In my opinion, Peter Hartel, Sauerland, Germany, is the best Anchor
builder living today, and fully the equal of the legendary greats of the
past, like Ernst Meyer-Margreth, Hans Ludwig, Karl Lufsky and Switzerland's
Edouard Wyttenbach. Peter's specialty is reproducing the Romanesque
churches of Köln. Peter has sent me pictures of many of them,
and these pictures will be shown on this web page from time to time. I
have chosen his construction of St. Gereon because he gave me a few pictures
of his internal arching technique. Because, like real stones, Anchor
stones are of limited size, it is necessary to use arches to roof-over large
structures. Please note that no glue is used, only the forces
of compression and gravity hold up the structure. People often ask:
"how did you do that?" Here Peter Hartel shows how it is done, and
don't think it is easy. I also have a picture of a collapse, with several
thousand stones spread over the partially finished building. Peter
Hartel is one of many excellent Anchor builders still making beautiful
structures with Anchor building stones.
You can expect these pictures to be changed about once a month. I will not repeat the same builder immediately, but you can expect to see some additional Romanesque churches of Köln in the near future.
The south view of the St. Gereon Church on Christophstraße. The building is about 50 inches long.
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The large tower had to be arched. The inner arch span is 11 inches, including the center stone which has no support other than the sidewise pressure of the eight arch stones. Well done, Peter!
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Again we see some of Peter's innovative construction methods.
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