Research on the construction history of the Trier Cathedral

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Gottfried Kerscher; Professor Dr.-Ing. Manfred Schuller
• Subject Area: Architecture, Building and Construction History, Construction Research, Sustainable Building Technology ; Art History
• Term: from 2015 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 263241866

Ongoing since August 2015, the researches on the cathedral of Trier have already been revealing numerous positive results, creating a new image regarding the construction and function of the oldest cathedral in Germany. The methodological attempt to work fundamentally on the highly complex history of a monumental building with a small but highly specialized team consisting of members from building archeology and art history, combined with modern documentation methods, has already been proven to be successful. Essential for this scientific progress has been the excellent co-operation with local experts and institutions of the Diocese of Trier, who have been accountable for research and preservation of the monument. The ongoing DFG-project is the first external project on the cathedral which has been enabled to carry out an architectural investigation and been provided full access to the extensive stock of archival material. Due to the project progress, new fields of interest have been discovered, which were not forseeable at the time of the first application-entry. To achieve the overall objective, which is a thorough revision of the architectural history, this new topics are of particular significance. These include, among others, the partial evaluation of the earlier excavations under the cathedral in a newly established cooperation with the Diocese Archeologist Winfried Weber as basis for the early building history, the approach of radiocarbon dating for building phases which have not been able to be dated yet, the analysis and valuation of the last large renovation of the cathedral in the 1960/70s which changed the buildings constructual setup more extensively than previously considered, and research on the relations between hagiography and church politics which have immediate effects on the building history. The continuation of both research positions for 12 months will allow to complete and extend the previous results with a reappraisal of the current desiderates and to integrate them into the final overall evaluation.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants