Karlskirche is a baroque church located on the south side
of Karlsplatz in Vienna, Austria. It is considered the most outstanding baroque
church in Vienna, as well as one of the city's greatest buildings, the church
is dedicated to Saint Charles Borromeo, one of the great counter-reformers of
the sixteenth century.
The church is located on the edge of the Innere Stadt,
approximately 200 meters outside the Ringstrasse, the church contains a dome in
the form of an elongated ellipsoid.
In 1713, one year after the last great plague epidemic,
Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, pledged to build a church for his namesake
patron saint, Charles Borromeo, who was revered as a healer for plague
sufferers. An architectural competition was announced, in which Johann Bernhard
Fischer von Erlach prevailed over, among others, Ferdinando Galli-Bibiena and
Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt. Construction began in 1716 under the supervision
of Anton Erhard Martinelli. After J.B. Fischer's death in 1723, his son, Joseph
Emanuel Fischer von Erlach, completed the construction in 1737 using partially
altered plans. The church originally possessed a direct line of sight to the
Hofburg and was also, until 1918, the imperial patron parish church.
As a creator of historic architecture, the elder Fischer
von Erlach united the most diverse of elements. The façade in the center, which
leads to the porch, corresponds to a Greek temple portico. The neighboring two
columns, crafted by Lorenzo Mattielli, found a model in Trajan's Column in
Rome. Next to those, two tower pavilions extend out and show the influence of
the Roman baroque (Bernini and Borromini). Above the entrance, a dome rises up
above a high drum, which the younger J.E. Fischer shortened and partly altered.
Since Karlsplatz was restored as an ensemble in the late
1980s, the church has garnered fame due to its dome and its two flanking
columns of bas-reliefs, as well as its role as an architectural counterweight
to the buildings of the Musikverein and of the Vienna University of Technology.
The church is cared for by a religious order, the Knights of the Cross with the
Red Star, and has long been the parish church as well as the seat of the
Catholic student ministry of the Vienna University of Technology.
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source: wikipedia
