Longitudinal, Transverse or Centrally Aligned? In the Search for the Correct Layout of the ‘Protesters’ Churches

The article was written within the framework of a research project “Protestant Church Architecture of the 16th -18th centuries in Europe”, conducted by the Department of the Renaissance and Reformation Art History at the University of Wrocław. It is conceived as a preliminary summary of the project’s outcomes. The project’s principal research objective is to develop a synthesis of Protestant church architecture in the countries which accepted, even temporarily, the Reformation: Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Island, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Sweden and The Netherlands. Particular emphasis is placed on the development of spatial and functional solutions (specifically ground plans: longitudinal, transverse rectangular, oval, circular, Latinand Greek-cross, ground plans similar to the letters “L” and “T”) and the placement of liturgical furnishing elements within the church space (altars, pulpits, baptismal fonts and organs).

Research on Protestant church architecture in Europe is lacking in many respects. Indeed, the only attempt to synthesise the matter was made in the late 19th 1 century, and it excluded much of Central and Eastern Europe (for instance, the areas in present-day Czech, Poland or Hungary). Several national Protestant churches have yet to be addressed by contemporary researchers, which means that it is difficult to form a synthetic view from a pan-European perspective. Moreover, experts have not reached a consensus on whether to apply the classical research methods of art history to Protestant church buildings -which would mean examining those buildings in conjunction with Catholic structures -or whether to focus exclusively on the liturgical and functional aspects, which would inevitably require an examination of the theoretical positions of practical theology. The continuing relevance of this dilemma is demonstrated by two recent book publications on the subject: a work by Kathrin Ellwardt on Lutheran church architecture in Germany 2 and a book by Reiner Sörries on Protestant church buildings in the Habsburg Empire. 3 The first work attempts to reveal the most general mechanisms of the development of space and church forms, with consideration given to distinct solutions used by Lutheranism and Calvinism, while the second publication does not even attempt an in-depth historical and artistic analysis, focusing instead on the socio-political circumstances of the construction of the buildings.
The author has already made an attempt to outline what are the most important problems of Protestant church architecture of the early modern period, 4 assuming that the next step would be a comprehensive and richly illustrated study covering the whole of continental Europe. 5 Before such a work can be published, however, it is worth looking again at the theses of earlier publications and complementing them with the results of more recent research. Regarding Kathrin Ellwardt's book, an attempt will be made to formulate in a more general way and to draw conclusions on a broader art-geographical foundation. Meanwhile, with regard to the book of Reiner Sörries, an attempt will be made to go beyond viewing Protestant church buildings merely in the context of peace agreements, conventions and religious privileges.
From the initial years of the Reformation onwards, Protestant church architecture needed to fulfil two basic tasks. Evidently, one of these was the need to accommodate the entire community within the church walls (if possible on seats). 6 Another equally important requirement was to place the pulpit (in Calvinist churches) -or rather the pulpit and the altar (in Lutheran churches) -in such a way that it (they) should be in full view for as much of the congregation as possible 7 . Where there was only one dominant liturgical element (the pulpit) the task of interior design was obviously easier than where there were two such elements (pulpit and altar). Unsurprisingly, therefore, the Reformed churches broke earlier and more radically with the medieval tradition, compared with the Lutheran ones. Among the latter churches, the traditional equating of the ecclesial church nave and the choir area with the sanctum and sanctum sanctorum of the tabernacle from the Old Testament -as repeated by Martin Luther in the "Sermon of three good types of life" (Sermon vom dreierlei guten Leben) -was a weighty consideration for a longer time. 8 The architecture of Reformed churches developed up to the beginning of the 17th century in two independent directions. In the northern part of the Netherlands as well as in eastern, northern and western Switzerland, where Calvinism quickly attained dominance, the new churches were established primarily in old medieval churches that were then freed from any signs of ‹papal idolatry› (i.e., altars, images or even glass windows). 9 The traditional longitudinal system of the churches was suited to a pulpit-oriented transverse system, whereby the choir was usually excluded from liturgical space as was the case in the Great Church at Emden (East Frisia). 10 In France, Poland and Lithuania, where the Catholic Church broadly preserved its position and influence, the building styles of the various 6 Wiesenhütter, 1936;Grashoff, 1938;Poscharsky, 1963;Wex, 1984;Raschzok/Sörries, 1994;Kießling, 19957 Fritsch, 1893Wiesenhütter, 1936, p. 30-33;Poscharsky, 1963, pp. 64-71. 8 Wessel, 1966, pp. 89 -91. 9 Ozinga, 1929Germann, 1963;Van Swigchem et al., 1984;Reymond, 1996;Spicer, 2000;Spicer 2007;Ottenheym et al., 2008;Kroesen, 2015;Ottenheym, 2015;Reymond, 201510 Fritsch, 1893Poscharsky, 1963, p. 61f.;Van Swigchem et al., 1984, p. 88f. Reformed churches had to be created almost from scratch. 11 This resulted in numerous spatial experiments, tied either with early Christian tradition -for instance, the Greek cross (as in Oksa, Poland) or the Rotunda (Lyon, France; Fig. 1) or with functional requirements as in the case of an L-shaped floor plan (Secemin, Poland). Many new churches were built on a ground plan in the shape of a simple rectangular or square. Given the almost total absence of architectural details, they increasingly resembled secular buildings, for instance, the very popular tower-like manor houses in Central and Eastern Europe. 12 The oldest Reformed communities had, furthermore, lively contacts with each other. It cannot be excluded that experiences and ideas about form and function were shared among the churches of eastern and western Europe. The synthesis of both these trends -the adaptation trend and the experimental trend -began in the early 17th century in Amsterdam, one of Europe's most rapidly developing cities at the time. 13 The first new church building in Amsterdam was the Zuiderkerk (1603-1611), designed by the city architect Hendrik de Keyser. The church is notable less for its rectangular, choirless, three-naved layout, which at the time was nothing new, than for its transverse-system and for the presence of an open (pewless) space in front of the centrally positioned pulpit -a space that was used for tables when celebrating the Lord's Supper. A similar spatial set-up was employed by de Keyser in the artistically more mature and monumental Westerkerk (1620-1631, Fig. 2), whose construction was completed by Cornelius Danckerts de Ry. Another version of the transverse system, which further developed the visible quasi transverse-navels of the two other Amsterdam churches, is the Nieuwe Kerk in The Hague (1649-1656). 14 Designed by a little-known architect, this building combines perfectly a single-nave rectangular chamber or space with six apse-like extensions, whereby it should be noted that the complex also represents a centralising system of two connected Greek crosses. An exact reproduction is the Protestant Reformed Castle Church in Königsberg (today Kaliningrad), 15 which was built between 1690-1699 by Johann Arnold Nering, a Brandenburg architect of Dutch descent. Variants of this newly constructed Reformed church building, built on a ground plan in the form of a transverse rectangle or a transverse oval, were constructed in other European countries: for instance, in Switzerland 16 (Fig. 3) and Scotland 17 (Fig. 4). However, most of them became increasingly independent of the Dutch model and developed their own architectural tradition. 14 Ozinga, 1929, pp. 93-95;Poscharsky, 1963, p. 76;Schönfeld, 1999, pp. 96-98;Spicer, 2007, pp. 160-165;Ottenheym, 2015, pp. 109-114. 15 Fritsch 1930Poscharsky 1963, pp. 78-80;Kunzendorf, 1992, pp. 47-50. 16 Germann, 1963, pp. 80-85, 107-144;Reymond, 2015, pp. 71-80. 17 Hay, 1957;Spicer, 2007, pp. 53-78, 88-105;Yates, 2009;Reymond, 2015, p. 77f. Master builder John White. Interior view. Photo: Aleksandra Adamczyk,

Hamburg
The historical role of Hendrik de Keysers, as the first major Protestant church builder, became apparent in the light of his third Amsterdam masterpiece -the Noorderkerk (1620-1623) -completed under the direction of Hendrik Staets. 18 In contrast to the Zuiderkerk and the Westerkerk, this church was built on a layout of a transverse rectangle. De Keyser opted here for the centralising layout of the Greek cross with diagonally cut corners; in the interior, he gave emphasis to four monumental pillars. The pulpit was placed leaning on one of these pillars (Fig. 5). As a result, the main axis of the building runs diagonally and allows all in the Church a good view from the pews, created in the form of an amphitheatre. This solution was repeated in the Reformed Church of Maaslouis (1629-1639) 19 and the Noorderkerk in Groningen (1660-1665), 20 while the Marekerk in Leiden (1639-1649), 21 designed by the architect Arent van's Gravesande, represents a simpler type of a more moderate octagon with access. A very similar pattern was used for the first time in Germany between 1601 and 1608 in the Walloon/Dutch 'Doppelkirche' (Double Church) in Hanau Neustadt. 22 This was built by religious refugees from the Netherlands on the layout of an adjoining octagon and a dodecagon, which are connected to each other through joint stair towers and a ridge turret.

University of Wrocław
The shape of a regular polygon and even -as already mentioned -of a rotunda, was widely applied in the Church architecture of the French Huguenots. The type of rectangular transverse-system, a 'lying rectangle', developed in the Netherlands was, for them, completely unknown, but they were ready to accept the traditional longitudinal system, without, of course, a separate choir. A model building in this respect is the Church of the Paris Huguenots congregation, which was built according to a draft by Salomon de Brosse 23 on the outskirts of Charenton sur Seine between 1623 and 1624. The reputation of this church survived even its demolition in 1685 and reached -almost myth like -far beyond the borders of France. The rectangular interior of this church (with its dominant towering pulpit) had two gallery floors, which were accessed by way of staircases placed at the corners.
This solution, as contemporary commentators highlighted, was used "according to the rules of the Vitruv"; it was noble in proportions and extremely functional, and it was regarded as a true reproduction of an ancient basilica, even though it was very far from the "pontifical" patterns. The design model of this church can be seen even today in some of the Reformed 21 Van Swigchem et al., 1984, p. 112f.;Spicer, 2007, pp. 160-163. 22 Leclercq, 1996;Grossmann, 1996, pp. 11-14. 23 Coope, 1972, pp. 183-187, 212f.; Thomson, 1995, pp. 254-256;Spicer, 2000, p. 305;Spicer, 2007, pp. 192-199;Reymond, 2015, pp. 80-83. churches established in the early 18th century. For example, in the Temple Neuf at the Fusterie in Geneva (1713-1715, by the architect Jean Vennes) and in the Heiliggeistkirche ('Church of the Holy Spirit') in Bern (1726-1729), by the architect Niklaus Schiltknecht; ( Reinle, 1956, pp. 238-244;Germann, 1963, pp. 57-73;Mueller, 1976;Hofer and Furrer, 1982;Montmollin and Delor, 1990. 25 Schmid, 1906, pp. 148-151;Harasimowicz, 2016a, p. 7f;Harasimowicz, 2017, p. 193. The main problem of most Lutheran churches from the 16th century in Germany and Scandinavia, as well as Lutheran communities in the territory of the Habsburg patrimonial lands and of Poland, which were under the Catholic rulers and could not organize themselves as fully recognised churches, was not the construction of new church buildings, but their adaptation to the needs of the new forms of worship or -in the event of a missing cultic justification for their further existence -the demolition of some buildings or their rededication for profane purposes. In some regions, for example in Upper Saxony, the victory of the Reformation took place during the construction of some important, relatively modern churches with the typical hall design of the outgoing phase of the late Gothic period. 26 By the long-drawn-out finishing works, which were in most cases due to the creation of the vault, the late-medieval tradition of interior design and the shape of architectural details were further extended. The "ecclesiastical" construction could mean, even in the mid-17th century, as opposed to the "italian" (welsch) approach, not only the use of forms from the post-Gothic period or the Gothicized shapes, 27 but also the continuation of the pattern of the late medieval hall with a polygon choir circuit. This is shown by the examples of the Town Church in Bückeburg (1615) 28 and the Trinitatis Kirke (Trinity Church) in Copenhagen (1637-1656) 29 .

Harasimowicz, Wrocław
The castle chapels steadily became the models for the new Lutheran parish churches built in 'Welscher Manier' (Welsch style). Some of them were of the so-called 'Roman' Hall type, such as the Holy Trinity Church in Klagenfurt in Carinthia (1580-1591) 33 and Loosdorf in Lower Austria (1588, Fig. 10). 34 Others followed a right 'Wandpfeilersaal' form (a one-naved wall-pillar hall type), such as the church of the Holy Trinity in Haunsheim in Swabia (1606Swabia ( -1609 35 . In addition to these 'welsch' type hall churches, 'welsche' galleried basilicas were also created, such as the Parish Church of St. Salvator in the Old Town of Prague (1611-1614; Fig. 11), 36 and the 'welsche' gallery halls, such as the Court Church in Neuburg an der 33 Brathe, 1934, p. 15;Allmaier, 1994;Deuer, 1994;Fürst, 2015, p. 154f. 34 Floßmann, 1974Fürst, 2015, p. 153f. 35 Fürst, 2015 36 Brathe, 1934, pp. 6-8;Krčálová, 1981, p. 37;Krčálová, 1989, p. 173f.;Skalecki, 1989, p. 48f.;Wenzel, 2015, p. 294f. Donau (1607-1615. 37 The church in Neuburg was designed as 'Trutzmichael' ('against St. Michael'), a Lutheran response to the famous Jesuit church of St. Michael in Munich, which, shortly after its completion, was taken over by the Jesuits following the sovereign's conversion to Catholicism. The right, though very belated symbolic role of 'Trutzmichael' was given to the Lutheran Church of Grace in the Upper Silesian Cieszyn [Teschen], also referred to as 'Jesuskirche' (Church of Jesus, 1709-1723. 38 This church clearly illustrates pietistic influences, which are otherwise difficult to identify in the architecture of Protestant church buildings. 39   Lidel, 1973;Seitz et al., 1983;Skalecki, 1989, pp. 61-63;Pechloff, 1997;Fürst, 2005, pp. 182-184;Smith, 2015, pp. 161-163. 38 Biermann, 1859;Zahradnik, 1958;Wojak, 1973;Patzelt, 1989, pp. 40-49;Pustelnik and Gajdacz, 2009;Harasimowicz, 2010b. 39 Harasimowicz, 2005 In the Castle Chapel in Stuttgart mentioned above, one can observe not only a further convergence of the altar and a pulpit positioned closer to the altar but also the design of the whole space as a transverse system. The distinguishing features are the galleries on three sides of the interior, which differ from the setup of the Zuiderkerk and Westerkerk in Amsterdam. In the castle chapel in the Wilhelmsburg in Schmalkalden, the altar and the pulpit were arranged on top of one another on the same axis in a different way and completed by an organ over it. In this way, a model of the so-called pulpit-altar was created, which became one of the most typical components of the interior of subsequent Lutheran churches in Germany. 40 For a time, the spatial innovations introduced in Stuttgart and Schmalkalden had no influence on Lutheran church architecture. The first parish church with a transverse system -the Parish Church of St. Salvator in Zellerfeld 41 -was built between 1674-1683; it was probably modelled on Dutch buildings. This does not mean, however, that in the various Lutheran centres there had been no search for a 'golden middle way', with a view to establishing a balance between the longitudinal system with its subordination to the altar and the transverse system with its dominant pulpit. Many solutions can be found from this period with additional and asymmetrical aisles as well as one-sided galleries facing the pulpit. In smaller churches constructed according to the gallery-pulpit arrangement, a new diagonal spatial axis was created in anticipation of the central schema. In larger churches -such as in St. Catherine's Church in Frankfurt am Main (1678Main ( -1680 42 and in the Holy Trinity churches in Speyer (1701-1717, Fig. 12) and in Worms (1705-1725) 43 -the interior space was turned, by means of this spatial arrangement, by 90 degrees, whereby it increasingly resembled the already familiar transverse-system. Everywhere, where new cities were established (for example, the city of Freudenstadt in Württemberg, founded in 1599 for religious refugees from Austria, with the church being built between 1601-1608 according to a design by the architect Heinrich Schickhardt), an unconventional form of an angled hook (L-shape) was given to the new Lutheran church. 44 The search for new spatial concepts was also typical for prestigious buildings, such as the Dreieinigkeitskirche (Trinity Church) in Regensburg (1627-1631, master builder Karl Ingen). 45 It was designed with a powerful and homogeneous 40 Stade, 1931;Poscharsky, 1963, pp. 214-250;Mai, 1969;Meißner, 1987;Habermann, 1998. 41 Kunzendorf, 1992, p. 21;Mai, 1994, p. 18. 42 Fritsch, 1893Schomann, 1993;Harasimowicz, 2004a, pp. 457-460;Proescholdt, 2007, pp. 21-31. 43 Fritsch, 1893Walter, 1925;Winter, 1997;Bumb, 2001;Reuter, 2003;Brodersen et al., 2011;Jöckle, 2011. 44 Baum, 1916Eimer, 1921;Wex, 1984, pp. 91-93;Schweikhart, 1985, p. 155f.;Lindner, 2003;Smith, 2015, pp. 170-173. 45 Möseneder, 1983Wex, 1984, pp. 74-91. gallery hall covered with a wooden barrel vault and completed using a much smaller and lower choir from the east. Alternatively, quite innovatively, as the New Lutheran Church in Amsterdam (1660-1668, master builder Adrian Dorsmann; Fig. 13) 46 on a semi-circular layout with amphitheatrical arranged galleries. Under the circumstances of a literally 'free competition of confessions' it is difficult to imagine that the Lutherans would not strive with their church buildings for a new, so far nowhere implemented design.   The ongoing presence of the longitudinal system of medieval origins in church architecture had its roots in Lutheran conservatism. It was expressed particularly in areas to the east of the river Elbe: in Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, Pomerania, Silesia, East Prussia and Poland. 47 Any ‚novelties' imported from the major centres of Calvinism were regarded with suspicion by Lutheran congregations in the early 17th century, which feared for the integrity of the sacraments and the durability of the ceremonies that were sacred by tradition. 48 Over time, such prejudices gradually disappeared, especially in the period of the 'second reformation' and owing to the common experience of tragedy in the Thirty Years' War. The religious outcasts that had fled from the Netherlands and Austria were now joined by refugees from Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia and, subsequently, by Huguenots displaced from France. More and more young people from the Lutheran areas in Central and Northern Europe studied in the war-free North Netherlands, where such institutions as the University of Leiden, become 'Temples of Science' and oases of religious freedom. 49 Informative journeys made by scholars in Holland and France have been an inestimable source of inspiration, by those who ordered the construction of new church buildings and also by those who designed and built them, according to the spatial models of Dutch and French churches. This can be seen in the example of the two Silesian 'Churches of Peace', which were designed in the mid-17th century under regulations of the Westphalia peace treaty and in accordance with plans drawn up by Albrecht von Säbisch, the outstanding fortress builder, who was clearly familiar with the architecture of the Occident. 50 The first of these buildings, the Church of Peace 'of the Holy Spirit' in Jawor [Jauer] (Fig. 14), followed -with its originally two gallery levels -the model of the previously mentioned Huguenot Church in Charenton sur Seine. The other, the Church of Peace 'of the Holy Trinity' in Świdnica [Schweidnitz], was built according to a cross-shaped ground plan. It forms part of a series of related constructions, which began with the Noorderkerk in Amsterdam and continued with the Katarina kyrka ('Church of Catherine') in Stockholm (1656-1670, Fig. 18) 51 and the Parochialkirche ('Parochial Church') in Berlin (1695Berlin ( -1703. 52 This latter church, built for the Berlin Reformed congregation, and the aforementioned Castle Church in Königsberg of the same age, constitute examples of the direct transmission of the foremost Dutch models to Brandenburg-Prussia 53 . 47 Harasimowicz, 2010a. 48 Harasimowicz, 1996, pp. 25-39. 49 Schöffler, 1956Kiedroń, 2003. 50 Wiesenhütter, 1926Wiesenhütter, 1936, p. 67f.;Grundmann, 1970, pp. 18-27;Banaś, 1971;Hutter-Wolandt, 1994;Seidel-Grzesińska, 2000;Harasimowicz, 2002, pp. 83-85;Sörries, 2008, pp. 26-28, 99-104. 51 Curman andRoosval, 1944, pp. 191-410. 52 Naatz, 1903;Kunzendorf, 1992, pp. 51-59;Badstübner-Gröger, 1998;Schönfeld, 1999, pp. 98-104. 53 Kiem, 1992Schönfeld, 1999, pp. 56-59, 65-73, 76-94, 123-128. J. Harasimowicz The Calvinist rulers in Brandenburg-Prussia favoured the import of the spatial designs of Protestant churches elaborated in Holland. The influence of Pietism at the end of the 17th century led to radical changes in the Protestant piety. 54 The renewal of religious life, as proclaimed by Philipp Jakob Spener, August Hermann Francke und Nicolaus Ludwig Graf von Zinzendorf, reinforced the awakening and unionist tendencies that had already been present in some places. The general theoretical basis of the construction of Protestant church buildings were of course not by chance formulated exactly at that time and by a person with clearly pietist views, which werecontrary to the previous practice -entirely free of a pronounced inner-Protestant confessional differentiation. This person was Leonhard Christoph Sturm (1669-1719), 55 born in Altdorf as the son of a professor at the local university and educated in such fields as mathematics, philosophy and theology (first under the supervision of his father and then at the universities of Jena and Leipzig). As a professor of mathematics at the Ritterakademie (Knight Academy) in Wolfenbüttel and later at the University in Frankfurt an der Oder, he worked for some years on an essay about the architecture of Nicolaus Goldmann, a Silesian from Breslau who had settled in Leiden. Sturm had been commissioned to write the essay by the Leipzig patron of the arts, Georg Bose. 56 Subsequent editions of Goldmann's "Architectura Civilis" edited by Sturm rapidly became the most popular manuals of architecture available in German. 57 In 1711, Sturm was appointed head of the building department at the court of the dukes of Mecklenburg to Schwerin. A 54 Harasimowicz, 2003a. 55 Habicht, 1917Wotschke, 1932;Küster, 1942;Schädlich, 1957;Schädlich, 1990;Rust, 2007;Harasimowicz, 2012a. 56 Semrau, 1916Goudeau, 1995;Harasimowicz, 2003;Goudeau, 2005;Goudeau, 2006. 57 Goldmann, 1962 major task in his new position was to appraise and evaluate the newly constructed Parish Church of St. Nicholas in Schwerin, also known as the Schelfkirche. He was also commissioned to present his first concept for their interior decoration. This gave rise to a more comprehensive work on Protestant church architecture, describing numerous layouts for churches, including the square, oval, triangle, transverse rectangle and angled hook layouts.  59 Sturm saw the basic difference between Protestant and Catholic church architecture in the reluctance of the former to countenance excessive ornamentation and abundance. This characteristic derived -according to Sturm -from the essence of Protestant religion, which "requires purity of spirit rather than splendour". 60 The impact of Sturm's treatises on Protestant church architecture of the 18th century cannot be overstated, even though his contemporaries did not always share his ideas (for example, some were critical of the cross-shaped ground plan). The transverse-system, which he recommended as one of 'the most perfect' solutions, became very popular in Brandenburg-Prussia. This is illustrated by the examples of of Cathedral in Berlin's Lustgarten as well as by some of the garrison and parish churches. 61 This system also became very common in western Germany, such as in the castle and the parish church in Weilburg an der Lahn (1701-1713) 62 , and in Hungary in the parish churches in Tótkomlós (1795) and Mezőberény (1793Mezőberény ( -1797. 63 This form was also used in Poland, after the lifting of the ban on the construction of new Protestant churches in the second half of the 18th century: for example, in the excellent Cross Church (originally 'Kreuzkirche') in Poznań (1777-1786, master builder Anton Höhne; Fig. 15). 64 The T-like floor plan, which had already been used in some places, should also be considered as one of the applications of the transverse-system 58 Sturm, 1712. 59 Sturm, 1718. 60 Sturm, 1718, p. 27. 61 Wiesenhütter, 1936Schwartz, 1940;Schwipps, 1964;Badstübner, 1988, p. 187f., 192f., 210;Kitschke, 1991;Kunzendorf, 1992, pp. 66-68, 81-84;Bamberg, 2006. 62 Backes, 1959, pp. 47-52, 72-76;Großmann, 1983;Wex, 1984, pp. 120-127;Ellwardt, 1997;Ellwardt, 1999. 63 Krähling, 2015, p. 143f.
The polygonal and round-shaped churches became, in the meantime, widely accepted, owing in part to the activities of Sturm. They were erected not only in Brandenburg and Anhalt 79 -where the direct effects of the Dutch pattern can be presumed -but also in Thuringia, Hesse, Oldenburg and Denmark. 80 These and other previously mentioned churches were overshadowed, however, by what may well have been the most magnificent Protestant church of the 18th century, the Frauenkirche in Dresden (1726-1738; Fig. 19), 81 a masterpiece of the Saxon architect George Bähr. Thanks to his well-documented efforts in drafting various designs, the church space became increasingly more compact, ultimately achieving an unprecedented transparency. Admirable features included both the high functionality and noble and unobtrusive ornaments of the church as well as -importantly -its technical perfection, which gained its fullest expression in the construction of the dome. The magnificent cupola of the Frauenkirche dominated the Saxon capital for years, whose inhabitants -in contrast to their rulers, who were eager to court royal favours -did not want to surrender their identity shaped by the Reformation.
The Frauenkirche in Dresden and the Large St. Michael's Church in Hamburg embodied the epitome of Protestant church architecture in the early modern period. They stand as a kind of summary of the long path that led from the German castle chapels of the 16th century to the buildings by Hendrik de Keyser in Amsterdam, to the Huguenot Church in Charenton sur Seine, to the Church of Catherine in Stockholm, and to the Silesian Peace and Grace Churches. However, with these Baroque or -according to a different classification of styles -late Baroque buildings, the 18th century cannot be considered as complete. Far away from the most important centres of Protestantism, in Warsaw, the capital city of the declining Polish Noble Republic, in the period 1777-1781, one of the most magnificent classicist church buildings in Europe was built; the Augsburg Evangelical Church of the Holy Trinity, 82 designed by the architect Simon Gottlieb Zug, who originated from Saxony. Its cubic shape, reflecting the example of the ancient 79 Fritsch, 1893, p. 146;Wiesenhütter, 1936, pp. 91-94;Gottschalk, 1985, p. 180f. 80 Fritsch, 1893, pp. 134-136, 148-151, 416-419. 81 Sponsel, 1893Löffler, 1984;Franz, 1988;Magirius, 1994;Kuke, 1996;Magirius, 1999;Schliepe, 2005. 82 Jaroszewski, 1970Kwiatkowski, 1971, pp. 159-162;Kwiatkowska, 1982;Lorentz and Rottermund, 1984, p. 14, 248;Kwiatkowski, 1986, p. 201;Harasimowicz, 2009, pp. 395-398;Harasimowicz, 2012b, pp. 438-443. Greek Pantheon, was chosen personally by a great patron of the arts: the last Polish King Stanisław August Poniatowski, and was often compared with the drafts of French revolutionary architects, for most part only known from their surviving drafts (Fig. 20). This construction, particularly when contrasted with the Pauluskirche (St. Paul's Church) in Frankfurt 83 , which was erected at the same time, reveals artistic maturity and was an important contribution to the development of Protestant church architecture in the early modern period by Poland.
The foregoing findings allow one to draw a more general conclusion. The history of Protestant church architecture in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries -that is, the early modern period -confirms a significant cultural transfer, which was far greater than in the medieval period in Europe. Berlin, Dresden, Königsberg, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Warsaw, Poznań, Wrocław -in a word: the so-called 'Younger Europe' -became sites for independent design and creativity, producing models to imitate. Regrettably, however, this common European cultural heritage has received scant attention until now. The upcoming research projects will clearly fill this gap. 83 Veidt and Struckmeier, 1933;Hils-Brockhoff and Hock, 1998.