The Architecture of Secession

The new-found Union of Austrian Artists sought to push design as a whole toward an idealistic freedom and away from stagnant values and commercial tastes. The group quickly rose to international fame due to its forward-thinking membership that included artists, designers, sculptors, painters. and architects. Architecturally, these great minds included Otto Wagner, and many of his students and proteges, such as Joseph Maria Obrich, Joseff Hoffman.

Otto Wagner. Austrian Newspaper “Sport und Salon”, April 21, 1918, p. 8

Joseph Maria Olbrich. 1908. Source: Berliner Architekturwelt 1908, S. 201.

Joseff Hoffman. 1902. Stadtchronik Wien, Verlag Christian Brandstädter, p. 379.

The first fundamental architecture of the movement was the Secession Building. It was built over six months in 1898, and financed by the sale of art, and by benefactors such as Karl Wittgenstein (father of philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein). It became the principal gallery space, headquarters for the movement, and temple to the community’s evolving ideologies.

The Secession Building served as the focal point of the group, and an exhibition hall for their works. Photo by Jorit Aust.

Joseph Olbrich’s dome. © WienTourismus / Christian Stemper.

Secession Building Dome Detail. Thomas Ledl. August, 2011.

The Secession Building was a radical statement for its time. It provoked mixed reactions. Press of the time describe how passers-by would stare, in excitement, shock, awe, and would continue away, unable to resist glancing back over their shoulders for another look. The form was familiar, yet distinct, thought to be inspired by the architect’s travels through Italy and North Africa. Detractors criticized it as being a takeoff of Egyptian, Assyrian and Mesopotamian form, and in some circles it was fondly (or not fondly) referred to as the ‘Golden Cabbage.’

The Secession Building facade, featuring Gustav Klimt’s quote and the three gorgon’s heads.

The Vienna Secession Gorgons.

In reality, it was all of these things. The building features a centrally placed door and entry stair. Symmetrically to either side is a windowless box, with only a sparse entablature capping the blank stucco wall. The composition is designed to draw your focus to the center, where above the entry are three gorgon’s heads representing the foundational arts; painting, sculpture, and architecture. The entry door is surrounded by a large-scale applique of a forest motif, with graphic trunks descending below golden leaves. On top of the building rests a large globe constructed of gilded leaves, and the frieze below displays Klimt’s iconic quote, “To every age its art, to every art its freedom”; the spirit of the movement.

Keeping with the Wagner-inspired quest towards ‘functionalism’ the temple is said to have performed admirably. It was praised as an ideal venue for displaying the quickly evolving world of contemporary art.

Design plans.

Interestingly, this was not achieved through radical thinking, but through a balanced, bi-laterally symmetrical layout. The sequence leads you up the main stair into a cruciform entry hall, and then into the bright, open gallery: a large square room flanked by three classically-proportioned galleries.

An exhibition room.

According to Secession writer Hermann Bahr, ‘… we enter the building. Here everything is dictated by function alone. Here there was no attempt to please in a frivolous way, to show off or dazzle. This is no temple or palace, but a space which will allow works of art to be shown to their greatest possible effect. The artist has not asked himself: how do I make it so that it looks best? But: how do I make it so that it best fulfils its functions, the needs of new tasks, our demands?’

And, to understand the spirit of the work, the words of the Architect:

‘With what joy did I give birth to this building! It arose from a chaos of ideas, an enigmatic clue of the lines of feeling, a confusion of good and bad; not easy! There were to be walls, white and shining, sacred and chaste. Solemn dignity should pervade. A pure dignity that overcame and shook me as I stood alone before the unfinished temple at Segesta. There I conceived the germ of that contempt with which I face clumsy pieces of work that are concerned with everything but with warmth, with the heart. And when I understood the task with the heart, when the inner feeling grew louder than mind and spirit, then I also had the fortitude to produce what I felt, and it was born!’

The three owl detail.

Categories: About Michael

Total Art – Part I

Andrew Mackie

Posted on September 13, 2019

In 1897, a group of Austrian artists founded the Vienna Secession, a movement intended to create a platform for artistic expression as it attempted to free itself from a stifling ‘old-guard.’ At the time, the Viennese art scene centered around the Vienna Academy of Arts–the Kunstlerhause—an institution the Secession artists felt was overly rooted in historicism, and was preventing them from showing their work, which they wanted to be art ‘of the time.’

Their founding principles were to communicate and exchange ideas with artists outside of Austria, (parallel ‘Secessionist’ movements were happening in other countries across Europe,) contest artistic nationalism, and to establish a contemporary “total art” that unified the decorative arts, painting, and architecture.

Secessionist work is distinctive in how artists of different media collaborated to create what they considered ‘total art.’ In this paradigm, the nature-inspired, graphic forms from their painting and illustration can be found weaving into building ornament; geometric patterns found in the architecture gets transferred over onto the furniture, glassware and ceramics. And styles and techniques from the decorative arts would cycle back and influence painting and architecture.

The 20^th Century Draws Near…

To better understand the Secession movement, one has to consider its timing. The fin-de-siecle was buzzing with the early days of the Second Industrial Revolution/Technological Revolution. Railways now connected the world. The earliest automobiles were navigating the roads. Modern plumbing was being installed. The rapid urbanization of the second half of the nineteenth century brought with it both issues of poverty, child-labor and over-crowding, as well as new affluence and the acceleration of culture connected to life in the big city.The advent of steel, and modern machining techniques were expanding the possibilities for building. Everyone was adapting to life in the future.

Freedom, Progress, and Function in Art and Architecture

The philosophy of the Secession movement was laid out in bold manifestos in their official publication ‘Ver Sacrum’ (Sacred Spring.) One of the chief Secessionist writers, Hermann Bahr, described it in his 1900 essay, ‘Secession’: ‘Life has changed, fashions have changed, every thought, every feeling and the whole art of the people has changed, so the people’s buildings must change, to express their new tastes and deeds. Such wishes have been loudly voiced and will no longer be silenced.’

This spirit of uprising characterized the movement. Key recurring concepts were to be moving towards art and architecture of necessity, purpose and functionalism, while moving away from tradition and symbolism.

In studying the buildings and art created during this period, many questions arise:

What is ‘necessity’ when it comes to art and architecture? How does the pursuit of this concept influence our experience of a space, or of a painting?
Where to form and function overlap?
What is the role of history as it influences design? How does an understanding and appreciation for history combine with the desire to make something ‘contemporary’?
What happens when an artist is inspired by both technology and nature?

In the work, we are charmed by its bold futurism, by the freedom of its expression and by its artistic skill. It is also clear that the Secessionists were not in pursuit of the stripped-down ‘minimalism’ that can be seen in later movements that shared similar language in their theories. We are drawn to the work of the Secessionists because of how they combine new materials and were inspired by new technologies, and yet created work that remains timeless. Their pursuit of function and necessity still included a connection to artistic craft. The resulting work is new, provocative, and challenging. It answers some of the questions and raises others. It leaves us satisfied and wanting more.

To be continued…

Categories: About Michael

A Trek Through China – Part 1

Alice Arnn

Posted on September 8, 2019

Hong Kong in the 1920s

After finishing my graduate degree in architecture, I capped three years of study and travel with a three-week long trip across China with a group of classmates. During those first few days of jetlag and culture shock–I was repeatedly reminded of the classic segue from Monty Python–”and now for something completely different.” Not only had I never traveled in Asia, but China itself is full of contrast. Every new city and region showed us variations on traditional Chinese architecture and different–and usually larger–skyscrapers.

Photo by Kent Sorenson, 2012.

China is growing rapidly, and its towering high-rises are the proof of its population boom, but it is also an ancient civilization with a rich tradition of art and architecture. Because of its size, there is huge variation between regions and cities. Land-locked Beijing, the ancient capital, is as different from seaside Shanghai—located 750 miles to the south—as New York is from LA or Chicago is from San Antonio. The architecture of each of these cities tells the story of its own unique development, from China’s early history to the country’s modern growth and industrialization.

Hong Kong’s streetscapes during a pause in the rain. Photos by author.

We began our journey in the south, easing into eastern culture in Hong Kong, the former British territory. In 1841, Hong Kong was primarily a series of coastal villages and its population was 7,450–1/1000 of its 7.4 million today.

A drawing of Kowloon Bay in the 19th century.

The British first occupied the island as a military strategy point during the First Opium War. Soon after the British victory in that war and in the Second Opium War, they signed a 99-year lease agreement for Hong Kong, Kowloon (the neighboring peninsula), and the islands that surrounded them. As a free port and one of the first Asian countries to industrialize, the population and economy boomed. In 1997, the British handed the island back to China, but its government and economic system remain independent.

Kowloon Bay in the 1900s.

This dense city is crowded, and we walked many miles dodging traffic (and a mild typhoon) by ducking through the city’s maze of shopping malls and escalators.

The Hong Kong nightly light show from Victoria Peak. Photo by author.

We climbed up to Victoria’s Peak—a true tourist trap with admittedly incredible views of the city’s nightly light show on the buildings themselves—and crossed Kowloon Bay on the ferries of the Star Line, which has been running continually since 1888.

The skyline of Hong Kong with a Star Line ferry in the foreground. Photo by author.

The Hong Kong waterfront with a Star Line ferry in the foreground, c. 1938.

Though the city’s crowded skyline dominates any tourist’s impression of the city, its historic buildings tie it to its rich past. Between the high-rises and dense city blocks, there are examples of British colonial architecture, Buddhist temples, and buildings that resulted from the city’s growth.

The Cenotaph (a replica of Lutyen’s Cenotaph in Whitehall), built in 1923, in Statue Square next to City Hall with I.M. Pei’s Bank of China Tower behind.

The Peninsula Hotel, Hong Kong.

The lobby of the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong.

Man Mo Temple, Hong Kong.

The interior of Man Mo Temple, Hong Kong. Photo by author.

More recently, the Chi Lin Nunnery was rebuilt in 1998 in Kowloon and offers a peaceful retreat from the bustling city. Nestled in the dense city blocks, the nunnery and gardens are a beautiful example of Buddhist temple planning and provide an idyllic retreat.

Chi Lin Nunnery, Hong Kong

The Nan Lian Garden. Photo by author.

Nan Lian Garden, Hong Kong. Photo by author.

Nan Lian Garden, Honk Kong. Photo by author.

The Bund in Shanghai.

From Hong Kong, we flew to mainland China, and began our journey north with a stay in the Bund, a historic area of Shanghai that was the center of the first international settlements in China. Classical western buildings, built during the 1800s when the Shanghai International Settlement was formed, feature distinctly eastern architectural details.

Historic photograph Pudong Lujiazui from the Bund in the 1980s.

Pudon Lujiazui in 2017. Photo by author.

Directly across the water from the Bund is the city’s financial center, where one sees Chinese architecture contrasting again, this time with the modern skyscraper. Shanghai was originally a fishing village; “Shang hai” means “on the sea.” Just like in Hong Kong, the city grew rapidly first when it became a treaty port open to western trade in the 1940s and again when it opened to foreign trade in the 1990s. Today, it is the financial center of mainland China and commercial gateway into the Asia-Pacific region.

The scale model of the city of Shanghai at the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Center.

When we arrived in Shanghai, we learned that a new map of the city is released every six months because of the excessive amount of new building. While the world’s largest cities almost all boast impressive skylines, Shanghai’s stretches for miles and at its center is the tallest skyscraper in the world.

The Jin Mao Tower with the Shanghai World Financial Center and the Shanghai World Financial Center in the background.

The entry portal to the Jin Mao Tower and the central atrium of the building. Photos by author.

The 1,380-foot Jin Mao Tower, designed by Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, is inspired by the pagoda and takes its octagonal shape, height (88 floors), from the number 8, associated with prosperity. Standing on the 88th floor, two of the world’s tallest buildings loom overhead.

The Jin Mao Tower, Shanghai Tower, and Shanghai World Financial Center disappearing into the clouds on a hazy day. Photo by author.

The Shanghai Tower, with the world’s highest observation deck, and the Shanghai World Financial Center, with its distinctive bottle opener shape, disappear into the clouds on a decidedly hazy day. My group went “skywalking” among those clouds on the outside of the 88th floor. Strapped into harnesses and (I hope) well-secured by two separate ropes, they leaned over the edge and dangled one foot off the building before returning through an airlock.

“Skywalking” on the 88th floor of the Jin Mao Tower. Photo by author.

Other Chinese cities boast similarly large and impressive skyscrapers, and in each they provide a constant and dramatic foil to the country’s traditional architecture and urbanism…

Categories: About Michael

Cutting a Colorful Figure

Michael Imber

Posted on August 30, 2019

“La carta de amor”

The life of Fernando Ramos was a story of love; a love of home, of his native country, of art, of dance- and, of course, a love of a beautiful woman.

Ramos was a handsome young man when he made his way to San Antonio from his revolution embattled home of Mexico in 1913. It wasn’t long before Fernando made his mark with his picture in the local newspaper as the winner of a $10 prize for his Fiesta Poster design. Not even out of high school, he soon followed up by winning another $25 for his design of a poster to sell poppies for Armistice Day in a national competition for the American Legion.

Fernando Ramos in the San Antonio Light at the age of 19

Fernando quickly found himself at the studio of Mexican Arts & Crafts as the head designer of San Jose tiles. Here, he used his love of his Mexican culture, Spanish dance and his life in San Antonio as inspiration for his work. Working along side of owner, Ethel Wilson Harris, he produced a dizzying array of tiles that were as colorful as the life he led.

The panel for “La serenta” and preliminary sketch

Fiesta scene on a sconce

Guitarist on 8 inch tile

“Jarabe” a traditional dance, on a small tray

2 6 inch tiles showing the chili queen and a candy man

At the age of just twenty, driven by his love of Spanish, Mexican and folk dance- as well as his fear for the dying of Mexican cultural traditions, Fernando journeyed back to his home of Mexico City where he dove into dance lessons with the same passion he had shown for his art.

Soon, this passion led him to his destiny. The beautiful and glamorous Carla Montel fell for the handsome young Fernando in one of their dance studios. Born in San Antonio and raised in California, Carla would wed Fernando and they forged a bond and partnership that would endure for decades.

Original drawings for 8 inch tiles as they get ready backstage

The fiery Carla & Fernando, as they would be known, quickly became a phenomena. Mexican President, Lazaro Cardenas declared them “the greatest interpreters of Mexican and Spanish folk dancing he had ever seen”. They began touring widely, dancing for crowds in such famous venues as the Copacabana and El Morocco Clubs in New York, the El Trocedero in Reno and the Riviera Room in Long Beach.

While the San Antonio Light reported on their exciting exploits, the famous couple would appear in Newspapers from London, Cuba, Paris and Madrid. Sponsorship of the couples dance tour would be picked up by the Rockerfeller Foundation and they would inevitably become the darlings of Hollywood, appearing with Gene Autry in The Bells of Capistrano, among other popular films.

Although they would divorce by the 1950’s, the couple would continue to tour the county with the New York Symphony, as well as other Ballet troupes and opera companies. They would even open a dance studio together in FT. Worth in the 60’s.

Although, Fernando’s passion for dance carried him afar, his heart remained in San Antonio, to where he returned often to visit and collaborate with his old boss Ethel on tile designs depicting his romantic and timeless views of culture of Texas and Mexico- erasing boundaries between people for generations.

Drawing for 8 inch tile

Don Quixote & Sancho Panza on 4 6-inch tiles

Blog inspired by the book, Colors in Clay by Susan Toomey Frost

See Susan Frost’s collection of San Jose Tile at the new Witte Museum, opening to the public this Monday.

Categories: About Michael

Tagged: artisan, artist, candy man, chili queen, Fernando Ramos, Fiesta, San Antonio, San Jose tiles, spanish dancer, Witte Museum

The Lightness of Being

Michael Imber

Posted on August 2, 2019

Since the first dawn, we as humans have been drawn to light. We are drawn to fire, sunsets, beautifully lit landscapes, and illuminated spaces. We turn our faces to the sun and feel its warmth and goodness, and we get depressed when it’s lacking- like in Seattle. We hire experts to engineer lighting scenes in our modern homes- one for entertaining, one for reading, one for romance.

The ancient Roman building, the Pantheon

To those who came before us, light was more than just a wattage, lumen or sunray; it was critical to our existence; for without light, the universe would cease to exist. To early Greek thinkers, light was seen as the source of goodness in the world. Plato pondered its metaphysical properties; “Just as good sheds light on knowledge, sunlight is not only the author of visibility in all visible things, but generation, nourishment and growth.”

Greek Philosopher, Plato Plato’s Allegory of the Cave

During the so-called Dark Ages, medieval thinkers began to make the connection between the “metaphysics” of light and the “aesthetics” of light. To Neo-Platonists, light is now conceived as the “transcendental reality that engenders the universe and illuminates our intellect for the perception of truth- the Devine Intellect that enlightens the human mind.”

In Dante’s Paradiso he writes, “la luce divina e pentrante per l’univero second ch’e degno” (31:22)- “The divine light penetrates the universe according to its dignity”. To these pre-renaissance thinkers, light had become “the principle of order and value; the objective value of a thing is determined by how much it partakes in light.”

Dante’s Paradiso- the penetrating goodness of light

Medieval man seeks to understand the order of the Cosmos

The architecture of this era soon began to transform in order to capture the essence of light in the form of the great Gothic Cathedrals, the ultimate earthly reflection of the Heavenly Jerusalem. Light, which was ordinarily concealed by matter in the heavy edifices of the Romanesque,

“Light now appears as the active principle; and matter is aesthetically real only insofar as it partakes of, and is defined by, the luminous quality of light.”

Great Cathedrals rose with towering walls, not of stone, but as veils of light, illuminating earthly surfaces and the faithful in a tapestry of all that was good. Light had become the essence of being, and all that stood outside of it stood in the dark. It was only when a great mason understood these principles that ordered the universe that they could then be named “architects”.

Artists and architects have always sought to capture the essence of light, yet today we do so without an understanding of the true importance of light; the poetics of light. We seek the aesthetic light can bring to an object, but not the meaning. Once architects were required to have mastered the liberal arts; they understood philosophy and history- they understood the why. Despite all of our innovations of a modern society, have we lost sight of knowledge and meaning? For if so, despite all of our technological achievements, we may just slip into a real Dark Age.

“There is a balance between the weight that their existence creates, and the potentiality and luminosity that they carry.” -Artist, Sabin Howard

– Inspired by Otto Von Simpson’s- The Gothic Cathedral.

Categories: About Michael, Architecture, Design

Tagged: Architects, architecture, Dante's Paradiso, design, Gothic Cathedral, Greek Philosopher, light, Michael G. Imber, Otto Von Simpson, Pantheon, Plato, Pluto's Allegory of the Cave

The Lost Generation

Michael Imber

Posted on July 19, 2019

Church of St. James, Chipping Campden, England

Church of St. James, pencil & watercolor, 7.25 x 10, Chipping Campden, England

As traditional architects, we often look to the work of those who preceded us in order to re-learn the skills they used to execute some of our most beautiful buildings and cities. It’s not often we think of those caught in the chasm between then and now–those who trained and studied to carry on the traditions of the past, but found themselves after the war with skills no longer wanted or needed.

When I moved back to Texas in my early twenties I worked for a short time for a large corporate firm; a firm that did a lot of schools, banks and other institutional work- all mostly contemporary- award winning work, very typical of large commercial firms. I think it was novel for them to have a young “classically” bent designer in their office. Nonetheless, there I was, where I was kept extremely busy with clients that wanted a traditional viewpoint.

John H. Kell, Sr. as a young man

The very first day on the job, I noticed a large beaux-arts rendering of a monumental lighthouse hanging on the wall of the print room. I immediately asked where such an immense and wonderful painting had come from. “Oh, that was done by ol’ John Kell, Sr. back in the day”, came the answer. Nobody thought much of it. It had hung in the print room for decades.

“Ol’ John Kell, Sr.” was the firm’s senior partner’s father, and interestingly enough, he still worked at the firm. He had worked there since coming to San Antonio in his twenties. Now, well into his eighties, he religiously came in every day to the office. He sat in a back corner and drafted basic details all day long. He brought his sack lunch with him and ate it at his desk, then would go home early afternoon–but everyday, without fail, he would be there, drafting.

Campanile di Santa Maria Maddalen, Ossuccio, Italy & Campanile di Santa Pudenziana, Roma, Italy-John Kell, Sr.

Unlike his gregarious and out going son, now the patriarch of the firm, Senior was a quiet man. He just sat and did his work, ate lunch and went home. I did manage to get a few stories out of him. One story he loved to tell was of the time he worked for Paul Cret, and the day Mr. Cret came to let some of the staff go during slow times. Kell had kept his job, while his desk mate, a young man by the name of Louis Kahn, was let go. He would just chuckle at the thought of it.

San Antonio Post Office and Federal Building, Kell’s first project in Texas- a Ralph Cameron and Paul Cret collaboration

While a young man, he had come to Texas to oversee Paul Cret’s work at San Antonio’s Federal Building and Post Office under the auspices of Ralph Cameron. But soon after the project, times changed. The classical buildings Cret built (and Kell had so long studied) went out of fashion and there was no more work for a “classicist”. So, there he was, left in San Antonio, Texas.

Ponte Valentre, pencil & pastel, 13.75 x 16.75, Cahors, France

Kell married and raised a family. He worked for a modern firm, doing modern schoolwork, shopping malls and anything else needed to keep the firm alive in a small Texas city. There he stayed, decade after decade, partner after partner, until one day his own son would turn the firm into the city’s largest and most successful. Now, there he sat; in the twilight of his years, drafting details, until not long after I left the firm, computers had made even that task obsolete. Not long after, ol’ John Sr, was gone.

Château Fougères-sur-Bièvre, Bièvre, France & La Tour l’Horloge de Dinan, Dinan, France

A map of Kell’s study journey through Europe

This last week, John Kell, Jr., my old boss, dropped by the office. He had brought a gift–a book of his father’s watercolors when he was a young man. I was shocked; his father, the quiet man in the back, had been a prodigy. He had won a traveling fellowship while at the University of Pennsylvania, and the book, lovingly written and illustrated in minute detail, followed the young man’s footsteps through Europe and the multitude of watercolors that he had produced.

Edifico con Entrata Arcuado, Viterbo, Italy

Edifico con Entrata Arcuado, pencil & pastel, 12.5 x 16, Viterbo, Italy

Kell, Jr. then paid me the biggest compliment possible when he said he wanted me to have the book, “because, if his father had lived in another time, he would have had an office like yours.” I can’t imagine what buildings we would have today if only Kell, Sr. had not lived in a time when our world had turned its back on the beauty and the lessons of the past.

Ponte Vecchio, watercolor, 10.75 x 14, Firenze, Italy

Ponte Pietra, watercolor, 10.75 x 14, Verona, Italy

Categories: About Michael

The Bridge of Angels

Alice Arnn

Posted on July 12, 2019

Ponte San’Angelo, Rome. Italy.

“What we have is given by God, and to teach it to others is to return it to Him.” – Bernini

Since the early beginnings of the Church, Rome has been at the center of the Christian world, and for centuries pilgrims have traveled to the city to visit its holiest sites. This tradition began in the Middle Ages, when pilgrims would travel across Europe along the Via Francigena to see the tombs of St. Paul and St. Peter in Rome. From there, many would head east to the Holy Land.

Philip Romolo Neri, 1515-1595.

The tradition of visiting Rome’s pilgrimage churches, dedicated to the saints and martyrs, began in the mid-15^th century. Philip Neri led groups of pilgrims on a day-long walk that began at St. Peter’s and ended at the Basilica de Santa Maria Maggiore. Along the way, known as the Via delle Sette Chiese, there was music, picnicking, and visits to other five churches – San Paolo fuori le Mura, San Giovanni in Laterano, San Lorenzo fuori le Mura, the Basilica di Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, and San Sebastiano fuori le Mura.

Fresco showing cutaway view of Constantine’s St. Peter’s Basilica as it looked in the 4th century.

Just decades before Neri began these pilgrimage walks at the turn of the 15^th century, efforts to rebuild the 4^th-century Basilica of St. Peter, built to mark the traditional location of the tomb of St. Peter, were begun.

The original church was replaced by a more ornate building, and some of the greatest architects of the Renaissance—Bramante, Sangallo, Raphael, Peruzzi, and most importantly, Michelangelo–contributed to the project in the first half of the 16^th century. They transformed the site from a modest and traditional basilica church into the building we know today—the seat of the Bishop of Rome and the center of the Catholic faith.

Map of Giacomo Lauro and Antonio Tempesta showing the Seven Pilgrim Churches of Rome, which was used for the first time during the Jubilee in the year of 1600.

As Neri’s walks became more popular, guidebooks detailing the pilgrimage sites became common. Thousands visited the city not just to see the churches and relics, but to complete a spiritual journey, reflecting on their faith and meditating on the saints and martyrs for which the churches are named.

Photo by author.

Bernini’s statues along the Bridge of the Angels provide a moment for just this kind of meditation. The bridge was originally created in the second century A.D. by Hadrian to link his mausoleum, now known as the Castel Sant’Angelo, to the center of ancient Rome. That bridge became the traditional route for pilgrims traveling through Rome to reach St. Peter’s Basilica.

Angel bearing whips by Lazzaro Morelli, with the inscription “In flagella paratus sum” (“I am ready for the whip”, Psalms 38:18), western side of the Ponte Sant’Angelo à Rome.

Angel with the lance by Domenico Guidi, with the inscription “Vulnerasti cor meum.”

Several more angels at the Ponte Sant’Angelo

Bronze statue of Michael the Archangel, standing on top of the Castel Sant’Angelo, modelled in 1753 by Peter Anton von Verschaffelt (1710–1793).

Atop Castel Sant’Angelo and terminating the view across the bridge is a statue of Saint Michael, the archangel, armed with a sword to guard the city and its residents as a patron of God’s divine judgement and protection. Mentioned only a few times throughout the Gospels, Michael embodies Christ’s mercy to mankind as he guides their souls towards Heaven at the hour of their death and protects them against the temptations of Satan.

Saint Michael casting Satan into Hell.

It is said that Saint Michael appeared atop Hadrian’s mausoleum to mark the end of the plague in the 500s, and the popes named the building for him and crowned it with his likeness when it became a castle in the 1300s. Historically, criminals traveled along the bridge toward Castel Sant’Angelo and the statue of the archangel before they met the death penalty.

A depiction of Christ with the ten objects used during his trial and crucifixion.

Commissioned to create sculptures for this bridge by Pope Clement IX, Bernini drew upon the bridge’s ancient origins, its relationship to St. Peter’s, and the myth of St. Michael to design a place for pilgrims to meditate on the Passion of Christ. Each of the angels, who stand atop pedestals, supported by the arches below, carries one of the instruments of the Passion. Unfortunately, Bernini was commissioned for the project late in his life and was only able to complete two of the 10 angels.

Angels facing away from the Castel Sant’Angelo.

Gianlorenzo Bernini practiced what would later be called the bel composto-the beautiful blend between sculpture, painting, and architecture. In Rome, this idea translates beyond the arts and architecture into the fabric of the city itself. Bernini’s work at the Pont Sant’Angelo is an example of just this—its sculptures are not just an isolated moment of beauty seen while crossing the Tiber, they contribute both to the larger plan of Rome and to the long history of the city and the Church itself.

Ponte-Sant’Angelo leading to the Castel Sant’Angelo.

Categories: About Michael

The blog of Michael G Imber Architects

Total Art – Part II

Andrew Mackie

Posted on September 20, 2019

Total Art – Part I

Andrew Mackie

Posted on September 13, 2019

A Trek Through China – Part 1

Alice Arnn

Posted on September 8, 2019

Cutting a Colorful Figure

Michael Imber

Posted on August 30, 2019

The Lightness of Being

Michael Imber

Posted on August 2, 2019

The Lost Generation

Michael Imber

Posted on July 19, 2019

The Bridge of Angels

Alice Arnn

Posted on July 12, 2019