Marcus Conrad Dietze

Green Gate at the Dresden Residenzschloss

Marcus Conrad Dietze (born May 17, 1658 in Ulm ; † July 11, 1704 in Piotrawin / Poland ) was a German architect and sculptor .

Life

Marcus Conrad Dietze was born on May 17, 1658 as the son of Wilhelm Dietze and his wife Susanne. Through his work, the Saxon baroque architecture developed to its peak. Since 1680 he worked at the Dresden court and created with other sculptors, including Abraham Conrad Buchau , George Heermann , the brothers Jeremias and Conrad Max Süßner , the three-dimensional decorative elements on the palace in the Great Garden under the direction of the chief architect Johann Georg Starcke . In 1693 he created the plastic jewelry on the Green Gate of the Residenzschloss, a huge spa coat of arms dominates the central axis between the half-columns above the crowning end, in between there is plastic trophy jewelry. This sculptural work by Dietze ended the Dresden portal architecture. In addition to his sculptural work, he designed architectural plans for the palace buildings in Dresden and Warsaw . He then went on a two-year study trip to Italy with a longer stay in Turin . From then on, these new impressions determined his architectural designs, for example for the renovation of the market square in Altendresden, which was destroyed after the fire in 1685 . In 1699 he took over the position of building manager Ulrich Rothe after his death. From then on he developed new plans for the expansion and embellishment of the existing stately buildings of the Zwinger . He also made extensive architectural designs for a new building for the residential palace , which was damaged by fire in 1701 . Dietze's idea of ​​creating a large terrace measuring 90 × 95 meters at Moritzburg Castle was later implemented after his death. In 1701 he lost his post in the construction department. But already in 1703 he received the office of master builder in Poland because of his services . In addition, he tirelessly worked out new plans for the Saxon court in Dresden and Warsaw. His architectural designs made high demands and showed an enormous ingenuity and new quality of baroque architecture in Saxony, unmatched for those times . When a major fire broke out on July 11, 1704 in the Saxon-Polish military camp around 150 kilometers southeast of Warsaw near Piotrawin on the Vistula , presumably due to arson by anti-Saxon opponents, he was killed during the extinguishing work, along with 32 members of the entourage Job Ernst von Bomsdorff , a court marshal of the Polish king Augustus the Strong .

Works (selection)

• 1680: figurative sculptural jewelry, three-dimensional keystones at the palace in the Great Garden , Dresden
• 1693: Green Gate portal , spa coat of arms, plastic trophy decorations at Dresden Castle

literature

• LM Sponsel: The Zwinger, the courtyard festivals and the castle building plans in Dresden . 2 vol., Dresden 1924.
• BA Döring: Matthes Daniel Pöppelmann, the master of the Dresden Zwinger , ed. by HG Ermisch , Dresden 1930, pp. 23-25.
• F. Löffler: The old Dresden . Leipzig and Frankfurt am Main 1990.
• Heinrich Gerhard Franz:  Dietz, Marcus Konrad. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1957, ISBN 3-428-00184-2 , p. 708 ( digitized version ).
• Hermann Heckmann : Builder of the Baroque and Rococo in Saxony . Berlin 1996, pp. 86-91.

Web links

• Hermann Heckmann : Marcus Conrad Dietze . In: Institute for Saxon History and Folklore (Ed.): Saxon Biography .