A case of recovery of a medieval vaulting technique in the 19th century: Lassaulx's vaults in the Church of Treis: Fid-Bau Portal

A case of recovery of a medieval vaulting technique in the 19th century: Lassaulx's vaults in the Church of Treis

Wendland, David

In 1829, the "Journal für die Baukunst" published an essay with the title "Description of the procedure in the making of light vaults over churches and similar spaces", where, referring to observations made on medieval buildings, a method of building vaults without formwork is described. The author of this essay, Johann Claudius von Lassaulx (1781-1848), was a Royal Prussian building inspector at Koblenz (Germany). As an architect he built numerous public buildings in that area, including several large parish churches in the medieval style. He was strongly engaged in research, restoration and maintenance of medieval architecture, as well as a promoter of neo-medieval architecture both in his projects and in his writings. The first major project where Lassaulx put in practise his method of vaulting, is the new parish church at Treis, near Koblenz. This church, built in 1824-1831, was one of the very first churches in gothic style in modern age in Germany. Following a critical analysis of Lassaulx's essay, his description of the vaulting technique is compared with his own vault constructions referred to in the essay, where based on digital measurements a geometrical analysis of the masonry fabric has been carried out. This comparative study gives the opportunity to understand in detail the building technology and the conceptual choices in the making of the technological artefact. Further, the relevance of Lassaulx's publication and its position within the development of the technical literature, building technology and architecture in the 19th century are discussed. In fact, the precise technical description of a construction principle that allows its reproduction, provided by its author, is a necessary condition for creating a relationship between architectural design and the technical solution in detail, characteristic for the neo-medieval architecture and the development of modern architecture. In this study, the possibilities of the application of modern information technology in the survey of historical constructions are shown, namely the use of three-dimensional measurement and reverse geometric engineering for the aim of geometrical analysis, as well as the connection of technical, philological and architectural-historic analyses. The contribution is a preliminary report of the research contained in the author's doctoral thesis “Lassaulx und der Gewölbebau mit selbsttragenden Mauerschichten. Neumittelalterliche Architektur um 1825-1848”, supervised by Prof. Dr. phil. D. Kimpel, University of Stuttgart, Institut für Architekturgeschichte, delivered in 2007.