Zprávy památkové péče 2014, 74(5):355-366

The development of architectural-historical research in the Czech Lands I: from its beginnings to the middle 20th century

Jana Čevonová

The study deals with the development of architectural-historical research in the Czech Lands. Emphasis is placed on the period beginning in approximately the middle 19th century and culminating in the second half of the 20th century. The latter period saw a gradual stabilization of the methodological tools and tasks of architectural-historical research mainly in its contemporary concept - a sophisticated method of comprehensively studying historical buildings, according to which architectural-historical research is compiled on the basis of detailed archival and field research as a written essay with a given structure. There were two intersecting fields with considerable importance, art history and heritage care, together with the related architectural practice of monument reconstruction and renovation. Attention is given to the individual contributions of knowledgeable scientists as well as to developments which were subject to the changing tasks and institutionalization within the State Institute for Reconstruction of Historical Towns and Buildings in the second half of the 20th century. The presented first part of the study covers the period up until the middle 20th century.
A synoptic development of architectural-historical research in the Czech Lands has not yet been processed in a comprehensive form. The basic framework has been laid out by partial studies. The development of art history and heritage care in the 19th century is related to a gradual refinement of the method and objectives of architectural-historical research. An important milestone here can be considered to be the connection of scientifically processed text documentation, i.e. the history of construction primarily in terms of art history, with design documentation which illustratively demonstrates the development of a building, i.e. its age and possibly the stylistic classification of its individual structures. This connection occurred approximately after the middle of the 19th century as a result of the activities of the Commission des monuments historiques in France and the Imperial and Royal Central-Commission zur Erforschung und Erhaltung der Baudenkmale in Vienna, established in 1850. Thorough building surveys and detailed documentation related to the method of style restoration of historic buildings, but now also with art history research of medieval architecture, was primarily conducted by the designing architects - Bernhard Grueber and later the pupils of Friedrich Schmidt from the Vienna Academy, Josef Mocker, and August Prokop in Moravia. The change in direction towards modern architectural-historical research occurred in the work of architect Kamil Hilbert around 1900 with the transformation of the perception of monuments - distinguishing and evaluating most phases of the development projects of a structure - under the influence of the theory of Alois Riegl and the opinions of Georg Dehio. The method of architectural-historical research further crystallized as part of the closer interconnection between art-historical research and monument renovation after the formation of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918, after the final enforcement of the conservation method of the renovation of historic architecture in Czech heritage care. Credit for this is due the art historian Vojtěch Birnbaum and his pupils Václav Mencl, Oldřich Stefan, and Václav Richter. The further development of architectural-historical research was significantly influenced by blanket surveys of historic city centers, processed as bases for urban planning, initiated mainly by Zdeněk Wirth, Václav Wagner, and Václav Mencl at the turn of the 1930's and 1040's.

Keywords: art history, heritage preservation, architecture, architectural-historical research, Bernhard Grueber, Kamil Hilbert, Vojtěch Birnbaum, Václav Mencl

Published: December 1, 2014  Show citation