DOI issue:
Nr. 2
DOI article:Artykuły
DOI article:Jankowski, Aleksander: Nowe perspektywy badań zabytkowej architektury drewnianej
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.71007#0344
338
Aleksander Jankowski
New Prospects in the Research
into Wooden Historic Architecture
The issue of double wall construction of wooden
historic architecture, recently introduced into the
academic circulation, critically verifies the cons-
truction typology of old wooden building.
The double wall construction formula defines
a peculiar structure of perimeter walls, bringing side
by side the framework and log constructions. Such is
the construction system used in the walls of some
dozens of Greater Poland wooden churches from the
17th-18th centuries, which have so far been falsely
classified as either log or frame structures.
The double wall construction was created either
straight away (which was the usual way), or as the
result of a framework structure being added to the
skeleton of an older building. The first displays
varied mutual relations of the framework and log
systems: from the autonomous arrangement put side
by side to the ones integrated in one frame. Both wall
construction systems (with the framework always
from the inside) usually adhere or are separated by
several centimeters. Roof truss beams rest either
simultaneously on caps of the frame and the skeleton,
or just on the cap of frame. In the latter case, the
construction system better fits the definition criteria
of the post-supported construction and is classified by
the Author as the post-supported system; meanwhile,
the system in which the roof load-bearing function is
exerted by the logs and the framework is qualified as
quasi- post-supported. The structure that combines
the log and framework construction within one frame
is referred to as frame-and-log. Here the posts
strengthened from the exterior with spandrel beams
and struts, are at the same time uprights with grooves
hollowed from the side of the interior into which
planks are inserted, tightly 'filling' the spans and
forming the wall face.
Double wall constructions with a framework
added subsequently is most often the trait of the
quasi-post-supported system, yet solutions of the
post-supported type have also appeared.
The double wall construction in wooden sacral
architecture in Greater Poland has proved to be not
so much a regional, as a universal question, rooted in
the century-long guild tradition of European
craftsmanship. It is related to the yet unsolved issues
of the genesis, function, and development of the
post-supported construction. The fact that structural
solutions that can be classified as the post-supported
construction existed in sacral architecture in the 17th-
18th centuries defies such hypotheses of the post-
supported construction coming to existence as, e.g.
the theory of 'shocks' (weaving workshops) or the
theory of a 'wrinkling arcade'. The post-supported
and quasi-post-supported constructions of Catholic
and Protestant churches in Greater Poland, (together
with some non-extant 17th-18th-century quasi-post-
supported synagogues) challenges the belief, well-
rooted in literature, that post-supported construction
was used only in secular buildings. It also opposes
the assumption of the post-supported constructions
developing linearly.
However, the occurrence of frame-and-log
systems in Greater Poland churches in the 17th-18th
centuries urge us to verify the so-far ascertained
territorial range and evolution of the construction
defined in German literature on the subject as
Bundwerk.
Translated by Magdalena Iwińska
Aleksander Jankowski
New Prospects in the Research
into Wooden Historic Architecture
The issue of double wall construction of wooden
historic architecture, recently introduced into the
academic circulation, critically verifies the cons-
truction typology of old wooden building.
The double wall construction formula defines
a peculiar structure of perimeter walls, bringing side
by side the framework and log constructions. Such is
the construction system used in the walls of some
dozens of Greater Poland wooden churches from the
17th-18th centuries, which have so far been falsely
classified as either log or frame structures.
The double wall construction was created either
straight away (which was the usual way), or as the
result of a framework structure being added to the
skeleton of an older building. The first displays
varied mutual relations of the framework and log
systems: from the autonomous arrangement put side
by side to the ones integrated in one frame. Both wall
construction systems (with the framework always
from the inside) usually adhere or are separated by
several centimeters. Roof truss beams rest either
simultaneously on caps of the frame and the skeleton,
or just on the cap of frame. In the latter case, the
construction system better fits the definition criteria
of the post-supported construction and is classified by
the Author as the post-supported system; meanwhile,
the system in which the roof load-bearing function is
exerted by the logs and the framework is qualified as
quasi- post-supported. The structure that combines
the log and framework construction within one frame
is referred to as frame-and-log. Here the posts
strengthened from the exterior with spandrel beams
and struts, are at the same time uprights with grooves
hollowed from the side of the interior into which
planks are inserted, tightly 'filling' the spans and
forming the wall face.
Double wall constructions with a framework
added subsequently is most often the trait of the
quasi-post-supported system, yet solutions of the
post-supported type have also appeared.
The double wall construction in wooden sacral
architecture in Greater Poland has proved to be not
so much a regional, as a universal question, rooted in
the century-long guild tradition of European
craftsmanship. It is related to the yet unsolved issues
of the genesis, function, and development of the
post-supported construction. The fact that structural
solutions that can be classified as the post-supported
construction existed in sacral architecture in the 17th-
18th centuries defies such hypotheses of the post-
supported construction coming to existence as, e.g.
the theory of 'shocks' (weaving workshops) or the
theory of a 'wrinkling arcade'. The post-supported
and quasi-post-supported constructions of Catholic
and Protestant churches in Greater Poland, (together
with some non-extant 17th-18th-century quasi-post-
supported synagogues) challenges the belief, well-
rooted in literature, that post-supported construction
was used only in secular buildings. It also opposes
the assumption of the post-supported constructions
developing linearly.
However, the occurrence of frame-and-log
systems in Greater Poland churches in the 17th-18th
centuries urge us to verify the so-far ascertained
territorial range and evolution of the construction
defined in German literature on the subject as
Bundwerk.
Translated by Magdalena Iwińska