Subrealm: Modernization
Aug. 26th, 2005 08:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
choco_froshMeantime: today we went on a Schnitzeljagt, which contrary to what you might think is a scavenger hunt, rather than an attempt to find lunch. For this purpose, we had to drop by the Historische Würstküche (Have I told you about this notable landmark, btw? It’s down by the old bridge, and claims to have been cooking sausages ever since the early twelfth century, when the construction of the latter suddenly created a new market. It’s one of those stories where it scarcely matters whether it’s true or not. It certainly could be--it’s built into a bit of the old city wall, and the fume hood looks like it’s been there for several centuries. And considering what an obvious tourist trap it is, it has pretty reasonable prices for a tasty, if not exactly healthy, lunch on the go.)
The restaurant, however, was closed: Europe’s had the rainiest summer in recent memory, and a massive wave of flood water went through two nights ago. It had gone down a bit the other day, when I went down to get photos. (These will appear here once I figure out how to use my Yale webspace...i.e., around February) But it had still completely submerged the beer garden where we had a potluck last week, and was even higher today, when inflatable walls were keeping it out of the said kitchen but the floor was pretty wet all the same, and the sandbag walls along the quay had suddenly come back into use.
The bridge survived. There’s apparently been some grand high bruhaha about the unsoundness of one of the arches. I frankly can’t understand this. If a bridge built under the Marshall plan, after sixty years of use, now needed some repairs but had withstood this kind of a flood, everybody would be remarking on how well it had lasted, and would call in the construction crew to make necessary repairs and rebuild as necessary. So what’s the difference if the bridge is 860 years old? It’s not like there haven’t been repair and rebuilt before (after 1945, say).
< Er, well, maybe not...>
We also had to stop by the gift shop of the Schloss Thurn und Taxis (and get a postcard of the Countess. Apparently there still is one, and she still lives there. Go figure.) The building, however, considerably predates said jumped-up lineage--it's better known to medievalists as the 9th century monastery of St. Emmerem. So naturally, after my incredibly late lunch, I stopped back for a visit. Like the rest of the structure, however, the church got “modernized” in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. I briefly tried to persuade myself that the Barockisierung wasn’t so bad: at least it had remained an important and hallowed place, venerated and valued. The I gave up. It didn’t help that I felt an almost visceral sense of where things had been: a blocked eleventh century arch was obvious, and it felt strange that there wasn’t an altar on the rear wall of the Westwerk. But there was also the sheer tastelessness of the excretion of gold (gold can be good. But not when installed c. 1700), and the carefully dressed remains of saints posed reclining (a pose they would NOT have chosen for their remains—this was the middle ages, not ancient Rome, for one thing). And the paintings. I can’t find a succinct description of my opinion. And the fact that they blocked off the apse for no readily apparent reason.
Oh well, I guess it fared better than St. Martin de Tours…
The founder himself, at least, lay in decent dignity under a fifteenth-century tomb (but why did they move it?). While he certainly didn’t design it, here at least is the bishop and abbot, lying in the austere grandure that he probably tried to cultivate, and would have appreciated.
So I guess there’s modernization and modernization. There’s the kind that gives some respect to the previous architect: you rebuild the arch of the bridge, you clean out and repair the medieval dwelling-place, you add a tomb or put in a window or replace an altarpiece. Or just leave the old building as is, and build de novo.
And then there’s the type that’s just tasteless to begin with, and ruins a marvel, leaving just enough of the old to make later viewers regret what did all the more.
OK, I’m really done now.
The restaurant, however, was closed: Europe’s had the rainiest summer in recent memory, and a massive wave of flood water went through two nights ago. It had gone down a bit the other day, when I went down to get photos. (These will appear here once I figure out how to use my Yale webspace...i.e., around February) But it had still completely submerged the beer garden where we had a potluck last week, and was even higher today, when inflatable walls were keeping it out of the said kitchen but the floor was pretty wet all the same, and the sandbag walls along the quay had suddenly come back into use.
The bridge survived. There’s apparently been some grand high bruhaha about the unsoundness of one of the arches. I frankly can’t understand this. If a bridge built under the Marshall plan, after sixty years of use, now needed some repairs but had withstood this kind of a flood, everybody would be remarking on how well it had lasted, and would call in the construction crew to make necessary repairs and rebuild as necessary. So what’s the difference if the bridge is 860 years old? It’s not like there haven’t been repair and rebuilt before (after 1945, say).
< Er, well, maybe not...>
We also had to stop by the gift shop of the Schloss Thurn und Taxis (and get a postcard of the Countess. Apparently there still is one, and she still lives there. Go figure.) The building, however, considerably predates said jumped-up lineage--it's better known to medievalists as the 9th century monastery of St. Emmerem. So naturally, after my incredibly late lunch, I stopped back for a visit. Like the rest of the structure, however, the church got “modernized” in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. I briefly tried to persuade myself that the Barockisierung wasn’t so bad: at least it had remained an important and hallowed place, venerated and valued. The I gave up. It didn’t help that I felt an almost visceral sense of where things had been: a blocked eleventh century arch was obvious, and it felt strange that there wasn’t an altar on the rear wall of the Westwerk. But there was also the sheer tastelessness of the excretion of gold (gold can be good. But not when installed c. 1700), and the carefully dressed remains of saints posed reclining (a pose they would NOT have chosen for their remains—this was the middle ages, not ancient Rome, for one thing). And the paintings. I can’t find a succinct description of my opinion. And the fact that they blocked off the apse for no readily apparent reason.
Oh well, I guess it fared better than St. Martin de Tours…
The founder himself, at least, lay in decent dignity under a fifteenth-century tomb (but why did they move it?). While he certainly didn’t design it, here at least is the bishop and abbot, lying in the austere grandure that he probably tried to cultivate, and would have appreciated.
So I guess there’s modernization and modernization. There’s the kind that gives some respect to the previous architect: you rebuild the arch of the bridge, you clean out and repair the medieval dwelling-place, you add a tomb or put in a window or replace an altarpiece. Or just leave the old building as is, and build de novo.
And then there’s the type that’s just tasteless to begin with, and ruins a marvel, leaving just enough of the old to make later viewers regret what did all the more.
OK, I’m really done now.
