fine Lutheran churches designed in the Neo-Classical style by Carl Gotthard Langhans, including the churches in Wałbrzych (1785), Syców (1785), and Dzierżoniów (1795). The only project of comparable artistic merit was the remodeling of the medieval St Nicolas’ Church in Leipzig (17851796) by Johann Friedrich Dauthe into a symbolic palm grove referring to the “community of the righteous” who would “blossom like palms”. 5 Simultaneously with the spread of longitudinal oval layouts, centrally planned churches became popular laid out on the Greek cross, polygonal or circular. Of these, the Greek cross plan became most common despite the objections expressed by Leonhard Christoph Sturm. The aforementioned St Catherine’s Church in Stockholm designed by French architect Jean de la Vallé became a revered model. It was copied – albeit in a simplified form – in the Churches of Grace in Silesia: in Jelenia Góra (1709-1718) and Kamienna Góra (1709-1730), both erected to a design by Martin Frantz of Tallin. They were built according to the provisions of the Treaty of Altranstädt (1707) concluded between the Emperor Joseph I and King Charles XII of Sweden. Churches featuring the Greek cross layout were also built in Brandenburg (Jerusalem Church in Berlin, 1726-1728; church in Buch bei Berlin, 1731-1734), Saarland (Ludwigskirche in Saarbrücken, 1762-1775) and first of all in northern Germany and Scandinavia, for example in the area of Hamburg (parish church in Altona, 1742-1743, Trinity Church in St Georg, 1743-1747, new St Michael’s Church in Hamburg, 1751-1762) and Stockholm (Ulrika Eleonora Church, ca 1700, Adolph Frederick Church, 1768-1774). With its complex and finely orchestrated layout and space, the new Church of St Michael in Hamburg, the cooperative effort of architect Johann Leonhardt Prey and mathematician Ernst Georg Sonnin), is regarded as the most splendid church building in northern Europe. Its 131.5-metre-high tower, built in 1777-1786, became a symbol of the Hanseatic city proud of its adherence to the “pure” Lutheran doctrine. Recommended by Sturm, churches featuring polygonal and circular layouts appeared not only in Brandenburg (Bethlehem Church in Berlin, 1735-1737; Trinity Church in Berlin, 1737-1739; Huguenot church in Potsdam, 1751-1752) and Anhalt (St George’s Church in Dessau, 1717), where the Dutch influence continued to be felt, but also in Thuringia (Divine Providence Church in Waltershausen, 1723), Hesse (St Paul’s Church in Frankfurt/Mein, 1783-1833), northern Germany (St Lambert’s Church in Oldenburg, late 18th c.), and Denmark (Marble Church in Copenhagen, from 1749). They were all eclipsed by the Frauenkirche in Dresden (1726-1738), Saxon architect Georg Bähr’s masterpiece and the most splendid Protestant church of the 18th century. The successive versions of its design show the architect’s consistent pursuit of spatial unity and clarity. His work was widely admired not only for the functionality of the church’s layout and its noble architectural expression enhanced by subtly decorative details but first of all for the innovativeness and virtuosity of its structural solutions, first of all its monumental dome which would for years dominate over the Saxon capital whose citizens, in contrast to their politically-motivated rulers, had no intention of rejecting their identity defined by the Reformation. The Frauenkirche in Dresden and the new St Michael’s Church in Hamburg were the greatest monuments of Protestant ecclesiastical architecture of the early modern era. They summed up the long path it had traveled from the castle chapels of 16th-century Germany to Hendrik de Kayzer’s Amsterdam churches, Huguenot church at Charanton sur Seine and St Catherine’s Church in Stockholm to the Churches of Peace and the Churches of Grace in Silesia. And yet these splendid Late Baroque structures would not mark the closure of the 18th century. In Warsaw, the capital of the declining Commonwealth of the Two Nations (Poland and Lithuania), far from the main Protestant centres, one of the most splendid Neo-Classical churches in Europe was erected in 1777-1781. It was the Lutheran Holy Trinity Church built to a design by Szymon Bogumił Zug. The church’s cubic form modelled after the Pantheon in Rome would be often compared to the works of the French Revolutionary Architects. Its architectural conception was personally selected by Stanisław August Poniatowski, Poland’s last king and great patron of the arts. Like the earlier Calvinist churches at 6 Secemin and Oksa and the Lutheran Holy Cross Church in Leszno, it confirmed Poland’s important contribution to the development of Protestant ecclesiastical architecture in the modern era. The overview presented above has let us formulate the project’s principal research hypothesis. The history of Protestant ecclesiastical architecture in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries appears to attest to the density and diversification of the cultural transfer routes in modern Europe increasing during this period as compared to the mediaeval era. The projects realised in Berlin, Dresden, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Königsberg or Warsaw demonstrate that the so-called younger Europe became capable of generating innovative architectural solutions to be subsequently imitated and elaborated. However, the current state of research concerning the subject is inadequate. The present project has been designed to fill in the gap and illuminate the significant contribution of the Baltic region and the lands located in the basins of the Elbe, Odra (Oder), Vistula and Niemen (Nieman, Mermel) Rivers to the cultural heritage of Europe which has not been solely defined by the Mediterranean. 7