Lorenz Lechler
Lorenz Lechler was a German medieval master mason known for his design booklet Instructions and his work on the Heidelberg Church. Along with several other master masons of the 15th century, including Matthäus Roritzer, Lechler's work remains one of the few texts that describes Gothic architecture from the perspective of its builders and architects as opposed to poets and clerics.[1]
In his Instructions, Lechler writes that "An honourable work glorifies its master, if it stands up," and he procedes to show how elevation measurements are taken from a ground plan.[2] The booklet was written for his son Moritz in 1516[3][4], and it shows how the width of a church choir becomes the modular unit for producing other measurements. The outside wall, for example, is one-tenth the width of the choir, and this value, in turn generates smaller measurements for buttresses, windows, etc.[5]
Lechler's Instructions, or Unterweisung as it is known in German, was found in a 16th century notebook belonging to Jacob Feucht von Andernach, which also included a copy of Matthäus Roritzer's Booklet Concerning Pinnacle Correctitude. Dates in the notebook suggest that copies of the texts were made in the period 1593-96.[6]
Lechler was the master mason responsible for the tabernacle in the Church of St. Dionysius in Esslingen (1486-89). Its ground plan, or architectural sketch, is found in his booklet.[7]
Notes
References
- Shelby, Lonnie Royce (1977). Gothic design techniques: the fifteenth-century design booklets of Mathes Roriczer and Hanns Schmuttermayer. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. p. 207. ISBN 0-8093-0810-X.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - Coldstream, Nicola (2002). Medieval architecture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 255. ISBN 0-19-284276-5.
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