You will probably all know, or at least have heard of, the project in Guedelon, where a medieval castle is being re-built using materials and methods available in the 13th century.
Guedelon does seem to be a success, at least in terms of being well-known and visited. And now something similar-but-different is planned in Germany, called "Karolingische Klosterstadt" (Carolingian monastic city).
The project is to re-build the famous plan of St. Gallen, the idealistic layout and plan for a monastery. There's an official project website that does not offer very much yet, but there's one English pdf presenting the project idea - and some very interesting thoughts about how interpreters should be trained.
Tuesday, 20 September 2011
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2 comments:
Wow. In England, I think it is safe to say that a project proposal like this would not be 16 pages long and cite Foucault. But I think they have better grounds for proceeding than they seem to know; not only were some Carolingian monastery sites like Lorsch as equivalently big and complex, but the recent digs at San Vincenzo al Volturno in Italy have begun to look as if something like the Plan was really in use there. But even so they're setting themselves quite a task: thirty years for something that would probably have taken longer even when a king could fund it directly with Arav treasure...
Well. So much for the totally untrue prejudice that Germans are a bunch of nitpickers and taking-it-serious-ers.
I agree with you, though: it sounds quite ambitious. But also like a good idea - there must have been a reason to draw an ideal plan. And I'm very much looking forward to see how it will develop.
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