Sunday, October 18, 2009

Karl Friedrich Schinkel


back to illustrative 2009, this year it takes place in Elisabethkirche and the adjacent Villa Elisabeth. i'm not sure about the second, but Elisabethkirche was designed by Schinkel and was completed at 1835 (the Villa was completed at 1907 and was a community house of the believers).


so Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781 – 1841) was born in Brandenburg and became one of the most prominent German architects. after his first trip to Italy in 1805, he worked as a painter and as a scene painter at the theatre (famous for the background of the 'Königin der Nacht' in Mozart's opera The Magic Flute, which is even quoted in modern productions). in 1810 he realized that he would never be good enough in painting and he decided to became an architect (today nobody would suggest it...). after Napoleon's defeat, Schinkel was supervising the Prussian Building Commission and he was responsible for reshaping Berlin into a representative capital for Prussia. he also oversaw projects in the expanded Prussian territories.

Schinkel's early style was neoclassicism with strong references to ancient Greece rather then the Roman empire (which was identified with the occupier of Prussia - Napoleon). his most famous buildings from that period are the Neue Wache, Schauspielhaus and the Altes Museum in Berlin. later Schinkel started to embrace neo-gothic style as seen in Friedrichswerderkirche(1824–1831) and in a proposal for the Berliner Dom. his most innovative building was the Bauakademie which seemed to point the way to a clean-lined 'modernist' architecture. 

back to Elisabethkirche, the church was heavily damaged after the II world war and it was rebuilt in 1999. today, together with the beautiful Villa next to it, it's considered as a prime spot for cultural events.

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