Volume 49, Issue 1

Since June 2018 the treasuries of the Archaic and early Classical period at Olympia in Southern Greece were explored. The new study is based on the unpublished works of the researcher Klaus Herrmann, who worked about the treasuries since 1968 and died in 2015, with the intention to prepare all the material and information for a final publication. For this reason, a new general plan of all the foundations and new drawings of series of architectural elements not yet recorded as well as computer graphics of the reconstruction of the treasuries were worked out. In this paper especially the treasury of Sikyon and its reused elements in the early Christian walls of the so called Spolienhaus as well as the easternmost treasury of Gela will be presented. Important for these two treasuries are also the older works of the researcher Hans Schleif in the period between 1937 and his death in 1945.

The author presents a newly discovered architectural drawing which shows one of the two identical portals in the reading room of the Biblioteca Laurenziana in Florence. The drawing is attributed to Michelangelo by the author and compared with two other drawings by the artist, one of which connects the Cloister with the vestibule of the Library and another that leads from the vestibule to the reading room. The present drawing has close visual similarities with both the drawings generally accepted as Michelangelo’s. However, it is distinguished by a double pediment that combines a triangular structure with a rounded one. In addition, it is designed in a perspectival manner that takes into account the depth of the opening and of its pediment. All three drawings have the same overall proportions, corresponding to the ›divina proportione‹. The openings in the three drawings have a quotient that is identical with the square root of five. The handwriting within the opening appears to be identical with Michelangelo’s hand.

This paper examines an unusual heptagonal floor plan drawing held by the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The drawing is identified as an early design plan (ca. 1606) for the heptagonal Marian Pilgrimage church at Scherpenheuvel/Montaigu (Belgium). After describing the drawing in detail and attributing it to Wenzeslas Cobergher, the paper interprets the ground plan against the backdrop of the design process of the domed Sanctuary as well as in the broader context of Scherpenheuvel’s transformation into a symbolic and programmatic Pilgrimage ensemble by the sovereigns of the Spanish Netherlands, Archduke Albert VII of Austria and Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia. With a view to the Italian architectural tradition, considerations are given to the ground plan’s geometry, its elevation and symbolic architectural motifs, before it is compared with the realized ground plan of the Pilgrimage church in Scherpenheuvel.

Our study focuses on the development of Central European town-hall-architecture from the 1860s to the First World War. We compare the town-hall-architecture of two countries: the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (1867) and Germany (1871). Both states were born pursuant to public law in this period, as well. This fact as well as the similar political, economic and cultural conditions led to similar public construction works. The increasing power of the bourgeoisie was also reflected by architecture; therefore a large number of town halls were built in this period. In our study, we analyse the functional system and the architectural design of the town halls of this region based on their façades, style and mass, thus placing the close cultural relations of the two states subject to our examination into a new perspective.

The Casa Madre dei Mutilati in Rome is one of the lesser-known works of the architect Marcello Piacentini (1881–1960). Its history is closely linked to the dramatic events of the First World War and to the resulting association of Italian war invalids. The architecture reacts to the self-interpretation of the war invalids as living martyrs and has a meaningful and representative task. In the short period before the consolidation of Mussolini’s fascist regime, a modern style is manifested here, which attempts to combine classicism and avant-garde before the typical abstraction of the thirties. The tradition of Italian architectural history is still present without falling into a monumental formalism.