Carl Alexander
Heideloff

As a representative of the Gothic Revival Heideloff´s influence on Nuremberg in the 19th century was decisive. It is remarkable that an architect of this time paid tribute to the middle ages. Nevertheless his concept of the Gothic style remains inconsistent because he actually thought in classical dimensions. Schinkel and Heideloff were prone to an idiosyncratic understanding of the Gothic period. That is why the now lost Nuremberg facades of Heideloff´s were so peculiar. (e.g. the Wiß House at the main market). At his own will Heideloff removed the winged altarpiece by Riemenschneider from the west choir in St. Jacob´s church in Rothenburg on the Tauber. The door wings of the Brides´ Portal in St-Lorenz-Church restored by him in 1824 are neither genuinely Gothic nor really Gothic Revival, it is a work manipulated by art history. It was similar with St-Jacob´s church in Nuremberg, the redesign that was planned would have altered the whole church fraudulently, fortunately, the changes on the tower were never carried out. The West front was deprived of the stairwell that originally determined the whole composition. Heideloff replaced it by a tracery window.