Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach (1656-1723) is one of the most important master builders of European Baroque. With buildings such as the Kollegienkirche (Collegiate Church) in Salzburg, the Imperial Library and the Karlskirche (St. Charles Church) in Vienna, he created icons of architectural history. Educated in Rome, Fischer combined the exact knowledge of classical monuments and the latest buildings in Italy and France with an extraordinary ability to design on a spatial-sculptural and at the same time figurative level. His geographical and temporal horizon outreached the boarders of his immediate work sphere – mainly Vienna and Salzburg – by far: as the visionary author of the first illustrated world history of architecture, which already spread his fame in book-form across Europe during his lifetime, he became a world-class architect of the baroque era.
The Salzburg Museum takes, in cooperation with the Wien Museum, the 300th anniversary of the day of the death of Fischer, as an opportunity to present the versatile oeuvre of the architect, his artistic surrounding and his brilliance in a large-scaled exhibition. The exhibits come from the rich inventories of both partner museums and will be supplemented by high-ranking loans from Austrian and international collections.
Drawings, engravings, paintings, models and photographs will illustrate Fischer’s most important buildings and projects and show the topicality of his artistic imagination between structure, space and image. A logical focus of the exhibition will be set on the buildings in Salzburg, with which he shaped the appearance of the city like no second architect.
With the deliberate contemporary design, the arrangement of the exhibits and the innovative educational approach, the exhibition refers to the large Fischer von Erlach-retrospective in 1956 and therefore reflects the history of exhibiting itself as well as the historical construction of the “Myth Fischer von Erlach”.
Kurator: Dr. Andreas Nierhaus (Wien Museum) und Mag. Peter Husty
