PACKH, János

The Primatial Church at Esztergom represents the pinnacle of Neoclassical cathedrals in Hungary. It had been one of the most important churches in the country ever since its archbishops were granted the right to crown Hungary’s kings in 1111. Devastated during the sieges of the Turks, this diocese was not occupied again until 1820, when Franz I transferred the primate’s seat from Nagyszombat to Esztergom. Plans to build a new church to replace the one heavily damaged during the Turkish wars were pursued from the 1760s, when Canevale was charged with surveying the town’s castle hill. The planning process did not begin to take on contours until 1820, however.

Restoring the primate’s seat to the town required extensive new building work. The director of the Court Construction Office in Vienna, Ludwig von Remy and the Eisenstadt architect Paul von K�hnel developed a complex of buildings which borrowed from the examples of the Escorial and the Vatican in Rome. J�nos Packh reduced the scale of K�hnel’s design after 1824 and J�zsef Hild completed the cathedral by 1845, after yet another revision of the plans.

Situated high above the Danube, the fa�ade is dominated by the monumental columns of the drum. The dome reaches to 70m in height and is supported by 24 columns. The frontispiece, with its 57-meter-high projecting corner towers and lavish sculptural ornamentation, rests on 10 Corinthian columns. St. Peter’s in Rome provided the model for this church, as it had for the V�c cathedral.

The photo shows the main fa�ade.

The Primatial Church at Esztergom represents the pinnacle of Neoclassical cathedrals in Hungary. It had been one of the most important churches in the country ever since its archbishops were granted the right to crown Hungary’s kings in 1111. Devastated during the sieges of the Turks, this diocese was not occupied again until 1820, when Franz I transferred the primate’s seat from Nagyszombat to Esztergom. Plans to build a new church to replace the one heavily damaged during the Turkish wars were pursued from the 1760s, when Canevale was charged with surveying the town’s castle hill. The planning process did not begin to take on contours until 1820, however.

Restoring the primate’s seat to the town required extensive new building work. The director of the Court Construction Office in Vienna, Ludwig von Remy and the Eisenstadt architect Paul von K�hnel developed a complex of buildings which borrowed from the examples of the Escorial and the Vatican in Rome. J�nos Packh reduced the scale of K�hnel’s design after 1824 and J�zsef Hild completed the cathedral by 1845, after yet another revision of the plans.

Situated high above the Danube, the fa�ade is dominated by the monumental columns of the drum. The dome reaches to 70m in height and is supported by 24 columns. The frontispiece, with its 57-meter-high projecting corner towers and lavish sculptural ornamentation, rests on 10 Corinthian columns. St. Peter’s in Rome provided the model for this church, as it had for the V�c cathedral.

The photo shows the main fa�ade.

After the Benedictine Order was re-established in 1802, in the 1820a and 1830s several plans were drawn up for the full, large-scale reconstruction of the ancient archabbey in Pannonhalma. Precedents for the designs probably came from the monastery complexes of Austria and southern Germany. Working as a designer in the first stage of construction was Josef Franz Engel. Although he produced plans for the entire suite of buildings at Pannonhalma, only the library was constructed according to his concept in 1824-26.

When Engel died in 1827, responsibility for continuing the works was handed to J�nos Packh, who devised a new plan, and the tower was built according to his revised design in 1828-32.

The Primatial Church at Esztergom represents the pinnacle of Neoclassical cathedrals in Hungary. It had been one of the most important churches in the country ever since its archbishops were granted the right to crown Hungary’s kings in 1111. Devastated during the sieges of the Turks, this diocese was not occupied again until 1820, when Franc I transferred the primate’s seat from Nagyszombat to Esztergom. Plans to build a new church to replace the one heavily damaged during the Turkish wars were pursued from the 1760s, when Canevale was charged with surveying the town’s castle hill. The planning process did not begin to take on contours until 1820, however. Restoring the primate’s seat to the town required extensive new building work. The director of the Court Construction Office in Vienna, Ludwig von Remy and the Eisenstadt architect Paul von K�hnel developed a complex of buildings which borrowed from the examples of the Escorial and the Vatican in Rome. Johann Packh reduced the scale of K�hnel’s design after 1824 and J�zsef Hild completed the cathedral by 1845, after yet another revision of the plans.

Situated high above the Danube, the fa�ade is dominated by the monumental columns of the drum. The dome reaches to 70m in height and is supported by 24 columns. The frontispiece, with its 57-meter-high projecting corner towers and lavish sculptural ornamentation, rests on 10 Corinthian columns. St. Peter’s in Rome provided the model for this church, as it had for the V�c cathedral.

The photo shows the rear fa�ade on the Danube.