Neo-Gothic Architecture and Restoration of Historic Buildings in Central Europe: Friedrich Schmidt and His School

Abstract

Friedrich Schmidt, the foremost Gothicist of Austria, exerted seminal influence in central Europe through his activities as architect, restorer of historic buildings, and professor at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. His unorthodox teaching methods included personal tuition near the drawing board and study trips to examine medieval buildings, attended by students of different ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds from all corners of the monarchy and even beyond. The students' school society, called Wiener Bauhütte, or Vienna Building Lodge, published their drawings in albums under the same name. The reception of Gothic in the countries of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy differed according to local traditions, historical associations, and political circumstances. Revived Gothic best suited church building, in which Schmidt's pupils, often relying on their teacher's models, excelled. Gothic did not fare so well in monumental public architecture, though in the Budapest Parliament House by Imre Steindl, Schmidt's school witnessed the summation of its ambitions and the transcendence of its limitations. Schmidt's orientation in his later life toward German Neo-Renaissance and Neo-Romanesque found echo in several of his pupils' work; these styles again carried national connotations, which were nowhere more apparent than in German- and Czech-inhabited Bohemia. Schmidt and his pupils virtually monopolized the restoration of historic buildings in the monarchy, though their puristic and often destructive practices gave rise to severe criticism as a new century dawned.