An exceptional educational institution of the 18th century were the Glauchaschen Anstalten, today the Francke Foundations, in the city of Halle in Brandenburg-Prussia. Here, young people were educated and trained irrespective of their origins, social status or gender. For this purpose, a school system divided into four types (Elementarschulen, Lateinschule, Königliches Pädagogium, Mädchenschulen) was created, in which real-life lessons, teacher training and the promotion of gifted students were systematically applied. The underlying Pietist educational concept can still be seen in the preserved buildings of the Foundations, which are still used for educational purposes today. But how exceptional were the foundations in an overarching, comparative and international perspective?

While in the Middle Ages and the early modern period, teaching often took place in one and the same room in a teacher's house, schools today are independent, spatially differentiated and highly specialised institutions whose functions and pedagogical guidelines are reflected in the architecture, room constellations and layouts. Researchers generally see the epochal break from teaching in teachers' homes or in secularised and then converted monasteries to designed and spatially differentiated new school buildings in the period around 1800. The reform pedagogy shaped by the Enlightenment is cited as a decisive factor in this development, which was reflected in the founding of forward-looking schools. Does this paradigm still hold true?

If one looks at the research, one gets the impression that there are a large number of local studies on the history of school construction before 1800 that thus far stand unconnected to each other, in particular in an international perspective. There are, however, hardly any comprehensive or comparative studies on school buildings and educational architecture in the early modern period. Hermann Lange's fundamental book "Schulbau und Schulverfassung der frühen Neuzeit" (School Construction and School Constitution in the Early Modern Period) from 1967 is still a central reference work here. So how can a comparative architectural history of school buildings and educational spaces be conceived on the basis of social, cultural, religious and pedagogical history?

Based on these observations and questions, the international conference will address educational architecture of the early modern period in theory and practice from an interdisciplinary perspective. At the same time, the aim is to establish an international working context on the topic that links fruitful and differentiated research in various countries. In the process, concrete architectural examples from different political territories and religious cultural areas as well as different educational concepts come into view. Can independent, differentiated lines of development be discerned in the history of pre-modern school construction? And to what extent can receptions and adaptations be described across countries and cultures?

Registration is requested by 10 October 2022 under grunewald@francke-halle.de.