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

亚琛市政厅在其建成的体积中以德语地区存在的最重要的主权大厦之一为特色。在它中，我们发现保存下来的不仅是8世纪末查理曼国王大厅的遗迹，而且14世纪随着改造成亚琛市政厅，建造了中世纪最大的亵渎礼堂之一，它是为了举办德国国王的加冕仪式而建造的。由于亚琛作为中央皇室住宅以及后来的加冕地点的突出历史地位，这座曾经属于帝国宫殿(普法尔茨)的建筑很好地描绘了中世纪欧洲主权建筑的发展。在这座典范建筑中，研究目的是考察从古代晚期到中世纪晚期主权建筑中享有盛誉的空间概念的发展，并了解建筑原则的出现和代表世俗建筑的象征。在第一个项目阶段，很明显，奥拉是理解整个亚琛宫殿的关键建筑。然而，只有将市政厅新获得的发现与整个皇宫的建筑研究和考古结果进行比较，才能做出深刻的评价，特别是关于它与宫殿建筑史上的联系的相关性。这特别是由于亚琛宫殿历史建筑研究中最大的两个漏洞：与奥拉同时建造但多次变化的奥拉和教堂之间的连接走廊(所谓的门廊)的文件记录，以及宫殿建筑与亚琛不断变化的城市结构的融合。因此，第二个项目期的目标是通过调查连接走廊的现存建筑体积、评估相应的档案材料以及检查邻近的建筑和聚落结构来填补这些空白。只有这样，才能全面了解亚琛的宫殿，分别是后来的加冕建筑群，并将其恰当地放置在宫殿中--从古代晚期到中世纪晚期的发展。在这里，正在进行的图像学研究表明，在8世纪，亚琛宫殿被设想为“新耶路撒冷”(Sacrum Palatium)--奥拉是大卫的宫殿和教堂所罗门神庙--这种理解一直持续到中世纪晚期。这一假设必须在该项目内以及在对亚琛皇宫的跨学科研究中进行彻底评估，方法是与历史和文学资料中的综合研究结果进行可持续的比较。

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.