Volume 53, Issue 1

In the Crusader period, the façade of Jerusalem’s Holy Sepulchre Church underwent a complete reconstruction, blending European, local, contemporary, and historical influences. Among the most notable features is the frieze delineating the two floors. Heavily inspired by Roman architecture, it has a highly unusual design: rather than following a straight horizontal course, it forms corners in the middle of the wall surface. This 12 th century copy of a Roman frieze introduced an element of historicity to the Crusader kingdom’s meticulously crafted agenda of legitimisation, depicted on the façade of the era’s most important church. I argue that by introducing the corner as a clearly contemporary take on Roman style, a genuinely medieval outline was created drawing heavily on Byzantine period references. By way of the cornice creating corners, this paper takes on the story in stone created by the Crusaders as their legitimisation agenda.

Michelangelo’s plans are discussed in connection with Sansovino's plan for a centralised building, which won the competition held under Leo X for S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini, and with the basilica planned by Antonio da Sangallo, which the Florentine brotherhood began in its place. The question is then raised as to why Duke Cosimo insisted on the central building, even though construction of the basilica was already well advanced. A closer look reveals that Sansovino’s and Michelangelo’s projects feature a baptismal font. Apparently, the Medici favoured the central structure not only as a formal ideal, but above all with reference to the Florentine Baptistery because of its significance as a national institution and because of the special Florentine baptismal rite. Florentine particularities were also adapted for the masses in S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini.

From models of traditional furniture and geometric shapes to technical materials and wood connections to spatial resolution and aesthetic perception: the cabinets designed by Marcel Breuer at the Bauhaus cover almost all of the problems of furniture construction in the Weimar Republic. This article investigates Breuer’s cupboard furniture in relation to the history of the cupboard, the concept of type furniture and the relationship between the ›box furniture‹ at the Bauhaus, including the provenance of Breuers ti 66 c . In addition, considerations are given to the conception of Breuer’s cabinets with regard to their spatial illusionistic appearance and the associated idea of ›Sachlichkeit‹.

»[...] so we have a modern house. We like it, though«, White 1948, 5. reported Katja Mann about the villa, where she and her husband, writer and Nobel-prize-winner Thoman Mann, lived from 1942 to 1952 during most time of their exile in the USA. The house was in the spotlight, especially among the German public, from 2016 to 2018, when it was acquired by the Federal Republic of Germany and renovated as a venue for a residency programme. This article brings together evidence from the on-site renovation with information from the research literature, Thomas Mann’s diary entries and other sources. The result is a new perspective on the planning stages and on the question of who is responsible for what part of the authorship, in particular which elements can be ascribed to the architect J. R. Davidson and which to the Manns’ experience of bourgeois European life, deeply rooted in the 19 th century.