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online information on Trier and its buildings
Around the year 16 B. C. Emperor Augustus founded the Augusta Treverorum, later to be called Treveris, Treves, or as we German say, Trier, as a supply center in the tribal territory of the Treveri. Thanks to its favorable location by the River Mosel, at the intersection of Roman military roads from Gaul to the Rhine, Trier was considered a very rich city as early as 60 years later. It grew in both area and population, and amphitheater, forum, racecourse and thermal springs were all added. The Mosel was crossed by a bridge, and, from 18 A. D., the inhabitants of Trier were protected by a 6.8-km city wall with gates and towers. Numerous temples served for worship of the gods. The farms of the vicinity supplied foodstuffs and raw materials for commercial production. Trier and its citizens were characterized by Roman urban culture. This period of full flower was interrupted around 275 B.C., when the Teutonic army surmounted the Roman bastions of the Rhine and destroyed Trier. As soon as 293, however, Caesar Constantius Chlorus selected Trier as his residence. After rapid rebuilding, it soon became the administrative and commercial center of an area stretching from the Rhine to the Atlantic and Morocco. Under the rule of Emperor Constantine, magnificent structures such as the palace aula, the second thermal springs and harbor warehouse were built around the year 310. The Christian community, which had been blossoming since the 3rd century, and its bishop, received a huge double church around 326. At an area of 285 hectares, Trier was the largest city north of the Alps. About 400 A.D. the growing threat from the Teutonics forced residence and administration to move to Arles and Milan, Having been conquered and destroyed several times the Roman city of Trier finally fell into the hands of the Franks around 475; but it survived. A diminished parish gathered around the bishop in a city area, which had grown too large.
The mediaeval Trier, now only half its former size, was deeply influenced by the church. Around the year 800, it was the metropolis of a church province with the dioceses of Trier, Metz, Toul and Verdun. The Normans burnt Trier down in 882, and the city only began to regain its power after the market was moved from the Roman bridge to the safety of the cathedral area by the archbishop in the year 958. The market cross which was erected at that time still stands today as a symbol of peace. Many monasteries and convents were founded. With their own charter of a city, self-government and seal, the people of Trier strove to achieve independence from 1309 to 1580, but their attempts remained unsuccessful in the end. In 1473, the city opened a university, which existed until 1798. A Calvinistic reformation was attempted in Trier in 1559, but failed. 286 "Confessionists" emigrated.
Trier suffered so badly as a result of the wars in the 17th century that there was a population of only 2900 in 1695. Only when the French occupation troops left in 1737 did the city begin to recover economically. Many new buildings were constructed - churches and monasteries, aristocratic palaces and houses for middle-class citizens. But as soon as 1794, the French occupied Trier anew, and were awarded the city and land in 1797. The last elector and archbishop of Trier succumbed in 1801. The church property went to the French state. In 1815, Trier and the left bank of the Rhine came into the hands of Prussia. The city had one of the largest Prussian garrisons, and remained the bishop's seat and administrative center. Karl Marx, the founder of Marxism, who was born the son of a solicitor in 1818, spent his childhood and youth in Trier. The close proximity of the city to the border meant that there was no extensive industrial development. Only the wine trade blossomed from 180 onwards after a thirty-year slump in sales. Trier received railway connections to Saarbruecken in 1860, Koeln (Cologne) in 1871 and Koblenz in 1879. The growth of the city and its economy were roughly interrupted by the 1st World War. The twelve-year occupation, from 1918 to 1930 followed by the bad depression until 1935 and the 2nd World War, during which 40 % of Trier was destroyed in 1944/45, caused serious problems for survivors and homecomers alike. But reconstruction work was mastered successfully. The ancient city received a number of new features and impulses thanks to the canalization of the Moses in 1964, settlement of middle-class industries, city expansion in 1969 due to incorporation to an area of 5768 hectares with a population of 104470, the refoundation of the university in 1970 and Trier's connection to the motorway system. The festivities on the occasion of Trier's 2000th birthday (in 1984) assured the city and its citizens that, in the heart of Europe, Trier would continue to exist as the oldest city in Germany.
The brick building of the Aula Palatina - now named Basilica - dating from the period of Constatine the Great, approximately 310 A.D., and the Elector's Palace, partly Renaissance and partly Baroque in style, are now linked into one single and expansive architectural unit. This merger is a natural process in that it results from its uninterrupted use through the centuries, further indicated by the fact that all records invariably and without fail use its traditional name of "Palatium".
The Roman Palace's west wall and apse, dating from 310 A.D., built over a demolished palace of much smaller size whose foundations are recognizable underneath the later building, still stand at almost their original height (the wall's thickness is 2.30 - 3.40m). The interior of the gigantic hall (height 30m, width 27m and length 67m) - despite its dimensions perhaps only a sort of appendix to the Imperial residence proper - had been richly decorated with mosaics and marbles and the outside walls were well plastered and fitted along their whole length with a gallery underneath its windows (these were 7m high and 3.50m wide).
At the beginning of the 17th century, part of the building was pulled down (east -and south walls), and the remainder incorporated in the Renaissance Palace of the Prince Electors of Trier.
Following the Electorate's dissolution, e.g. during the neo-Romantic period (1846 - 56), it was rebuilt and since then, houses a Protestant church. Yet, the effect created by a building of such dimensions and, above all, the deep and lasting impression of its interior, remained unimpaired, and perhaps, the particular of the restoration work carried out after the sever damages of the last war, even deepened such impressions of magnificence and grandeur.
The Basilica stands in the middle of a former plateau, which in Roman times reached from St. Peter's Cathedral / Church of Our Lady up to the Imperial Thermae.
Besides the construction of an Imperial Palace (Elector's Palace), the building of palatial Imperial baths was another ambitious project within the enormous building programme of the Imperial Roman period during the first half of the 4th century, and the Thermae of Trier counted among the most spacious in the whole Roman Empire. The Imperial Thermae are not far from the Amphitheatre, at the edge of the Palace Garden. But even before being completed, the whole reconstruction of the new building was well on the way. So far, no clues have been found, pointing to their further use, but it seems fairly probable that their connection with the complex of the Imperial Palace was somehow maintained.
The planning and general lay-out of its available space was guided by and based upon only two principles: size and symmetry. The hot-water baths (Caldarium), a hall containing a huge semicircular pool on the long east wall of the rectangular building, and two smaller pools along the shorter wall are the best preserved part of the Thermae.
The far-spreading network of corridors in the builing's basement, almost as intricate as a labyrinth - they are now reexcavated and can be entered - were necessary for the maintenance of the heating system and also, for the drainage of the waste-water from the baths, while at the same time providing access to the stairtowers and lightshafts. The many finds made in the Thermae give ample proof of the display of luxury in connection with the Thermae's interior decoration: of walls panelled with marble, of mosaics and sculptures in profusion.
At the entrance to the old town and now next to the famous shopping street "Simeonstraße"", stands the Porta Nigra, a fortified Roman gateway whose truly colossal dimensions make it a unique monument of its kind and time. It was built of the distinctive light sandstone, by placing one row of huge blocks on top of another, and then joining them with iron clamps without using any mortar. Its construction dates from the 2nd century A.D., when Trier, until then an open town, was surrounded by walls with their towers and gates.
The Porta Nigra actually served a dual purpose: as a strong and effective defence and as an equally effective and impressive symbol of might and power. Its height is 30 meters and its depth 22 meters, while its front measures 36 meters in length. It has 2 carriage ways, each 7 meters high, leading through a windowless ground floor. But there are in all 144 windows with Roman arches on the first and second floors at the front, and looking across the inner court, provided with portcullis and secured by heavily strengthened gates. The two towers flanking the Porta Nigra, while built flush with the rest of the walls inside the courtyard, jutted outwards in massive curves at the front, where they faced the open fields, and were linked with the high walls (7 meters) surrounding the town, covering an area of 28500 acres.
With its roughly hewn blocks of sandstone, now weatherbeaten, darkened by the smoke of centuries, and shapeless through wilful destruction, it still retains its former impressive effect of massive strength.
The fact that this gate to the north had its equal counterpart to the town's southern entrance, and a similar gate to the east, and another, where the Old Bridge crosses the Moselle, strengthening this ring of walls, give a fairly accurate idea of how the power of Rome and its planning on a gigantic scale, gave the town its very shape.
Thanks to the conversion of the upper storeys of the gate and the Collegiate Church of St. Simeon into a twin church (11th cent.), in his memory, this Roman monument was preserved to prosterity.
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At the entrance to the old town and now next to the famous shopping street "Simeonstraße"", stands the Porta Nigra, a fortified Roman gateway whose truly colossal dimensions make it a unique monument of its kind and time. It was built of the distinctive light sandstone, by placing one row of huge blocks on top of another, and then joining them with iron clamps without using any mortar. Its construction dates from the 2nd century A.D., when Trier, until then an open town, was surrounded by walls with their towers and gates.
The Porta Nigra actually served a dual purpose: as a strong and effective defence and as an equally effective and impressive symbol of might and power. Its height is 30 meters and its depth 22 meters, while its front measures 36 meters in length. It has 2 carriage ways, each 7 meters high, leading through a windowless ground floor. But there are in all 144 windows with Roman arches on the first and second floors at the front, and looking across the inner court, provided with portcullis and secured by heavily strengthened gates. The two towers flanking the Porta Nigra, while built flush with the rest of the walls inside the courtyard, jutted outwards in massive curves at the front, where they faced the open fields, and were linked with the high walls (7 meters) surrounding the town, covering an area of 28500 acres.
With its roughly hewn blocks of sandstone, now weatherbeaten, darkened by the smoke of centuries, and shapeless through wilful destruction, it still retains its former impressive effect of massive strength.
The fact that this gate to the north had its equal counterpart to the town's southern entrance, and a similar gate to the east, and another, where the Old Bridge crosses the Moselle, strengthening this ring of walls, give a fairly accurate idea of how the power of Rome and its planning on a gigantic scale, gave the town its very shape.
In Roman times, the spacious and richly ornamented building of the 'Barbara' Bath (Torso of an Amazon and other sculptures are now exhibited in the Landesmuseum) stood close to the bridge over the Moselle which is a short walk from the Basilica of St Mattais. These public baths, considerably older than the Imperial Baths, were built, probably of equally impressive size, about 150 A.D., although not as high as the others. Mainly because the old walls, as those of the Amphitheater, served as a conveniently situated quarry until the 17th century, the ruins are not so impressive as those of the Imperial Baths.
Their name of 'Barbara Thermae' actually derives from the suburb of St. Barbara, later on built on part of the old site.
An impressive and convincing proof of the skill of urban architecture of that period, these baths were built near the bridge across the Moselle at the western end of the town's Roman Main Street, leading eastwards - from the Moselle Bridge to the Imperial Baths and then to the Amphitheatre. Later on, during the Middle Ages, this same street with its walls, towers (Red Tower) and gates ('Neutor') became the town's southern boundary. This is today the Südallee and Kaiserstraße.
The Cathedral' precincts still enclose a large and well preserved part of the ancient Roman building, dating from the 4th century. Even at this early date - building had begun in 326 - the enormous and impressive structure was built as a full-scale Cathedral with its foundations on the site of a former palace of the Constantine period.
Towards the end of the 4th century, gates led into a cloistered courtyard and further on, into a three-naved Basilica roughly the size of the present-day Romanesque west-facade, and finally into the rectangular central building, dating from about 380 A.D. Its ancient masonry of red sandstone, interspersed with layers of bricks is still clearly identifiable in the Cathedral's north and south walls. Destroyed and rebuilt, modified and enlarged all the time, the Cathedral was repaired and secured from 1964 to 1974, and thus completely overhauled after the destructions of World War II.
Until today, the Cathedral and the Church of our lady, near the Great market, represent one of the largest dual church buildings of early Christian architecture.
The Church of Our Lady, in the Cathedral's cose vicinity and near the Great Market, shows complete unity of style - the strong individualism characteristic of early Gothic architecture.
These twin-churches therefore represent one of the largest of all dual church buildings of early Christian architecture. The ancient masonry of the south-building was incorporated in later alterations and remained until the 12th century. The present church was built between 1235 and 1260.
The Church of Our Lady is considered to be the earliest and most important among Gothic buildings of central construction and altogether one of Germany's first Gothic churches. The remarkably clear and beautiful Gothic design of its foundations is cross-shaped with two chaples built into each of the cross-angles. Here, assimilation of German and French architectural ideas (The Workshops of Soissons and Rheims) achieved a central structure of perfect harmony.
The basilica at Trier, the capital of Constantius in northern Gaul, is a plain rectangular hall, approximately 95 by 190 feet, with a sizable projecting semicircular apse, which held the emperor's throne. A narthex was in the front of the building and porticoed courtyards were on the sides. Two rows of windows bring in light from the sides and around the apse. The apse is emphasized by all aspects of the design. The exterior walls, once faced with stucco, are broken up by tall sup porting Greek columns which end in arches. Originally a wooden gallery ran along the building under each row of windows, breaking up the vertical thrust of the arches.
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