Bishop’s House, Würzburg

H. W. Brewer

c. 1880

Signed with initials lower left

Source: Stevenson’s House Architecture, I, 269

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Commentary by J. J. Stevenson

The form of projecting windows, peculiarly characteristic of German house architecture, is the Erker or Erkfenster, a lantern or turret, pierced with windows all round, projecting from the corner of the house. The idea doubtless sprang from the angle turrets of Gothic fortification, of which the little house at Boppart, is an illustration. The idea is fully developed in the beautiful example of late Gothic date at Augsburg (link). On the corner of the Bishop's house at Wurzburg there is a beautiful and picturesque example, dating from the last quarter of the sixteenth century. It has carved on it the arms of Bishop of Julius who founded the university about 1590. It is Classic in the detail of the cornices, but Gothic in its picturesqueness as well as in the mullions and transoms dividing the windows. The other windows of the house have Gothic interpenetrating mouldings, even that over the pretty little Classic doorway with its fluted Corinthian columns. The Classic architecture seems to have been employed on the parts intended to be specially beautiful and ornamental. Where use alone was aimed at, the familiar Gothic was thought good enough. The mas- sive arched doorway, on the flank of the Bishop's house, seems an alteration of the eighteenth century. [267-68]

Bibliography

Stevenson, J. J. House Architecture. 2 vols. London: Macmillan, 1880.

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Last modified 17 July 2017