The files created by the architect Ulrich Keicher contain a series of photographs taken by the architect Günther Schuller, which illustrate the restoration of the Black Church in the period 1937–1978. Ulrich Keicher was a West German architect who coordinated the restoration site of the Black Church from 1981 to 2000. It has not yet been determined how these photographs ended up in Keicher’s possession probably during the 1980s. He kept and archived them in order to document the evolution of the restoration process before his involvement in the 1980s. Subsequently, Keicher donated his files concerning the restoration activity, including the photographs taken by Schuller, to the Black Church archives.
The photographs taken by Schuller represent a valuable historical source to document the restoration process which, after 1977, took place in contradiction to the Ceaușescu regime’s policy of discouraging the protection of historic heritage, especially ecclesiastical historic buildings, in the context of an aggressive urban systematisation. The photographs consist mainly of images illustrating the activity of restoring the facades of the Gothic building. Also valuable are the photographs dated 1937–1944, because they were used to retrace the restoration works of that period, but also to show the state of the facades of the Black Church before the subsequent restorations. In the 1980s and 1990s, some of these photographs were used for a series of technical studies, aimed at determining the progress of the erosion of the stone in the church walls. In addition, by preserving the photographs taken in the period 1937–1944, Schuller attempted to keep in the memory of the community an initiative started by the interwar elite of the Transylvanian Saxons.