Fischer von Erlach und die Wiener Barocktradition. - book reviews

Architectural Review, The, April, 1996 by J. Roderick O'Donovan

Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach is a key figure of the Austrian Baroque. His works, which include the Karlskirche, the Prunksaal of the Hofbibliothek (National Library) and several designs for Schonbrunn Palace in Vienna, illustrate the power and aspirations of the Hapsburg monarchy at its zenith. As pointed out in this book he has also been (and remains today) a key figure in important architectural debates in Vienna such as that on the Loos House opposite the Hofburg entrance which was built in the nineteenth century to a design by Fischer, or the present controversy over Ortner and Ortner's planned Museum Quarter within Fischer's Imperial Stables complex.

This book is based on papers delivered at a symposium of the Institute for Research into Early Modern History in Vienna in 1993. The first part deals directly with Fischer von Erlach and his son Johann Michael (who completed and altered several of his father's buildings) and includes the results of recent research on the Josefsbrunnen, the Prunksaal and the Hofburg in Vienna as well as the Kurfurstenkapelle in Breslau (Wroclaw) Poland. The latter part of the book deals with the nineteenth-century Neo-Baroque revival in Vienna and in particular with Albert Ilg, the author of the first monograph on J. B. Fischer v Erlach, who was involved in the rehabilitation of Baroque (which had fallen out of favour) as kind of Austrian national style.