The Building and Architectural History of the Francke Foundations

The research carried out in recent years on the architecture of the Francke Foundations and their intended effects have made it clear that the »Orphanange« in Halle is a unique Baroque complex. Here a new formal language of public-representative building was developed in order to place fundamental social tasks - piety, upbringing, education, social welfare - in a new spatial context and to shape them through this. The research combines architectural, cultural and socio-historical perspectives. They focus - nationally and internationally comparative - on two interconnected thematic areas: On the one hand, the aim is to generate further concrete knowledge about the foundation's buildings (including technical and architectural history aspects, such as the wooden constructions and mansard roofs), and on the other hand to address the overall context of the building tasks of social welfare and education in the Baroque era, which have so far received little attention.

The project, funded by the state of Saxony-Anhalt, is dedicated to the indexing and conceptual penetration of early modern sources on the history of the schools of today's Francke Foundations, which were known as Glauchasche Anstalten in the 18th century. The focus is on the connection of the school architectures with the specific Pietist-based pedagogical concept that was developed and became effective here. This aimed at the education and upbringing of children of all classes, boys and girls.

However, there are hardly any comprehensive or comparative studies on schools or educational architectures for the period before that. Hermann Lange's fundamental study »Schulbau und Schulverfassung der frühen Neuzeit« from 1967 is still a central reference here. Nevertheless, there are numerous individual studies on municipal or provincial schools as well as knight's academies and universities, which suggest a rich educational landscape and architecture in the early modern period.

The project aims to analyse the school architecture and the school rooms of the early modern Glauchasche Anstalten in a comparative perspective on the basis of the extensive historical source material (school regulations, architectural plans, etc.). With this approach, which goes beyond individual cases, the project also makes a contribution to the aforementioned research desideratum on school architecture before 1800.

The long-standing research on the Pietist image of children and human beings, on the teaching and schools of the Glauchasche Anstalten, on pupils and teachers is to be linked to the architectural and spatial conditions of the buildings as well as the internal organisation. The question to be discussed is whether and, if so, to what extent the Pietist concept of education is reflected in the layout of the buildings, their spatial structures and social organisation. In the 18th century, the Glauchasche Anstalten represented an exceptional educational institution where all people, regardless of their origin, social status and gender, could acquire education and be educated.

An exceptional educational institution of the 18th century were the Glauchaschen Anstalten, today the Francke Foundations, in the city of Halle in Brandenburg-Prussia. Here, young people were educated and trained irrespective of their origins, social status or gender. For this purpose, a school system divided into four types (Elementarschulen, Lateinschule, Königliches Pädagogium, Mädchenschulen) was created, in which real-life lessons, teacher training and the promotion of gifted students were systematically applied. The underlying Pietist educational concept can still be seen in the preserved buildings of the Foundations, which are still used for educational purposes today. But how exceptional were the foundations in an overarching, comparative and international perspective? 

If one looks at the research, one gets the impression that there are a large number of local studies on the history of school construction before 1800 that thus far stand unconnected to each other, in particular in an international perspective. There are, however, hardly any comprehensive or comparative studies on school buildings and educational architecture in the early modern period. Hermann Lange's fundamental book "Schulbau und Schulverfassung der frühen Neuzeit" (School Construction and School Constitution in the Early Modern Period) from 1967 is still a central reference work here. So how can a comparative architectural history of school buildings and educational spaces be conceived on the basis of social, cultural, religious and pedagogical history?

Based on these observations and questions, the international conference addresses educational architecture of the early modern period in theory and practice from an interdisciplinary perspective. At the same time, the aim is to establish an international working context on the topic that links fruitful and differentiated research in various countries.  In the process, concrete architectural examples from different political territories and religious cultural areas as well as different educational concepts come into view. Can independent, differentiated lines of development be discerned in the history of pre-modern school construction? And to what extent can receptions and adaptations be described across countries and cultures?