Johann Gregor Fuchs
Johann Gregor Fuchs (* 1650 in Ortrand ; † August 16, 1715 in Leipzig ) was one of the great Saxon architects and builders of the Baroque era . Between 1700 and 1715 he created several magnificent town houses in Leipzig, which are among the most beautiful buildings of the bourgeois baroque in Germany.
Act
Johann Gregor Fuchs, who presumably received his construction training in Dresden and became a citizen of this city on March 13, 1679, rose to the position of Saxon court architect and master craftsman in 1692 . Although little is known about his Dresden work today, it can be assumed that he was one of the established master builders in the capital of Electoral Saxony since the 1690s at the latest . Throughout his life, Fuchs benefited from the good relationships with the Dresden court and his network of craftsmen, master builders and architects working there, such as Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann , to whom he was not only professionally but also friendly. His style has points of contact with the design preferences of the Electoral Saxon court architect Michael Plancke and the Dresden council architect Johann Christian Fehre .
On December 6th, 1700 the Saxon court architect was elected by the council of the city of Leipzig as councilor mason. This choice corresponded to the wishes of the elector, who in 1701 also pushed through the election of his favorite Franz Conrad Romanus as Leipzig mayor, in order to strengthen his influence there with this interference in Leipzig affairs. August the Strong also intended to design the cityscapes of his Saxon and Polish residences or secondary residences according to the model of Dresden and this led, for example, in 1703 to the appointment of Marcus Conrad Dietze as agricultural master builder in Poland and the above-mentioned election of Fuchs as master mason in Leipzig.
In 1701 Gregor Fuchs moved to Leipzig. The masons' guild rejected the new, patronized by the elector, council mason and refused to accept him. The Leipzig councilors and merchants held back the award of the building contracts for the time being, only the new mayor Romanus, who was also favored by the elector, commissioned the council mason from Dresden to build a representative city palace , which he then built within three years on the site of today's Katharinenstraße 23 built.
The construction of the Romanushaus initiated the heyday of the bourgeois Baroque in Leipzig. Gregor Fuchs and the architects and builders who followed him, Christian Döring , George Werner and Friedrich Seltendorff, designed Katharinenstrasse in the 18th century into a boulevard that is known far beyond the city limits of Leipzig. With the completion of the Romanushaus, the Leipzig merchants were enthusiastic about the artistic and craftsmanship potential of their master mason and have since commissioned him with the construction of further representative buildings, including the royal house (1705), the Fregehaus (1706) and Aeckerleins Hof (1709).
Fuchs was therefore able to maintain his position as the most important architect and master builder in the trade fair city even after the fall of his patron Romanus, who was undone by financial manipulation, whereby he maintained good relationships with the trade fair city in the event of difficulties - for example with business deals, building appraisals or construction work Dresdner Hof knew how to use it skillfully. Finally, the successful and now respected council mason became a citizen of Leipzig on November 17, 1705. A little later he was accepted by the bricklayer guild, which ultimately could no longer prevent him from being promoted to their chief master.
With his Leipzig buildings, Johann Gregor Fuchs impressively succeeded in finding his own creative, unmistakable style that is still valued today. He combined the sober rationality of the Dutch-North German baroque prevailing in Leipzig around 1700 with decorative ornaments and thus significantly shaped the style of the town houses built until 1750.
Shortly after the completion of the shell of the second Hohmann house at Katharinenstrasse 16, the honorable architect and master builder died on August 16, 1715 in Leipzig. In 1947 the Leipzig city fathers decided to rename a street in the Leipzig district of Crottendorf in his honor as "Gregor-Fuchs-Straße" . A bust of Johann Gregor Fuchs acts as a window keystone in the courtyard of the Romanushaus and is the only surviving depiction of the meritorious Leipzig architect and master builder.
Buildings (selection)
- in Leipzig
- Construction of the Romanushaus , Katharinenstraße 23, (1701–1703)
- Baroque tower end of the Thomaskirche , (1702, destroyed in World War II, then rebuilt)
- Conversion of the royal house at Markt 17 into a baroque residence, (1705–1707)
- Conversion of the Fregehaus , Katharinenstraße 11, (1706–1707, together with the master carpenter Christian Schmidt)
- Extension of Jöcher's house at Markt 2, (1707)
- New building of the community center at Ritterstraße 6, (1708, together with Christian Schmidt, no longer preserved today)
- New construction of the community center at Katharinenstrasse 3, (1709, jointly Christian Schmidt)
- Construction of Aeckerleins Hof , Markt 11; (1709–1714, together with Christian Schmidt, destroyed in World War II)
- Renewal of St. Peter's Church; (Canceled 1710, 1885)
- outside of Leipzig
- Construction of the village church Hof bei Stauchitz between Oschatz and Riesa, (1692–1697)
- Construction of the community center at Hauptstrasse 22 in Dresden, (around 1696)
- Construction of the community center Töpfergasse 9 in Dresden, (around 1696, destroyed in a fire in 1760)
- Construction of the community center at Kleine Meißner Gasse 6 in Dresden, (before 1700)
- Construction of the community center at Wilsdruffer Strasse 19 in Dresden, (before 1700)
- Construction of the Wiederau Castle near Pegau, (around 1705)
- Construction of the Langenleuba-Niederhain Castle in Altenburger Land, (around 1707)
literature
- Wolfgang Hocquél : Leipzig - Builders and Buildings - From the Romanesque to the Present , Tourist Verlag, Berlin / Leipzig, 1990, ISBN 3-350-00333-8
- Wolfgang Hocquél (editor): Leipzig , VEB EA Seemann Verlag Leipzig, 1983
- Nikolaus Pevsner : Leipziger Barock - The architecture of the baroque period in Leipzig , EA Seemann Verlag, Leipzig 1st edition 1990, reprint of the edition of the publishing house by Wolfgang Jens, Dresden. 1st edition 1928, ISBN 3-363-00457-5
- Marianne Mehling (editor); Knaur's cultural guide in color Saxony , Droemersche Verlagsanstalt Th. Knaur Nachf., Munich 1991, ISBN 3-426-26488-9
- Art monuments in the GDR - A picture handbook districts Dresden - Karl-Marx-Stadt - Leipzig , explanations and selection of pictures by Albrecht Dohmann, Edition Leipzig, 2nd improved edition 1989, ISBN 3-361-00249-4
Web links
Remarks
- ^ Pevsner: Leipziger Barock 1990.
- ↑ Christian Döring completed the building at Katharinenstrasse 16 after Fuchs' death. The so-called “Döringschen houses” (Katharinenstrasse 12, 14 and 16) were destroyed in the Second World War.
- ^ The builder was the Mayor of Leipzig, Franz Conrad Romanus .
- ↑ The client was the businessman Andreas Dietrich Apel .
- ↑ The client was the merchant Gottfried Otto. The banker Christian Gottlob Frege II (1747–1816) did not acquire the house until 1782.
- ↑ The client was the publisher Thomas Fritsch .
- ↑ The client was the businessman Peter Hohmann .
- ↑ Christian Schmidt can be traced back to Leipzig in 1673. He worked as a carpenter for Fuchs for many years before falling out with him in 1710 because of structural damage to the "Aeckerleins Hof" building . The dispute between Fuchs and Schmidt could only be ended in 1713 , and only after the urging of Augustus the Strong . Schmidt then worked with Christian Döring , for example on the construction of the building at Katharinenstrasse 14, and died in 1737.
- ↑ Fuchs bought the previous building in April 1696, had it torn down and then built his house on the property, which he bequeathed to his wife Anna Catherina Fuchs († 1742).
- ↑ The builder was David von Fletscher .
- ↑ For a number of years there has been a dispute as to whether Johann Gregor Fuchs actually built the castle or David Schatz built it based on designs by Leonhard Christoph Sturm . See on Fuchs: website of the Förderkreis Schloss Wiederau eV ; See on Schatz and Sturm: Jörg Katerndahl, The wall and ceiling paintings by Giovanni Francesco Marchini in the castles of Wiederau and Crossen, Hain Verlag, 1998
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Fuchs, Johann Gregor |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Fuchs, Gregor |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German architect and builder of the baroque |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1650 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Outskirts |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 16, 1715 |
| Place of death | Leipzig |