User:Dmtr K/Gilly

Friedrich David Gilly (February 16, 1772 – August 3, 1800) was a German architect. He was the son of the architect David Gilly and was known as a prodigy and the teacher of the young Karl Friedrich Schinkel. His most known work is the design for the memorial to Frederick II.

Early years and studies
Friedrich Gilly was born in Altdamm, Pomerania where he stayed until 1788. His father, David Gilly, was the provincial architect (Landbaumeister) of Pomerania, where his responsibilities had to do mostly with canal engineering and constructions for agricultural purposes. Gilly was first taught the technical and craft issues of architecture by his father.

In 1788, when the family moved to Berlin after his father was transferred to the Royal building administration (Oberhofbauamt), he enrolled at the architecture school of the academy of fine arts (Architektonishe Lehranstalt in the Akademie der bildenden Künste). His teachers there included Carl Gotthard Langhans, Frederick William von Erdmannsdorff and Johann Gottfried Schadow. Langhans (designer of the Brandenburg Gate) and Erdmannsdorff are considered leading architects of early German [Neoclassical architecture|Neoclassicism]] in Germany.

First major works
Friedrich Gilly worked with Langhans on the construction of the tower of the Marienkirche in Berlin in 1790. In 1792 he completed his studies as government architect and was appointed supervisor. He made his first private works and in 1793 he started to teach architectural drawing at the Institute for the Education of young People in the art of Building (Lehranstalz zum Unterricht junger Leute in der Baukunst), a private school founded and run by his father.

Gilly became know to the public with an exhibition of his drawings of the castle of Marienburg held at the Akademie der Künste in 1795. The exhibition was a success that led to a 500 Thalers scholarship for a four-year study trip and to a proposal from a publisher of a journal to publish the drawings as engravings accompanied by an essay written by Gilly. Next year he became once more the focus of public attention with his design proposal for the competition for the design for the memorial to Frederick II (Friedrichsdenkmal).

Study journey
In April 1797 he began his study trip that was supposed to lead him to Rome. However, his plans were changed due to the political situation. Rome was occupied by the armies of Napoleon). Therefore, Gilly traveled first to Dessau, where he visited and criticized the work of his teacher Erdmannsdorff and then to Weimar, where he met Carl August Boettiger and possibly Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. From there he traveled via Strasbourg to Paris where he stayed for six months. The drawings he made in France reveal his interests in architecture and reflect the intellectual climate of the Directoire. They include views of the Fountain of Regeneration, the Rue des Colonnes—an arcaded street of baseless Doric columns leading to the Théâtre Feydeau—the chamber of the Conseil des Anciens in the Tuileries and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s grotto in its landscaped setting at Ermenonville, Oise. After Paris, Friedrich continued his trip to London, then returned to Paris and from there back to Berlin passing through Hamburg, Vienna, Prague, Dresden and Weimar. He arrived in Berlin in December 1798.

Return to Berlin
While Friedrich Gilly was away, the young Karl Friedrich Schinkel had enrolled to David Gilly’s architecture school and, although disappointed by the teaching of David, was waiting anxiously for Friedrich’s return. He had seen the young Gilly’s drawings of the Friedrichsdenkmal exhibited at the Akademie and had decided to study architecture with him.

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In January 1799 Gilly founded the Private Society of young Architects (Privatgesellschaft junger Architekten) together with six other architects, including Johann Heinrich Gentz and Schinkel. The society was a kind of architects’ club (Gilly had seen similar institutions in Paris) where the members met every week to discuss various architectural issues, present their projects and exchange knowledge.

With his return to Berlin Gilly had before him what seemed to be a promising career in architecture. Commissions started to arrive and in May 1799 he accepted the position of professor of perspective and drawing in the newly founded Bauakademie. The Bauakademie was the first state architecture school in Germany. Gilly’s friend and companion in the Private Society of young Architects Johann Heinrich Gentz was also appointed professor (of Urban Architecture) and was also the designer of the first building to house the Bauakademie. (The Bauakademie used the first floor of the building. In the 1830s when the Bauakademie constructed its own building it was designed by Schinkel, also a member of the Private Society of young Architects.)

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One year later, in July 1800, Gilly took a sick leave from his teaching and left for Karlsbad where he died a few days latter from tuberculosis at the age of 28.

Marienburg
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Frederick II memorial
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National theater
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Built work
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