Chrystian Piotr Aigner, ancient monuments, and the architectural discourse of Polish resurrection in the Age of Revolution

Abstract

Abstract The role of ancient classical monuments in the history of Polish neoclassicism at the turn of the nineteenth century may seem to be insignificant. However, among many building types, there was one in the case of which ancient classical monuments served as an important source of inspiration for contemporary building practice. It was the architecture of public commemoration that engaged in the discourse of national resurrection after the late-eighteenth-century partitions of the Polish state. Apart from their general associations with natural order and permanent stability, classical architectural models could directly invoke historical or mythological precedents which helped clarify the ambiguities of the resurrection. However, it is notable that such memorials did not only share the propagation of the idea of national resurrection. They also had the same designer, Chrystian Piotr Aigner (1756–1841), who showed an exceptional interest in ancient architecture. This article argues that not only the direct engagement of those commemorative structures in the discourse of national resurrection, but also the choice of the designer with a special penchant for classical antiquity accounted for the unusual use of classical models as design templates in those specific architectural undertakings.