The Schinkel school (Schinkelschule) was a German architectural style active from 1840 to the end of the 19th century. Several generations of Berlin architects were grouped together between 1840 and the end of the nineteenth century under the term Schinkelschule . Among them are partly direct students and employees of Karl Friedrich Schinkel , such as Ludwig Persius , Friedrich August Stüler and Carl Scheppig counted, as well as graduates of Schinkel’s Berlin Bauakademie , in the Schinkel lived though, but never worked as a teacher. The Schinkel School, also known as Berliner Rundbogenarchitektur after its stylistic segmental arches, was always in conflict with the representational architecture of the emancipating bourgeoisie of the Prussian capital and later German imperial city. It was wrong to compare it with many other contemporaries with the official neo-Renaissance architecture inspired by the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Paris , which was ridiculed and described as poor or brittle. Mainly used for secular purposes such as schools, train stations, barracks and factories, it nowadays sees a carrier of Schinkel’s idea of a reduced, functional architecture through the time of a triumphant, playful historicism and thus a pioneer of the early modernity of Peter Behrens and Hermann Muthesius .
Prototypes and Blueprints
Schinkel’s first building, which can be described as the prototype of the later Schinkelschule, was the Lehrturm’s military detention and barracks building in Berlin’s Lindenstraße. The lighthouse at Cape Arkona , the Friedrichwerder church and the Packhof buildings behind the Altes Museum were followed by other buildings built entirely in brick.
Schinkel rediscovered a material that had not been used for facades for four hundred years, since the Brandenburg brick Gothic. He referred at the same time to buildings of the past, such as the Marienburg and the buildings of the Italian Renaissance , as well as the modern English industrial building, which he had met in Manchester . Schinkel saw many advantages in the brick. He wanted to promote the craft, because under the plaster layers was often sloppy worked when wall walls, which, when the plaster peeled off, looked ugly. A brick building, however, had to be carried out cleanly, because every inaccuracy was immediately visible, but then the building lost none of its beauty even after years. At the same time, the standardization and the small scale of the stones and the precise interplay with molded blocks forced precise preparation in stone production and architects’ planning. In the beginning, Schinkel was confronted with countless problems: The procurement of suitable clay proved to be difficult, a great deal of technical knowledge had been lost and the kilns were unable to guarantee consistent color and surface, which made the production of molded bricks almost impossible. He found a master with whom Schinkel was able to realize his ideas in Tobias Christoph Feilner , and later worked closely with the Feilner student Ernst March .
The school building of the Schinkel pupils, the Berliner Bauakademie am Friedrichswerder, is much more of a blueprint than a prototype for later development. Anyone who looks at the quality of the stones and glazes, the safe use of molded bricks and terracotta tiles, could easily come to the conclusion that this is development already at its end and climax. In actual fact, however, Schinkel was in a permanent struggle at the time to wrest from the artisans the achievements he had in mind. Until the mid-sixties of the nineteenth century, production remained of variable quality.
Looking today at the Red Town Hall , which is a few steps away, the way the brick production of the Friedrichswerder church, in which the stones are still very sparse, has taken over the newly built corner of the building academy to the new town hall becomes apparent. In the following years, however, it became increasingly difficult for the architects to keep the right balance, as was the richness of the offer that the terracotta manufactures offered in their catalogs.
Characteristics and Development
The main characteristic of the buildings of the Schinkel School is their execution in brick , the cubic structures, often composed in a kind of additive system, the use of differently colored glazed stones, the rich use of pebbles and terracotta , the carefully designed and structured facade, the segmental arched window for generous exposure the interiors, especially in factory buildings, as well as the flat roof . A fitting expression for the architecture of the Schinkelschule is “Hellenistic Romanticism”.
The five phases of the development of the Schinkelschule
1817-1840: Karl Friedrich Schinkel designs a series of buildings entirely made of brick, which are exemplary for the later brick architecture.
1830-1848: Friedrich August Stüler , who works in Berlin, and Ludwig Persius , who concentrates on Potsdam, dominate the first phase. Many buildings are still being built in collaboration with Schinkel himself. These include the Berlin Bauakademie and the Stadttheater in Frankfurt (Oder) , designed by Schinkel’s pupil Emil Flaminius .
1848-1866: In the post-revolutionary phase, there is a conflict of styles with the neo-Renaissance, favored by the bourgeoisie.
1866-1871: In the pre-imperial period Karl Bötticher , Heino Schmieden and Martin Gropius develop the tectonic polychromy . There are many stations for the Berlin railway.
1871-1890: In the newly-founded Kaiserreich, the Schinkel School comes under pressure from public tenders, architects from other schools, who are rushing to Berlin, and a representative architecture that is needed for the imperial capital. At this critical time city architect Hermann Blankenstein takes over the management of the Berlin Building Department. He designs and builds numerous functional buildings, which are executed in the style of the Schinkelschule, including more than 120 schools, hospitals, market halls and churches.
Schinkelschule and Neorenaissance
After the failed revolution of 1848 , the emancipation of the Prussian bourgeoisie took a new direction. It had to leave the nobility the most important political positions in the state, but in the flourishing economy it was soon far ahead of him and wanted to show this in the architecture. The buildings of the Renaissance served as a model, seeing that in the Renaissance, with their interest in the natural sciences, the rise of commerce and the arts, they corresponded to the developments of the nineteenth century. A special example here is Friedrich Hitzig’s Berlin Stock Exchange , which tries to profile itself in the immediate vicinity of the castle with a grand gesture. After the founding of the empire in 1871, Berlin had to be rebuilt into the capital of the empire. Interestingly, this imported the “École des Beaux Art” style of beaten France . Against these influences, the subtle, strict and reserved Schinkel school had to endure all the time. In the end it was Martin Gropius and Heino Schmieden , above all with their exemplary Kunstgewerbemuseum , which led the Schinkelschule out of and through the crisis after 1866.
Boetticher, Gropius and the Tectonic Polychromy
Already under Schinkel there had come to a Verwissenschaftlichung of architecture. Instead of studying the ancient architecture only after engravings in books, has now traveled to the excavation sites and carried out there on-site examinations. The Englishman James Stuart and Nicholas Revett had a special influence with their work The Antiquities of Athens .
Under the construction academy teacher Karl Bötticher this development was accelerated. He worked out an extensive catalog of demands: for example, the acanthus plant could only be used on elements that have a supporting function, rosettes only where parts (such as with nails) were attached to the building, Bändmotive had a connective function to symbolize, Kymatia had to be mounted as compressed leaf waves only where weight applied pressure, ornaments should not only be taken over easily, but had to be always self-designed and redesigned.
Many critics from the ranks of the historians complained to Böttichers teaching a narrowing of the imagination. In the second half of the nineteenth century, when building activity in Berlin could undoubtedly be described as hectic, the building and regulation of the building academy, despite all the speed of planning, decision-making and construction, led to a consistently high quality standard. In this effort of the Schinkel students is also a constant search to note, content and shape in accordance to bring, which can be found later in the theories and works of classical modernism .
List of buildings and architects
Roman baths 1829-1840 Ludwig Persius Potsdam / Sanssouci
Heilandskirche 1841-1844 Ludwig Persius Potsdam / Sacrow
Steam engine house in the park Babelsberg 1843-1845 Ludwig Persius Potsdam-Babelsberg
Steam engine house “mosque” 1841-1843 Ludwig Persius Potsdam
Belvedere on the Pfingstberg 1847-1863 Ludwig Persius / Friedrich August Stüler / Ludwig Ferdinand Hesse Potsdam
triumphal 1851 Friedrich August Stüler / Ludwig Ferdinand Hesse Potsdam / Sanssouci
peace Church 1845-1848 Ludwig Persius / Friedrich August Stüler / Ludwig Ferdinand Hesse Potsdam / Sanssouci
Orangerieschloss 1851-1864 Friedrich August Stüler / Ludwig Ferdinand Hesse Potsdam / Sanssouci
Bornstedter church 1854-1856 Friedrich August Stüler Potsdam
Crown Estate Bornstedt 1846-1848 Johann Heinrich Haeberlin Potsdam
fasanerie 1842 Ludwig Persius Potsdam / Sanssouci
Castle Babelsberg 1835-1849 Karl Friedrich Schinkel / Ludwig Persius / Johann Heinrich Strack Potsdam-Babelsberg
Meierei in the New Garden 1843-1844 Ludwig Persius Potsdam
Building / Berlin year architect place
Palace of Prince Charles of Prussia 1827 Friedrich August Stüler / Carl Scheppig Berlin
St. Peter and Paul 1834-1837 Friedrich August Stüler / Albert Dietrich Schadow Berlin-Zehlendorf Nikolskoe
St. John’s church 1835-1857 KF Schinkel / Friedrich August Stüler Berlin-Moabit
new museum 1843-1855 Friedrich August Stüler Berlin-Mitte Museum Island
St. Jacobi Church 1844-1845 Friedrich August Stüler Berlin / Oranienstr.
St. Matthew’s Church 1844-1846 Friedrich August Stüler Berlin-Tiergarten Cultural Forum
Hospital Bethany 1845-1847 Ludwig Persius / Theodor Stein / Friedrich August Stüler Berlin-Kreuzberg
Domkandidatenstift 1858-1874 Friedrich August Stüler / Stüve Berlin-Mitte Oranienburger Straße
Monastery courtyard in the park Glienicke 1850 Ferdinand von Arnim Berlin-Zehlendorf / Glienicke
St. Mary’s on Behnitz 1848 August Soller Berlin-Spandau
St. Michael’s Church 1851 August Soller Berlin center
Arcades of the Borsig factory 1858-1860 Johann Heinrich Strack Berlin-Mitte Chausseestraße
New synagogue 1866 Eduard Garlic Berlin-Mitte Oranienburger Straße
St. Thomas Church 1869 Friedrich Adler Berlin-Kreuzberg
Red townhall 1861-1869 Hermann Friedrich Waesemann Berlin center
Hauptkadettenanstalt 1871-1878 Ferdinand Fleischinger Berlin light field
Criminal court Moabit and cell block 1877-1882 Heinrich Herrmann Berlin-Moabit
Zion Church 1873 August Orth Berlin-Mitte Zionskirchplatz
Anhalter station 1872-1880 Franz Heinrich Schwechten Berlin-Kreuzberg
Barracks of the 3rd Guards Regiment on foot 1874-1878 Otto Heimersdinger Berlin-Kreuzberg
Joachimsthaler Gymnasium 1875-1879 Johann Heinrich Strack Berlin-Wilmersdorf
S-Bahn station Hackescher Markt (former stock exchange ) 1878-1882 Johannes Vollmer Berlin center
Martin-Gropius-Bau / former Kunstgewerbemuseum 1881 Martin Gropius and Heino Schmieden Berlin-Kreuzberg
Commercial building of Markthalle III (Zimmerstraße) 1886 Hermann Blankenstein Berlin center
Markthalle VI (Ackerstraße) 1886-1888 Hermann Blankenstein Berlin center
Hospital Am Urban 1887-1890 Hermann Blankenstein Berlin-Kreuzberg
Market Hall X (Arminiusstraße) 1890-1891 Hermann Blankenstein Berlin-Moabit
Postfuhramt 1875-1881 Carl Schwatlo Berlin-Mitte Oranienburger Straße
Source From Wikipedia