Architectural Posters of German Architecture

German Architecture: Cathedrals, Residences and Reform

These architectural posters lead from Brandenburg’s medieval Brick Gothic and Cologne Cathedral to Baroque residences and the Neoclassical reform ideas of the Enlightenment. Cologne, Weimar, Chorin, Wörlitz, Munich and Würzburg represent not only different regions but also fundamentally different building types: cathedral and monastery, town house and palace, courtly display and enlightened country house. Precise façade drawings and comparative surveys reveal how construction, style and social ambition changed over the centuries.

AP 545 and AP 415 · Cologne Cathedral and the Idea of its Completion

The foundation stone of the present Cologne Cathedral was laid in 1248. The new High Gothic building was intended to provide a fitting setting for the Shrine of the Three Kings; its choir was consecrated in 1322. After work had largely ceased in the sixteenth century, the cathedral remained unfinished for hundreds of years. Construction resumed in 1842 following a break of more than three centuries and was completed in 1880. Despite this exceptionally long history, the five-aisled basilica, projecting transept and monumental twin-towered façade follow a remarkably unified Gothic concept.

AP 545 presents the completed west façade with its two openwork spires, deeply recessed portals and dense tracery. AP 415 is based on the historical vision “Der Dom zu Köln” associated with Sulpiz Boisserée. In 1808, Boisserée began measuring and drawing the unfinished building. The rediscovery in 1814 and 1816 of the two parts of the medieval façade plan strengthened his campaign to complete the cathedral according to its original design. His “Domwerk”, published in instalments between 1821 and 1831, spread this vision far beyond Cologne. The sheet therefore records not only a building but also the Romantic rediscovery of Gothic architecture and one of the nineteenth century’s most important debates on architectural heritage.

AP 548 and AP 340 · Weimar as Architectural Cultural History

“Das Alte Weimar”, AP 548, assembles architecture from the residence of the Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach between 1250 and 1850. Churches, town houses, palaces, city gates and residences are arranged as individual coloured elevations to form a portrait of the city. AP 340 focuses on courtly and civic architecture during the age of Weimar Classicism, from 1750 to 1825. Together, the two sheets show that Weimar’s cultural importance rests not on one monument but on an interplay of homes, public buildings, residences and garden architecture.

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the small court became a European centre of intellectual life. Duchess Anna Amalia and Duke Carl August fostered the environment associated with Goethe, Schiller, Herder and Wieland. The “Classical Weimar” ensemble, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1998, includes the homes of Goethe and Schiller, the Wittumspalais, the Duchess Anna Amalia Library, the City Palace and the City Church with Herder’s house and the Old Grammar School. The posters’ typological comparisons reveal how courtly representation and the scale of civic architecture jointly shaped the cityscape.

AP 341 · Chorin Abbey and North German Brick Gothic

The Cistercian monastery of Chorin was transferred to its present site in 1273, the year construction of the abbey church began. After the polygonal choir, work on the celebrated west façade started around 1280; its tall central gable was probably complete by about 1300. AP 341 isolates this show front: pointed-arch windows, blind arcades, a rose window and stepped gables are developed entirely from the possibilities of moulded and fired brick. Its planar yet finely rhythmic composition makes Chorin a key work of North German Brick Gothic.

Parts of the complex fell into decay after the monastery was dissolved in 1542. In the early nineteenth century, Karl Friedrich Schinkel advocated its preservation and initiated stabilisation work. Chorin thus also became an early site of Prussian monument conservation. The poster connects the medieval architecture of the Cistercians with the later appreciation of the ruin as a historic monument.

AP 334 and AP 335 · Wörlitz Palace and the Gothic House

Friedrich Wilhelm von Erdmannsdorff designed Wörlitz Palace for Prince Leopold III Friedrich Franz of Anhalt-Dessau. Built from 1769 to 1773 according to recent English models, it was the first purely Neoclassical palace on the European mainland and marked a deliberate departure from Baroque splendour. AP 334 shows the lucid main façade: a Corinthian portico and triangular pediment order the broad building, while the restrained articulation embodies the Enlightenment ideals of reason, proportion and reference to antiquity.

AP 335 contrasts this Neoclassicism with the Gothic House. Begun in 1773 according to the prince’s ideas and designs by Erdmannsdorff and Georg Christoph Hesekiel, the building was repeatedly extended and altered until 1813. Its waterside façade takes Venice’s church of Madonna dell’Orto as its model, while the garden side refers to English Tudor Gothic. It is consequently one of the earliest Gothic Revival buildings in Germany. Together, the Wörlitz sheets show how the landscape garden used architecture from different periods as a vehicle for education, memory and atmosphere.

AP 364 and AP 365 · Nymphenburg Palace in Detail and Panorama

In 1664, Elector Ferdinand Maria of Bavaria and Henriette Adelaide of Savoy commissioned Agostino Barelli to build a country palace following the birth of their heir Max Emanuel. From 1701, Max Emanuel had Henrico Zuccalli extend the complex with side galleries and residential pavilions. Beginning in 1715, Joseph Effner created the adjoining four-winged buildings and modernised the central block after French models. The compact country seat thus became an extensive summer residence for the Bavarian court.

AP 364 focuses on the richly articulated central block with its ceremonial staircase and tall arched windows. AP 365, by contrast, presents the long garden front as a panorama: low galleries connect the central corps de logis with symmetrical pavilions. Comparing the two formats makes Effner’s architectural principle especially clear – an emphatic centre integrated into a widely extended, horizontally ordered ensemble.

AP 333 · Würzburg Residence as a Baroque Synthesis of the Arts

In 1720, Prince-Bishop Johann Philipp Franz von Schönborn entrusted the young Balthasar Neumann with the design of Würzburg Residence. The shell was erected by 1744, while the interiors were completed by 1780. Neumann coordinated the contributions of leading architects from Germany and France as well as numerous sculptors, stucco artists and painters. Among them was Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, whose frescoes in the staircase and Imperial Hall unite architecture and painting in an overwhelming spatial effect.

AP 333 shows the long, strictly symmetrical garden façade. Its many window axes are given rhythm by projecting pavilions and the emphasised central block; the animated roofline and rich sculpture transform the monumental front into a finely graduated relief. Inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1981, the Residence ranks among Europe’s most important Baroque palaces and represents the culmination of a culture in which architecture, decoration and court ceremony merged into a complete work of art.