Issue 4(36)/2013

DOI: 10.5277/ARCHITECTUS

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Articles

Michał Pszczółkowski - Rudnica palace – history, architecture, decoration

doi:10.5277/arc130401

The following paper discusses the history of the palace complex in Rudnica (Ząbkowice county, Silesia, Poland), particularly the reconstruction of the building as well as identification of the most valuable remains of the palace. Rudnica palace was built as a Renaissance mansion. Subsequently, it was extended and rebuilt in Baroque, and finally, in the 19th century, it was provided with the look typical of Classicism period. Unfortunately, at the moment, it is severely destroyed. What is the most precious is the collection of Renaissance sgrafittoes which were revealed under the layer of plaster. The above mentioned collection is one of the oldest in Silesia. It consists of a set of figures, which is extremely rare in this region. Their artistic level as well as the iconographic program (e.g. grotesque ornaments) is immensely interesting and does not indicate any analogies in the area. It is stated in the paper that the most valuable portions of the sgraffitoes should be transferred and exposed in more appropriate conditions, i.e. in a museum.

Keywords:

    rudnica

    sgraffito

    palace

Bartłomiej Gloger - Nonsuch – Henry VIII’s lost palace

doi:10.5277/arc130402

Until the summer of 1959, one of the most important Tudor buildings was known to only a very few as the great palace had vanished about 150 years after the time it was constructed. The historians were aware of a few historical sources, which described the opulence of the Renaissance detail and high quality craftsmanship. The existing original images that captured its beauty inspired them to pursue its location for decades.     It was the most extravagant palace of Henry VIII, which was entirely built from scratch and decorated by Italian artists in a new architectural style unknown in England. The originality of the complex was characterised by its unique combination of Gothic and Renaissance elements merged together. The fusion of styles has since become a hallmark of the Tudor era and furthermore it infl uenced English designs for centuries when secular architecture fl ourished. The importance of this royal residence in the history of the Early English Renaissance had been realised for a long time but there was little detailed information about it. It was only after 1959, when excavation works took place, that archeologists were able to analyse the ground fl oor plan and rediscover the remains of its decorations to establish its role in the development of a national architectural style in England. Its name was Nonsuch as it had no equal.     The purpose of this article is to collect existing archaeological discoveries and facts to present the history of one of the most important buildings in England in a comprehensible and succinct manner.

Keywords:

    palace

    nonsuch

    henry-viii

    surrey

    cuddington

Danuta Kowalska - The secular half-timbered architecture in Europe – the treasure of original exterior decorative forms

doi:10.5277/arc130403

The article deals with picturesque of half-timber houses, which – in spite of time passage – are still proof of remarkable art performed by unknown craftsmen and fascinate even in the surroundings of monumental architecture. Presented decorative forms represent various adornment techniques. Among them are surface decoration like Kratzputz or Wandmalerei as well as decoration carpentry. The synergy of technology, crafts and arts transformed wooden construction into an original ornament, enriched with specific sculpture. Noteworthy is hanging slate, wooden, plaster or ceramic camouflage. The presented examples confirm that half-timbered houses decorative forms are a valuable and important heritage of European culture.

Keywords:

    half-timber-house

    decorative-forms

    history-of-wooden-architecture

Ewa Łużyniecka - Authenticity and the 19th-century restoration of the cathedral in Angoulême

doi:10.5277/arc130404

The article deals with the 19th century reconstruction of the French cathedral in Angoulême and on this basis it presents the then approach to authentic elements in historical buildings. The restoration of the cathedral was carried out under the supervision of the French architect Paul Abadie, a disciple of Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. The building was supposed to be stylistically uniform and refer only to Gothic – all other layers and styles were insignifi cant. When reconstructing the cathedral it was believed that there existed ‘ideal’ solutions to be duplicated in the particular buildings. As a result, many modern fragments of the building were demolished and new ones were erected which had never existed before. When we look at these design decisions from a certain distance, we can conclude that the restoration doctrine popularised by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc and his disciples did not stand the test of time. From the very beginning it was the subject of sharp criticism, while nowadays it is considered to be far-reaching and ofteneven destructive.

Keywords:

    restoration

    cathedral

    angoulême

    france

Katarzyna Sobuś - Architecture as a creation material. The art of installation in public space

doi:10.5277/arc130405

Installation art is a field no longer reserved for artists only. There are architects, who create micro-spaces on the border of art and architecture. Deriving from both domains, they create spaces which may change the context and transform the perception of their surroundings. Immense design solutions make public space installations ambiguous and versatile. Starting from symbolic, temporary ones, which may become a manifesto or the critique of architecture condition, to multi-functional ones, being a meeting place and activating the space in which they appear.

Keywords:

    installation-art

    borderland-of-art-and-architecture

Michał Dębek - Architects and non-architects assess architecture

doi:10.5277/arc130406

The results of the research that has been carried out recently by, e.g. environmental psychologists, indicate that architects and non-architects frequently differ in their assessments of architecture. Things which are liked by architects are not necessarily liked by thousands of recipients of the everyday reality that is shaped by these architects. Architects and non-architects think about architecture in a different way, they make their perceptions of architectural structures on the basis of different indications, fi nally they also differ, e.g. in assessing aesthetics of the observed buildings.     The article constitutes original quantitative and qualitative studies on attitudes towards architectural structures carried out among 40 students of the faculty of architecture and practicing architects as well as 36 students and persons who were not connected with designing in any way. The results of the discussed research confi rm earlier reports published in the literature of the subject on this issue, namely that differences in perceiving and assessing architecture between persons who are educated in architectural design and persons who are not professionally connected with architecture may be signifi cant.

Keywords:

    assessment-of-buildings

    perception-of-architecture

    preferred-architecture

    experiencing-architecture

    environmental-psychology

Jacek Kotz, Anna Nowel-Śmigaj - Poverty and wealth. Attempts to define the problem and dialogue with a student of architecture – author of the project

doi:10.5277/arc130407

This work analyses selected invigilated examination-papers performed by second year students of the department of architecture during their master’s degree course in the academic year 2011–2012. Depictions entitled “Poverty (and) wealth”, carried out within confi nes of Monumental architecture subject, have been considered in a broad contextes of social exclusion and marginalization. Societal exclusion and inclusion possess their metaphorical equivalences in the form of spatial images, valorized as oppositions occurring between the internal and the external. This, in turn, leads us towards primeval and anthropologically conceived category of border, moderating aforementioned oppositions in, at least, social and spatial aspects. This category, according to Edmund Leach, Vladimir Toporow and Stefan Czarnowski, constitutes a widely understood point of transition between them. Classes related to this subject consider the category of the border, expressed in a perspective of its spatial and societal working.     As one of the basic reasons of social marginalization coming into being is poverty, that is why this article has been enriched by contemporary social changes profi le and, what follows, diffi culties with identifi cation of the modern polis. Sociologists of the city such as Richard D. Alba, Ash Amin and Nigel Thrift observe that social exclusion which concerns among others physically disabled and homeless (as we read in the document issued in 2003 by Task Group for Social Reintegration, drawing up National Social Integration Strategy for Poland) may lead towards separation and spatial deterioration of the excluded.     The young man’s dialogue with the contemporary world’s social changes seems therefore essential, because it may lead, to the realization how the reality co-originates their image of the world, value system and attitude towards people they are going to serve as architects.

Keywords:

    monumental-architecture

    poverty

    wealth

    border

    the-work-of-architecture-students

Krystyna Kirschke, Paweł Kirschke - The exhibition of Modernist ceramics of Richard Blumenfeld in Ofen- und Keramikmuseum Velten (Germany)

doi:10.5277/arc130408

The museum of tiled stoves and ceramics Ofen- und Keramikmuseum Velten, which was established in Velten near Berlin in 1905, apart from permanent exhibitions organizes special temporary exhibitions thematically connected with the production of various kinds of ceramic ware. Since May 19 until November 30, 2013 the museum holds an exhibition titled KunstKeramik der Moderne. Zum 150. Geburtstag des Veltner Ofen- Und Keramikunternehmers Richard Blumenfeld.     Due to the uniqueness and the large range of ceramic products manufactured in Blumenfeld’s workshops they have been used in constructing hundreds of modernist buildings. The customers of the company included the most distinguished German architects of those times, such as Bruno Möhring, Peter Behrens, Hans Poelzig, Bruno Taut, Otto Rudolf Salvisberg, Walter Gropius, Willy Hoffmann, Mies van der Rohe, Erich Mendelsohn, Fritz Höger or Hermann Dernburg cooperating with equally renowned sculptors such as Paul Rudolf Henning, Hans Schmidt, Ernst Freese, Felix Kupsch, Karl Lehn, Richard Kuöhl, Ulrich Nitschke, Hans Klakow and Paul Hermann.     The exhibition in Velten is especially interesting as it presents not only the descriptions or both old and contemporary photographs showing the company’s operations during Modernism but also the original fragments of the ceramic materials from those buildings. This way of displaying the exhibits enables the visitors to associate the artifacts with the composition of whole buildings, providing a documentary account of the designers’ ideas and testifying to the close cooperation of the architect with the artist-sculptor. Among a lot of great designs by Blumenfeld’s company both in Germany and abroad presented at the exhibition there is a reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate in Babylon and the ceramic tiles produced in 1929–1930 for A. Wertheim department store in Wrocław. The choice and form of the presentation of the exhibits are so impressive that they are remembered by the visitors for a long time, and after leaving the museum it seems obvious that this virtually eternal material which is the product of a fusion of all the elements will always be used in architecture.

Keywords:

    richard-blumenfeld

    ofen--und-keramikmuseum-velten

    modernism

    art-déco

    ceramic-building-materials