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- Balthasar Neumann (2)
- Guarino Guarini (2)
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Institute
BTU
Betrachtet wird die geometrische Konzeption der Gewölbe der von Balthasar Neumann entworfenen Wallfahrtskirche Vierzehnheiligen. Ausgehend vom gebauten Objekt und basierend auf 3D-Scanningdaten, werden mithilfe der Methode des Reverse Geometric Engineering die geometrischen Eigenschaften des Gewölbes untersucht und die Konzepte rekonstruiert, die bei der Planung zur Anwendung gekommen sein müssen. Dabei werden die Abteikirche Banz und die Hofkirche der Residenz Würzburg als Vergleichsbauten mit einbezogen. Die Entwurfsmethoden werden in ihrem Zusammenhang mit den zeitgenössischen Traktaten der Stereotomie und Architektur, sowie mit bekannten Planungspraktiken bei geometrisch komplexen Bauten betrachtet; dabei wird auch der Bezug zu den Gewölbeentwürfen des italienischen Barockarchitekten Guarino Guarini diskutiert.
Vault
(2020)
Johann Dientzenhofer’s Banz Abbey Church (1710-1718) and Balthasar Neumann’s church of Vierzehnheiligen (1743-1772), both located in Upper Franconia (Germany), are characterised by their masonry vaults, sequences of oval domes separated by double-curved arches. This Late Baroque architecture has been called “Guarinesque”; however, the conceptual connection between the vaults and Guarino Guarini’s architecture remains to be thoroughly investigated. This paper resumes the discussion about the geometric definitions of these vaults using the modern methods of geometric analysis and reverse geometrical engineering, based on 3D laser scanning. The analysis of these scans reveals a design process based on plane circle segments and ovals, while more complex geometric procedures are not necessary to describe the vaults. Further, the relationship between these designs and the procedures of geometric design described in the treatises of stereotomy since the 16th century can be shown. On this background, the relation to Guarini’s Architettura Civile (1737) is discussed.
Some considerations on the early development of cross vaults and rib vaults in medieval architecture
(2023)
The fundamental shift in the geometric design of cross vaults that gave way to the development of Gothic vaults is usually associated with the introduction of cross ribs built with cut stone. And it is generally assumed that the development of the rib vault occurred in Norman architecture shortly before 1100, from where it was introduced to early Gothic vault architecture. In particular, the requirements of stone planning in the ribs has been interpreted as a guiding feature of the geometric design of the vaults.
However, surveys and geometric analyses carried out in some prominent vaulted structures suggest that this innovation in the geometric concept of vaults may have taken place at an earlier date, and that this development has a more complex relation to the use of ribs than it has been generally assumed. We discuss this in case studies on the geometric concept of the cross vaults in the Palatine Chapel at Aachen and in the two medieval building phases of Speyer Cathedral. In the latter, archaeological evidence shows that in the complex, wide spanned high vault of the nave one original bay still survives from the late 11th century. The research in progress on the earliest known rib vaults in central European architecture also raises questions regarding the early history of stereotomy.
In the lack of written or graphic sources about the design and building technology in these structures, the built object is an essential source for understanding the decision-making processes in planning of complex spatial structures stable by their shape. The interpretation of the geometric data and the evidence from building archaeology gives an insight also on the background of knowledge in the design of highly demanding spatial structures in the middle-ages.