As a 3D printing service provider, you usually deal with projects in the field of state-of-the-art industries and technologies. Today, however, we would like to tell you about an order we carried out that takes us straight to the Middle Ages. Specifically, this is a 3D printing job for the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments in Hesse. The background is the reopening of Frankfurt’s Leonhardskirche.
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What do I need to know about the Leonhardskirche?
The exhibition
The exhibition “Treasures from the rubble – 800 years of St. Leonhard” deals with one of the oldest churches in Frankfurt – the St. Leonhardskirche.
The church was closed for almost 10 years for interior renovations. In August of this year it was opened on the occasion of its 800th anniversary. In this context, the opening of the exhibition took place in the Cathedral Museum in Frankfurt.
Structural challenges
The floor encountered in the church in 2009 was about 2.20 meters higher than that of the original church building. Since the church always had problems with flooding due to its proximity to the Main, the restorers decided to raise the floor in several stages. Objects of art that were no longer wanted (figures, altars, etc.) also served as rubble filling. These works of art have been carefully excavated and restored over the last 10 years and are now on display in the exhibition.
What exactly was our task as a 3D printing service provider?
The “Lamentation Group”
One of the most important finds is the “Lamentation Group” made of clay. This is where we come in as a 3D printing service provider.
The group was assembled from 67 potsherds to form a group of figures. The three remaining heads of the group were scanned and printed by us. The heads are said to have been made in so-called models.
The negative model as the key to production
The restorers needed these heads in order to understand the manufacturing technique and to be able to work through the whole thing. Manuela Thews from the Hesse State Office for the Preservation of Monuments used one of those heads to produce a negative model. Sound can then be pushed into this negative model again and again, as Thews tells us. In this way, the same face is produced over and over again. So we are experiencing a kind of case of mass production like in the Middle Ages.
Further information can be found in the showcase on site.
Our 3D printing architecture project for the Leonhardskirche in the showcase.
Read more about our most interesting 3D printing projects on our blog.
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