Niezrealizowane projekty odbudowy kościoła w Oruni autorstwa gdańskiego architekta miejskiego Carla Samuela Helda

Abstract

This article discusses widely unknown designs of the Evangelical church in the village of Orunia near Gdańsk from 1816–1819. The concepts preserved in the State Archive in Gdańsk contain as many as eight variants of the reconstruction of the meeting house destroyed during a siege in 1813. The author of these concepts was the contemporary city architect Carl Samuel Held. As a student of Carl Gotthard Langhans (1732–1808), one of the greatest Prussian architects of that time, Held consistently used classicist forms throughout his body of work. His first two designs for the reconstruction of the church in question were in line with the so-called revolutionary classicism. The following six neo-Gothic variants constituted a formal exception in his oeuvre. Moreover, the case of the Orunia church was the only time he ever attempted to design a sacral building. The clumsiness in the use of neo-Gothic forms, as well as the inability to fit into the assumed financial framework contributed to the rejection of Held’s designs. Eventually, the project by August von Gersdorff verified by the head of the Higher Construction Deputy Karl Friedrich Schinkel was the one that was implemented. The construction was completed in 1823. The forms used in the building exhibit inspiration drawn from the Teutonic castle in Malbork. The prime mover behind their use was the Oberpräsident of the Province of West Prussia Theodor von Schön, promoter of the restoration work at the castle. The church in Orunia is the first case of a building with neo-Gothic features in Gdańsk and its area, as well as the first construction with forms intentionally referring to the Malbork Castle, a landmark symbolizing the essence of Germanity.