Peles Castle, an expression of the German-influenced historical phenomenon

The book we are presenting, having a predominantly monographic character, focuses on the stylistic definition of Peles Castle, on its quality as a monument relevant to the European historicist phenomenon. At the same time, it seeks to integrate the case of Peles into the phenomenon of 19th-century Germanic residential architecture, by clarifying the terminology applied to the building (the concepts of Romanticism-Historicism-Eclecticism and their related subdivisions), by stylistic analysis and by interpretations of the architectural and historical context.

In the period when the first publications on Peles Castle appeared (1893-1933), three of the most extensive studies, generically referred to as historical monographs, were written by prestigious art historians (Jakob von Falke and Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaș being the most reputable among them, to whom we would add Léo Bachelin, a literary scholar with a special interest in art history and librarian of the Royal Household), but written on the orders of the royal family, they are partly due to a subjective perspective.

What was needed was a monographic study conceived from the perspective of art and architectural history, covering a broader spectrum of issues relating to 19th-century residential architecture and drawing on the bibliography of recent decades devoted to historicism and eclecticism.

The volume is composed of seven chapters that approach the subject from several perspectives: problems of architectural history and architectural commissioning, specific to the 19th century; problems of application of the concepts of stylistic directions - Romanticism, Historicism, Eclecticism - in the case of Peles Castle; the architectural context of reference for the building, namely the area of German residences of historicist style. The chapter Carol I connaisseur, collector, commissioner of paintings is mainly concerned with the field of collecting and obviously deals with the personality of the protagonist from this point of view, seen in complementarity with that of the commissioner of architecture. The last section treats the subject from a historical-sociological perspective and deals with the symbolic functions of the castle, closely linked to the stylistic choices of the commissioner.

The stylistic characteristics of Peles' architecture have so far not been debated through correlations between the concepts that name the stylistic directions and applied analysis. Therefore, we considered it necessary to use the method of architectural analysis and descriptions, in which we use a precise terminology keeping in mind these concepts with their subdivisions.

The mainly used bibliography is the bibliography on the phenomenon of historicism, published in German in the last four decades. This bibliography deals with the phenomenon of historicism in the territories of the Austrian and German empires and, more specifically, with 19th-century residential architecture of German origin, which spread throughout Europe at the behest of German princes ruling outside their national borders. The effects of this architectural phenomenon are currently being researched internationally.

A perusal of recent literature on the phenomenon of historicism in general has outlined for us the background against which the case of the royal residence at Sinaia should be placed. We thus mention, selectively, the works of Renate Wagner-Rieger and Walter Krause, Historismus und Schlossbau, Munich, 1975; Dieter Dolgner, Historismus, Munich, 1993; Hermann Fillitz, Werner Telesko, Der Traum vom Glück. Die Kunst des Historismus in Europa, exhibition catalog, Vienna 1996 and others.

Our bibliography also includes points of view of studies by French (François Loyer, Claude Mignot), English (Shona Kallestrup), Italian (Luciano Patetta), Romanian (Marian Constantin), etc.

Shona Kallestrup's study(Art and Design in Romania 1866-1927. Local and international aspects of the search of national expression, Colorado, 2006) is probably the most consistent and original exegesis published abroad on the Romanian artistic and architectural phenomenon, and the work of the researcher Marian Constantin(Palate și colibe regale din România. Arhitectura e decorația interioară în slujba monarhiei, Bucharest, 2007) is the first publication on the history of art and architecture published in Romania after 1989 that deals with royal architecture in Romania. It constitutes a significant contribution to the study of royal patronage in the fields of architecture and interior decoration.

In researching the above-mentioned aspects, we make use of previously unpublished documents, identified by us in Romania, Austria and Germany, in the following collections: the Archives of the National Peles Museum; the National Central Historical Archives; the Archives of the Ebenist Bernhard Ludwig, Vienna; the Princely Archives of the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen family.

The archive of the Peles Museum contains architectural plans, facades, sketches of details, never brought to light until our work, from the workshops of Wilhelm von Doderer, Johannes Schulz von Straßnitzky and Carel Liman, the three architects

of the building.

A number of previously unpublished pieces of information have been discovered in the correspondence of Charles I with members of his family and with Ludwig II of Bavaria, the latter unpublished, which is kept in the Central National Historical Archives.

Letters and invoices issued by German, Viennese and Italian firms and workshops that worked for the Royal Household and, in particular, for Peles Castle have enabled us to reconstruct part of the royal command mechanisms.

The Vienna archive of the decorator Bernhard Ludwig contains drawings and sketches by Ludwig's firm for the last period of the castle's construction (1896-1914) and a substantial collection of photographs of the royal complex at Sinaia.

In the Princely Archive at Sigmaringen Castle we consulted photo albums, some of them previously unpublished, documenting the first phase of construction (photographs by Maria Szöllöszy) as well as the second phase.

Research in German, French, English and Italian-language literature on nineteenth-century architecture published in the last four decades suggests that most art and architectural historians use the terms Historicism and Eclecticism, and less so Romanticism, to define the specific artistic phenomena of the nineteenth century. The term Historicism is researched and used primarily in the sphere of the German world (at least until the mid-1980s, when it appears in other literatures as well). The term Eclecticism is generally used by French, English and Italian specialists.

We found it necessary to clarify to what extent the term Historicism(Historismus / in German; Historicisme - in French; Historicism - in English) can have nuanced distinct meanings for German, French, English-speaking scholars.

The scientific term Historismus was approved for the field of art history at the symposium Historismus und bildende Künst (Munich, 1963), and the same term was subsequently consecrated to the phenomenon of Central European architecture at the symposiumHistorismus und Schlossbau (Munich, 1975), organized by Renate Wagner-Rieger and Walter Krause. Renate Wagner-Rieger, a key figure in the reappraisal of Historicism today, sets out a chronology of Historicism in three sequences, which is intended to clarify the development of this phenomenon in Central Europe: Romantic Historicism (c. 1750-1800); Severe Historicism (c. 1800-1848); Late Historicism (c. 1848-post 1900).

The view of the German art historian Peter Feist (1991), who contrasts the two notions, Historicism and Eclecticism, delineates two trends within Historicism: Monostylistic Historicism and Eclectic Historicism, the Monostylistic being opposed to

Eclecticism. Feist's binomial - Monostylistic Historicism and Eclectic Historicism - covers almost without divergence the terminology of architectural historian Claude Mignot (1983), the binomial relating to Eclecticism: Typological Eclecticism and Synthetic Eclecticism. We have chosen to apply the theoretical concepts elaborated by Peter Feist to the reading of the Peles case.

Within the architectural problematic, one aspect that we set ourselves the task of examining in greater depth was to determine the contribution of the commissioner and to delimit it from that of the architects, and to identify the mechanisms of the royal commission addressed to professionals in the field, specific to the 19th century.

Chapter 4 also includes profiles of the three main architects of the castle: Wilhelm von Doderer (1825-1900), Johannes Schulz von Straßnitzky (1844-1923) and Carel Liman (1845-1929). Since the architect Johannes Schulz did not benefit from a monographic study and his contribution to the construction of Peles Castle was only partially known, we set out to identify it, differentiating it from that of his predecessor, Wilhelm von Doderer.

As far as the latter is concerned, we have succeeded in establishing his part of the contribution, both what was built and preserved (engineering work -

the foundations, etc.), as well as the drawn projects (facades, plans, sections), unrealized, largely unpublished until now.

The analysis of these contributions and the identification of the king's involvement in the decision making process clearly outlined his decisive role in the command, in the stylistic choices present in the architecture of the castle, the evolution of his taste from the monosylistic historicism of the

of the first stage to the pluralist style of the second. The connection of the Commander to contemporary theories on architecture and interior decoration of the period certainly determined, beyond the need to increase the spaces for representation and the smooth functioning of the ensemble, the evolution of Charles I's choices towards a rich stylistic fan, which also includes Sezession accents.

Prince Charles I regarded the German world as a civilizing factor. His choice of the German Neo-Renaissance style for Peles Castle

(appreciated as a national style at the time of the proclamation of the German Empire), takes on the significance of a political program, in addition to its artistic taste. Carol I offered Romanian society a stylistic model of recognized European value.

The defining features of German neo-Renaissance architecture are to be found in Peles Castle: the variety of volumes and shapes, the picturesque typology of the silhouette of the monument, the flexibility of the plan with its organic development, adaptable to all types of functions, the Fachwerk component, the spectacular architecture of the roofs, etc.

The development of the monument through the successive choices of the volumetry and plasticity of the facades can be read and interpreted through a comparative analysis of the two phases by the architects Wilhelm von Doderer - Johannes Schulz (Phase I) and Johannes Schulz - Carel Liman (Phase II). This comparative, analytical approach is one of the contributions of this volume to reconstructing the phases of the building's configuration, to highlighting the stylistic and compositional aspects that define historicism, and to identifying the specific lexicon used by the architects and the commissioning authority.

In the first phase (1883), the major stylistic dominance

on the exterior and interior is German Neo-Renaissance, the only exception being two differently decorated rooms (Neo-Ottoman and Neo-Rococo styles) on the interior. Interpreting the German key

reading of the historicist phenomenon and adopting, as mentioned above, the terminology of Peter Feist, we place the building in the first stage of Monostylistic Historicism.

In the second phase (1890-1914), fundamental interventions undertaken on the volumes, facades and interiors of the building enriched the stylistic fan previously existing, adopting stylistic pluralism, i.e. Eclectic Historicism.

In this volume we outline the broader architectural context of the historicist residences of the aulic type, in which the Romanian foundation of Carol of Hohenzollern is situated. The case of the Sinaia residence should be related to the Germanic sequence of this architecture, both in buildings erected in the German area and in those located in other states, where the patrons were also German princes.

Our contribution consists in identifying some similarities in conception between the king's efforts as a builder and those of his counterparts and contemporaries, German princes, who were the commanders of castles. Restructuring old family residences (medieval and renaissance), the recovery of historical ruins to be incorporated into

In the 19th century, the Romanesque style of new buildings became a widespread European trend in which monarchs, princes and the wealthy bourgeoisie were the protagonists.

Léo Bachelin, the royal librarian, considered that the royal residence at Sinaia (the first stage, 1883) was not to be compared with the old royal and imperial palaces (Louvre, Versailles, Sanssouci/Potsdam, Schönbrunn, etc.) but rather with contemporary buildings such as the Miramare, Babelsberg, Neuschwanstein and Livadia castles.

Among them we have chosen to analyze in particular two examples of castles relevant in comparison with the Sinaia residence: Neuschwanstein (Bavaria, 1869-1886) and Miramare (Austro-Hungary, Trieste,

1852-1871). But our selection also includes the castles of Sigmaringen, Hohenzollern, Stolzenfels, Babelsberg - properties of the Hohenzollern family, as well as the residences of Pena (Portugal) and Euxinograd (Bulgaria).

An essential area of our research, complementary to that devoted to architectural commissioning and opening up an enriched perspective, concerned the personality of the collector of old art and the commissioner of copious works after the Old Masters. By acquiring Old Master paintings and commissioning new ones based on famous works, King Carol I created, in accordance with a cultural policy specific to the 19th century, a private picture gallery comprising both the "Old Master Paintings" gallery and the gallery of copying.

We set out to complete the picture of the collector of old paintings, outlined in the bibliography so far (see in particular the text by Theodor Enescu, 1994), by focusing on the less detailed and significant precedents: art education, family example of collecting and museum founding. We also set ourselves the task of reconstructing the image of the collector who owned a varied collection in the castle-museum (paintings, decorative arts, arms, numismatics), as well as that of the curator and conservator.

The question of the copy has preoccupied us with the idea of a possible definition of the King's aesthetic taste, his artistic landmarks, his conception of romantic and eclectic coloratura, typical of 19th century collecting. The selection of the works to be copied, which was made by the king himself, clearly reflected the king's thematic preferences and his stylistic references from the history of painting (Venetian, Flemish, German, French), which are preserved in some of the most important museums in Europe.

In addition to the educational aspect, in

Carol I, the edifice and the collections housed inside were implicitly intended to become political instruments, the expression of Romania's image in Europe. The collections contributed to increasing the aura of the royal residence, as the sovereign considered the whole - the building and the collections - to be a Gesamtkunstwerk.

Mindful of what other princes had done in other parts of Europe (at the height of Romanticism or in periods chronologically close to the Peles phenomenon), Carol I deliberately chose for his foundation an unbuilt site which became the symbolic site of the foundation of the Romanian monarchy. In reviving a medieval tradition linked to castles, Queen Elisabeth complemented the dynasty's founder's approach by transforming and imagining legends linked to the site on which the residence was built (the volumes The Tales of Peles and In the Captivity of Peles).

The monument was conceived from the outset by the commander who was lucidly carrying out a founding act, as a "royal castle", the cradle of the dynasty, a place of political decision-making, associated with the symbolism of the conquest of independence. Peles Castle, not the palace in Bucharest, is invested by the king with the significance of the founding of independent and modern Romania.

In parallel with the architectural and artistic intervention, the royal commander programmatically develops, in relation to his foundation, a set of symbolic approaches, medieval customs, with an almost ritualistic value, taking on a public and festive character, which from a contemporary perspective we can define as historical.

The graphic conception of the book belongs to the architect and designer Octavian Carabela, and the photographs are by the architect Andrei Mărgulescu.

Peles Castle, an expression of the German-influenced historicist phenomenon

author Ruxanda Beldiman, Simetria 2011

304 pages, Format [cm] 22 x 29,7 cm

Romanian, summary in English, German and French, full color

Bibliography, index, ISBN 978-973-1872-22-3

The book was published with the support of the Romanian Union of Architects - UAR, with funds from the Timbrul Arhitecturii tax; with the support of the Romanian Order of Architects - OAR, with funds from the Timbrul Arhitecturii tax; also with the support of the Administration of the National Cultural Fund and Lafarge.