Niklas Türing the Elder

Niklas Türing the Elder was a late-Gothic stonemason, sculptor and master builder whose family came from Memmingen in Swabia. Around 1480 Duke Sigmund of Tyrol brought him from the Allgäu to Innsbruck, and Emperor Maximilian I later named him court master builder.

For Maximilian, who took over the Tyrolean regency in 1490, he and his son Gregor built the famous Golden Roof oriel in 1497–1500 and carved its figural and heraldic reliefs. He also made the castle giant Haidl for the Burgriesenhaus in Innsbruck. He died at Innsbruck in 1517.