Abstract (eng)
The master's thesis entitled "The Baroque New Building of Melk Abbey. A Reassessment on the Basis of Building Invoices and Restoration Findings" is dedicated to the question of how such an extensive monastery complex can be created and preserved for posterity. Melk Abbey is one of the few monasteries that was able to realize and finalize its baroque building complex comprehensively and according to plan. This is due to the special situation in Austria, where after the Turkish siege of 1683, the nobility and clergy were attacked by the "Bauwurmb" and triggered a building boom. Another reason was the person of the builder Abbot Berthold Dietmayr with his will to build, who got to know excellent artists there due to his outstanding position and proximity to the imperial court, whom he then engaged for his baroque building. Finally, another very important factor was the economic capacity of the abbey, which had already been built up in the 17th century. First, an analysis of the buildings of the 17th century is carried out. Then the focus of the work is on the architectural history of the monastery building and only marginally on that of the church, which has already been dealt with several times in recent research. On the basis of the building invoices of Melk Abbey, the chronology of the Baroque building history is to be shown. The aim is to clarify which construction phases were being worked on in the monastery at the same time, which work was being carried out in the individual periods of time. A conflict arises between the monks and the builder, Abbot Berthold Dietmayr. The settlement of the dispute allows the construction to continue. Shortly before the completion of the Baroque building, a fire in 1738 destroyed almost the entire roof area, the church towers, dome and frescoes were completely destroyed. The reconstruction, which gave the monastery its present appearance, is also the subject of the investigation. The restoration work began as early as the 17th century and, in addition to ongoing maintenance, was also necessary again and again in the 19th and 20th centuries. The comprehensive overall restoration (1978–2018), which was carried out in several phases, made important findings possible in the first place. The finds made possible during the restoration refute the previous assumption that Jakob Prandtauer had rebuilt all parts of the building from scratch.