DIENTZENHOFER FAMILY

DIENTZENHOFER FAMILY. Architects active in Bavaria and Bohemia, six members of this extended family are associated with over 250 buildings: the five brothers, Georg (1643–1689), Wolfgang (1648–1706), Christoph (1655–1727), Johann Leonhard (1660–1707), and Johann (1663–1726); and Christoph's son, Kilian Ignaz (1689–1751). In the churches that dominate their oeuvre, they created spatial sequences by means of curved, open forms in which plan, elevation, and vaults are woven into works of complex counterpoint.

Georg built the large Cistercian monastery and church at Waldsassen, the pilgrimage church nearby known as the Kappel bei Waldsassen, and St. Martin in Bamberg. The Kappel (1684–1689) consists of three apses, a triangular vault, three campanili, and a low ambulatory. Inside, the three curved spatial units are united into a centralized whole. Drawing on a broad architectural inheritance of medieval, Slavic, and folk traditions, Georg's exploration of architectural space produced an original achievement that set the tone for his brothers' buildings.

Wolfgang was responsible for brilliantly stuccoed wallpier churches in Bavaria, among them Michelfeld, Speinshart, and the pilgrimage church Maria Hilf in Amberg. The wallpier, a buttress drawn into the body of the church, permitted a skeletal structure and thin, nonsupporting walls as the bases for spatialized interiors. His tentative explorations of this potential would be developed by Christoph.

Leonhard served as court architect in Bamberg, designing large complexes such as the new Residenz, and the monasteries at Ebrach and Banz. His severe if precise elevations, reminiscent of work from the 1670s and 1680s in Prague and Vienna, suggest a conservative architectural attitude. On the other hand, his projects for centralized churches exhibit a lively, inventive approach to design.

Johann was responsible for the cathedral and palace in Fulda, and the imposing palace at Pommersfelden; he was appointed Bamberg court architect after Leonhard's death, and built the church at Banz. Johann, the only brother to receive a formal architectural education, later traveled to Rome for further study. At Banz, he employed transverse ovals, curved entablatures and vault ribs, and narrow and wide bays arranged in counterpoint to the vaults, to develop a range of spatial possibilities. The distinctive feature of the great palace at Pommersfelden is its dominant, projecting center, which contains a grand staircase and imperial hall above. This architectonic assertion of ritual and prestige would resonate in Middle European palace architecture, as at Neumann's Würzburg Residenz.

Christoph and Kilian Ignaz, father and son, worked primarily in Prague, where their two churches of St. Nicholas, one in the Lesser Town and one in the Old Town, remain decisive shapers of the urban setting. In many of his churches, Christoph centralized longitudinal plans. For the monastery church of St. Margaret at Brevnov (on the outskirts of Prague), he employed two transverse ovals bracketed by smaller ovals and extended at one end by a choir. The bays in elevation and vault are reversed in relation to one another, the vault is interpreted as two shells (one open to the other), piers and entablatures curve into the space, and walls are thin, curved planes. The whole, including the vault frescoes and liturgical furniture, is lucid and transparent, a spatial complexity realized with consummate ease.

Among Kilian Ignaz's many centralized churches, St. Nicholas in Prague is extraordinary. Set on a narrow site in the heart of town, the flank is treated as a two-towered facade with an idiosyncratic entrance and polygonal dome. At right angles and to one side of the flank is the main entrance, to the other the choir apse. Inside, piers, chapels, balcony, and pendentives are organized vertically below the octagonal dome, forming a dominant centralized counterpoint to the strong horizontal axis running from entrance to altar. Here the duality of center and path, of skeletonized forms and multiple sources of light, create an intensely expressive architecture.

Both father and son worked on St. Nicholas in the Prague Lesser Town. Christoph designed the facade and nave, Kilian Ignaz the choir. The nave is defined by deep wallpiers, chapels, and gallery. Pilasters on the pier faces are placed obliquely to support vault arches that twist across the nave, so that the reading of a bay established in elevation is reversed in the vault. These spatial dynamics were made more unusual when, shortly after completion, the ribs were removed and the vault transformed into a single undulating surface for an extensive fresco. Kilian Ignaz further expanded the interior by adding a huge dome supported on paired columns and vertical pendentives, extended on three sides by shallow transepts and choir. Part of a large Jesuit complex, the church stood within a large space. Christoph's undulating facade dominated the square on one side, while on the choir end, overlooking the Charles Bridge and the Old Town, Kilian Ignaz constructed a bell tower, asymmetrically, next to the dome. This unique combination creates an urban ensemble in which dome and tower dance about one another as they are experienced from different locations within the city.

DIENTZENHOFER FAMILY

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