DOI Heft:
Nr. 3-4
DOI Artikel:Artykuł i Komunikaty
DOI Artikel:Paszkiewicz, Piotr: Polityka mocarstw europejskich i jej odzwierciedlenie w architekturze i urbanistyce Jerozolimy w XIX i na początku XX wieku - zarys problematyki
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49350#0552
AN OUTLINE OF THE POLITICS OF THE EUROPEAN POWERS ON THE ArCHITECTURE OF JERUSALEM
531
hospital and hospice complex named after the Kaiseńn,
Yictoria Augusta, from 1907-10, which occupies a
commanding position on the road to Mount Scopus;
beyond the Russian Orthodox churches of Mary
Magdalen and the Ascension raised on the Mount of
Olives. The hills surrounding the Walled City thus
came to be taken over by the European Christian
edifices. As for Mount Zioń, which could hardly escape
the imperial powers’ attention, it should, perhaps, come
as no great surprise that the Germans secured
possession of the summit that the Jews in Babylonian
captivity had pined for to raise the church of the
Dormition, whose corner stone had already been
symbolically laid during the Kaiser’s visit in 1898 (nor
would it seem to be a coincidence that Jerusalemites
ąuite amicably began referring to the church with its
black conical roof as ‘guardian of the walls’, in
response to the way in which its outline resembles a
helmeted soldier; particularly at night).
The finał and paradoxical outcome of the
prolonged period of rivalry between the imperial
European powers, reaching its climax as well as
conclusion in the First World War, is that the power
which could be said to have laid the least emphasis on
its presence in the Holy Land through an ambitious
and ostentatiously monumental building programme
- as well as being the first non-Muslim country to raise
a church and open a diplomatic mission in the city -
came to take control of the whole of Palestine as a
mandate (on 9th December 1^ 17). The comparatively
few British buildings in Jerusalem of architectural
distinction might have been all the morę imposing in
scalę as well as ornamentation if greater political, and
above all financial, support from Her Majesty’s
Government had been morę fortheoming. A case in
point is the complex of St. George’s cathedral, inspired
by 14th- and 15th-century English Gothic forms, that
had to be raised in two stages, in 1895-9 and 1910,
when it was reconsecrated. A central belltower above
the Crossing of the nave and transept, which would
have lent the overall design a monumental character,
had to be shelved for lack of funds, to be substituted
by a freestanding tower completed only in 1912. When
Queen Yictoria herself had been approached for
assistance in completing the most prestigious building
subjects of the British Empire had so far raised in
Palestine, the response was to present a baptismal font
of Carrara marble surmounted by an English-oak
baldachim... Be that as it may, and even while the Latin
patriarch and representative of the German priesthood
expressed their opposition to Anglo-British missionary
activity in the Ottoman Empire by refusing to
participate, the Greek patriarch, alongside the
Armenian, Syrian, Coptic Christian and Ethiopian
bishops, all attended the consecration ceremony.
Moreover, it was mainly British expertise and
eąuipment which gave rise to the water supply system,
sewers and energy supply system of modern Jerusalem.
It is somewhat ironie that the multitude of
religious buildings raised by the Europeans between
1840 and 1914, even though in numerous cases they
now serve other functions, have remained a part of
the greatly altered urban landscape of the city to this
day. Their predominantly historicist character, in the
neo-Romanesque, neo-Gothic, neo-Renaissance, neo-
Baroque or neo-Classical styles, apart from
displaying neo-Russo-Byzantine forms inspired by
16th- and 17th-century Russian-Orthodox archi-
tecture, are testimonies to the bygone era of European
colonialism and imperialism. This architecture was
born out of a conviction that the place of each of the
representatives active in the Holy City was dependent
on the sheer number and character of religious
temples and social or charitable institutions it was
capable of constructing there. This absurd, Euro-
centric and national-imperialist notion, which largely
ignored the needs, identity and even the very presence
of the indigenous population, was doomed to failure,
not least because Jerusalem never had been, and
surely cannot ever become, a European metropolis,
but was, and still remains, much like Istanbul, Cairo
and Baghdad, an oriental city.
Peter Martyn
531
hospital and hospice complex named after the Kaiseńn,
Yictoria Augusta, from 1907-10, which occupies a
commanding position on the road to Mount Scopus;
beyond the Russian Orthodox churches of Mary
Magdalen and the Ascension raised on the Mount of
Olives. The hills surrounding the Walled City thus
came to be taken over by the European Christian
edifices. As for Mount Zioń, which could hardly escape
the imperial powers’ attention, it should, perhaps, come
as no great surprise that the Germans secured
possession of the summit that the Jews in Babylonian
captivity had pined for to raise the church of the
Dormition, whose corner stone had already been
symbolically laid during the Kaiser’s visit in 1898 (nor
would it seem to be a coincidence that Jerusalemites
ąuite amicably began referring to the church with its
black conical roof as ‘guardian of the walls’, in
response to the way in which its outline resembles a
helmeted soldier; particularly at night).
The finał and paradoxical outcome of the
prolonged period of rivalry between the imperial
European powers, reaching its climax as well as
conclusion in the First World War, is that the power
which could be said to have laid the least emphasis on
its presence in the Holy Land through an ambitious
and ostentatiously monumental building programme
- as well as being the first non-Muslim country to raise
a church and open a diplomatic mission in the city -
came to take control of the whole of Palestine as a
mandate (on 9th December 1^ 17). The comparatively
few British buildings in Jerusalem of architectural
distinction might have been all the morę imposing in
scalę as well as ornamentation if greater political, and
above all financial, support from Her Majesty’s
Government had been morę fortheoming. A case in
point is the complex of St. George’s cathedral, inspired
by 14th- and 15th-century English Gothic forms, that
had to be raised in two stages, in 1895-9 and 1910,
when it was reconsecrated. A central belltower above
the Crossing of the nave and transept, which would
have lent the overall design a monumental character,
had to be shelved for lack of funds, to be substituted
by a freestanding tower completed only in 1912. When
Queen Yictoria herself had been approached for
assistance in completing the most prestigious building
subjects of the British Empire had so far raised in
Palestine, the response was to present a baptismal font
of Carrara marble surmounted by an English-oak
baldachim... Be that as it may, and even while the Latin
patriarch and representative of the German priesthood
expressed their opposition to Anglo-British missionary
activity in the Ottoman Empire by refusing to
participate, the Greek patriarch, alongside the
Armenian, Syrian, Coptic Christian and Ethiopian
bishops, all attended the consecration ceremony.
Moreover, it was mainly British expertise and
eąuipment which gave rise to the water supply system,
sewers and energy supply system of modern Jerusalem.
It is somewhat ironie that the multitude of
religious buildings raised by the Europeans between
1840 and 1914, even though in numerous cases they
now serve other functions, have remained a part of
the greatly altered urban landscape of the city to this
day. Their predominantly historicist character, in the
neo-Romanesque, neo-Gothic, neo-Renaissance, neo-
Baroque or neo-Classical styles, apart from
displaying neo-Russo-Byzantine forms inspired by
16th- and 17th-century Russian-Orthodox archi-
tecture, are testimonies to the bygone era of European
colonialism and imperialism. This architecture was
born out of a conviction that the place of each of the
representatives active in the Holy City was dependent
on the sheer number and character of religious
temples and social or charitable institutions it was
capable of constructing there. This absurd, Euro-
centric and national-imperialist notion, which largely
ignored the needs, identity and even the very presence
of the indigenous population, was doomed to failure,
not least because Jerusalem never had been, and
surely cannot ever become, a European metropolis,
but was, and still remains, much like Istanbul, Cairo
and Baghdad, an oriental city.
Peter Martyn