Dynamics of Re-Gothicization in 19th-Century Central Europe. The Church of St James in Brno: Local Preoccupations and Global Trends
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| Year of publication | 2021 |
| Type | Chapter of a book |
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| Description | In the 19th century, historicist restoration projects very often had high stakes and meaning for cities, official figures, and theoreticians alike. The re-Gothicization project of the Church of St James the Great in Brno is no different: as a matter of fact, the sources and writings describing the church’s transformation between circa the 1860s and 1880s provide us with a rich array of materials which allow us to understand both the historiography of the building, and the intertwining of local and global practices in a central European town. With the historian Christian d’Elvert’s text on the restoration as a guideline, and making use of numerous unpublished archival documents, what emerges is a dive into the history of mentalities of a restoration project involving an entire society – from citizens and local authorities to the German master-builder Josef Arnold, and to the famous Viennese architect Heinrich Ferstel. In such a way, the essay follows – in three steps – all the major stages of the restoration, from its intellectual conception as a project to “purify” the appearance of the church to practical issues, such as the involvement of votive donations in its financing, and to the global dynamics involved in the idea of neo- Gothic restoration in the second half of the long 19th century. |
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