Praxiteles

here is a picture of Gross Sankt Martin in Cologne in 1946 in the wake of the terrible bombing of the city:

@Paul Clerkin wrote:

Bishop blesses cathedral’s new ceiling 150ft above ground
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/7036652/Bishop-blesses-cathedrals-new-ceiling-150ft-above-ground.html

Fortunately, there is no such blessing in the Pontificale Romanum !

Another desastre that should not be forgotten is the 1972 fire at nantes Cathedral.

“On 28 January 1972, a gigantic fire started on the roof. Firemen managed to bring it under control, but the timber frame was severely damaged and many other damages were inflicted. This event led to what was undoubtedly the most complete interior restoration of a cathedral in France.

The interior as restored:

I do not believe that there was any proposition by the French government to replace Nantes Cathedral with an exercise in modern architecture.

The loss of the original glass -in part destroyed during the war- was however unfortunate.

This appeared on the Catholic Ireland webpage:

St Mel’s windows records will allow for perfect restoration
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010 Restorers of stained glass windows destroyed in the inferno before Christmas at St. Mel’s Cathedral in Longford have said they will be able to do a perfect restoration because of records kept when the windows were repaired thirteen years ago.

At a time of great sadness in Longford for what has befallen the cathedral, this news comes as a light in the darkness.

The eighty-year-old windows, some of which were made in the studio of the renowned artist Harry Clarke, (an example of his work is pictured left) were badly damaged when fire gutted the building. Mr Ken Ryan of Abbey Stained Glass Studios said last week that in 1997, his firm had been engaged to take out the windows, restore and re-fit them.

In that process, they made full tracings of each of the windows, including the extremely valuable Harry Clarke Studio windows, which suffered the least damage in the fire. Mr Ryan explained that when his firm takes windows to its workshop studios they lay paper over the stained glass, and rub a black crayon over it to take the imprint.

“We have a full layout of all the lead sections, which hold the pieces of glass together,” he said.

Normally, these are dumped after about ten years, but “by a stroke of good luck,” the rubbings from St. Mel’s are intact, he added. “There are tens of thousands of pieces of glass in these windows (in the cathedral) and we can identify the shape of each piece of glass from the rubbings.”

Mr Ryan said that, as a back-up, his company has photographs of all the stained glass windows and having surveyed St Mel’s, some of the windows were salvaged, including the two Harry Clarke Studio ones. One of the Clarke windows fell but was caught in the window area and was rescued, he explained.

“Our men are going around at the moment underneath each of these windows to try and find loose pieces of glass that can be used in their reconstruction,” Mr Ryan said

“In any event, if a window has been completely destroyed, because we have the rubbings and the photographs, it’s possible to reconstruct all of the windows as they were before”.

by Fintan Deere

St Mel’s Cathedral, Longford

Stained glass

St Mel’s cathedral, Longford

The Pietà altar

@gunter wrote:

We’re back to ‘Tradition and Innovation’

Oh come on now Praxiteles, you don’t think he’s going to say: ‘Yeh, I photocopy plans’ 🙂

Honesty is always the best approach!

Back from Wekepedia on Davd Watkin and some interesting little snippets:

“David John Watkin (born in 1941) MA PhD LittD Hon FRIBA FSA, is a British architectural historian. He is an Emeritus Fellow of Peterhouse at Cambridge University, and Professor Emeritus in the History of Architecture at the Department of Art History at Cambridge University. He has also taught at the Prince of Wales’s Institute of Architecture.[1]

David Watkin is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects. He is Vice-Chairman of the Georgian Group, and was a member of the Historic Buildings Council and its successor bodies in English Heritage from 1980-1995.

“Watkin’s main research interest has been classical architecture, particularly from the 18th century to the present day, and has published widely on that topic. He has also published on general topics including A History of Western Architecture (4th ed. 2005) and English Architecture: A Concise History (2nd ed. 2001), as well as more specialised monographs on architects Thomas Hope, Sir John Soane, James Stuart, and C. R. Cockerell.

Watkin first came to wide international attention, however, with his book Morality and Architecture: The Development of a Theme in Architectural History and Theory from the Gothic Revival to the Modern Movement (1977), re-published in expanded form as Morality and Architecture Revisited (2001). The basic premise of his argument is that the language with which modernist architecture is described and defended is rooted in the false notion of the Zeitgeist or “the spirit of the age”, as put forward by German Idealist philosopher Friedrich Hegel, so that any opposition to modernist architecture – and here he has in mind the revival of classical and traditional architecture, which he has championed in his writings – are condemned as “old-fashioned”, irrelevant, anti-social, and even immoral.

In terms of Zeitgeist architecture, he traces its moralistic attitude back to architects Pugin, Viollet-le-Duc and Le Corbusier, among others – including their supporters within history such as Nikolaus Pevsner, who claimed that their chosen style had to be truthful and rational, reflecting society’s needs. Watkin also sees the pedigree of a distorting modernist architectural history emerging from Hegel, and that modern art and architectural history began in the nineteenth century as a by-product of history and the philosophy of culture in Germany and the rapid growth of Marxist sociology.

Among the ‘contemporary’ architects Watkin has championed are John Simpson and Quinlan Terry, as well as theorist Leon Krier. In his book on Terry, Radical Classicism: The Architecture of Quinlan Terry (2006) Watkin is forthright: “The modernism with which Quinlan Terry has had to battle is, like the Taliban, a puritanical religion.”

And he certainly has written quite a bit:

David Watkin, The Roman Forum, Profile Books, London, 2009.
David Watkin, Carl Laubin: The Poetry of Art And Architecture, Philip Wilson Publishers, London, 2007.
David Watkin, Radical Classicism: The Architecture of Quinlan Terry. Rizzoli, New York, 2006.
Christopher Hartop, Diana Scarisbrick, Charles Truman, David Watkin, and Matthew Winterbottom, Royal Goldsmiths: The Art of Rundell & Bridge. John Adamson, London, 2006.
David Watkin, A History of Western Architecture. Watson-Guptill Publications, New York, 2005.
David Watkin, The Architect King: George III and the Culture of the Enlightenment. Royal Collection, London. 2004.
David Watkin and Robin Middleton, Architecture of the Nineteenth Century. Phaidon Inc Ltd, London, 2003.
David Watkin, Morality and Architecture Revisited, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2001.
David Watkin, English Architecture: A Concise History, WW Norton and Co Inc, New York, 2001.
David Watkin (Ed). Sir John Soane: The Royal Academy Lectures, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000.
David Watkin (Ed), Sir John Soane: Enlightenment Thought and the Royal Academy Lectures (Cambridge Studies in the History of Architecture) Cambridge University Press, 1996.
David Watkin, The Royal Interiors of Regency England. Rizzoli, New York, 1985.
David Watkin, Morality and Architecture: The Development of a Theme in Architectural History and Theory from the Gothic Revival to the Modern Movement. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, (1984/original 1977).
David Watkin, The English Vision. John Murray, London, 1982.
David Watkin, Athenian Stuart: Pioneer of the Greek Revival. Harper Collins, New York, 1982.
David Watkin, The Rise of Architectural History, Eastview Editions, London, Reprint edition, 1980.

As a point of view, I think what he has to say deserves a hearing.

Stroik does not come from this school but from that of Thomas Gordon Smith. I shall ask him if he photocopies plans -as has been suggested.

On the question of historicism, I wonder if the architects of the renaissance can be regarded as producing pastiches of anique Rome?

@apelles wrote:

by Michael Byrne

The Church of the Assumption of our Blessed Lady,
Tullamore, 1906-2006

Father Hugh Behan, the parish priest in the 1890s, had mooted the idea of a new church in 1898 as the old church had fallen into serious disrepair.