Architect, builder.
During his work in Silesia, he received a nickname ‘Swede from Rewal’, and in literature was called the Younger for distinction from the father, also an architect, Martin Frantz called the Elder.
Martin Frantz the Younger was born in the first days of March 1679 in Rewal. The city back then was named Tallin and was part of Sweden (now capital city of Estonia). His father Martin Frantz the Elder (died on 29th of August, 1684) came from Dresden, he arrived to Rewal around 1670, and performed functions as an City Architect (Stadtbaumeister) from 1677. His mother Elisabeth (Elsgen) Seger (also Seyer, Säger) came from Rewal. Martin Frantz the Younger had a sister Anna-Elisabeth.
After premature death of his father, the children were raised by their stepfather Georg Winkler, a native of Riga, who in 1686 was appointed city architect in Rewal, and one year later he married Elisabeth Seger-Frantz. The stepfather made an effort to ensure that his stepson Martin prepared for a career as an architect.
Martin Frantz the Younger began learning the trade in 1691 and was entered into the Rewal register of students of bricklayers’ guild on February 18, 1697 He passed the journeyman exam and, according to guild customs, set out on a journey across Europe to further his professional training. At the urging of his stepfather, he started in the Swedish capital - Stockholm. After the outbreak of the Northern War (1700–1721), he traveled south via the Baltic Sea. During his journey, he reached Silesia, which was then part of the Austrian Empire. He stayed in Wrocław, where he began collaborating with the architect Johann Georg Knoll. He soon moved to Legnica, where Knoll began the construction of a collegiate church commissioned by the Jesuit Order. After Knoll's death on November 14, 1704, Frantz continued its construction (from 1705 to 1708).
In 1705, Martin Frantz the Younger married Barbara Elisabeth (around 1790-1743), daughter of the Legnica carpenter Christian Schönwälder (d. 1703). They had three children: two daughters, Johanna Wilhelmina (1709–1711) and a younger daughter born in 1713, and a son, Carl Martin (b. 1712). The son continued the family tradition and also became an architect; he learned the trade from his father and undertook his journeyman travels through Bohemia. In the early period, he initially worked with his father; after his death, he moved to Rydzyna, where he worked as a court architect.
Martin Frantz died in 1742, in Legnica and was buried at the cemetery by the church of Saints Peter and Paul, which was located on the site of today's Slavic Square.
He is credited with the authorship of around 40 Baroque buildings in Silesia, commissioned by both secular and ecclesiastical patrons. He was the author of the construction or reconstruction designs of the following secular buildings:
- reconstruction of the palace in Pieszyce /near Dzierżoniów (Peterswadau /near Reichenbach) in the years 1705 - 1710 commissioned by the Jelenia Góra merchant and banker Bonit v. Mohrenthal
- reconstruction of the palace in Chocianów (Klein Kotzenau / Lüben district) in the years 1728-1732
- design and construction of the town hall tower in Szprotawa (Sprottau) in the years 1732-1733
- design and construction of the palace in Rząśnik (Schönwaldau) from 1734
Frantz received commissions from both Catholic and Protestant church authorities. According to his designs, the following were built on commission from church patrons:
- Church of Grace in Jelenia Góra, constructed in 1709–1718 on commission from the Protestant community of Jelenia Góra,
- Church of Grace in Kamienna Góra, constructed in 1709–1717 on commission from the Protestant community of Kamienna Góra,
- building of the Protestant high school building and the pastor's house (Pfarrhaus) in Jelenia Góra in 1709–1712,
- pastor's house in Kamienna Góra, built in 1709–1710,
- Church of the Body of Christ, built in 1729–1740 in Szprotawa (Sprottau),
- church in Żagań (Sagan), baroque renovation after the fire in 1730 on commission from the Augustinians,
- Catholic church in Siciny (Seitsch) in 1736–1740, where he collaborated with his son Carl Martin and T. Storch.
He is also credited with involvement in the following projects and implementations:
- the house of merchant Baumgarten in Jelenia Góra on the Wojanów suburb – Schildauerstrasse (now 1 Maja Street), built in 1710-1715,
- the Glafey family burial chapel from 1716 and the Baumgarten family chapel from 1719, at the Łaska Church in Jelenia Góra,
- a tenement house in Kamienna Góra, Market Square No. 39, built between 1710 and 1720.
The origins and construction of the Churches of Grace in Jelenia Góra and Kamienna Góra
On September 1, 1707, a convention was concluded in Altränstadt (ratified a week later). It concerned granting religious freedoms to Silesian Protestants, returning of the unlawfully taken churches back to them, establishment of three consistories, and building six Protestant churches in the Silesian hereditary duchies of the Habsburgs. The churches were to be built in Cieszyn, Jelenia Góra, Kamienna Góra, Kożuchów, Milicz, and Żagań.
The Protestants of Jelenia Góra commissioned Martin Frantz to design the construction of a temple, and on March 21, 1709, he presented the plans along with a wooden model of the stone church to the members of the Jelenia Góra Protestant community. At the same time, Frantz created a design and a wooden model for the Church of Grace in Kamienna Góra. According to the requirements and suggestions of the clients, the temples were to combine the Silesian tradition of building the admired Churches of Peace in Jawor and Świdnica with the grandeur and monumentality of St. Catherine's Protestant Church in Stockholm. This latter model was probably proposed by Frantz.
The Grace Church in Jelenia Góra, before 1945 a Lutheran temple dedicated to the Cross of Christ (Zum Kreuze Christi), is now the Catholic Garrison Church dedicated to the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, and was built between 1709 and 1718. The design envisaged the construction of a masonry building in the shape of a Greek cross with the main nave extended by one bay and a straight-ended chancel. At the crossing of the nave there is an octagonal flat dome topped with a tall, open, two-story spire. Between the arms of the cross, square annexes were inserted containing staircases leading to the galleries and to the patrons’ boxes
The Grace Church in Kamienna Góra before 1945 was a Lutheran temple dedicated to the Holy Trinity, now a Catholic church dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary. The building has a Greek cross plan with a dome at the crossing of the naves and a tower at the church entrance, constructed between 1709 and 1720. Frantz’s wooden model from Jelenia Góra has been preserved in the collections of the Karkonosze Museum in Jelenia Góra (inventory no. MJG AH 4784). The model of the church from Kamienna Góra was lost after World War II.