VIRTUAL ISTANBUL HERITAGE(S)

Abstract

Max Berg occupies his rightful place in architectural historiography as one of the most outstanding creators of early modernist public architecture and urban planning, known today primarily as the creator of the Centennial Hall in Wrocław.
Although justified, this image leads to a narrow perception of his work. The paper proposes to broaden this perception by analysing unrealised concepts of sacred architecture, which have so far remained on the margins of research or were not known at all. The source material consists of Max Berg’s sketches, recently discovered in the Munich collections, including designs for churches, chapels and a crematorium in Wrocław, developed over many years in collaboration with the Austrian painter and draughtsman Oskar Kokoschka. The preserved drawings reveal the multi-layered nature of the architect’s thinking, combining an expressionist language of form with a deep fascination with Gothic architecture and references to Byzantine architecture. These designs were most likely created after Berg had ceased his activities as a municipal building councillor and are part of his late turn towards Christian mysticism and theosophy. However, Berg’s concept of sacred architecture appears here not as a field of implementation, but as an area of ideological experimentation and symbolic reflection. An analysis of the Munich sketches allows for a significant deepening of research on Berg’s work, revealing it to be multi-layered and internally diverse. Although his completed works in the field of sacred architecture are represented primarily by the cemetery chapel in Osobowice, Wrocław, his unrealised projects prove its importance as a significant, though hitherto underappreciated, component of the architect’s modernist vision.