The Aula Regia in AachenCarolingian king's hall and late medieval city hall - Historic building research and architectural history

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The city hall of Aachen features in its built volume one of the most significant edifices of sovereignty that exists in German speaking areas. In it we find preserved not only the remains of the Kings hall of Charlemagne from the end of the 8th century; also the 14th century brought, with the transformation into the Aachen city hall, the construction of one of the largest profane halls of the Middle Ages, which was built to host the coronation ceremonies of the German kings. Because of Aachens prominent historic rank as central royal residence as well as the later coronation place, this building that once belonged to the imperial palace (Pfalz) depicts well the development of architecture of sovereignty in medieval Europe.Along this exemplary building, the research objective is to examine the development of prestigious spatial conceptions within the architecture of sovereignty from late antiquity to the late Middle Ages and to understand the emergence of architectonic principles and conveyed symbols for a profane architecture of representation.During the first project-period it became clear that the Aula is a key building for the understanding of the whole Aachen palace. However, a profound evaluation, especially with respect to its linking relevance within the history of palace architecture, can only be made by comparing the newly gained findings at the city hall with those findings in building research and archaeology made for the entire imperial palace. This is especially due for the two largest lacunas in the historic building research at Aachen palace: the documentation of the connecting hallway between aula and church (so-called Porticus), that was built at the same time as the aula but changed several times, and the integration of the palace buildings into the changing urban structure of Aachen.The aim of the second project-period is consequently to close these lacunas by a survey of the extant building volumes of the connecting hallway and an evaluation of the according archival material as well as an examination of the adjacent building and settlement structure. Only then one can comprehensively understand the palace in Aachen respectively the later coronation building complex and properly place it within the palace-development from late antiquity to the late medieval age. Here the ongoing iconological studies reveal that in the 8th century Aachen palace was conceived as "New Jerusalem" (sacrum palatium) - the aula being the palace of David and the church Solomons temple - and that this understanding persisted until the late Middle Ages. This hypothesis must be thoroughly assessed within the project, but also within the interdisciplinary research on the Aachen imperial palace by means of a sustainable comparison with the consolidated findings in historic and literary sources.