The year 2014 marks the 300th anniversary of the death of the great German Baroque sculptor and architect Andreas Schlüter. In commemoration, this second issue of the new serial publication »Schlüteriana: Studies in the Art, Life, and Milieu of Andreas Schlüter«*, written and edited by its author, presents two articles on this brilliant artist’s creations. Schlüter was a master of truly international significance whose work is relatively well-known to scholars and the general public within the borders of Europe’s German-speaking countries but much less so to readers outside them. Yet a great deal of research, cataloguing, and analysis of his art still remains to be accomplished and it is the aim of this and future volumes of »Schlüteriana« to fulfill the task. Featured in this issue are important facets of Schlüter’s output: his drawings and funerary sculpture. Examined here are rare drawings with allegorical/astro­nomical themes ascribed to his almost non-existent oeuvre of works on paper. Included as well is the first installment of a major, two-part study on the sculptor’s tomb art in Poland and Germany. In »Part One: Poland«, projects from the artist’s earliest years are studied in detail with key examples from contemporary European Baroque sepulchral monuments brought forward as comparisons to highlight their significance for Schlüter’s artwork. The examination continues in the second installment »Part Two: Germany« to be published in »Schlüteriana III«. Both studies shall provide a complete overview – in an essay/catalogue-form – of Andreas Schlüter’s documented and attributed funerary monuments located in these countries. * »Schlüteriana I« first appeared in »Aus Hippocrenes Quell’. Ein Album amico­rum kunsthistorischer Beiträge zum 60. Geburtstag von Gerd-Helge Vogel« published by Lukas Verlag in 2011.

Does contemporary German architecture have anything to offer to the larger architectural community? Can architects born in the 50s and 60s produce, so soon in their careers, buildings taht deserve international acclaim? Klaus-Dieter Weiss, a leading expert and critic on current architectural practice in Germany, has confronted these questions. This survey of architectural practice in Germany is a aresult of extensive research and critical selection and exemplifies the new and remarkable tendencies re-emerging in German architecture. The following offices are represented with their recent and important work: -Albers, Berlin -Allmann, Sattler, Wappner, Munich -Augustin, Frank, Berlin -Cheret, Bozic, Stuttgart -Goritz, Hanover -Hild, Kaltwasser, Munich -Mensing, Sedler, Darmstadt -Roth, Hamburg -Scheuring, Hannibal -Scheuring, Cologne -Schneider, Stuttgart -Spengler, Wiescholek, Hamburg -Turkali, Frankfurt

In 1945 Germany's cities lay in ruins, destroyed by Allied bombers `hat left major architectural monuments badly damaged and much of the housing stock reduced to rubble. At the war's end, observers thought that it would take forty years to rebuild, but by the late 1950s West Germany's cities had risen anew. The housing crisis had been overcome and virtually all important monuments reconstructed, and the cities had reclaimed their characteristic identities. Everywhere there was a mixture of old and new: historic churches and town halls stood alongside new housing and department stores; ancient street layouts were crossed or encircled by wide arteries; old city centers were balanced by garden suburbs laid out according to modern planning principles. In this book, Diefendorf examines the questions raised by this remarkable feat of urban reconstruction. He explains who was primarily responsible, what accounted for the speed of rebuilding, and how priorities were set and decisions acted upon. He argues that in such crucial areas as architectural style, urban planning, historic preservation, and housing policy, the Germans drew upon personnel, ideas, institutions, and practical experiences from the Nazi and pre-Nazi periods. Diefendorf shows how the rebuilding of West Germany's cities after 1945 can only be understood in terms of long-term continuities in urban development.