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The old church of Saint Francis in Pola	Porta Aurea in Pola

Views of Istria and Surrounds

Karl Friedrich Schinkel was a German architect from the 19th century. He is well known for his work for the Royal House of Prussia, mainly in Berlin and Potsdam. He undertook two study travels to Italy and published his descriptions, impressions and pictures in the book Karl Friedrich Schinkel - Reisen nach Italien. On his first trip from 1803-1805 he came to Istria and sourrounds where he painted the following images. You may find them in the chapters "Istrische Reise, Pola" and "Triest und Aquileja". (Also see his expanded biography below.)


View to the amphitheatre and the city of Pola	The Cathedral of Piran in Istria	The bay of Pola (rear view of old church of Saint Francis at left)

The Church of Aquileia	The Castle Duino at the gulf of Trieste	View from the Citadel of Trieste to the harbour and the Adriatic

View from the promontory of the Adriatic Sea to Trieste and its harbour, with the Istrian peninsula in the background

Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781-1841)

Karl Schinkel was born in Neuruppin, Prussia in 1781. He studied under Friedrich Gilley at the Bauakademie in Berlin. Between 1803 and 1805, he travelled through Italy and France. He returned to a French controlled Prussia where he worked as a painter and stage designer.

After the French were driven out of Prussia, Schinkel was appointed Surveyor to the Prussian Building Commission. As surveyor he redesigned the city with a series of buildings that expressed Prussia's cultural ambitions and national pride. General disenchantment with France turned most Prussian architects against the classical Roman manner favoured by the Ecole des Beaux Arts. This national rejection led Schinkel to design in a Neo-Greek style that symbolically recalled the political and moral freedom of Athenian Greece.

Although he preferred classic architecture, Schinkel created designs in both Classic and Gothic manners. His drawings suggest a continuous analysis between Neoclassical Prussia and Periclean Athens.

Schinkel died in Berlin, Germany in 1841.

Source:

Dennis Sharp. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Architects and Architecture. New York: Quatro Publishing, 1991. ISBN 0-8230-2539-X. NA40.I45. p. 137.

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