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Pforta is a former Cistercian monastery (1137-1540), near Naumburg on the Saale in the Prussian province of Saxony. It is now a celebrated German public boarding school, called Landesschule Pforta. It is coeducational and teaches around 400 high school students.

1 History
- 1.1 Roman Catholic Monastery
- 1.2 Boarding School
2 Architecture
3 External Links
4 Principle Works
5 References

[edit] History

[edit] Roman Catholic Monastery

The monastery was at first situated in Schmölln on the Sprotta, near Altenburg. Count Bruno of Pleissengau founded there, in 1127, a Benedictine monastery and endowed it with 1100 "hides" of land. This foundation not being successful, Bishop Udo I of Naumburg, a relative of Bruno, on 23 April, 1132, replaced the Benedictines by Cistercian monks from the monastery of Walkenried. The situation here proved undesirable, and in 1137 Udo transferred the monastery to Pforta, and conferred upon it 50 hides of arable land, an important tract of forest, and two farms belonging to the diocese.

The patroness of the abbey was the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the first abbot, Adalbert, 1132-1152. Under the third abbot, Adetold, two convents were founded from it, in the Mark of Meissen and in Silesia, and in 1163, the monasteries of Alt-Celle and Leubus were also established in the latter province. At this period the monks numbered about eighty. In 1205 Pforta sent a colony of monks to Livonia, founding there the monastery of Dünamünde. The abbey was distinguished for its excellent system of management, and after the first 140 years of its existence its possessions had increased tenfold.

At the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century though a period of strife, the monastery flourished again. The last quarter of the fourteenth century witnessed, however, the gradual decline of its prosperity, and also the relaxation of monastic discipline. When Abbot Johannes IV was elected in 1515, there were forty-two monks and seven lay brothers who later revolted against the abbot; an inspection by Duke George of Saxony reported that morality had ceased to exist in the monastery. The last Abbot, Peter Schederich, was elected in 1533. When the Catholic Duke George was succeeded by his Protestant brother Henry, the monastery was suppressed (9 November, 1540), the abbot, eleven monks, and four lay brothers being pensioned.

[edit] Boarding School

In 1543, Duke Moritz opened a national school in the abbey, appropriating for its use the revenues of the suppressed monastery of Memleben. At first the number of scholars was 100, in 1563 fifty more were able to be accommodated. The first rector was Johann Gigas, renowned as a lyric poet. Under Justinus Bertuch (1601-1626) the school attained the zenith of its prosperity. It suffered greatly during the Thirty Years' War, in 1643, there being only eleven scholars. Among its pupils may be mentioned the poet, Klopstock, and the philosopher, Fichte. After 1815 Pforta belonged to Prussia, and then to Germany. Today the school is maintained by the German state Saxony-Anhalt, but still supported by its own Schulpforta Foundation.

[edit] Architecture

The remains of the monastery include the 13th century gothic church; it is a cross-vaulted, colonnaded basilica with an extraordinarily long nave, a peculiar western façade, and a late Romanesque double-naved cloister. What remains of the original building (1137-40) is in the Romanesque style, while the restoration (1251-1268) belongs to the early Gothic. Other buildings are now used as dormatories and lecture halls. There is also the Furstenhaus, built in 1573. Schulpforta was one of the three Furstenschulen founded in 1543 by Maurice, Elector of Saxony (at that time duke), the two others being at Grimpla and at Meissen.

[edit] External Links

Landesschule Pforta's English website

Gottfried Böhm (or Gottfried Boehm) is a contemporary German architect.

Böhm was born January 23, 1920 into a family of architects in Offenbach, Hesse. His father, Dominikus Böhm, was renowned for having built several churches throughout Germany. His grandfather was also an architect. After having graduated from Technical University of Munich in 1946, he studied sculpture at a nearby fine-arts academy. After 1947, Böhm worked for his father until the latter's death in 1955. Böhm later took over the firm. During this period, he also worked with the "Society for the Reconstruction of Cologne" under Rudolph Schwarz. In 1951, he traveled to New York City where he worked for six months in the architectural firm of Cajetan Baumann. During his travels in America, he met two of his greatest inspirations, German architects Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius.

In the following decades, Böhm constructed many buildings around Germany, including churches, museums, civic centers, office buildings, homes, and apartments. He has been considered to be both an expressionist and post-Bauhaus architect, but he prefers to define himself as an architect who creates "connections", between the past and the future, between the world of ideas and the physical world, between a building and its urban surroundings. In this vein, Böhm always envisions the color, form, and materials of a building in relationship with its setting. His earlier projects were done mostly in molded concrete, but more recently he has begun using more steel and glass in his buildings, due to the technical advancements in both materials. In many of his projects, his concern for urban planning is evident, again showing his concern for "connections".

Böhm won the Grande Medaille d'Or de l'Academie d'Architecture, the Fritz Schumacher Prize for Architecture in Hamburg and the Pritzker Architecture Prize.