Anglo-German Interconnexions during the Gothic Revival: A Case Study from the Work of Georg Gottlob Ungewitter (1820-64)

Abstract

Connexions in architectural style between England, France and Germany during the Gothic Revival have been analyzed by Frankl, Germann, Middleton, Muthesius and Lewis. The English architectural world, especially Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin’s writings, provided a new foundation for the German Gothic Revival that was supported by the theories of the lawyer and politician August Reichensperger (1808–95) and practised by architects such as Vincenz Statz (1818–98) and Georg Gottlob Ungewitter (1820–64). These architects either followed Reichensperger very literally, as did Statz in the Rhineland, or developed their own branch of the Gothic movement, as did Ungewitter. In Lewis’s picture of the Revival between 1840 and 1880 Reichensperger is placed in the centre; but our view is that the Gothic Revival in Germany was not a co-ordinated movement as it was in England. Although the independence of architects like Ungewitter in Hesse and Conrad Wilhelm Hase (1818–1902) in Lower Saxony is appreciated by the author, the viewing of Reichensperger’s ideas as the crucial point of the whole movement appears to be too limited. Rather it seems to be the variety of facets that determines the structure of the German Gothic Revival.