1850.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER ANl? ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



129 



The small town of Tansennunde, on the Elhe, contains some 

 very good examples — the Conventual Cliurch and St. Stephen's; in 

 the latter much of the moulded work is in stone. A sliort distance 

 from this town there is a very interesting example of the early 

 period of the brick style, in the church at Jei-icbow (before I'JOO), 

 in which the semicircular arch is used throughout; there is also a 

 crypt; the cloisters, which still remain, show this to have been a 

 conventual church. Nut far from Tangermunde, in another di- 

 rection, is situated the ancient capital of the Mark Brandenburg — 

 Stenthal, where tliere are several fine churches of the brick style 

 (the Uom, St. Mary's, St. James's, and St. Peter's), all on a very 

 large scale. At Brandenburg, the Dom affords another example of 

 the earlier period, at least in part. The Church of St. Katliarine 

 (1401), partakes externally rather of the civil than ecclesiastical 

 character; the facade has a stepped gable. I will only mention 

 further the Church of St. Nicolas, at Stralsund (begun 1311), and 

 that of St. Mary, at Stargard, in Pomerania, both of which are 

 stated to be particularly fine examples of the style. 



M'e will now turn to the Ciiul Archilecture of the brick style, 

 examples of which do not occur till about the latter part of the 

 fourteenth century, and they are generally of a much more elabo- 

 borate character, witli greater subdivision of parts, and more 

 profuse decoration. Among these buildings the town halls or 

 senate houses form an important class, but they will hardly admit 

 of any general description; further, the gate towers and other 

 fortifications are very worthy of notice; and lastly the private 

 houses, though these do not offer any very great variety. We will 

 therefore proceed at once to examine some of the examples. 



The senate house at Liibeck is perhaps the most important of 

 its class, as that town was at the head of the Hanse Confederation, 

 and the delegates from the different cities met in the senate house 

 there, which is therefore much larger than would have been neces- 

 sary for the purposes of the town council alone. Tlie erection of 

 tliis building spreads over a consideralde period, down as late as 

 the beginning of the sixteenth century, but the most interesting 

 portion is that first erected. It consists of an open arcade, on 

 granite piers, on the ground floor, probably for the use of the 

 market, over which were tlie halls, &c., lighted by large windows. 

 The roof is masked by a row of turrets, connected by a kind of 

 arcade, which gives a peculiar character to the building. 



The town hall at Tangermiinde is an example of a different 

 class; the most remarkable feature is the gable end, richly deco- 

 rated with octagon buttresses, having stories of canopied niches, — 

 the gable is stepped besween these buttresses. Altogether it 

 strongly resembles the fayade of the Church of St. Katharine, at 

 Brandenburg, and dates probably from the same period, the begin- 

 ning of the fifteenth century. 



The Hall of Justice (as it is called) at Brandenburg presents a 

 somewhat different arrangement; it is by no means so fine an 

 example as that last mentioned. The arrangement of the centre 

 of the front is very peculiar; there is elaborate tracery at the 

 heads of the door and windows, and this, if coeval with the rest of 

 the building, would assign a late date for its erection. 



Having before alluded to Stralsund, I will here mention that the 

 town hall there (built 1316) is spoken of as liaving seven towers, 

 most probably somewhat in the manner of that at Lubeck. There 

 are numerous other examples, which appear mostly to date from 

 the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth centuries. 



Many towns of the district we are considering appear to have 

 been fortified by a continuous wall, generally of brick-work with 

 turrets at intervals, and with large gate-towers, both single and 

 double. Very fine examples of the latter are found at Lubeck, 

 but the enceinte appears in this case to have been an earth-work, 

 though not that now existing. These towers were, without doubt, 

 originally crowned with battlements, as is still the case in some 

 other examples; but even as they now are they form imposing 

 entrances to the town. The date of these buildings would appear 

 to fall in the middle of the fifteenth century. At Tangermiinde 

 the wall is of brick, and remains almost perfect, and there are also 

 some fine gate-towers. At Stenthal we find two good examples of 

 this class of building, at Brandenlmrg several, and many others. 



But I must pass on to another class of examples — the private 

 buildings, of which I find the following description in an old 

 chronicle of the town of Lubeck: — "On one or both sides of the 

 lofty door there is a sitting-room, and at the back a small bed- 

 room, over the former the business room; it was some time before 

 any other window was introduced, besides that common to the 

 sitting and business rooms ; the hall fur the goods and the several 

 stories in the roof had only wooden shutters." This description is 

 of tlie houses of the fourteenth century, but with very sliglit 



alterations it would embrace the gi-eater part of the town at 

 this dav. 



In l<i09 the town of Lubeck was nearly destroyed by fire, and 

 previous to this period the private buildings were probably entirely 

 constructed of wood, as after the fire the senate passed a Buildiritj 

 Act, which ordered that at least both the gable ends of private 

 houses should be of brick. The principal feature of the private 

 buildings are the stepped gables, which are sometimes of great 

 height, and of which every possible variety is met with. 'They are 

 decorated with long strips of panels, arch-headed, and divided into 

 stories of niches and openings; these panels are never continued 

 down over the lower i)art of the house, where the openings have 

 frequently quite a different arrangement. The steps of the gables 

 are very bold, giving a peculiar picturesque character not met with 

 in similar buildings elsewhere. Most of the openings of windows 

 and doors have the segmental arch, being more manageable than 

 the pointed form which is given to those of the niches or panels. 



The treatment of the ornamental parts in this style is peculiar 

 and well adapted to the material in which they are executed. 

 There is one feature in particular which deserves attention, I 

 mean the introduction of a white plastered ground to relieve the 

 forms of tracery, &c. put over it. This relief by colour is rendered 

 necessary by the dark hue of the material, owing to which tlie 

 shadow of small projections would not give sufficient relief. 



In the early examples of the brick style, the more elaborate 

 parts, including the tracery of the windows and other moulded 

 work, were executed in stone. Horizontal bands of stone were 

 also occasionally introduced, and they have a good effect in tying 

 together the different parts of the composition, besides their value 

 in a constructive point of view. But in the later examples from 

 the end of the fourteenth century, stone is entirely dispensed with, 

 and we find even such parts as crockets and finials executed in 

 bricli. The use of dark brown or black glazed bricks was also 

 common during the later period. The character of the mouldings 

 varies, of course, somewhat in the different periods, being simpler 

 in the earlier, and more elaborately subdivided in the later; deli- 

 cacy of profile can hardly be expected from the nature of the 

 material. Moulded bricks were also used to make up general 

 forms, such as circular piers, the inner side of circular turrets, &c. 

 There are a few points in the construction of the buildings we 

 have been examining which ought not to be passed over. There 

 is usually a granite plinth carried all round the churches, and the 

 towers are faced with the same several feet up. The absence of 

 buttresses to the towers rendered it necessary to increase the 

 tliickness of the walls, which we find is very considerable, not- 

 withstanding which they mostly incline from the upright; and it is 

 remarkable that this occurs most frequently towards the south- 

 west. While speaking of the mortar joints, I should mention 

 that they are invariably very wide (from i-inch to |-inch or even 

 more); the mortar itself is extremely hard, and the lime used 

 was, for the district we are considering, principally supplied from 

 Segeberg in Holstein. 



The construction of vaulting, I think, claims particular atten- 

 tion; in the first place, a light material was prepared in bricks, 

 moulded of a wedge form. The ribs seem to have been first con- 

 structed, independently, as a skeleton, and between them the 

 spandrils were filled iii with the light bricks, apparently without 

 the use of centring, as each spandril is considerably arched up to 

 enable it to support its own or any superincumbent weight; thus 

 the vaulting rests entirely on the ribs, which are not tailed into it. 

 It is a single brick in thickness, about six inches, and is backed up 

 only a very short distance above the springing, so that the form is 

 very distinctly seen on tlie upper surface, where it presents a very 

 remarkable appearance. The bond used throughout is the Flemish, 

 or, as it is there called, the cross-bond; the arches are always built 

 in half-brick rings. 



The bricks used in the buildings I have brought under your 

 notice are of a larger size than those now commonly used in tlie 

 district; tliey are remarkably hard and sound, and are rather 

 heavy; though externally of a brown red colour, the inside is 

 grey, like our stocks: tiiis is not the case with those now made. 

 The light vaulting bricks were made with a mixture of chopped 

 straw, "so that when burnt they were porous, but of sufficient 

 strength for their purpose. I have discovered no examples of 

 gauged work. The first-class bricks, as a material, are superior 

 to those used in this country: the colour uniformly red, except 

 where a vitreous action had been produced in the burning. There 

 did not appear to have been a rubbing down of the face of the 

 material when used for mullions or tracer) — the ordinary examples 

 presented too rude a surface to suppose such an operation. 



