III.3.3
RECONSTRUCTION
Jules Leeman, in his model of 1877 (fig. 267),[321]
and Karl
Gruber, in his bird's-eye view of 1952 (fig. 282),[322]
envisioned
the Abbot's House as a structure of basilican elevation.
Fiechter-Zollikofer (1936)[323]
and Otto Volkers (1937)[324]
thought of it is a simple box-shaped house with the second
story extending over the porches (figs. 254-255). Leeman's
and Gruber's versions appear to me the more likely of the
two interpretations, because the Plan does not stipulate
that the two porches were to be surmounted by upper
galleries or other superincumbent rooms. Each porch is
referred to in the singular, porticus arcubus lucida; porticus
similis. This suggests that there was nothing above. If the
architect had a building in mind in which the second story
was to extend out over the porches, he could have stated
this simply by adding to their titles supra similiter ("above,
a second flight of porches").
There is no doubt that the house was a masonry structure.
Its arcuated porches permit no other assumption.
As in all the other buildings of the Plan where stairs are
missing,[325]
we have refrained from introducing them in our
reconstruction (fig. 257-259). The problem could have been
settled in a number of different ways. Perhaps the Abbot's
House was meant to have had an outer flight of stairs, such
as those in the Palace of William the Conqueror on the
Bayeux tapestry (fig. 253) or in the abbot's house of the
Cistercian Monastery of Marienthal near Helmstedt,
Germany (fig. 256).[326]
Or perhaps it was to have had a
circular staircase tower of the type found on the Carolingian
gate-house of the Monastery of Lorsch.
I do not think that there is any necessity to assume that
the annex was a masonry structure. In general, this type of
ancillary structure was built in timber, even at considerably
later periods.
