Friedrich von Schmidt
Friedrich Schmidt, on 22 January 1886 Friedrich Freiherr von Schmidt ( born October 22, 1825 Frickhofen, community Gschwend in Württemberg; † 23 January 1891 in Vienna) was a prominent architect of the Ringstrasse era, which established the Gothic Revival style. He is an honorary citizen of Vienna.
Life and work
Friedrich Schmidt, son of a minister, resigned after the Adolf Breymann at the Polytechnic Stuttgart completed study ( 1840-43 ), he added simultaneously by the stone mason, as well as (by self ) studies of the Gothic buildings in Swabia, 1843 in the Cologne Cathedral workshop, where he rose to foreman. In 1848 he put the master's examination as a bricklayer and mason from 1856 the architect exam at the Berlin Academy of Architecture. From 1847 he developed a sideline an extensive design and construction, architectural objects as small as included restorations and renovations with a focus on religious sector. From 1851 he ran a private construction company. Schmidt reportedly expressed as early as the teenage years predilection for the Gothic compacted around the middle of the century to a special expert knowledge, but left him a further career within the Fabric, not least because of his Protestant faith fails. A monument contract had contacts with Austria opened, which deepened in 1855, when he emerged from the competition for the Votive Church as one of the winners Schmidt. Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian had thus become aware of him and left him in 1857 appointed to the Academy in Milan, where Schmidt ( until 1859 ) supervised the field of medieval architecture by the Minister of Education, Leo von Thun und Hohenstein. In the same year Friedrich Schmidt converted to Catholicism.
In 1859 he was a professor of medieval architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, where he (along with Karl Roesner and August from Sicardsburg ) took over the School of Architecture from 1865, which he headed until his death ( including as Rector of the Academy in 1872 -74, 1876-78, 1882-84 ).
After overcoming initial resistance to Schmidt developed in Vienna became one of the leading artists of the ring road time and gave both the sacral as in secular Gothic Revival decisive advantage. In 1860 he became a member of the Construction Committee of St. Stephen's Cathedral and the Imperial Central Commission for the Study and Conservation of monuments, 1862, he took over the overall management of the Fabric of St. Stephen and the chair of the Association of Vienna Bauhütte, 1863, he was architect of the Cathedral of St. Stephen. In the years 1866-68, 1870-72, 1874-77, 1879-81, 1883-85, he stood in front of the Austrian Engineers and Architects Club.
In Vienna, many of his designs were implemented by the Czech architect Josef Hlávka. Among the most important disciples of Friedrich Schmidt include his later employee of Franz Neumann and Valentin Teirich.
1883 you gave Friedrich Schmidt made an honorary citizen of the city of Vienna, in 1886 on the occasion of the completion of the construction of the Imperial House Foundation at Schottenring 7 baron. Previously, he was born in 1872 in England with the Royal Gold Medal Award From 1866 to 1870 he was a member of the Vienna City Council, and from 1889 a member of the manor.
Friedrich von Schmidt passed away on January 23, 1891 in the few years before he designed Sühnhaus and received an honorary grave in Vienna's Central Cemetery (Group 14 A, number 54). The massive stone slab that covers the grave is dug out of the house breaking the brothers Amelin in Kaisersteinbruch.
The area behind one of his major works, the city hall was named in his honor in 1927, Friedrich- Schmidt-Platz; there is also his monument, which was created by Edmund Hofmann of Aspern castle and Julius Deininger and unveiled on 28 May 1896.
Buildings (selection)
Assessment Reception /
Friedrich von Schmidt's significance is based primarily on three areas of activity: as an international architects, preservationists and as a teacher with significant school effect. The artist and the conservator can not be separated, which suggests some works appear ambivalent despite all the grandeur, as the creative in the transformations often predominates ( St. Stephen's Cathedral, the Abbey of Klosterneuburg, castle Vajdahunyad etc. ) Schmidt applies primarily as Gothics in his work, but what is not doctrinaire to understand, since in his oeuvre not only cross divergent Gothic traditions, but also different, belong to the specialization relativizing Stilidiome, some of the Renaissance and Romanesque Revival. Among the French as Dutch enclosing basics of time in Cologne were joined by the Italian experience, the impressions of the South German and Southeastern European Late Middle Ages and even baroque. Accordingly, he crossed - however dominant - strictly historicist style elements both with romantic tendencies as with late historicist trains. Not only numerically occur in the sacred building the parish churches forth. Schmidt used the Vienna of Hermann von Bergmann (1817-1886) established tradition of neo-Gothic brick building, getting this became the dominant mode (St. Othmar, 1863, etc.). The climax brought the Church of Our Lady Victorious in Vienna ( 1868-75 ), in the Gothic style blends with the baroque central dome scheme.