church of Kassa, church of Kolozsvár

Kolozsvár - St Michael church 2
Kolozsvár - St Michael church 3
Kassa - St Elisabeth church 3
Kassa - St Elisabeth church 4
Kassa - St Elisabeth church 5
Kolozsvár - St Michael parish church
St Elisabeth parish church of Kassa

A 13th-century three-nave church with three apsides. First its main chancel was rebuilt in the 14th century. At the same time the St Michael chapel was built near this building. the new Gothic longitudinal house may have been started only at the beginning of the 15th century. The spatial structure of the five-nave chuarch with a transcept was in fact centralised. The side chancels were constructed to a diagonal axis. This unique ground-plan reached Kassa with the mediation of the Parler workshop of Prague and the Rhine region, following French models. Besides the workshop of Prague, the Buda Gothic style - which included south German elements - played a vey important role in the development of the Kassa style. It can be seen on the gates. The vaults of the church were made before 1440, but the masters of these might have arrived from Vienna. Only the northern of the two towers on the western facade had recived its thin,octogonal upper level by the first half of the 15th century. Today's chancel and the sothern tower are from the age of Matthias. Imre Steindl's neogothic reconstructions at the end of the 19th cnetury brought a very significant change in the spatial structure of the church.

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St Michael parish church of Kolozsvár

The predecessor of the today's church is known from sources: it was mentioned in a 1349 permission for a patronal festival. The chacel hall closed by three polygonal apsides was built at the end of the 14th century. The vaults and upper part of this were soon rebuilt because of an architectural error. The longitudinal house was rebuilt at the beginning of the 15th century. Partitioned pillars hold the star vaults in the hall, which is much wider than the chancel. The walls of the church are broken by narrow windows and three pompous, Kassa-style gates.

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