Augusta (c. AD 350–80)

London’s later Roman defences were enhanced by a series of towers, or bastions, likely to have been built in association with military campaigns in Britain in the 360s. The revived walled city housed important institutions of Roman government, several of which were later described in the Notitia Dignitatum, and was renamed Augusta. This chapter reviews the archaeological evidence for the fourth century city set within its historical context. It also summarizes the uncertain evidence of London’s first Christian communities, and considers the extent to which new institutional arrangements gave rise to new forms of public architecture.

Gmach Gdańskiej Biblioteki Miejskiej przy ulicy Wałowej

Following Germany’s unification in 1871, Gdansk was a major municipal centre and a port on the Empire’s map, however it was well past its heyday. In the Gründerzeit, it could not reach as quick a pace of development as other cities of the Reich, and by the late 19th century it did not boast any university. The attempt to catch up on the substantial delay in creating modern public architecture in Gdansk was only made after the fortifications had been dismantled (1895–97). A triangular plot close to St James’s Gate was reserved for the purpose of education and science. It was there that a seat of the city archive and the building of the Secondary School of SS Peter and Paul (Oberrealschule St. Petri und Pauli) were raised. The third edifice was planned as the new home for the Gdansk Library. The precious book collection, whose core was formed by the collection bequeathed by Joannes Bernardinus Bonifacius d’Oria of Naples in 1596, was kept in a former Franciscan monastery, and later in St James’s Church. Attempts to raise a new building to house the collection in the 1820s as designed by Carl Samuel Held failed. Neither was the plan to erect the new library building as an extension of the Dungeon and Prison Gate Complex implemented. It was only Karl Kleefeld’s design from 1901–1902 planning to raise an impressive Gothic Revival complex that finally came to life. Completed in January 1905, the Library welcomed the first readers already on 16 February. Kleefeld designed the building’s mass on the L -plan layout with a truncated corner and wings. The main reading room boasted elegant, sumptuous, and coherent wooden furnishing, and the gallery’s centrepiece was a ledge decorated with 14 panels featuring bas -relief cartouches with the emblems of the cities of West Prussia. Differing in size, the edifices, were given red -brick elevations with plastered details and glazed green filling, with a sgraffito frieze on the reading room elevation between the ground and first floors. It was the Gdansk Renaissance that dominated in public buildings’ architecture of the city in the last quarter of the 19th century. The resumed popularity of Gothic Revival in its local forms in Gdansk public buildings’ architecture, such as those in the afore - -described Kleefeld’s designs, resulted undoubtedly from a rapid growth of research into historic structures, yet on the other hand it reflected the return to the local tradition (Heimatschutz), which could be observed in the architecture of the German Reich at the time. Judged in the context of an extremely modest programme of public projects in Gdansk of the period, the creation of the Bildungsdreick with the edifices of the archive, library, and secondary school is to be regarded as a major event in the history of creating public architecture of the city. As seen against other projects of the time in other Reich cities, the Gdansk City Library stood out neither with its scale, nor innovatory character of the layout solutions. What, however, makes it a special facility are architectural forms that reveal its contribution to the search for the expression of the local tradition. This kind of an archaeological approach to the past and a compilatory additive method of juxtaposing quotes from various buildings, which may have also arisen from the lack of talent of the architect, were undoubtedly in decline in the early 20th century.

Public Architecture in Ancient Mesoamerica

The study of temple-pyramids and other public buildings has long been an important focus in Mesoamerican archaeology. Scholars generally use the term public architecture to refer to structures for use, visitations, and gatherings beyond individual households, but the term public needs to be examined more critically. Public buildings are tied to the formation and transformation of the public sphere, a social field shaped in specific historical contexts that enables and restrains the political action of people. Traditional studies commonly viewed public buildings as reflections of society, political organization, or worldviews. Investigations before the 1960s often focused on the descriptions of public buildings or used them to define cultural areas and traditions. The rise of processual archaeology in the 1960s and 1970s encouraged researchers to examine social processes through the analysis of buildings. Some scholars assumed that the size of public buildings and the labor investments in their constructions reflected the levels of political centralization. At the same time, the symbolic aspect of buildings continued to be an important theme in Mesoamerican archaeology. The underlying assumption was that public buildings, through their shapes and orientations, or associated images and texts, represented worldviews or cosmologies. While these approaches continue to be common, various Mesoamerican archaeologists have begun to examine the recursive processes in which buildings shaped, and were shaped by, society. In this framework, some scholars focus on people’s actions and perceptions, whereas others view buildings as active agents in social processes. Sensory perceptions, particularly visibility, are examined as critical media, through which the recursive relations between buildings and people unfolded. Construction events are also viewed as critical processes, in which collective identities and social relations are created, negotiated, and transformed. The meanings of buildings still represent an important focus, but instead of searching for fixed, homogeneous meanings, the new theoretical perspectives have urged scholars to analyze how diverse groups negotiated multiple meanings. In the early 21st century, public buildings at archaeological sites continue to be a subject of negotiation among diverse groups, including the governments, descendant communities, archaeologists, developers, and the general public.

Freund Vilmos munkássága a Fővárosi Középítési Bizottmányban

Freund Vilmos (1846 –1920), Gottfried Semper tanítványa a dualizmus korabeli Budapest egyik igen termékeny építőművésze volt. Több mint félszáz épületet alkotott a fővárosban. Főleg olasz neoreneszánsz stílusban tervezte meg épületeit. 1900 után már szinte egyáltalán nem alkotott építészként. Építészi tapasztalata megszerzését követően, 1891 körül egyre aktívabb szakmapolitikai tevékenységbe kezdett. Tanulmányunk ismerteti a Fővárosi Középítési Bizottmány szerepét, majd Freund itt végzett munkáját mutatja be, beszédeinek nagyrészt az egykorú Fővárosi Közlönyben megjelent szó szerinti rögzítése alapján. Először a gyakor lati, technológiai ügyek terén tett felszólalásait ismertetjük. Itt többek között kiviláglik Freund útburkolatokkal kapcsolatos komoly tudása, és az, hogy figyelemmel kísérte azon útvonalak állapotát, ahol általa tervezett paloták álltak. Ezt követik a más építészek plánumaival és épületeivel kapcsolatos megszólalásai. A vele egykorú vagy nála fiatalabb alkotók műveivel kapcsolatos javaslatait, illetve véleményét ismerhetjük meg. Végül pedig a „legizgalmasabb” témát, a városrendezés terén elhangzott hozzászólásait tárgyaljuk. Meglepő, hogy néhány, városképileg igen meghatározó épület létrejöttében vagy megépült formájuknak kialakításában is szerepe volt. Például az új tőzsdepalota kezdeményezését és Szabadság térre helyezését két másik építész (Hauszmann Alajos és Quittner Zsigmond) mellett ő kezdeményezte. A piaristák Duna-korzón álló épületének megjelenésére is hatással volt. Freund az igen jelentős építészeti életművén kívül a szakmapolitikai tevékenységével is figyelemre méltót alkotott Budapesten.Vilmos Freund (1846–1920) was a prominent Hungarian architect who lived during the period of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He was a student of Gottfried Semper. The majority of the buildings by Freund were built in Budapest. His most preferred style was the Italian Neo-Renaissance. From about 1891 he had an architectural political carrier too. After 1900 he radically reduced the number of his designing work. This study is written about his work in the Metropolitan Commission of Public Architecture (Fővárosi Középítési Bizottmány). His speeches in this commission survived until today as word-by-word recordings published in the old bulletins. The first chapter deals with his speeches in relation to practical, technological affairs for example the paving of the roads of Budapest. He reported his opinion of the designs by other architects, this is the topic of the second chapter. Finally, we can read about his speeches about the great city planning actions. It is interesting that several buildings of Budapest were constructed because he and a few of his colleges initiated them.

«Ma sono anche artisti». La casa Clerici di Asnago e Vender a Chiesa in Valmalenco, 1940-41

"This article investigates the critical fortune of the Clerici house, a small building built by the architects Asnago and Vender in Chiesa, in Valmalenco, between 1940 and 1941. Despite its location on the outskirts and its apparent remoteness, this type of architecture immediately found the widespread favor of the public, rightly entering the domain of emblematic modern architectures of that season, as well as of the personal poetic of the authors. The analysis of the house’s project filed for the application for planning permission seeks to investigate the critical judgements expressed by the main critics of Asnago’s and Vender’s work on the one hand, and to verify the possible influence of the debate on the rural and alpine house in the first half on the 20th century and of the technical and specialized public architecture between the 1930s and the 1950s on the other. Finally, the peculiar poetic of the architects, eulogized in the project of the house, is illustrated through the comparison with other styles of architecture and with some furnishings by Asnago and Vender in the years prior to the construction of the Clerici house."

Manuscripts, Public Architecture, and Material Culture

How Important is the Qur’an to Art and Architecture in the Muslim World? Millions of people have made a pilgrimage to the Taj Mahal, waking at dawn to behold this white marble mausoleum as the sun’s rays begin to make it glow. The Taj Mahal...