Balthasar Neumann
Balthasar Neumann began as a bell founder and became one of the great architects of the Baroque. His staircases in Würzburg and Brühl and the church of Vierzehnheiligen unite daring construction with light and movement.
Balthasar Neumann was born in 1687 in Eger in Bohemia, today Cheb in the Czech Republic. He learned to cast bells and cannon and came to Würzburg in 1711 as a journeyman. There he joined the prince-bishop’s artillery and studied mathematics, fortification and architecture. He took part in campaigns and travelled to Italy and Austria. Prince-Bishop Johann Philipp Franz von Schönborn saw his talent and in 1720 commissioned him to build a new residence, even though he had not yet built anything large.
The Würzburg Residence became his life’s work. The staircase, covered by an unsupported vault, and Tiepolo’s fresco make it one of the great rooms of the Baroque. Neumann also designed the staircases in the palaces at Brühl and Bruchsal and a long series of churches. Vierzehnheiligen in Franconia, begun in 1743, has a plan of oval spaces flowing into one another, and Neresheim in Württemberg has a great central dome. He also built bridges, water supplies and town plans in Würzburg, and he was professor of architecture at the university.
Neumann died in Würzburg in 1753 and was buried in the Marienkapelle. He is regarded as the most important architect of the South German Baroque and Rococo, and his buildings show how geometry, construction and light could be united in spaces of strong movement. His way of working with ovals and intersecting spaces influenced architects throughout Central Europe. The Würzburg Residence and Augustusburg at Brühl are World Heritage Sites. His portrait was on the German fifty-mark note, a sign of how high his standing is in Germany.