Adlerstein Architecture Works
| Native name | Adlerstein Architektwerk |
|---|---|
| Type | Private company |
| Industry | Architecture |
| Founded | 1736 AN in Mount Kane, Aerla |
| Founder(s) | Wilhelm Adlerstein |
| Headquarters | Mount Kane, Aerla |
| Area served | |
| Key people |
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| Services |
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| Revenue | ₣71 million (1757 AN) |
| Employees | 310 (1757 AN) |
Adlerstein Architecture Works (Commonspeak: Adlerstein Architektwerk) is a privately held Aerlan architecture practice headquartered in Mount Kane, the seat of the Aerlan Nazarene Church. It was founded in 1736 AN by Wilhelm Adlerstein and remains a family practice, led as of 1757 AN by his granddaughter Margarethe Adlerstein. The firm designs buildings but does not build them, working as architect and conservator while leaving construction to others. It is best known as the architectural and conservation practice of the Aerlan Nazarene Church. In 1757 AN it employed about 310 architects and conservators and reported fee income of ₣71 million.
The practice designs churches and other ecclesiastical buildings, civic and institutional work, and it carries out heritage conservation and the restoration of historic structures. Much of its reputation rests on decades of work on the monasteries of the mountainous northeast of Aerla, the heart of the church's monastic tradition. Beyond Aerla it takes commissions in Nouvelle Alexandrie and Anglien.
History
Wilhelm Adlerstein, an architect of Anterreich descent, established the practice at Mount Kane in 1736 AN. Locating at the seat of the Aerlan Nazarene Church tied the young firm to the church's building and repair work from the outset, and ecclesiastical architecture became its center of gravity. Over the following decades it took on the conservation of the older monasteries of the northeastern mountains, work that called for craft and record-keeping as much as design, and it built up a conservation group around that demand.
Leadership passed within the family to Margarethe Adlerstein, who has led the practice as principal into the 1750 ANs. Under her the firm has kept ecclesiastical and conservation work at its core while taking on more civic and institutional commissions. Its restoration work has included the pilgrim hall at the Church of the Martyrdom at Zareda, one of the church's principal shrines.
Operations
Adlerstein Architecture Works provides architecture and conservation services and does not undertake construction. Its work divides between new design, chiefly ecclesiastical, civic, and institutional buildings, and heritage conservation, chiefly the survey, repair, and restoration of monasteries, churches, and other historic fabric. The conservation group, led by Rada Slavcheva, handles the specialized recording and material work that monastery restoration in the mountains requires, and it is the part of the practice most closely tied to the church.
Because the design and conservation of a building can be separated from its construction, the firm routinely works alongside contractors and does not compete with them. On church and monastery projects in the high northeast it has often prepared the designs and conservation schemes that heavy contractors then execute, leaving the roads, slope defenses, and access works to firms equipped for high-altitude building.
Operations abroad
The Aerlan Nazarene Church is a sui iuris church in full communion with the Holy See of St. Natsanet, and that communion has carried the practice abroad. It takes ecclesiastical and conservation commissions in dioceses of Nouvelle Alexandrie and Anglien that share the same Nazarene tradition, where its record with the monasteries of Aerla recommends it for comparable work.
Organization
The practice is privately held and has remained under the Adlerstein family since 1736 AN. As of 1757 AN it is led by Margarethe Adlerstein as principal, with Jonas Feldkamp as design director and Rada Slavcheva as head of conservation. It employed about 310 people that year, roughly divided between design staff and conservators, a larger share of specialists than a general architecture firm would carry.
