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

亚琛市政厅的建筑体量是德语区最重要的主权建筑之一。在这里，我们不仅发现了8世纪末查理曼国王大厅的遗迹；14世纪，随着亚琛市政厅的改造，建造了中世纪最大的世俗大厅之一，用于举办德国国王的加冕仪式。由于亚琛作为中央皇室住所以及后来的加冕场所的重要历史地位，这座曾经属于皇宫（Pfalz）的建筑很好地描绘了中世纪欧洲主权建筑的发展。沿着这座模范建筑，研究目标是研究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世俗建筑的表现所传达的符号。在第一个项目期间，人们清楚地认识到，Aula是了解整个亚琛宫殿的关键建筑。然而，深刻的评价，特别是关于它在宫殿建筑史上的关联，只能通过将市政厅的新发现与对整个皇宫的建筑研究和考古发现进行比较来进行。这尤其要归功于亚琛宫历史建筑研究中的两个最大的空白：aula和教堂之间的连接走廊（所谓的Porticus）的记录，它与aula同时建造，但多次改变，以及宫殿建筑融入亚琛不断变化的城市结构。因此，第二个项目阶段的目标是通过对连接走廊的现存建筑体量的调查、对相关档案材料的评估以及对相邻建筑和聚落结构的检查来填补这些空白。只有这样才能全面地了解亚琛宫殿和后来的加冕建筑群，并将其正确地置于从上古晚期到中世纪晚期的宫殿发展之中。在这里，正在进行的圣像学研究表明，在8世纪，亚琛宫殿被认为是“新耶路撒冷”（sacrum palatium）——aula是大卫的宫殿，而教堂是所罗门的神庙——这种理解一直持续到中世纪晚期。这一假设必须在项目中进行彻底的评估，同时也要在亚琛皇宫的跨学科研究中进行评估，通过与历史和文学来源的综合发现进行可持续的比较。

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.