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GOTTFRIED SEMPER AND THE PROBLEM OF HISTORICISM

k Using key texts by the German architect and theorist Gottfried Semper, Mari Hvattum offers a reinterpretation of historicism, viewed both as a philosophical outlook and as an architectural problem. Hvattum focuses on Semper’s two major concerns: his sensitive understanding of the ontological significance of art and architecture, and his ambitious rendering of art and architecture as the objects of scientific investigation and prediction. Hvattum investigates the background and implications of these conflicting concerns. By examining the historicist fusion of romanticism and positivism, the book seeks to understand the nature as well as the limits of the modern dream of an architectural “method of inventing”. More than an intellectual biography, Gottfried Semper and the Problem of Historicism explores the continued influence of historicism on modern architectural discourse and practice. Mari Hvattum is Senior Lecturer in architectural history and theory at the Oslo School of Achitecture, Norway. Co-editor of Tracing Modernity, she has written widely on nineteenth- and twentieth-century architectural discourse and practice.

GOTTFRIED SEMPER AND THE PROBLEM OF HISTORICISM

k M A R I H VAT T U M Oslo School of Architecture, Norway

cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 2ru, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521821636 © Mari Hvattum 2004 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published in print format 2004 isbn-13 isbn-10

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For Carla and Christian

k

CONTENTS

k page xi

List of Figures Prolegomenon

1

Introduction – Gottfried Semper: Texts and Interpretations Semper’s Writings Recent Interpretations Approach

7 9 18 22

PA RT I : T O WA R D S A P O E T I C S O F A R C H I T E C T U R E

1

2

The Cult of Origins Universal Origins: Laugier and the Primitive Hut Historical Origins: Quatrem`ere de Quincy and the Caract`ere Relatif Ritual Origins: Gustav Klemm and the Anthropology of Art The Doctrine of Imitation Ideal Imitation: Quatrem`ere de Quincy and La Belle Nature Organic Imitation: Goethe, Schlegel, and Schaffende Natur

vii

29 30 35 42 47 48 52

CONTENTS

Tectonic Imitation: Karl B¨otticher and the Autonomy of Form

3

Semper and the Poetics of Architecture The Primitive Hut Rebuilt Imitation Redefined Architecture as Mimesis of Praxis

57 64 64 72 75

PA RT I I : P R A C T I C A L A E S T H E T I C S

4

Semper and Practical Aesthetics The Theory of Formal Beauty The Theory of Symbolic Form and the Aesthetic Evolution of Art The Formula for Style

87 88 102 107

5

The Comparative Method Comparative Architecture Comparative Anatomy Comparative Linguistics

114 115 123 133

6

Towards a Method of Inventing Comparison as Experiment: Comte and La Physique Sociale Poiesis and Production in Semper’s Method of Inventing

137 138 142

PA RT I I I : T H E A P O R I A S O F H I S T O R I C I S M

7

8

Semper and the “Style of Our Time” The “Dilemma of Style” Semper: Style as Result The Necessity for Disintegration and the New Synthesis of Art History and Historicism From Geschichten to Geschichte: The Organic Unity of History viii

149 150 154 158 162 162

CONTENTS

The Artwork of the Future The Future as a Work of Art

9

Between Poetics and Practical Aesthetics Wilhelm Dilthey: Historicity and Historicism Semper and the Question of Method: A Conclusion

168 170 175 176 180

Epilogue

189

Notes

193

Selected Semper Bibliography

249

Bibliography

253

Index

269

ix

FIGURES

k 1 The Assyrian Central Saloon at the British Museum, c. 1854.

2 Assyrian stool. Gottfried Semper, Der Stil, 1878. 3 King Ashurnasirpal II on his throne. Throne room, 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

North West Palace, Calah, 9th century BC. Gottfried Semper, 1874. Gottfried Semper, Dresden Hoftheater, c. 1845. Gottfried Semper and Karl von Hasenauer, first project for the Imperial Forum, Vienna Ringstraße, 1869. Charles Eisen, frontispiece to M.-A. Laugier, Essai sur l’architecture, 1755. “The Caraib Hut”. Gottfried Semper, Der Stil, 1878. The cave. Giovanni Battista Piranesi, 1761–2, Campus Martinus antiqua Urbis, 1762, detail. “The Primitive Buildings”. William Chambers, A Treatise on Civil Architecture, 1759. “Australia”. Frontispiece to Gustav Klemm, Allgemeine Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit, 1843–51. Facial tattoos. Gustav Klemm, Allgemeine Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit, 1843–51. Claude Lorrain, Mercury and Argus, etching, 1662. Strasbourg Cathedral, west front, begun 1277. Italian sketches. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “Baukunst”, 1795. xi

page 2 3 4 8 12 17 32 36 40 41 44 45 50 55 57

FIGURES

¨ 16 Studies of Ionic capitals. Karl Botticher, Die Tektonik

17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

der Hellenen, 1852. ¨ Studies of the bases of the orders. Karl Botticher, Die Tektonik der Hellenen, 1852. Studies of the bending of leafs under burden. Karl ¨ Botticher, Die Tektonik der Hellenen, 1852. Wreaths and rhythmic ornaments. Gottfried Semper, Der Stil, 1878. Knots and braids. Gottfried Semper, Der Stil, 1878. Snake ornaments from Greece, Ireland, Egypt, and Scandinavia. Gottfried Semper, Der Stil, 1878. Techniques of weaving. Gottfried Semper, Der Stil, 1878. Techniques of knitting and croch´e. Gottfried Semper, Der Stil, 1878. Assyrian stone panel decorated with carpet patterns. Gottfried Semper, Der Stil, 1878. Delphian sacrificial dance. Gottfried Semper, Der Stil, 1878. Assyrian sacred tree. Gottfried Semper, Prolegomenon to Der Stil, 1878. Egyptian necklaces. Gottfried Semper, Der Stil, 1878. Egyptian headdresses. Gottfried Semper, Der Stil, 1878. Assyrian warrior with armrings. Gottfried Semper, Der Stil, 1878. Flowers and snow crystals. Gottfried Semper, Prolegomenon to Der Stil, 1878. Axial symmetry as found in natural form. Gottfried Semper, Prolegomenon to Der Stil, 1878. Gottfried Semper, sketch of a woman’s head from the Parthenon Frieze. Gottfried Semper, sketch of female figures from the Parthenon, eastern pediment. Radial symmetry in architecture. Gottfried Semper, Der Stil, 1878. Persian bullneck capital. Gottfried Semper, Der Stil, 1878.

xii

60 61 62 67 68 69 70 71 74 80 82 89 90 91 93 94 97 98 101 104

FIGURES

¨ 36 Gottfried Semper, sketch from Karl Botticher’s Die

37 38 39 40

41

42 43 44 45 46 47 48

49 50

Tektonik der Hellenen, 1852. Greek hydria and Egyptian situla. Gottfried Semper, Der Stil, 1878. Greek women carrying hydrias. Gottfried Semper, Der Stil, 1878. Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, Entwurf einer historischen Architektur, 1721. The historical development of temples. Julien-David Leroy, Les Ruines des plus beaux monuments de la Gr`ece, 1770. Comparison of Greek and Egyptian temples. Claude-Nicolas-Louis Durand, Recueil et Parall`ele des edifices en tout genre, anciens et modernes, 1799–1801. “Vestibules”. Claude-Nicolas-Louis Durand, Pr´ecis des Le¸cons d’architecture, 1819. “Combinaisons verticales”. Claude-Nicolas-Louis Durand, Pr´ecis des Le¸cons d’architecture, 1819. Gal´erie d’anatomie compar´ee, Paris, c. 1830. Comparative dissection drawings of fish stomachs. Georges Cuvier, Le¸cons d’anatomie compar´ee, 1805. Frontispiece to Carl Linnaeus, Fauna Svecica, Stockholm, 1761. Leo von Klenze, Walhalla, 1814–46. “The Present Revival of Christian Architecture”. Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, An Apology for the Revival of Christian Architecture in England, 1843. Leo von Klenze, Munich Residence, 1826–35. Sketch diagram for an ideal museum. Gottfried Semper, Practical Art in Metals and Hard Materials: Its Technology, History, and Styles, 1852.

xiii

106 111 112 116

118

119 121 122 124 126 128 152

153 155

186

PROLEGOMENON

k In October 1848, the British Museum received a remarkable shipment from Constantinople. Austen Henry Layard – adventurer, archaeologist, and diplomat – had started his Middle Eastern excavations in November 1845, in fierce competition with the French archaeologist Paul Emile Botta. Less than two months later, he unearthed a monument last mentioned in the Old Testament: King Ashurnasirpal II’s palace in Calah.1 In the years that followed, until 1854 when the Crimean War put an end to such financial extravaganza, an extraordinary collection was assembled in London. With the magnificent sculptures and bas-reliefs depicting hunts, battles, and sacrifices, the Assyrian treasures formed a pictorial chronicle of a forgotten civilisation (Figure 1).2 The arrival in London of Layard’s Assyrian find caused both celebration and unease. It strengthened the status of the British Museum as a seat of ancient art, but it also threatened the classical principles upon which both the institution itself and its recently inaugurated building were based. The event challenged the view of ancient Greece as the autochthonous cradle of art, indicating that Greek classicism – widely regarded as a symbol of the dignity and superiority of Western culture – had its roots in the ‘barbarian’ East.3 Layard’s collection shook nineteenth-century art history to its foundations and had a profound effect upon the incredulous audience who witnessed its arrival in Bloomsbury. Among the audience was a German architect temporarily stranded in London: Gottfried Semper. 1

GOTTFRIED SEMPER AND THE PROBLEM OF HISTORICISM

c Copyright Figure 1. The Assyrian Central Saloon at the British Museum, c. 1854.
The British Museum.

Semper must have studied the new acquisitions of the British Museum carefully. Years later, in his magnum opus, Der Stil in den ¨ technischen und tektonischen Kunsten ¨ oder praktische Asthetik (1860–3), the Assyrian collection provided a key example in his innovative theory of the origins and development of art. A stool had particularly captured Semper’s imagination (Figure 2). In an ingenious series of analyses, he traced the iconography of the stool back to its origins in the primordial motifs of art.4 He examined how the stool’s stylised joints echo the motif of the seam, and how the mouldings of the legs invoke the motifs of the wreath and the ribbon. The animal heads flanking the seat express both load-bearing capacity and religious significance, 2

PROLEGOMENON

Figure 2. Assyrian stool. Gottfried Semper, Der Stil (2nd ed. 1878), vol. 1, p. 353. Edinburgh University Library.

Semper explained, crowning and completing the harmonious composition of the stool.5 These motifs, he told his readers, symbolise primordial ritual acts of binding, joining, and completing.6 Over time, they had been gradually translated from their origins in textile art, metamorphosing into ceramics, metalwork, or masonry, and somewhere along the way finding their tectonic expression in the stool.7 Semper’s little excursus on Assyrian furniture indicates why Der Stil, despite its tortuous prose, was considered one of the most important contributions to the theory of art and architecture in the nineteenth century. Through a simple description of some chair legs, Semper seemed simultaneously to outline the history of Middle Eastern civilisation, to present a tale of the origin and development of art, and to put forward a theory of symbolic form. By tracing structural and decorative features back to their origins, he hoped to reveal the full significance of the artwork and to grasp the correspondence that exists between artistic form and its ‘history of becoming’ [Entstehungsgeschichte]. 3

GOTTFRIED SEMPER AND THE PROBLEM OF HISTORICISM

Figure 3. King Ashurnasirpal II on his throne with winged deities. Throne room, c Copyright The British Museum. North West Palace, Calah, 9th century BC.


This correspondence was a key concern of Der Stil, constituting (as we shall see) Semper’s own definition of style.8 Semper’s Assyrian stool can still be seen in the British Museum, in a bas-relief from the North West Palace of Calah.9 It is not simply a stool, but rather a throne: that of King Ashurnasirpal himself (Figure 3). The king is seated on his throne, surrounded by priests and officials and involved in a ritual of purification. The relief formed part of a frieze adorning the walls of Ashurnasirpal’s throne room: an elaborate symbolic structure presenting the role of the king in a cosmic and political context. When one contemplates the eloquent visual narrative of these panels, it becomes clear that the most remarkable feature of Semper’s analysis is not so much what it includes as what it leaves out. Patiently examining the Assyrian stool in minute detail, Semper remained silent about the situation of which it was a part. He was obsessed with the symbolic meaning of the furniture and tried to identify its religious, social, and structural significance. Yet, this symbolism remained 4

PROLEGOMENON

strangely immanent – attributed to the chair qua formal composition, not to its role within the context of Assyrian kingship. The significance of the artwork was understood as a product – not of the overall context in which it is situated, but rather of the work itself. Purpose, as Semper made clear in his London lectures, had become an ‘internal coefficient’ of the work of art.10 Some decades earlier, a famous French anatomist remarked that for modern comparative anatomy, the overall purpose of the animal is “present in its bones”.11 Such an immanent significance was precisely what Semper attempted to locate in the structural-symbolic ‘organism’ of the stool. The work that follows began with a desire to understand the curious compression of meaning observed in Semper’s analysis. This compression occurred, I believe, in response to particular problems involved in modern thinking on art. Semper saw art as an inscrutable source and symbol of meaning; yet, at the same time, he tried to render this source into a transparent and accessible object for the scientist-historian. Such an operation presupposes that the work of art is fully autonomous, that its meaning depends on itself alone. This ‘immanentisation’ of meaning, so conspicuous in Semper’s analysis, may thus be understood as a response to a problem haunting not only Semper himself, but also modern aesthetics in general. To investigate this problem, its background and implications, is the ambition of the following study. I pursue it through a reading of Semper’s texts; however, this material serves as a means rather than an end. This is not first and foremost a book about Gottfried Semper, but rather about the curious “entanglement in the aporias of historicism” that characterises early modern thinking on architecture.12 In my attempt to trace this problem, I have relied on much help and support. My greatest debt and gratitude is to Dalibor Vesely for his insight and inspiration through many years of collaboration. Many thanks are due to Peter Carl for his infectious enthusiasm, and to Marion Houston for her unfailing support and patient advice. I am grateful to Karsten Harries and David Leatherbarrow for their incisive criticism at a crucial stage of the project, and to Harry Francis Mallgrave – without whose groundbreaking research this book could not have been written – for his advice and support. I also thank Caroline 5

GOTTFRIED SEMPER AND THE PROBLEM OF HISTORICISM

van Eck for her valuable input and Roberto Torretti for good advice. More than anything, however, this work is indebted to friends and colleagues in Britain and abroad, without whose friendship, help, and ‘sym-philosophising’ it would never have been realised. Anthony Gerbino, Christopher Schulte, Diana Periton, Mary Bosworth, Ines Geisler, Gabriella Switek, Gabriele Bryant, Renee Tobe, and many others made crucial contributions to the long process of thinking and writing, and the even longer one of rethinking and rewriting. Many more thanks are due. The friendly reception I was given ¨ at the Semper archives at the Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule (ETH) in Zurich in 1997 was a great encouragement, and I thank espe¨ Geschichte und Theorie der Architektur (ETHcially the Institut fur gta) research coordinator, Bruno Maurer. An invitation to speak at the ETH Semper symposium in June 2002 provided a much-needed boost of inspiration in the final stages of preparing the manuscript, and I thank the organisers and contributors. Staff at the Getty Research Institute’s Publication Department made helpful contributions in the last stages of editing, and the unfailing help and support from staff at the Cambridge University Library, Victoria and Albert Museum archives, department library at Architecture and History of Art in Cambridge, British Library, Glasgow University Library, and numerous other institutions made the research process considerably less painful than what it would otherwise have been. I gratefully acknowledge financial support along the way from the Committee of Vice Chancellors and Principals of United Kingdom Universities, Norwegian Research Council, Cambridge Overseas Trust, Cambridge European Trust, British Federation of Women Graduates and Kettle’s Yard Travel Fund. Thanks to my parents, who enthusiastically and lovingly babysat little Kester, so his mother could get on with proofreading, and finally, thanks to my husband, Christian, for all his help and support and for patiently enduring the last years’ frantic excursus into Assyrian stools and other essential aspects of life.

6

INTRODUCTION GOTTFRIED SEMPER

:

TEXTS

A N D I N T E R P R E TAT I O N S

k

T

his study concerns a dilemma that for a long time has both disturbed and conditioned modern discourse on architecture. It is a dilemma played out in the tension between continuity and innovation: the desire to maintain tradition while at the same time find genuine expressions for contemporary culture. A body of work displaying this tension with particular incisiveness is that of the German architect and theorist Gottfried Semper (1803–79) (Figure 4). Semper struggled his whole life to formulate a “fundamental principle of invention, that with a logical certainty could lead to true form”.1 Yet, at the same time, he emphasised the need for historical continuity as an ontological basis for society and a creative source for architecture. The conflict between upholding tradition and simultaneously wishing to invent it by will is painfully present in his work, as it is in the history of modern architecture. It is this “fine ambiguity of Semper’s system”2 that makes it so relevant for our present-day situation. The ambiguity of Semper’s position is mirrored in the multifarious ways his work has been interpreted. He has been labelled a materialist as well as an idealist, seen as a proto-functionalist who anticipated the Sachlichkeit of the modern movement, or as an eclecticist, legitimising nineteenth-century stylistic licentiousness. Some have seen him as a Marxist revolutionary: a heroic rebel whose aim it was to “displace the institutional location of architecture”; whereas others have dismissed him as a petit bourgeois and a defender of liberal capitalism.3 As a recent study on Semper points out: “No theorist in modern 7

GOTTFRIED SEMPER AND THE PROBLEM OF HISTORICISM

¨ Geschichte und Theorie der ArFigure 4. Gottfried Semper, circa 1874. Institut fur ¨ chitektur (gta), ETH Zurich.

8

INTRODUCTION

architectural history has had his doctrine judged more mundane, nor more enigmatic.”4 The purpose of this study is not to produce support for any one of these labels, nor is it my primary intention to dispute them. I aim rather at investigating some seemingly irreconcilable elements in Semper’s body of writings and identifying the common ground that connects them. It is this ground – composed of the sundry grain of nineteenth-century historicism – that is the topic for this book, which is consequently less a book about Semper himself than about the very conditions that made his project possible. Semper is nevertheless an apt vehicle for this exploration. His ambiguous position between historicism and modernism, idealism and materialism, makes him an ideal medium to bring the conflicting sentiments of modern architectural thinking to visibility. Semper’s work anticipated with surprising precision the dichotomies that continue to haunt architectural discourse throughout the twentieth century, our self-proclaimed postmodernity included. S E M P E R ’S W R I T I N G S

A few months after his sudden appointment as a director of the Bauakademie in Dresden in 1834, Semper – an unknown thirty-oneyear-old with little experience as either architect or teacher – gave the first in a series of lectures on the general history of architecture.5 He opened his lecture by questioning, in a somewhat Nietzschean manner, the uses and disadvantages of history for architecture. Lamenting the dry and academic approach of the art historians, Semper sought a more relevant approach to architecture and its past. The architect must study history not in order to copy forms, but rather to comprehend laws. This is all the more important, he told his listeners, . . . because architecture does not have its ideals for imitation readily prepared for it among the forms of nature. It relies on indeterminate albeit no less secure laws . . . according to which it orders the human condition in all its spatial requirements.6 9

GOTTFRIED SEMPER AND THE PROBLEM OF HISTORICISM

These otherwise unremarkable musings contain an important definition. Art – and Semper included architecture in this category – is first and foremost an ordering activity. Its subject matter is the ‘human condition’. Art is the result of man’s attempt to come to terms, in a tangible and spatial manner, with his place in the world. Further on in his Dresden lecture, Semper identified the first and simplest manifestations of the ordering activity of art. He labelled them motifs [Motiven]: recognisable configurations in adornments and artefacts that express basic aspects of human time and space.7 These motifs are modified according to particular historical conditions, yet they always remain the fundamental vocabulary of art. In this sense, art copies neither nature nor history, but rather has its own store of forms and its own logic for their application. Form-making is not subject to the arbitrary whim of the artist, but rather is governed by laws analogous to those of nature. A study of the history of art may reveal these laws and may, in this way, lead the artist to a deeper understanding of his task. The duty of the artist-historian – the dual role that Semper assumed in all his writings – is to understand the transformation of the motifs through history and to adhere to its underlying laws. Despite its convoluted style, Semper’s first Dresden lecture presented in embryonic form the themes that would occupy him throughout his life as an architect, teacher, and writer. First, to seek the origins of art in some primordial human condition; and, second, to reveal the development of art as a metamorphosis of motifs: these were key points in Semper’s thinking on art. From these two points, moreover, sprang a third. If Semper’s reflections on origins and evolution were concerned with the essential nature of art, then the third point concerned the way in which this nature may be comprehended. Put in a different way: whereas Semper’s musings on origins and development constituted an ontology of art – that is, a reflection on its essential purpose – then the third point constituted an epistemology of art, an inquiry into its ‘knowability’.8 Both levels of inquiry were pursued constantly and simultaneously throughout Semper’s writings. His approach would vary and his emphasis change, but the themes of origins, development, and possible comprehension of art and architecture remained the framework within which his thinking continually moved. 10

INTRODUCTION

The Early Writings Semper already had pondered the question of artistic motifs and their development in his first published essay, Vorl¨aufige Bemerkungen uber ¨ bemalte Architektur und Plastik bei den Alten (1834), on the strength of which he earned his early professorship in Dresden.9 This essay was based on material gathered during his travels to the classical south from 1830–3.10 It was a contribution to the polychromy controversy of the 1830s in which Semper took the side of his Parisian teachers and colleagues, Hittorf and Gau, arguing that classical architecture – the Greek temple included – had been covered by stucco and paint.11 The argument was significant for several reasons. It implied a radical break with neoclassicism, for whom the white grandeur of classical architecture constituted an aesthetic principle.12 More important, however, the study of polychromy carried with it a tacit hypothesis about the historical development of art. Could it be, Semper speculated, that the painted surfaces of classical architecture are the metamorphosed remnants of more primordial motifs? Could the history of art be understood as a process of Stoffwechsel [material metamorphosis], in which the motifs of art are gradually translated from one material to another, while retaining their original significance? Although no conclusive answer was reached in this early essay, it constituted the first of many attempts at mapping the mysterious development of art. When the young Semper was summoned to Dresden, therefore, he had already established his course of inquiry. The Dresden post in itself did not give much opportunity for theoretical reflection. Semper enjoyed instead one of his most productive periods as an architect, receiving commissions for such prestigious projects as the Dresden Hoftheater, the Picture Galleries of the Zwinger Palace, a synagogue, and several townhouses and villas (Figure 5). He engaged in an active social and political life in the circle around Richard Wagner, and perfected his encyclopaedic knowledge of the history of art through reading and lecturing.13 According to Semper, these lecture courses furnished an “extensive review . . . of the total field of monumental architecture”,14 and were planned for publication under the title 11

GOTTFRIED SEMPER AND THE PROBLEM OF HISTORICISM

Figure 5. Gottfried Semper’s first Dresden Hoftheater, north front. Christian Gott¨ lob Hammer, watercolor, c. 1845. Stiftung Preußische Schlosser und G¨arten BerlinBrandenburg.

Vergleichende Baulehre. The project remains a voluminous but unfinished manuscript in the Zurich archives.15

The London Writings A new phase in Semper’s life and career started in 1849, when his involvement in the Dresden uprisings forced him to flee Saxony for what would become a permanent expatriation. As Harry Francis Mallgrave vividly describes, Semper spent the next five years in sorry circumstances in Paris and London, unsuccessfully trying to restore his position as an architect and teacher.16 Although arduous, the exile gave him 12

INTRODUCTION

the opportunity to systematise his reflections on art. Die Vier Elemente der Baukunst (1851) was an important step in this direction.17 Here, Semper gave his ideas on polychromy a more substantial theoretical support by integrating them into a genealogy of art. To understand art and its development, he argued, one must go back to the “primitive conditions of human society”.18 Only here does the purpose of art become clear, as the means by which man makes – practically and symbolically – a world for himself. Semper’s reflections on origins, then, involved not only a genealogy of art, but also speculations on the origin of society: The first sign of human settlement . . . is today, as when the first men lost paradise, the setting up of the fireplace and the lighting of the reviving, warming, and food-preparing flame. Around the hearth the first groups assembled; around it the first alliances formed; around it the first rude religious concepts were put into concepts of a cult. Throughout all phases of society the hearth formed that sacred focus around which the whole took order and shape. It is the first and most important, the moral element of architecture.19 The hearth – the “earliest and highest symbol of civilisation and human culture”20 – provides a good example of Semper’s notion of the motifs of art and architecture, or ‘elements’, as he called them in this essay.21 A symbol of ritual gathering as well as a tangible source of heat, the hearth was born out of clear needs in both a pragmatic and a symbolic sense, its practical function completely merged with its representational task. In later stages of architectural and cultural evolution, the pragmatic function of the hearth was, according to Semper, transformed into symbolic representation altogether. The primary meaning of the hearth was now retained in the altar as a symbolic representation of the sacred centre of community. Here, the practical functions of the hearth – heat, protection, and preparation of food – were retained as rituals. The altar in later urban societies represented the same sacred gathering around a common centre as the hearth in the first human settlements. The motif elements of architecture run through the 13

GOTTFRIED SEMPER AND THE PROBLEM OF HISTORICISM

history of art as stable forms with primordial meaning, yet are constantly modified according to different needs. Around the hearth, the other elements of architecture were assembled: the earthwork mound, the woven enclosure, and the wooden roof. The first dwelling was formed. In Semper’s history of architecture, the dwelling was not the first creation of primitive man. Rather, the hut was composed of the four primary elements, each already developed in their representational and utilitarian capacity as motifs of industrial arts. “The history of Architecture begins with the history of practical art,” Semper wrote.22 The history of practical art, in turn, begins with the motifs, simultaneously embodying function, technique, and ritual action. The motifs remain constant through changes of material, technique, and historical context: “However remote . . . from [their] point of origin, [the motifs] pervade the composition like a musical theme.”23 Semper’s remark on the origins of architecture in the practical arts stems from the first in a series of lectures given at Marlborough House in London between 1853 and 1854, fortunately recovered and published in their original English by Mallgrave.24 Despite their idiosyncratic language and convoluted argument (memorably described by Nikolaus Pevsner as “profound rather than clear and just a little cranky”25 ), these lectures set out the key themes of Semper’s thinking. Art, he insisted, must be considered in a genealogical manner, by tracing its origin and evolution. This genealogy was to provide the foundation for a true science of art, establishing “a clear insight over its whole province and perhaps also . . . form a doctrine of Style”.26 This new science, Semper enthused, was to facilitate the understanding of art and provide a practical guide for the artist: a ‘practical aesthetics’, as he would later coin it.27 Far from a conventional art history, Semper’s practical aesthetics was meant as a genealogy of artistic making, an overview of all factors influencing the development of art through history.28 The London lectures highlight Semper’s epistemological ambitions in a particularly clear manner. By means of his practical aesthetics, he attempted to explain the phenomenon of art – past and present – as a result of the interaction between social, material, and historical 14

INTRODUCTION

factors. The aim was to establish a scientifically sound method by which these factors and their interaction in the artwork could be observed and explained. Semper compared this interaction to a mathematical function. Every work of art “is a result, or, using a mathematical term, it is a Function of an undefined number of quantities or powers, which are the variable coefficients of the embodiment of it.”29 By defining these factors and their interaction, he hoped to gain a complete insight into the development of art and to establish “a sort of topic or Method . . . which may guide us to find out the natural way of invention”.30 Prophetic words indeed: in his crude mathematical analogy, Semper summed up aspirations that came to dominate architectural discourse for more than a century to come.

The Mature Writings Semper’s two great theoretical concerns – the nature of art and how we may know it – came together in his main work, Der Stil in den technischen ¨ und tektonischen Kunsten, ¨ oder praktische Asthetik. Der Stil was published during the last phase of his professional career: his professorship at ¨ the Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule (ETH) in Zurich. The explicit ambition of Der Stil was to provide an overview of “all functional, material, and structural factors that relate to the problem of style in architecture” and to investigate “the most powerful factors of style in architecture: the social structure of society and the conditions of the time”.31 Again, Semper structured his investigation around the four primary elements of architecture: the wall, the hearth, the mound, and the roof. Each of these elements, he implied, corresponds to a particular technique of making, developed both in a ritual and a functional sense in the practical arts. The hearth originated with the firing of clay, and corresponds consequently to the technique of ceramics. The enclosure originated in the wickerwork wall and, therefore, is associated with the technique of weaving. Stonework, or stereotomy, corresponds to the element of the mound; and carpentry, or tectonics, to the roof.32 Thus, starting from four primordial techniques of making embodied in the four elements of architecture, Der Stil was to present a comprehensive mapping of art and architecture through time and place. It 15

GOTTFRIED SEMPER AND THE PROBLEM OF HISTORICISM

established an all-encompassing comparative matrix within which an artwork could be understood as a stage in a developmental process. By means of this matrix, Semper sought to demonstrate the laws governing the development of art and to render these laws accessible to the artist and the historian. When reading Der Stil, with its ambitious scope and its often obsessive excursus into detail, it is easy to see how Semper’s project expanded under his hands like rising dough. He had planned the work in two volumes: the first outlining the origins of the applied arts, the second tracing their synthesis in architecture.33 His investigation soon outgrew this format, however, and the two volumes that appeared between 1860 and 1863 contained only the first part of the project. His survey of textile art now filled the entire first volume, and the second volume contained ceramics, tectonics, stereotomy, and – as an afterthought – metalcraft. Architecture remained conspicuously absent, as did the investigation into the social and historical meaning of art. These topics, Semper assured his impatient publisher, would be treated in a third volume, which was to contain “the general meaning and spirit of this language of form . . . brought about most powerfully and comprehensibly in architecture through moral, religious, political, local, and climatic conditions”.34 Such a work was never completed and, according to Wolfgang Herrmann, it was probably never even started.35 Despite its incompleteness, Der Stil was recognised as a major intellectual achievement, and new editions continued to bolster Semper’s reputation as one of the most important architectural theorists in the late nineteenth century.36 His reputation as an architect reached a similar high point around this time, with the completion of the ETH building and the Sternwarte in Zurich, as well as the museums and the Burgtheater in Vienna (Figure 6). Semper’s mastery of the practise as well as the theory of architecture, and his dual emphasis on the utilitarian and symbolic significance of art, made him – in the eyes of his younger contemporaries – a reconciliator of idealism and materialism, beauty and necessity. The philosopher and historian Wilhelm Dilthey praised him for his “well-balanced approach to art”, proclaiming that “in our century aesthetics owes more to him than to 16

INTRODUCTION

Figure 6. Gottfried Semper and Karl von Hasenauer, first project for the Imperial ¨ Forum, Vienna Ringstraße 1869. Bildarchiv der Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Wien.

anyone.”37 However, with an emerging polarisation between materialistic and psychological explanations in art history and aesthetics towards the end of the century, Semper’s insistence on integration appeared increasingly untenable.38 As time passed, the different aspect of his teaching would more often be considered in isolation, with the curious result that Semper – who so contemptuously dismissed contemporary colleagues as ‘materialists’ or ‘historicists’ – now became himself the object of these labels. To some extent, Semper had prepared this destiny for himself. Due to the incomplete form in which it was published, Der Stil did indeed give the impression that the development of art was driven by material and utilitarian conditions. Alois Riegl consequently dismissed Semper’s thinking as ‘materialist metaphysics’, for whom a work of 17

GOTTFRIED SEMPER AND THE PROBLEM OF HISTORICISM

art “is nothing else than a mechanical product based on function, raw material, and technique.”39 The early modernists took a similar stance; however, rather than denigrating Semper for his alleged materialism, they celebrated him for his realism.40 Wagner, Berlage, Muthesius, and others praised Semper as one of the first to recognise the necessary connection between style and social conditions, and to define these conditions – the ‘spirit of the age’ – in terms of functional and material factors.41 Semper’s only shortcoming, according to this verdict, was that his built work had not heeded the demands of the modern Zeitgeist, but rather clung to an outdated historicism. The task of the new generation, then, was to realise in practise what ‘the great Semper’ had intuited in theory: a modern language of architecture.42 Despite their conflicting conclusions, Riegl and the early modernists shared common ground in their assessment of Semper. Whether denigrating or celebrating him, both parties understood Semper’s work as a theory of the material, functional, and technical development of art. Semper’s ideas on the origins of art (which, incidentally, are very close to Riegl’s own notion of Kunstwollen), as well as the methodological and epistemological assertions implied in his science of architecture, were either ignored or tacitly absorbed. The objective of much recent scholarship on Semper has been to correct this one-sided interpretation, a recovery that itself has been far from unequivocal. Let us take a brief look at some of these conflicting interpretations.

R E C E N T I N T E R P R E TAT I O N S

The Dresden School Dresden was the location of some of Semper’s most important works and has been an equally important centre for Semper research, particularly focusing on the reinterpretation of Semper’s thinking in light of his social and political engagement. Echoing the modernist argument, Heinz Quitzsch, Heidrun Laudel, and others have ascribed to Semper a pioneering recognition of the close link between art and sociopolitical organisation.43 When Semper presented democracy as a key factor in the aesthetic perfection of Greek art, they argue, he promoted not only 18

INTRODUCTION

an aesthetic, but also a political ideal.44 His criticism of contemporary art, similarly, was a criticism of the social order that had produced it: the culture of capitalism.45 Aiming to uncover guidelines for contemporary art, therefore, Semper’s writings harboured a political agenda, and the practical aesthetics, in Quitzsch’s view, must be considered a revolutionary manifesto for the design of a new society.46 Like the early modernists, Quitzsch deems Semper’s project a failure. However, whereas the modernists located this failure in the discrepancy between Semper’s theory and his practice – seeing him as a modern theorist trapped in the body of a historicist practitioner – Quitzsch locates the flaw within Semper’s theory itself. Semper failed to formulate a science of art, Quitzsch argues, because he lacked a sufficiently scientific theory of society and history from which to start. Disillusioned by this failure, Semper gradually abandoned his political engagement for speculative aesthetics, and moved in the process from a socially oriented theory of art to an exclusive emphasis on formal beauty.47 It is doubtful whether Quitzsch’s reading manages to correct the one-sided view held by Riegl and the early modernists. Although rightly rejecting the materialist allegations and pointing to the wider agenda of Semper’s project, Quitzsch replaces the modernist emphasis on materials and function with an equally one-sided focus on politics. What is interesting in Quitzsch’s reading, however, is his assertion that at the heart of Semper’s project lies an unfulfilled epistemological agenda. If Semper’s practical aesthetics remained incomplete, Quitzsch implies, it was not because he lacked the courage to implement it (as the modernists alleged), but rather because he failed to establish the epistemological conditions for a science of art. Momentarily leaving aside Quitzsch’s assertion that this shortcoming could have been avoided had Semper adopted a Marxist interpretation of history, his conclusion is important. The incomplete nature of Semper’s project lies not so much in his failure to implement a theory, but rather in a tacit acknowledgement of the limits of ‘theoretisation’ in the field of architecture. One of my ambitions in the following chapters is to investigate Semper’s epistemological ambitions on behalf of a science of art and to pursue the question of their limits. 19

GOTTFRIED SEMPER AND THE PROBLEM OF HISTORICISM

Semper’s “Return from the Second Exile”48 A seminal attempt to rehabilitate Semper’s significance as architect and thinker came with the resolve of the Institut fur ¨ Geschichte und Theorie der Architektur (gta) at the ETH in Zurich to systematise and ¨ classify the Semper legacy. Martin Frohlich’s comprehensive survey of drawings and Herrmann’s critical catalogue of published and unpublished manuscripts made available a significant body of previously inaccessible material.49 In the wake of this initiative, a more complex picture of Semper has emerged, both as architect and theorist. Joseph Rykwert has played an important role in this restoration. Rykwert argues that Semper, in locating the origin of art in the ‘cosmic instinct’ of man, radically redefined the assertions of neoclassical aesthetics.50 Opposed to the neoclassical search for the origin of architecture as a building type, Semper located his origins in rituals, artefacts, and adornment; that is, in man’s primordial attempts to establish a human world. This anthropological focus is for Rykwert what constitutes Semper’s innovative contribution to the architectural discourse of the nineteenth century.51 By emphasising the act of making as a fundamental mode of human existence, Semper redefined the role of art in defiance of the enlightenment distinction between beauty and utility. As Rykwert writes: “It is Semper’s great insight into the way in which the artist and the craftsman relate what they think to what they do . . . which seems to me invaluable and urgent. Conceived at the moment when thinking and doing were to be disastrously divorced, it may well contain a hint for their reconciliation.”52 Rykwert does not develop this argument, leaving the hint for future scholarship. Mallgrave has followed Rykwert’s lead, however, with his extensive writings on Semper. In his comprehensive biography Gottfried Semper, Architect of the Nineteenth Century, Mallgrave takes Semper’s anthropological understanding of art as his point of departure, emphasising art as a vehicle for man’s practical and existential orientation in the world.53 Semper understood art as a ‘poetic fiction’, Mallgrave suggests, the task of which is to ‘mask’ reality and establish a world of its own:

20

INTRODUCTION

The artistic appropriation of the mask with all its suggestive possibilities is what drives Semper’s architectural theory. The notion of the mask underlies his speculation that monumental architecture had its origin in the commemorative, provisional stage and theatrical performance, where the masking or denial of reality is fundamental to the religious or secular event.54 The significance of art, thus, resides in its theatrical essence: its power to establish a ‘second reality’. Through this primordial masking, man, in Mallgrave’s words, comes to terms with “the existential human condition of alienation.”55 Interpreting Semper’s theory of the origin and development of art in terms of this ‘sense for theatricality’, Mallgrave identifies the fictional potential of art as the key to Semper’s overall thinking.56 Mallgrave’s reading succeeds in refuting allegations of Semper as a materialist, functionalist, or Marxist. Emphasising Semper’s reflections on the origin of art, he draws focus to the anthropological foundation of Semper’s thinking and to the notion of art as poetic fiction. In doing so, Mallgrave targets one of the most crucial, mysterious, and neglected points in Semper’s oeuvre, and my own work is much indebted to his interpretation. I hope, however, to show that although this poetic fiction indeed lies at the heart of Semper’s architectural thinking, its significance extends beyond simply a ‘masking’ or ‘denial’ of reality. The term itself gives us a hint of this: poiesis in Greek signifies making – a making, as Aristotle tells us, informed by a particular kind of knowing.57 This notion of poetic making was one close to Semper’s heart, as his emphasis on technique as a primordial link between ritual action and architecture demonstrates.58 For Semper, the ontological significance of art and architecture was constituted by this link. One of my ambitions in this work is to develop the notion of artistic making as poetic fiction and to reevaluate its significance in Semper’s work. Semper’s concern for art was twofold: it was a concern for the essential nature of art (in which his reflections on the origins, techniques, and motifs of art had their place), and a concern for the way in

21

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which art could become the legitimate object of science. Rykwert and Mallgrave focus on the former, locating an ontology of art in Semper’s thinking. Quitzsch, on the other hand, emphasise Semper’s scientific aspirations, identifying their epistemological underpinnings. These interpretations are undoubtedly in conflict, potentially construing Semper as an idealist or a positivist, respectively. Yet, both interpretations are also undoubtedly true, targeting real and critical aspects of Semper’s thought. More important than to determine which of the two readings is ‘correct’, therefore, is to identify this conflict in Semper’s own thought and to see how it conditioned his overall theory of architecture. The ‘tragic flaw’ in Semper’s thinking, puzzling so many of his readers, appears here as a schism between his recognition of the ontological significance of art and his desire for its methodical explanation. Although neither of these pursuits is exclusive to Semper, my interest is in the ambition and rigor with which he attempted to carry out both sides of this conflicting enterprise.

APPROACH

This study interprets Semper’s writings in the context of nineteenthcentury architectural, philosophical, and scientific discourse. It does not discuss his buildings but focuses on the interpretation of his texts.59 It is also not a study based primarily on archival research. Most of the material I use is well known and available in publication. Rather than aiming to provide new facts, I hope to develop new understandings, believing that despite an overwhelming availability of sources, critical issues in Semper’s work – as well as in the intellectual context that nurtured it – remain unaddressed and misunderstood. By relating the individual (and often contradictory) aspects of Semper’s thought to a larger context, I attempt to throw new light both on Semper’s own project and on the context itself, exploring along the way the curious intellectual climate of nineteenth-century historicism. Semper’s writings raise essential questions about the nature, the history, and the methodology of art and architecture, some of which we encountered previously. Yet, he rarely explicated his theoretical 22

INTRODUCTION

assertions. It should be remembered that Semper was not an architectural writer, but rather an architect who wrote, and that his associative manner of writing, his idiosyncratic adaptations of theories, and his sometimes underdeveloped arguments require a broad and synthetic reading to make their significance apparent. Attempting to develop such a reading, I have applied the intellectual framework of contemporary hermeneutics, interpreting Semper’s texts in light of the nineteenth-century horizon – or horizons – of understanding.60 This book is structured as a series of close readings in which critical issues in Semper’s writings are elucidated by means of related texts. The readings weave an interpretative web of references, each addressing a key point in Semper’s oeuvre. The selection of these texts does not aspire to present a complete overview of Semper’s theoretical sources. Many central figures in Semper’s life have been left out, and some of the ones included were (most likely) unknown to Semper himself. What has guided my selection is not so much direct links of influence (although in many cases such links certainly exist) as a desire to find texts that may help us understand Semper’s own intentions and assertions. This approach has its obvious limitations. Each of the texts chosen would in itself deserve extensive study, and my selective reading will not do full justice to their complexity. Neither will this reading always do justice to Semper himself, insofar as it is more interested in capturing an intellectual horizon than presenting a scrupulous biography. Yet, the approach also has benefits: it allows me to use Semper as a vehicle to address overriding issues in modern architectural discourse and to interpret this discourse as part of a larger cultural context rather than an isolated aesthetic domain. Let me give some examples of this approach. When mapping Semper’s position vis-`a-vis the neoclassical discourse on architecture, for instance, I use M.-A. Laugier’s and A.-C. Quatrem`ere de Quincy’s writings on origin and imitation, contrasting them with romantic imitation theories like those of J. W. Goethe and A. W. Schlegel. Semper’s understanding of the notions of origin and imitation goes beyond both neoclassical and romantic aesthetics, however, and his emphasis on the ontological rather than the formal meaning of art suggests analogies with the Aristotelian notion of poetry as a mimesis of praxis. Interpreting 23

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Semper’s notion of artistic making in light of Aristotle’s notions of mimesis, praxis, and mythos, the first part of the book concludes by locating a dormant poetics of architecture in Semper’s reflections on the origins of art. Semper’s poetics of architecture was never fully developed, and in his later writings, this insight is overshadowed by his dream of a science of art, or a ‘practical aesthetics’ as he called it. Part II examines this practical aesthetics and its methodological presuppositions. Semper patterned his new aesthetics on the comparative method, and was undoubtedly inspired by previous comparative architectural histories such as those of J.-D. Leroy and C.-N.-L. Durand. He did not take his cues exclusively from architectural discourse, however. By the mid-nineteenth century, the comparative method had come to dominate fields as diverse as anatomy, linguistics, and sociology – all of which were mentioned by Semper as methodological ideals. Searching for precedents for Semper’s comparative theory of architecture, therefore, I draw on the comparative anatomy of G. Cuvier, the comparative linguistics of F. Schlegel, and the comparative sociology of A. Comte. Although Semper’s references to these disciplines are well known, their common methodological presuppositions remain largely unaddressed. I attempt to approach this question by looking at the comparative method in light of the Kantian notion of organic systems. Such a study, I believe, will not only elucidate the background and implications of Semper’s comparative project, but will also throw light on the nineteenth-century obsession with comparative methodology in general. The rise of this method, I will argue, implied a particular view of the world, one in which the notion of a hierarchy of representation has collapsed, where every phenomenon has gained an equal and commensurable ontological status. In this situation, the task of architecture became particularly problematic. Semper’s practical aesthetics may be seen as a contextual response to this collapse. Semper’s latent poetics stands in an uneasy relation to his practical aesthetics, a disquiet that has led much scholarship to treat the two in isolation. Yet, Semper himself always attempted to reconcile these aspects, even when, late in life, doubts started to haunt him regarding the possibility of such a fusion. It seems important, therefore, to look 24

INTRODUCTION

for the intellectual framework that allowed Semper to insist on the unity between two such seemingly contradictory aspects of his work. This framework, I believe, must be sought in the philosophical outlook of historicism. The third and concluding part of this book begins by looking at the nineteenth-century debate on style and Semper’s position within it. I argue that Semper’s concern for style was not primarily an aesthetic concern, but rather informed by a particular notion of history, formed and articulated by key contributions to historicist thought such as that of J. G. Herder, W. von Humboldt, and W. Dilthey. Relying on the interpretations of R. Koselleck and H.-G. Gadamer, I investigate the aporetic structure of historicism, looking at the way the seeming opposites of romantic aestheticism and positivist scientism were fused within it. This fusion, I believe, is key to understanding Semper’s merging of a poetics with a practical aesthetics. The concluding chapter probes deeper into the aporias of historicism, using Gadamer’s critique of historicist epistemology and methodology as its point of departure. By looking at Dilthey’s idea of a science of history and its methodological presuppositions, new light may be shed on Semper’s own dream of a method of inventing. Both Semper and Dilthey envisioned the possibility of a scientific methodology in the field of human culture, by means of which art and history could become transparent objects for the scientist-historian. Semper’s project for a science of art remained unfinished, as did Dilthey’s dream of a science of history. The incompleteness of their project indicates, perhaps, a limit beyond which instrumental reason cannot move. If anything, therefore, this book is about tracing the limits of this Prometheus-like project, in an attempt to understand – and resist – the twentieth century’s continued claim for its completeness.

25

PA RT I

k T O WA R D S A P O E T I C S OF ARCHITECTURE

1 : T H E C U LT O F O R I G I N S

k “Any discourse should first go back to the simple origin of the subject under review, trace its gradual development, and explain exceptions and variations by comparing them with the original state.” Gottfried Semper 1

S

emper’s emphasis on the origins of architecture linked him to a long tradition of architectural thinking. In fact, his origin tale, encountered in the Introduction, bears an unmistakable affinity to Vitruvius’s description of the first gathering of men: The men of old were born like the wild beasts, in woods, caves, and groves, and lived on savage fare. As time went on, the thickly crowded trees in a certain place . . . caught fire . . . and the inhabitants of the place were put to flight . . . After it subsided, they drew near and . . . brought up other people to it, showing them by signs how much comfort they got from it. In that gathering of men, at a time when utterance of sound was purely individual, from daily habits they fixed upon articulate words just as these had happen to come; then, from indicating by name things in common use, the result was that . . . they began to talk, and thus originate conversation with one another.2

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It is suggested here that the origin of architecture is part and parcel of the origin of society. For Vitruvius, as for Semper, language and architecture were two primordially civilising institutions, preconditions for as well as expressions of human culture. Man’s need to communicate – and his urge to impress a mark of human order onto the world around him – is the foundation of architecture as it is of culture as such. The origin of language and the origin of architecture are intrinsically linked, as two primary moments in the formation of a human world. Despite this affinity, Semper systematically rejected the Vitruvian tradition. He mocked Vitruvius’s ‘strange and fruitless consideration’ of the primitive hut as a model for the Greek temple, and judged later discussions concerning the primitive hut a ‘pointless dispute’.3 For Semper, the primitive dwelling served as a “mystical-poetic, even artistic motif, not the material model and schema of the temple”.4 Rejecting the Vitruvian hut as well as its eighteenth-century interpretations, Semper presented a very different origin theory than those of his predecessors; Hermann Bauer even grants him the dubious honour of having abolished the Vitruvian construct once and for all.5 I believe, however, that Semper rebuilt rather than demolished the primitive hut. In this chapter, I will outline the intellectual framework within which this refurbishment took place.

UNIVERSAL ORIGINS: LAUGIER AND THE PRIMITIVE HUT

The eighteenth century can be characterised in part by the growing interest for first causes and the near obsession with origins, pursued in every discipline.6 At a time when traditional values and beliefs were increasingly questioned, and when religious and political hegemonies were under radical transformation, the ‘quest for certainty’, as Stephen Toulmin has coined it, became acute.7 In the spirit of René Descartes, one searched for the single unquestionably certain thing: the secure foundations on which to base judgement and action.8 This search was pursued by philosophers and scientists alike, concerned with regaining the epistemological legitimacy of their disciplines in the 30

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face of a faltering tradition.9 So whereas Hutcheson inquired into the “Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue”, Hume sought the origins of religious faith, and Condillac those of sensation. Rousseau tried to identify the Homme naturel as he had appeared “from the hands of nature”, Herder sought the origin of language, and Goethe the original plant.10 Enlightenment scholars engaged in a passionate search for the origin of any and every phenomenon. The world was to be reexplained in terms of its foundational causes, architecture included. A contemporary of Rousseau and Condillac, and fully sharing their obsession with foundational causes, the Jesuit priest and later Benedictine Abbot Marc-Antoine Laugier (1713–69) duly sought for architecture a secure ground on which to base judgements and practice. He started his famous Essai with a declaration about the affinity between nature and art: “It is the same in architecture as in all other arts; its principles are founded on simple nature, and nature’s process clearly indicates its rules.” This ‘simple nature’ must be sought in man’s uncorrupted and authentic condition: “his primitive state without any aid or guidance other than his natural instinct.”11 Laugier presented his primitive hut in a lyrical description of natural man in his pastoral driftings (Figure 7). Embodying three basic elements of architecture – the post, the lintel, and the gabled roof – the hut represented the natural origin of architecture. It is “the rough sketch that nature offers us”, Laugier explained, elevated from crude necessity to a work of art:12 Such is the course of simple nature; by imitating the natural process, art was born. All the splendours of architecture ever conceived have been modelled on the little rustic hut I have just described. It is by approaching the simplicity of the first model that fundamental mistakes are avoided and true perfection is achieved.13 A joint product of need and ingenuity, the primitive hut was conceived as a ‘natural’ architectural form, embodying a universal relationship between form and necessity. Laugier’s primitive hut seems at first glance to fit seamlessly into the Vitruvian tradition in which the origin of architecture is identical 31

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Figure 7. “Allegory of Architecture Returning to its Natural Model”. Charles Eisen, frontispiece to M.-A. Laugier, Essai sur l’architecture (2nd ed. 1755). By permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.

with man’s first building: a primitive building type from which all architecture originates. This monogenetic origin theory fitted well the scriptural account of the genesis of man, making ‘Adam’s house in paradise’ as well as Solomon’s temple legitimate ideals for emulation.14 32

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These paradigmatic ‘buildings’ were seen to embody transcendental laws of beauty, giving architecture a divine warrant. Laugier retained the structure of this argument, yet he transformed Adam’s house into a very different abode. In the introduction to the Essai, Laugier declared that although there were several treatises on architecture which “explain measures and proportions with reasonable accuracy”, there was no work that “firmly establishes the principles of architecture, explains its true spirit, and proposes rules for guiding talents and defining taste.”15 This, needless to say, was the ambition of Laugier himself. Taking the side of the ‘moderns’ in the seventeenth-century Querelle, Laugier rejected the traditional emphasis on proportion, seeing it as relative and arbitrary.16 He sympathised with the ‘ancients’, however, in their worries over lack of absolute standards, agreeing with Blondel that “the human intellect would be terribly affected if it could not find stable and invariable principles.”17 Only on the basis of such principles – the ‘fixed and unchangeable law’ of architecture itself – would it be possible to elevate architecture from ‘the lesser arts’ to a position ‘among the more profound sciences.’18 It was Laugier’s determined resolve to fight for this cause “with no other weapons than those of strict reasoning”.19 Laugier carefully set out the method he had adopted for his ambitious pursuit: I asked myself how to account for my own feelings and wanted to know why one thing delighted me and another only pleased me, why I found one disagreeable, another unbearable. At first this search led only to obscurity and uncertainty. Yet I was not discouraged; I sounded the abyss until I thought I had discovered the bottom and did not cease to ask my soul until it had given me a satisfactory answer. Suddenly a bright light appeared before my eyes. I saw objects distinctly where before I had only caught a glimpse of haze and clouds.20 If this statement sounds familiar, it is because an equally lonely search for ‘clear and distinct’ truths had been described by Descartes 33

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more than 100 years before.21 The affinity is more than a matter of rhetorical style; Laugier wanted to formulate an axiom for architecture akin to that which Descartes had formulated for human knowledge at large.22 The domain of architecture, obscured by the relativity of taste and sensation, was now to be brought into the daylight of reason. In the same way that Baumgarten had tried to rescue the legitimacy of art by confining it within the framework of Cartesian epistemology, Laugier attempted to fit architecture into the mould of rationalist aesthetics.23 In this way, he envisioned “to save architecture from eccentric opinions by disclosing its fixed and unchangeable laws.”24 Laugier’s attempt to find for architecture a natural origin which could serve as its scientific axiom exemplifies a common theme of enlightenment thinking. The new bourgeois society of the eighteenth century sought in nature a clear and distinct idea which could ground an increasingly fragmented discourse.25 Architecture was a vehicle for this project, as Boullée’s and Ledoux’s return to ‘natural’ geometric form indicates.26 The German historian Wilfried Lipp remarks that when Boullée and Ledoux took classicism back to its ‘origins’, what lay behind was a general return to nature as a source of historical legitimacy.27 The genetic retracing of origins to a fictitious point of identity between nature and architecture was a crucial step towards a complete re-creation of cultural and social order.28 When Boullée sought “those basic principles of architecture and what is their source”, he was no longer after a paradigmatic model, but rather a theoretical principle for architecture, as clear and distinct as a Cartesian axiom.29 In this way, Boullée completed the epistemological position initiated by Laugier. Although still applying the Vitruvian metaphor, Laugier’s primitive hut “is not a curious illustration of a distant past or factor of an evolutionary theory of architecture, but the great principle from which it now becomes possible to deduce immutable laws.”30 Laugier’s ‘origin’, then, is a highly abstract idea, dressed up in the metaphorical guise of the primitive hut. Although seeming to operate within a Vitruvian tradition, Laugier transformed the notion of architectural origins into a Cartesian axiom. By postulating a rational nature as the origin of architecture, Laugier was able to introduce a novel conception of architectural meaning. Opposed to Vitruvius’s concern 34

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to relate the orders to human proportion, Laugier’s origin theory evoked an architecture that represented nothing but its own structural principle. Perhaps for the first time, the history of architecture could be presented devoid of mythical or religious overtones, working according to its own well-defined laws. As Caroline van Eck points out: “The novelty in Laugier’s approach . . . lies in his attempt to break with the Renaissance tradition of mimesis, and define architecture not as a civic art, whose meaning lies in the decorous representation of social, religious, or philosophical values, but as the material art of construction.”31

H I S T O R I C A L O R I G I N S : Q U AT R E M E` R E D E Q U I N C Y A N D T H E C A R A C T E` R E R E L AT I F

“How falls it, that the nations of the world, coming all of one father, Noe, doe varie so much from one another, both in bodie and mind?” du Bartas 32 Semper fully shared Laugier’s dream of finding a secure principle upon which to base a science of architecture. Yet, he repeatedly criticised the Abbé for his naive proposal that the origin of architecture could be found in one prototypical building.33 Semper’s ‘principle’ was no longer the timeless and universal axiom of Laugier. Rather, the origin and principle of architecture was to be found in the historical particularity of its inception. Part of a generation which endeavoured to explain cultural phenomena in historical and anthropological terms, Semper sought the roots of architecture in empirical facts. The primitive hut for him was neither Adam’s house in paradise nor the secular axiom of enlightenment theory. It was an empirical phenomenon, revealing not a timeless principle, but rather the particular historical conditions from which it originated. Semper’s favourite example of such an empirical origin type was a ‘Caraib hut’ that he had encountered at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London (Figure 8). The hut embodied in an exemplary way the four elements of architecture, and demonstrated the interrelationship between architecture and the motifs of practical art. Moreover, it was not 35

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Figure 8. “The Caraib Hut”. Gottfried Semper, Der Stil (2nd ed. 1878), vol. 2, p. 263. Edinburgh University Library.

an abstract product of speculation, but a real building. For Semper, this last point was crucial. He wanted to present to his readers “no phantom of the imagination, but a highly realistic exemplar of wooden construction, borrowed from ethnology”.34 Rather than searching for a 36

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universal principle of architecture, Semper and his generation searched for geographically and historically specific conditions influencing architectural form. Their ambition was to map the correspondence between a nation and its artistic expression, grasped in its historic, geographic, and spiritual particularity.35 This conflict between ‘natural’ and ‘historical’ origins of architecture – the ‘dual quest for origins’, as Barry Bergdoll has called it – informed architectural discourse in the latter half of the eighteenth century and prepared the ground for nineteenthcentury historicism.36 One factor that contributed to the undermining of the enlightenment dream of a single and universal principle of architecture was the rapidly expanding genre of travel literature.37 Accounts from missionaries and adventurers of ‘primitive’ peoples in the New World had brought to light a hitherto unknown diversity in humankind. These accounts, far from revealing a timeless and natural rationality of man, seemed to reveal the exact opposite: the relative nature of human culture and the influence of climatic, geographic, and historical factors.38 This debate was often formulated as a conflict between a monogenetic and a polygenetic theory of human origins39 – a question, in Lord Kames’s words, of whether “all men be of one lineage, descended from a single pair, or whether there be different races originally distinct”.40 If man had originated from the Edenic couple or descended from the survivors of the Ark, how could the extraordinary diversity of peoples be accounted for? Despite its scriptural authority, it became increasingly more difficult to square the monogenetic theory with empirical observation. An early attempt to solve this problem was that of Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689–1755). The Spirit of the Laws (1748) was to account for the differences in morals, customs, and taste of various nations by way of scientific explanation.41 That such diversity existed was beyond doubt; indeed, Montesquieu observed, laws accepted as just in one society may violate the most fundamental principles of justice in another.42 Customs and laws cannot be universal, he concluded, but must be relative to each nation. Moreover, this variation does not derive from error and lack of taste, but rather from a real and ‘natural’ diversity among peoples and their conditions of existence. 37

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To account for this diversity without lapsing into arbitrariness and relativism was the task Montesquieu set for himself. He firmly believed there were laws governing human affairs, but that these laws were to be found neither in the monogenetic view of the Christian tradition nor in the static ‘uniformitarianism’ of the early Enlightenment.43 Only through a careful observation and analysis of the particular conditions governing a nation – its climate, topography, and geology – could a ‘natural’ explanation of its character be reached.44 Montesquieu’s project had clear affinities with that of Laugier, whose Essai is roughly contemporary with l’Esprit. They both rejected the scriptural origin tale, seeking a natural and rational starting point for a theory of human culture. There is, however, an important difference between the two. Whereas Laugier still conceived of nature as a uniform axiom – a stable and universal order – Montesquieu saw nature as the lawfulness governing change. Whereas for Laugier, nature was a principle of uniformity, Montesquieu saw it as a set of relative factors. These factors, he explained, condition the customs and manners of a people, affect their judicial and political constitution, and form, ultimately, their ‘spirit’ or character. As he wrote: “If it be true that the temper of the mind and the passions of the heart are extremely different in different climates, the laws ought to be in relation both to the variety of those passions and to the variety of those tempers.”45 Montesquieu’s theoretical turn implies an interesting reformulation of enlightenment ‘uniformitarianism.’ Now, ‘nature’ and ‘natural principles’ had come to be seen as a particularising principle, capable of explaining not everything’s uniformity, but rather everything’s difference. By countering historical relativism with geographical determinism, Montesquieu anticipated the notion of Volksgeist: the ‘spirit’ of the nation, born out of its particularity in time and place. This idea would form an important conceptual underpinning for German idealism and romanticism, allowing someone like Herder to write that man “forms nothing which time, climate, necessity, world, destiny does not allow for.”46 Rather than coining as ‘natural’ that which makes all people the same, it could now be claimed equally ‘naturally’ that every nation has its own fingerprint, which stamps a unique mark on all its expressions. By far, the most distinct of these expressions is constituted by art and 38

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architecture.47 Thus, Montesquieu’s line of argument heralded a new way of thinking about art. No longer an a-historical manifestation of a universal canon, art could for the first time be seen as a historical document of civilisation. An architectural thinker trying to square the dogmas of classicism with the new influx of empirical knowledge was Antoine-Chrysostome Quatrem`ere de Quincy (1755–1849). Profoundly influenced by Laugier, Quatrem`ere described his life work as an effort to formulate a “theory of the originating principle from which art is born”.48 The notion of ‘originating principles’, however, no longer had the same meaning as it had for Laugier and his generation. Rather than the universalising principle of the primitive hut, Quatrem`ere – like Montesquieu – presented the origin of architecture as a historically and geographically differentiating principle.49 Quatrem`ere distinguished between three types of human communities: hunters and gatherers, nomadic herdsmen, and, finally, agricultural peoples. Whereas the first group knew little or no building, using caves and other natural formations as shelter (Figure 9), the nomadic societies developed tents and other transportable structures. Only the agricultural community, however, could be said to have developed architecture proper, in the guise of the wooden hut.50 These three primordial manifestations of architecture – the cave, the tent, and the hut – constituted three distinct origin types, each corresponding to a particular social organisation and a particular architectural tradition.51 “Everything in their architecture retraces this first origin”, Quatrem`ere proclaimed.52 As the character of the tent is retained in the hipped roofs of Chinese architecture, so can the cave still be discerned in the massive constructions of the Egyptians, and the Greek temple continues to echo its origin in the wooden hut (Figure 10). Rejecting Laugier’s axiom, Quatrem`ere substituted enlightenment ‘uniformitarianism’ for the geographical determinism of Montesquieu. For Quatrem`ere, architectural form was a product – not of a universal principle, but rather of the particular conditions from which it originated. Every nation had its unique origin type that continued to condition its architectural expression throughout history. Quatrem`ere labelled this expression caract`ere relatif, by which he 39

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Figure 9. The cave. Giovanni Battista Piranesi, 1761–2, Campus Martinus antiqua Urbis, Rome 1762, detail. Glasgow University Library, Department of Special Collections.

understood the particular capacity of architecture to reflect the geography and climate of its setting, as well as the beliefs of the people who created it.53 With this tripartite origin theory, Quatrem`ere radicalised Laugier’s dream of an autonomous and secular theory of architecture. The origin of architecture, from his point of view, is found in 40

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Figure 10. “The Primitive Buildings”. William Chambers, A Treatise of Civil Architecture, 1759. Glasgow University Library, Department of Special Collections.

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neither transcendental order nor universal law, but rather in the ‘natural’ but particular condition of every nation. As Lavin has observed: “From now on, any architecture – whether good or poor – could be seen as revelatory of human civilisation and thus as a profoundly social phenomenon.”54 Quatrem`ere’s reformulation would have interesting and radical implications for the architectural discourse of the nineteenth century. Struggling to uphold the authority of classicism, Quatrem`ere’s line of argument also made it possible to view historical styles (or ‘characters’) as relative phenomena, potentially available to choice. By turning Laugier’s origin principle into a conventional type, Quatrem`ere unwittingly paved the way for the radical historicism that he had spent his whole career trying to hold at bay. This relativism would be ea´ gerly grasped by the generation that revolted against him at the Ecole de Beaux-Arts in the 1820s and 1830s, for whom architectural history was, as Bergdoll writes, “nothing more than a lesson . . . in architecture’s specificity to time and place.”55 Architecture now could be treated as a conventional entity, based on “l’empire de la nécessité ou celui de l’habitude”.56 Semper, a student in Paris at the time, was profoundly influenced by this idea.57

R I T U A L O R I G I N S : G U S TAV K L E M M A N D T H E A N T H R O P O L O G Y O F A RT

Semper shared Quatrem`ere’s emphasis on the historical specificity of architecture, and continued to cultivate the dream of framing an autonomous architectural science. In this sense, Quatrem`ere’s origin theory formed an important starting point for Semper’s own thinking.58 Semper, however, did not accept Quatrem`ere’s threefold origin type. In his usual sarcastic manner, he declared his contempt for “scholars who tired themselves out in making ingenious deductions to prove that Chinese architecture had derived from the tent”,59 and refuted categorically any speculations on the architectural significance of the cave.60 Rejecting both the universal origins of Laugier and the threefold type of Quatrem`ere, Semper sought another notion of origin upon 42

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which to base his reflections of architecture. Insisting that the origin of architecture was a poetic ideal rather than a concrete model, he tried to give his reflections on origins an anthropological basis. One early and influential source that guided this reformulation was the anthropologist Gustav Klemm (1802–67), a contemporary of Semper in Dresden. A royal librarian to the Saxon court, Klemm spent most of his life absorbed by one ambitious project: to provide “a picture of the development of Mankind in its entirety”.61 Like so many nineteenth-century scholars, Klemm struggled to reconcile the explosive growth of empirical facts with an enlightenment ideal of universal knowledge. Semper fully shared the frustration of such an attempt, dreaming as he did of establishing a ‘Complete and Universal Collection’ of artefacts.62 Unlike Semper, however, whose project remained unfinished, Klemm actually published his nine-volume Allgemeine Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit between 1843 and 1851. He is celebrated as one of the fathers of modern anthropology, introducing the term culture in an approximately modern sense.63 Despite his pioneering role in the field of anthropology, Klemm’s thinking followed a rather traditional pattern. He explained cultural diversity with the theory that different peoples had reached different stages on the evolutionary line that extended from wildness to tameness, a common position in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century anthropology.64 In a similar vein, he envisioned world history in terms of a constant strife between active and passive races, a theory echoing Montesquieu’s musing on the relationship between climate and temper. The same conventional approach seems at first glance to mark his ideas on architecture, and Klemm has been accused of perpetuating a conservative neoclassicism.65 Upon closer examination, however, Klemm’s original contribution becomes clear. Although he did refer to Quatrem`ere’s threefold origin types – the cave, the tent, and the hut – he did not see them as the origins of architecture. For Klemm, this ‘origin’ lies beyond any building type, in an anthropological category located at the heart of a common human condition. All art, he argued, is born out of the human need for representation: “We find the beginnings of art in the lowest stages of culture, where we also encounter the beginning of nations, because man has the urge to manifest 43

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Figure 11. “Australia”. Frontispiece to Gustav Klemm, Allgemeine Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit (1843–51), vol. 1. Glasgow University Library, Department of Special Collections.

his experiences externally, and to adorn his environment with these representations.”66 The human desire for representation – labelled by Klemm as Kunsttrieb, anticipating Riegl’s Kunstwollen in more than one way – went through several stages, in parallel to the general cultural development of society. On the lowest stage, this representation was made manifest in knots and dance: both constituting a rhythmical imitation of time. These primitive devices were the ‘carriers of myth’, Klemm explained: ‘mimetic narratives’ of the life of the nation and primary vehicles for man’s orientation in the world (Figure 11).67 In more advanced stages of cultural development, these simple means of representation were fused in architecture as reified versions of festive adornment. As Klemm wrote: “The adornment of these holy places called forth art, namely architecture, dance, music.”68 44

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Figure 12. Facial tattoos. Gustav Klemm, Allgemeine Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit (1843–51), vols. 3–4, fol. II. Glasgow University Library, Department of Special Collections.

Klemm traced the development of art by means of this hierarchy of representational techniques, seeing in it an infallible index of human culture in its development from wildness to civilisation. After the fusion of dance and knots in architecture, man invented a new device for representation, he explained; namely, images. Although originating from the same artistic instinct [Kunsttrieb], pictorial representation gradually took over as the privileged means by which religious and historical events were represented and remembered.69 From its immediate embodiment in the rhythmic work of dance, beads, and ornaments, the human Kunsttrieb gradually attained higher levels of articulation in epic recital and painting, reaching its ultimate peak of development in written language (Figure 12). Where architecture is concerned, two important assertions were made in Klemm’s Allgemeine Kulturgeschichte. One was the idea that architecture owes its meaning and representational capacity to the practical arts, using motifs developed, for instance, in the ritual act of dance or the rhythmic mimesis of the knot. Following from this is a second 45

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assertion: that the origin of architecture is not a formal type, but rather an existential need, a Kunsttrieb. Against Laugier’s Cartesian dogmatism and Quatrem`ere’s historical relativism, Klemm saw architecture as a vehicle for man’s eternal need for representation.70 Although still referring to the cave, the tent, and the hut, Klemm went beyond Quatrem`ere’s formal origin types. The origin of art and architecture, he implied, lies in man’s urge to bring the structure of his world to articulation and to sustain this world through embodied representation. Echoing Schiller, Klemm identified the human play impulse as the origin of art: the urge to appropriate a world through playful imitation.71 Klemm’s novel ideas on the origins of art and architecture were not meant as a polemic contribution to the art-historical debate of the nineteenth century. His interest in art was informed by a strictly anthropological perspective, from which point of view art was simply a useful index to the progress of civilisations. His ideas, however, would form an important weapon for a generation of thinkers – Semper included – eager to overthrow certain neoclassical dogmas. Before turning to this ‘revolution’, however, we need to investigate a notion closely connected with that of origins: the doctrine of imitation.

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2: THE DOCTRINE OF I M I TAT I O N

k “Truth lives on in the midst of deception, and from the copy the original will once again be restored.” Friedrich Schiller 1

T

he cult of origins constituted only the first part of a twofold doctrine central to neoclassical aesthetics. Although the origin theory of Laugier and others identified the source and model for art, it did not address the question of how this model was to be emulated. To do this was the task of the doctrine of imitation. This was a doctrine with ancient precedents, yet one that would, in its enlightenment guise, become a vehicle for a very modern idea of art. Whereas the classical notion of imitation centred around the idea of beauty as mediation of goodness and truth, the enlightenment doctrine of imitation would – paradoxically – approach an ideal of aesthetic autonomy. Semper never explicitly developed a theory of imitation. On the contrary, he always maintained that architecture, unlike the other arts, was not imitative, and in this lay its virtues: “Architecture has its own store of forms and is not an imitative art like sculpture and painting.”2 For Semper, the nonimitative arts, under which he grouped architecture, music, and dance, had a privileged position in the aesthetic hierarchy. They were “the highest purely cosmic . . . arts, whose legislative support no other art can forego.”3 Semper elaborated this point in one of his most potent statements on architectural imitation: 47

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Tectonics is an art that takes nature as a model – not nature’s concrete phenomena but the uniformity and the rules by which she exists and creates. . . . Tectonics is a truly cosmic art; the Greek word kosmos, which has no equivalent in any living language, signifies cosmic order and adornment alike. To be in harmony with the law of nature makes the adornment of an art object; where man adorns, all he does more or less consciously is to make the law of nature evident in the object he adorns.4 Voiced in the 1850s, this was hardly an original stance. In rejecting imitation as a principle for architecture, Semper was echoing a view long prepared by the Sturm und Drang writers, a view which had constituted a central aspect of idealist and romantic philosophy. However, Semper’s attitude towards these schools was not one of wholehearted support. Although his idea of ‘cosmic art’ clearly drew on an idealist vision of nature as a cosmic totality, he was sceptical towards the abstract approach of idealist thinkers, loathing their tendency to “trac[e] the beauty of the phenomenal world back to the idea and dissect . . . it into conceptual kernels.”5 Far from promoting a romantic aesthetics of genius, Semper’s idea of the ‘legislative support’ of art and his promotion of ‘cosmic lawfulness’ as a paradigm for art and architecture point towards neoclassical ideas of la belle nature rather than towards an ideal of subjective creation. Furthermore, Semper’s use of the term ‘tectonics’ indicates a rejection of both neoclassical and idealist aesthetics in favour of a new emphasis on the structural autonomy of architecture, undoubt¨ edly inspired by the theory of Karl Botticher. Drawing on these three partly overlapping, partly conflicting notions of imitation, Semper supported neither and reformulated all, developing in the process a highly original idea of imitation in architecture. I D E A L I M I TAT I O N : Q U AT R E M E` R E D E Q U I N C Y A N D L A B E L L E N AT U R E

The neoclassical doctrine of imitation was well summed up by Quatrem`ere de Quincy when he described imitation as the “bond that 48

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connects all the fine arts by one common principle.”6 Quatrem`ere’s principle was, of course, the very mˆeme principe to which Charles Batteux (1713–80) had undertaken to ‘reduce’ the fine arts, for the first time singling them out as a separate, aesthetic category.7 Like most of his contemporaries, Quatrem`ere accepted Batteux’s definition, seeing the fine arts as those whose purpose is pleasure, whose means is imitation, and whose model is ‘beautiful nature’. As discussed in Chapter 1, the nature invoked here was not nature in her raw and ‘natural’ state. Art should imitate nature, Batteux claimed, not “as it is in itself, but as it could be and as one could conceive of it by the mind.”8 Rather than imitating nature’s concrete and individual reality, art should imitate her general essence. This same principle constituted the core of Quatrem`ere’s theory of imitation: “The study of nature does not consist so much in the special investigation of an individual and barren reality”, he wrote, “as in the observation of the fertile principles of an ideal and generalised model.”9 For both Batteux and Quatrem`ere, then, imitation was a creative act. The artist does not copy phenomena already present, but rather endeavours to reveal their original essence. In this sense, art is a revelation of “an original, unknown even to the poet himself.”10 This ‘original’ is the very idea of nature, extracted by the human intellect in an act of ideal imitation. The artist takes as his model . . . not only what the outward sense sees in reality, but also what can only be discovered by that organ which scrutinises the causes and motives of nature, in the formation of things and beings. As such a model has nowhere any material existence, and it is the mind that alike copies and discovers it, the works resulting from it are called creations or inventions. It is the imitation of the world of ideas – ideal imitation.11 The reciprocity between an ideal model concealed in nature and its actualisation through imitation constituted for Quatrem`ere la belle nature.12 This ideal nature was in a sense more natural than nature 49

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Figure 13. La Belle Nature. Claude Lorrain, Mercury and Argus (1662), etching. c 2002 Board of Trustees, National Gallery Rosenwald Collection, Photograph
of Art, Washington.

herself. It was nature improved and fulfilled by art: nature as she ‘might and ought to be’ (Figure 13).13 Insofar as nature presented herself only in her particularity, her general and lawful essence can be encountered only in the work of man.14 La belle nature, then, was a cultural construct. Moreover, it was a construct that had attained perfection only once in the history of human culture: in the art of ancient Greece. The idea that la belle nature was paradigmatically embodied in the works of classical antiquity had long been commonplace in thinking

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on art. One can find support for this idea in the works of Bellori, Batteux, Winckelmann, Sulzer, and numerous others.15 As Pope pinpointed: “Those rules of old discovered, not devised, are Nature still, but Nature methodised.”16 From the Renaissance to the eighteenth century, antiquity attained the status of a second nature, a universally valid paradigm for imitation and emulation. Rather than studying nature directly – a dangerous pursuit leading down a ‘tedious and bewildered road’17 – the artist should turn to the eternal works of antiquity. In fact, to imitate Greek architecture is “nothing other than to know and to imitate nature.”18 Greek art, insofar as it manifests nature’s potential for unity, harmony, and wholeness, gives body to la belle nature itself. In his assertions on art and imitation, Quatrem`ere comes across as an apologist for enlightenment universalism. Upon closer inspection, however, his argument displays the same mixture of universalism and historicism that I discussed in relation to his theory of origins. Attempting to reconcile the relativism of Montesquieu with the neoclassical idea of universal standards, Quatrem`ere developed the following hybrid argument: Greek art embodies a universal standard of beauty: la belle nature. It does so, however, due to the particular historical and geographical conditions of ancient Greece. Due to its favourable climate and its free and beautiful people, Greek culture offered the artist perfect conditions for observing the human body: “It is beyond doubt that nowhere, and at no time, has the imitation of the human body been attended by circumstances and causes so favourable to its study, as those met among the Greeks.”19 With this line of argument, Quatrem`ere reached an interesting solution to a notorious problem.20 Although retaining the universal validity of classicism, this validity could itself be explained as a product of relative historical causes. In this way, Quatrem`ere managed to combine an increasing sensitivity to the individual conditions of a culture with a claim for universal standards for culture and art alike. It was a fragile but ingenious argument that served as a bridge between a universalising neoclassicism and the new emphasis on the historical and individual specificity of art.

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O R G A N I C I M I TAT I O N : G O E T H E , S C H L E G E L , A N D S C H A F F E N D E N AT U R

“Gerade das, was ungebildeten Menschen am Kunstwerk als Natur ¨ das ist nicht Natur (von außen), sondern der Mensch auffallt, (Natur von innen).” J. W. von Goethe 21 Semper drew heavily on neoclassical aesthetics. Echoing Quatrem`ere’s notion of la belle nature, he insisted that architecture take as its model “not nature’s concrete phenomena but the uniformity [Gesetzlichkeit] and the rules by which she exists and creates.”22 Yet, Semper refused to accept that this emulation of laws was imitation, feeling that this term demeaned architectural creativity. He was not alone in harbouring such scepticism. The neoclassical doctrine of imitation was – if often in a reduced and misinterpreted version – a key target for the romantic critique of neoclassicism. Blake called imitation an ‘idiot’s procedure’, and Wordsworth demanded that art should no longer be a ‘mimic show’ but be “itself a living part of a live whole.”23 The romantic generation saw the doctrine of imitation as a dogmatic fettering of creativity. August Wilhelm Schlegel (1767–1845) summed up this attitude in his lectures on aesthetics: Aristotle wrongly located the essence of the fine arts in imitation. We are not trying to deny that there is really an imitative element in them, but this does not constitute them as fine arts. This depends rather on a reconfiguration of the object of imitation by the laws of our intellect, in a transaction of the imagination without external model.24 Schlegel’s criticism hit not so much Aristotle (who had never conceived of let alone mentioned the ‘fine arts’) as it did his eighteenthcentury interpreters, Batteux in particular.25 By rejecting Batteux’s doctrine of imitation, Schlegel and his contemporaries aimed to finally repeal an ancient insight still present in neoclassical aesthetics: that art imitates and participates in a reality outside the artwork itself. 52

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Despite his sharp-witted polemic against the idea of art as an imitation of nature, Schlegel did not abandon imitation theory altogether. Rather, he proposed a redefinition: If nature is understood as an inner power rather than an external reality, and if imitation is seen as a creative principle rather than mindless copying, then imitation may still be considered the means and end of art.26 Quatrem`ere would not have disagreed. In fact, Schlegel’s argument was remarkably close to Quatrem`ere’s own, asserting that the model for imitation was to be found not in nature’s appearances but rather in her inner principles, and that mere copying contributes little to art’s pursuit of the ideal and essential. It was in the attempt to locate this ideal essence that their views diverged. Whereas Quatrem`ere encouraged the artist to find his model in external, if idealised, nature, Schlegel advised him to search in ‘his own inner self’. Man is a microcosm in which the world is contained, Schlegel argued, and by seeking inwards the artist might capture the whole. Art is the expression of an inner power: a microcosmic principle of creativity which is situated in the individual but which mirrors the cosmos.27 Lurking beneath Schlegel’s views on imitation was the ancient notion of natura naturans [creative nature] and its counterpart, natura naturata [created nature]. This binary opposition had been articulated already by Thomas Aquinas when he demanded that art should imitate nature ‘in sua operatione’.28 In the Middle Ages and early Renaissance, art had been seen as man’s means to comprehend the divine order. Although creation is a divine power not granted man, he can participate in the divine by imitating God’s creation.29 When Schlegel revitalised natura naturans, however, far from returning to a premodern notion of divine creation and its human imitation, he transformed both the notion of nature and of imitation in a radical manner. For Schlegel, schaffende Natur was no longer a transcendent power ultimately situated in God, but rather an immanent force ultimately situated in man. Art, then, equals both nature and the Creator in creativity: . . . [art] should create as independently as nature, organised and organising, produce living works that are complete in themselves and moved, not by an alien mechanism like a 53

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clock, but by an inner power, like the solar system. It was in this way that Prometheus imitated nature, when he formed man from earthly clay and vitalised him with a ray stolen from the sun; a myth which provides us with such a beautiful example.30 It is not difficult to see, in this redefinition of the relationship between nature and imitation, how the meaning of both is transformed. “Nature is now within”, writes Charles Taylor, pinpointing the new notion of nature as an inner power [inwohnende Kraft].31 Although formulated in opposition to neoclassical imitation theory, the romantic notion of imitation completed in many respects the neoclassical emancipation of art into an isolated aesthetic domain of fine art. In Schlegel’s Prometheus dream, art had become a vehicle for self-expression and the artist a creator of parallel worlds. The artist, in Herder’s succinct phrase, “is become a creator God.”32 Schlegel’s notion of creative nature drew heavily on the writings of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832). In the essay, “On German Architecture” (1772), the young Goethe celebrated human creativity, by which he understood a spontaneous inner force. The neoclassical obsession with rules and doctrines had obstructed the true, living source of art, Goethe argued, and fettered the creativity of the artistgenius.33 Only in Gothic architecture could one find a living, creative beauty, unfettered by ‘school and rule’.34 The Gothic cathedral was not a product of stale dogmas, but rather a spontaneous expression of necessity and purposefulness (Figure 14).35 It was in this sense, and this sense alone, that art could be said to imitate nature. The highest form of imitation was “for an artist to penetrate into the depths of things as well as into the depths of his own soul, so as to produce in his works not only something light and superficially effective, but, as the rival of nature, something spiritually organic, and to give it a content and a form by which it appears both natural and beyond nature.”36 Goethe, then, saw a strong analogy between artworks and the works of nature. The cathedral, in its overall composition as well as its most minute detail, formed a harmonious, purposeful unity, indeed, an 54

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Figure 14. Strasbourg Cathedral, west front, begun 1277. Taken from P. Frankl, Gothic Architecture, Penguin 1962.

organic whole: “This . . . is the only true art. It becomes active through inner, unified, particular and independent feeling, unadorned by, indeed unaware of, all foreign elements, . . . it is a living whole.”37 The principal task of Goethe’s mature writings was to develop this organic 55

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analogy. In the essay, “On Architecture” (1795), for instance, he traced the emancipation of art from its early enslavement to necessity and material causes to its highest poetic stage.38 He insisted that this process be understood as an organic evolution.39 Like a plant or an animal, art develops through lawful transformations according to an inherent Keimkraft.40 In architecture, this inner power comes to expression in a process of mimetic metamorphosis: Architecture is not an art of imitation, but rather an autonomous art; yet at the highest level it cannot do without imitation. It carries over the qualities and appearance of one material into another: every order of the columns, for example, imitates buildings in wood; it carries over the characteristics of one building into another: for example by the union of columns and pilasters with walls; and does so for variety and richness.41 In this late essay, Goethe abandoned the Gothic romanticism of his youth for a return to the classical ideal. However, this was not the most significant of his shifts. Applying to art the idea of metamorphosis developed in his Naturlehre, Goethe construed the artwork as an autonomous and self-sufficient creation, governed by its own inner laws and imitating its own forms in a process of material metamorphosis.42 From this point of view, the Greek temple could be analysed as an organic being whose transformation is governed by an inner telos rather than by its social and religious significance (Figure 15). Although still appealing to the traditional category of imitation, Goethe abolished virtually any external referent for art, thus completing the transformation of la belle nature from a transcendent ideal to an immanent force.43 In Goethe’s architectural writings, the work of architecture threatens to become simply a representation of its own formal and material development, testifying to its own Urstoff in the same way as the plant retains traces of the original Urpflanze. By reducing the notion of analogy in architecture to a matter of Stoffwechsel, Goethe could merge the seemingly contradictory notions of imitation and autonomy. Architecture, as Schelling proclaimed some years later, had become an ‘imitation of itself’.44 56

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Figure 15. Italian sketches. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “Baukunst”, 1795. Stiftung Weimarer Klassik. ¨ TTICHER T E C T O N I C I M I TAT I O N : K A R L B O AND THE AUTONOMY OF FORM

“Des K¨orpers Form ist seines Wesens Spiegel! Durchdringst du sie – ¨ l¨ost sich des Rathsels Siegel.” 45 Karl B otticher ¨

Despite their critique of neoclassical aesthetic theory, neither Goethe nor A. W. Schlegel doubted the authority of the classical ideal. In fact, their aesthetic organicism was developed in defence of classicism, aiming to offer a deeper understanding of its laws and evolution. Goethe’s notion of the structural and material autonomy of architecture must therefore be conceived within the framework of classicism, never intended as an instrument for stylistic innovation. To turn the organic theory of art into an operative principle for design would be the ambition of the next generation of architects and critics, who aimed 57

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to extract concrete guidelines for the interpretation and production of architecture. One of the most interesting of these attempts was the theory of tectonics. We have already encountered the term in Semper’s own writings, in which he sometimes used it synonymously with architecture, other times to refer specifically to wooden construction.46 Tectonics was, however, not Semper’s own term, but one that by the late 1840s on¨ wards was associated with the architect and archaeologist Karl Botticher (1806–99), a Berlin scholar who in his youth had belonged to the circle ¨ around the aging Schinkel. Botticher set out his overall ambition in the preface to the Tektonik der Hellenen (1844–52): to develop a history of Greek tectonics, not as a compilation of facts but as a revelation of the inner workings of art and history alike.47 Like Goethe, he searched for the intrinsic principle, or Keimkraft, of architecture, and the laws by which it unfolds through time; like Goethe, he found it in the principle of creative nature: The principle of Greek tectonics is . . . identical with the principle of creative nature: the concept of each work [Gebildes] is expressed in its form. From this principle alone springs a law of form, which stands high above the individual conditions of the particular subject matter [des werkth¨atigen Subjektes]. [It rules] within boundaries that admit only the true and highest freedom, and opens an inexhaustible source for invention.48 ¨ Botticher’s point of departure was the correspondence between external form and inner idea that he believed to be apparent in all natural phenomena. Nature, he insisted, expresses the inner essence of her creations through form. A natural phenomenon is always a “fully identical portrait of itself”: a perfect expression of its underlying concept.49 ¨ Botticher argued that the correspondence between form and concept that characterised natural beings from their embryonic beginning to their mature state should be present also in works of art.50 The ambition of his tectonic theory, then, was to substantiate this argument and to 58

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translate the idea of correspondence from the domain of nature to that of art and architecture. To define the architectural ‘concept’ and its representation in ¨ form, Botticher introduced the terms Kernform [core form] and Kunstform [art form].51 He defined Kernform as “the mechanical necessity, the statically effective schema” of architecture, a structural core with a purely static function.52 In this sense, Kernform is an abstract concept, a kind of Schopenhauerian ‘lauter Wirken’.53 Although the Kernform would be perfectly capable of performing its structural task alone, being a pure concept, it lacks a visual expression of its own.54 It lacks, in other words, a means by which to give visible form to its inner working. This is the task of the Kunstform: an ‘explanatory layer’ of ornaments55 which expresses the mute working of the core.56 Whereas the Kernform simply acts to carry and uphold, the Kunstform – as a symbolic dressing – represents the tectonic conflict played out in the construction, making visible the concepts of gravity and cohesion (Figure 16).57 ¨ For Botticher, the reciprocal relationship between Kernform and Kunstform constituted a dynamic interplay between the structure and ornament of architecture. The classical orders provided him with a valuable example of this. He described in great detail how the articulation of the base dramatises the force of gravity and compression in the column, and how the concave and convex movement of the Echinus articulates the weight of the entablature resting upon it (Figures 17 and 18).58 Architectural ornament, here, is understood as an expression of the inner, static working of the tectonic body: “nothing else than the embodied image of its concept”.59 ¨ Botticher’s demand for a correspondence between Kunstform and Kernform presented architecture with an ideal that seemed to allow for no historical development. With a closer reading of the Tektonik, however, it becomes clear that this correspondence is itself a historically ¨ realised ideal. Until the period of ancient Egypt, Botticher explained, architectural ornament was conceived as a symbol of religious and ritual phenomena.60 These phenomena, however, could never be adequately represented in architectural form because they transcended the limits for what can be made visible.61 Architecture at its highest stage, therefore, had to abandon religious ideas, turning instead to concepts 59

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¨ Figure 16. Studies of Ionic capitals. Karl Botticher, Die Tektonik der Hellenen, 1852, vol. 2. By permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.

which can be adequately represented in architectural form. This was the achievement of the Greeks, who had developed an art form strictly analogous to its concept.62 Egyptian architecture, on the other hand, could never attain the autonomy and clarity of its Greek counterpart as long as it tried to express transcendent values in physical form. It could be dismissed as an inferior stage of architecture’s evolution, failing to attain the ideal correspondence between form and idea. ¨ By means of this quasi-Hegelian argument, Botticher elevated the principle of Greek classicism into a universal law, still valid for the nineteenth century: The Greek principle of representing the . . . static load of the tectonic body by means of analogous Kunstformen, so that its 60

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¨ Figure 17. Studies of the bases of the orders. Karl Botticher, Die Tektonik der Hellenen, 1852, vol. 2. By permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.

concept in all its conditions is tangibly presented, contains the only valid law, according to which all tectonic structures can be executed.63 To emulate the Greeks implied not so much imitating the classical style as emulating the principle of correspondence between form ¨ and idea. On this basis, Botticher formulated a guide to architectural invention. By evaluating the correspondence between the idea of the Kernform (i.e., the structural principle) and its manifestation in the Kunstform, architecture could be judged as good or bad, valid or invalid.64 Any new architectural style must be judged according to this criterion: whether or not it gives adequate form to a new structural ¨ pompously principle.65 Only by respecting this principle, Botticher 61

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¨ Figure 18. Studies of the bending of leafs under burden. Karl Botticher, Die Tektonik der Hellenen, 1852, vol. 2. By permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.

proclaimed, could “yet another art . . . emerge from the womb of time and . . . take on a life of its own.”66 ¨ It is not necessary here to further explore Botticher’s ‘third style’, 67 which he envisioned would spring from iron construction. Rather, we should reflect on the underlying significance of his theory of tectonics. ¨ With Botticher, architectural representation became a matter of correspondence between a structural concept and an allegorical dressing, a hermetic relationship with no references to a reality outside the work itself. In neoclassical aesthetics, the doctrine of imitation still served as a link between art and reality, upholding – if in a secularised and ‘intramundane’ way – the ancient notion of art as representation. With ¨ Goethe, Schlegel, and Botticher, this notion was gradually abolished, 62

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increasingly allowing architecture to be considered a self-referential sign of itself. Ornamentation, as van Eck points out, is no longer “discussed in terms of historically, culturally, and socially determined meaning, . . . instead, its meaning rests entirely on the static function it represents. Thereby, a work of architecture becomes almost entirely self-referential, which is yet another way of underpinning its autonomy in the sense that the meaning of a building is defined in architectural, rather than social or cultural terms.”68 ¨ Semper was both inspired and infuriated by Botticher’s tectonic ¨ speculations. He was impressed by Botticher’s analysis of architectural ornament, relying on it greatly when developing his own notion of Bekleidung.69 At the same time, however, he launched uninhibited verbal attacks on the Berlin scholar, calling him “one-sided and doctrinaire”70 and “a vicious little mystagogue from Berlin”.71 Semper’s dispropor¨ tionate reaction to Botticher may help us to locate unresolved issues ¨ within Semper’s own position. Semper accepted Botticher’s idea of architecture as an autonomous discipline and continued to dream of a science of invention. Yet, he rejected a theory of imitation in which architecture was simply an immanent sign of itself, and attempted instead the difficult conciliation of autonomy and referentiality.

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he previous chapters outlined the way in which notions of origin and imitation conditioned architectural discourse in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Semper was profoundly influenced by this discourse. He shared many of the prevailing neoclassical attitudes and framed his theoretical pursuits in terms of origins and imitation. He also had a thorough knowledge of idealist and romantic philosophy, and its influence on his work is convincingly documented.1 Yet, Semper subjected the notions of origins and imitation to a radical reformulation until they no longer had the same meaning as for his neoclassical or romantic predecessors.

T H E P R I M I T I V E H U T R E B U I LT

We have already encountered Semper’s scornful attitude to enlightenment theories of the origin of architecture. In his opinion, the obsession with the primitive hut had produced merely “fruitless speculations, which have not seldom led to dangerous errors and false theories”.2 Semper dismissed the wooden hut as the formal origin of the Greek temple, and rejected Quatrem`ere’s ‘fairy tale’ of the cave and the tent.3 Although recognising its importance, he refused to frame the question of origins as a search for the original abode of man, concluding categorically that “it is impossible to trace architecture, as the expression and accommodation of social organisms, back to its earliest beginning”.4 64

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To attempt such a thing would be like wanting to trace a language back to “the babbling of children or to the unarticulated voices of the animal world”.5 As was becoming clear to both Semper and his contemporaries, human culture was infinitely older than what had previously been thought, and even the most ancient artefact is a thousand times removed from its actual historical origin.6 As Semper wrote: The most primitive tribes known to us do not give a picture of the original condition of humanity, but rather of its degeneration and impoverishment. Much in them suggests a regression into a state of wildness, or, more correctly, a disintegration of living social organisms into elements . . . Their . . . provisional tents . . . can be seen more correctly as an image of their present alienation and homelessness than as the origin type of Oriental architecture.7 The primitive hut, then, was not the first and ‘natural’ artefact sprung from the unadulterated needs of man, but rather a complex product of a long historical process. When Semper, despite this criticism, kept returning to the topic of origins, he clearly had in mind something other than the Vitruvian hut. The origins of architecture, he insisted, must be sought not in architectural form itself but in the preconditions which shaped it: “the constituent parts of form that are not form itself, but the idea, the force, the task, and the means”.8 It was Semper’s lifelong ambition to find and define these ‘constituent parts’ – and he found them, not as archaeological facts but as a creative principle: Surrounded by a world full of wonder and forces, whose law man may divine, may want to understand but never decipher, which reaches him only in a few fragmentary harmonies and which suspends his soul in a continuous state of unresolved tension, he himself conjures up the missing perfection in play.9 For Semper, then, the origins of art lay in the universal human need to create order through play and ritual. These fundamental themes 65

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show up in mythology as the overcoming of chaos by means of order. By representing such lawfulness in his own activities, man establishes a domain of order in the midst of a mysterious and threatening nature.10 “When man adorns”, Semper wrote, “all he does, more or less consciously is to make the laws of nature evident in the object he adorns.”11 In a word, art is born out of man’s need to make sense of the world: He makes himself a tiny world in which the cosmic law is evident within strict limits, yet complete in itself and perfect in this respect; in such play man satisfies his cosmogonic instinct. His fantasy creates these images, but displaying, expanding, and adapting to his mood the individual scenes of nature before him, so orderly arranged that he thinks he can discern in the single event the harmony of the whole.12 We encountered this ordering activity of art in Semper’s Dresden speech, and again in the writings of Gustav Klemm. Now we can appreciate more fully what is meant by this ‘activity’ itself and its embodiment in the motifs of art. Like Klemm, Semper located the ordering activity of art first and foremost in the ritual; for instance, the reification of time and movement into rhythm, dance, and musical expression. Through ritual, Semper told his readers, man captures the creative law of nature “as it gleams through reality in the rhythmical sequence of space and time movements”.13 The ritual, in turn, finds its tangible embodiment in the motifs of practical arts, is “found once more in the wreath, the bead necklace, the scroll, the circular dance and the rhythmic tone that attends it, the beat of an oar . . . These are the beginnings out of which music and architecture grew.”14 (See Figure 19.) From its ephemeral beginning in ritual movement, the ordering activity of art is embodied in the artistic motifs, which in turn are fused in works of architecture. This affinity between natural and cultural order, Semper argued, is perfectly expressed in the Greek notion of cosmos, signifying “order and adornment alike.”15 The process of making and adorning is here understood as a rhythmical reenactment of the cosmos: the ordering of a world through its microcosmic representation. Klemm had already 66

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Figure 19. Wreaths and rhythmic ornaments. Gottfried Semper, Der Stil (2nd ed. 1878), vol. 1, pp. 13–16. Edinburgh University Library.

hinted at this connection, but what for him remained an isolated and puzzling observation, constituted for Semper a key to the origins and the meaning of architecture. When seeking the simplest translation of ritual into tangible form, Semper turned to textile art. This was the Urkunst, he explained, a primordial embodiment of the ritual act of joining parts into a whole.16 The knot was a privileged example of this: “perhaps the oldest technical symbol and . . . an expression of the earliest cosmogonic ideas”, symbolising “the primordial chain of being”.17 (See Figure 20.) Being simultaneously a functional technique and a symbolic means of representation, the knot was a mediating figure between the ritual act, the technique of making, and the actual work of art or craft. In time, the motif of the knot was developed further in the more complex techniques of the braid, the wreath, the seam, and the weave; all constituting primordial symbols of ordering.18 As Semper wrote about the seam: The seam [Naht] is an expedient [Nohtbehelf ] invented to unite . . . pieces and surfaces, and which . . . through an 67

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Figure 20. Knots and braids. Gottfried Semper, Der Stil (2nd ed. 1878), vol. 1, pp. 169–72. Edinburgh University Library.

ancient conceptual and linguistic fusion became the general analogy and symbol for every joining of originally separate surfaces to one complete whole. In the seam, an important . . . axiom of artistic practice appears in its most primary, simplest and . . . clearest form – the law, namely, to make a virtue out of necessity.19 68

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Figure 21. Snake ornaments from Greece, Ireland, Egypt, and Scandinavia. Gottfried Semper, Der Stil (2nd ed. 1878), vol. 1, pp. 77–8. Edinburgh University Library.

As Rykwert has pointed out, this etymological excursus was more than a play on words.20 The proximity between Noht and Naht – the need for order and its fulfilment through art – constituted an important point in Semper’s reflections on origins. Art springs from a need simultaneously practical and symbolic. Opposed to the enlightenment polarisation of usefulness and beauty, Semper insisted on their fusion. Even the simplest ornament testifies to this fusion, he argued, from the scrolls and beads of the ‘South Sea Indians’ to the snake ornaments of 69

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Figure 22. Techniques of weaving. Gottfried Semper, Der Stil (2nd ed. 1878), vol. 1, p. 177. Edinburgh University Library.

the Celts and Vikings (Figure 21).21 These symbolic-functional motifs run through the history of art “like a musical theme”, guaranteeing its continuity and intelligibility.22 Having identified the original motifs of art, Semper sought to map their development and fusion in architecture. A key link in this development was the motif of the wall, which he traced back to the technique of weaving (Figure 22). The original enclosure, he argued, was not the solid wall of stone or wood, but rather the primitive fence, woven by branches and grass: “Wickerwork, the original space divider, retained the full importance of its earlier meaning, actually or ideally, when later the light mat walls were transformed into clay tile, brick, or stone walls. Wickerwork was the essence of the wall.”23 Textile art, therefore, itself an imitation of ritual, rhythm, and dance – is the source not only of the practical arts, but also of architecture: “The beginnings of building coincide with those of weaving,” Semper declared.24 The first volume of Der Stil was meant to provide substantial documentation for this assertion. Tracing the motif of enclosure from the primitive fence to textile draperies, Semper found the principle of Bekleidung 70

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Figure 23. Techniques of knitting and croché. Gottfried Semper, Der Stil (2nd ed. 1878), vol. 1, pp. 175–6. Edinburgh University Library.

[clothing or dressing] to be intrinsically linked to spatial enclosure, a use which preceded even the clothing of the human body (Figure 23).25 The wall, then, springs directly from acts of gathering and enclosing, acts expressed both practically and symbolically in the motifs of the textile arts: “The wall is that architectural element that formally represents and makes visible the enclosed space as such, absolutely, as it were, without reference to secondary concepts.”26 Establishing the boundaries within which cultural order can take place, the wall sets up a spatial-symbolic home for man. It separates “the inner life . . . from the outer life” and manifests “the spatial idea in its original conception.”27 As an enclosing gesture, the wall has its counterpart in the motif of the hearth, as the soul and centre of every architectural work.28 Semper, then, demolished the Vitruvian hut as an indivisible nucleus of architecture. In its place, he installed the hut as a composite structure composed of the four primary motifs, or elements, of architecture. It was these motifs, not the hut itself, that constituted the origins of architecture. These motifs represented the translation of human action into tangible form, yet they were not primarily formal entities. 71

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Inspired by ethnological findings and his own encounter with the Caraib hut,29 Semper saw the origins of architecture not as formal but rather as functional-symbolic phenomena, born out of man’s need for symbolic representation.

I M I TAT I O N R E D E F I N E D

Implied in Semper’s restructured origin theory is an equally radical redefinition of the neoclassical doctrine of imitation. As we saw previously, Semper was critical to the idea of architecture as imitative, emphasising its role as a free and cosmic art. Yet, he did not reject the notion of imitation outright, but rather subjected it to reinterpretation. Again, Semper’s notion of Bekleidung provides the most telling example, particularly his ingenious (if factually licentious) analysis of the Roman house. This building type was in its earliest form characterised by a rectangular plan and an open, colonnaded atrium, Semper explained. The spaces between the columns were equipped with woven partitions, which subdivided the peristyle into different zones.30 The partitions had both a functional and a symbolic task, differentiating the space for various domestic purposes while at the same time constituting a symbolic enclosure of the hearth, gathering the family together as a sacred community.31 In the Bekleidung, thus, Semper located the primary idea of the wall as the “purely symbolic indication of the spatial enclosure”.32 In later developments of the Roman house, the wall retained its symbolic meaning, but its material changed. The motif of enclosure that had been embodied in the textile draperies now ossified into stone.33 In the Pompeiian house, for example, the intercolumnar drapery was retained in the form of a fresco, constituting, according to Semper, “nothing else than the imitation [Nachahmung] of the draperies and screens that used to furnish the stoas and halls. . . .” Here, the motif of Bekleidung “shows itself in its full potential and in all the varieties of its later stylistic developments and combinations.”34 This simple description contains an important point. Semper presented here the fresco of the Pompeiian house as an imitation of a more primordial motif: that of 72

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the textile wall. The process of material metamorphosis [Stoffwechsel ] is a historical process based on and propelled by the principle of imitation. Semper’s analysis of the Roman house entailed a very specific notion of imitation. He did not see imitation as a simple translation of a model – ideal or actual – into physical form. Rather, he understood it as a complex series of transformations in which original motifs are gradually modified in response to new needs and conditions. The primacy of the motif – with its relative independence from material, its relative stability through time, and its constant reinterpretation through history – was for Semper the principle governing architectural evolution. As stable expressions of human ideas and needs, retained through material and technical transformation, the motifs were the primary nuclei in architecture’s ‘grammar of forms.’35 Every culture must interpret anew these stable and stabilising motifs according to its own particular condition, making them “its own flesh and blood”.36 Semper outlined the development of the Bekleidung motif within the grand comparative scheme of Der Stil, starting with the primitive cultures of the ‘South Sea’ (i.e., New Zealand and Polynesia), where the woven wall appeared in its original state. He then followed its metamorphosis in Chinese lattice work, Indian stucco-coating, Assyrian mosaics, and Egyptian painting, finally reaching its sublimated manifestation in Greek polychromy (Figure 24).37 The primary motif of Bekleidung remained the same throughout this long development, but was modified through an imitative process of Stoffwechsel. Each step in the history of architecture involves a creative reinterpretation and appropriation of the artistic motifs, a process we may now call imitation. For Semper, the original model of this process could never be determined; “the original is always already a copy”, he insisted.38 Rather than seeking the origin of architecture in architectural form, Semper located it in the human desire to order and imitate: the universal human Nachahmungstrieb. This drive constituted for Semper, as it had for Plato, the origin of art and society alike. Semper’s notion of imitation, as it was set out in his Bekleidung theory, differed from the neoclassical doctrine. Semper understood imitation not as the copying of an original building type or an ideal model, but rather as an interpretation of a functional-symbolic motif, itself 73

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Figure 24. Examples of Bekleidung: Assyrian stone panel decorated with carpet patterns. Gottfried Semper, Der Stil (2nd ed. 1878), vol. 1, p. 51. Edinburgh University Library.

imitating human situations and actions. Furthermore, Semper’s notion of imitation was not (yet) the autonomous metamorphosis of Goethe or Schlegel. Although adopting Goethe’s notion of material metamorphosis, Semper resisted seeing it as a self-sufficient process in which ¨ architecture imitates itself. Finally, although appropriating Botticher’s idea of structural symbols (i.e., the ornament ‘miming’ the constructive principle), Semper refused to see this as the exclusive locus of architectural meaning. Semper located the origin of architecture not in architecture itself, but rather in human situations, insisting on the intrinsic 74

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link between the motifs of art and its origin in ritual action. This recognition unwittingly drew him close to the Aristotelian understanding of art as mimesis of praxis. In the following section, I will explore this understanding, using it as a way to probe deeper into Semper’s reflections on the origins of architecture.

ARCHITECTURE AS MIMESIS OF PRAXIS

The neoclassical doctrine of imitation had ancient precedents. Batteux’s canonical formulation of the relationship between art and imitation took its cue from Aristotle’s Poetics, which teaches that “Epic poetry and Tragedy, also Comedy and Dithyramb, and most of the music performed on the flute and the lyre are all, in a collective sense, imitations.”39 Whether revering or reviling this principle, neither the neoclassicists nor the romantics had any doubt as to its meaning. The Aristotelian theory of imitation was seen as roughly identical with Batteux’s own: a demand for art to imitate nature.40 Aristotle, however, never claimed art to be an imitation of nature. What art (or poetic activity, to be more specific) imitates, he made explicitly and repeatedly clear, is something quite different. “For tragedy is not an imitation [mimesis] of men but of actions [ praxeos] and of life”, he wrote. “Thus, what happens – that is, the plot [mythos] – is the end for which a tragedy exists, and the end or purpose is the most important thing of all.”41 These three notions – mimesis, praxis, and mythos – are keys to Aristotle’s poetics, constituting a reflection on art that elucidates not only tragic poetry, but also all genuine poetic expressions, architecture included.

Mimesis Aristotle took his examples of mimesis from musical performance. This might seem peculiar to modern readers because in the current understanding of the term, music is the one art (together with architecture, as Semper argued) that does not ‘imitate’ anything. To understand what is meant by mimesis, therefore, we need to reappraise our easy equation of mimesis and imitation. Hermann Koller’s study Die Mimesis der 75

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Antike contributes to such a reappraisal.42 Seeking to restore the full significance of mimesis, Koller traces the term to its first appearance in pre-Socratic texts, where it figures precisely in the musical context to which Aristotle referred. Mimesis is first used in relation to the song and dance in Dionysian rituals, the Pyrrian weapon dance, and the Delian hymns.43 Koller concludes: “Greek dance, as a synthesis of words, tune, rhythm, and gestures, constituted primarily the given unity of human expression. Mimesis therefore always remains linked to man, it is his coming-into-form [Formwerdung].”44 This notion of mimesis as rhythmic Formwerdung is close to Semper’s own. When he located the origins of art in man’s reenactment of cosmic order, he was drawing on an ancient idea. Plato, for instance, saw the sense of rhythm and the urge for rhythmic enactment as a defining feature for human beings: No young creature whatsoever, as we may fairly assert, can keep its body or its voice still; all are perpetually trying to make movements and noises. They leap and bound, they dance and frolic, as it were with glee, and again, they utter cries of all sorts. Now animals at large have no perception of the order or disorder in these motions, no sense of what we call rhythm or melody. But in our own case, the gods . . . have likewise given us the power to perceive and enjoy rhythm and melody. Through this sense they stir us to movements and become our choir-leaders. They string us together on a thread of song and have named our ‘choirs’ so after the delight [chara] they naturally afford.45 For Plato, the sense of rhythm is what ‘strings us together’ in a community of fellow human beings.46 Rhythmic enactment grounds human culture, establishing a mimetic distance from the natural world and opening up a space in which communication is possible. This choric act, according to Plato, is an act of imitation: “a mimetic presentation of manners, with all variety of action and circumstance”.47 However, it is not only the human community that is structured by means of mimetic analogy, but also the cosmos itself. For Plato, cosmic order 76

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is constituted by a hierarchy of analogies, in which the part takes part in the whole as its analogous representation.48 As Plato put it, “there exists certain forms, of which these other things come to part-take and so to be called after their names; by coming to part-take of likeness and largeness or beauty and justice, they become like or large or beautiful or just . . . each thing that part-takes receives its share either the form as a whole or a part of it.”49 Whereas Plato used the term methexis or ‘participation’ here, Pythagorean philosophy referred to this same participation as mimesis: a participation in or representation of cosmic order.50 The principle of mimesis, understood as an analogous participation of the part in the whole, lies at the heart of Platonic cosmology as the principle by which, in Ernesto Grassi’s words, “reality is ordered into a world”.51

Praxis If we have now established mimesis as the principle of participation that structures both the human world and its cosmic setting, it is still not quite clear what is being imitated. Plato’s Laws provides a partial answer. Taking the question of mimesis back to the domain of music, Plato wrote that “rhythms and music . . . are a reproduction expressing the moods of better and worse men.”52 What is being imitated in musical and poetic performance, in other words, is human character in its ethical and situational context.53 Aristotle took over this idea from Plato, maintaining that “Tragedy is the imitation of an action” and that the poet “is a poet by virtue of his imitation”.54 Far from being an imitation of appearances, thus, mimesis is the representation of action: a mimesis tes praxeos. All mimetic activity has this praxis as its object, and varies only insofar as human action itself varies, within the field of ethical possibilities.55 Aristotle’s careful definition of praxis as the object of mimesis reveals something important about the term itself. Mimesis of praxis is not a representation of just any action, but rather action as it is situated within an ethical field.56 When Homer wrote the Odyssey, for example, he did not describe everything that ever happened to Odysseus, but rather chose only what was ‘necessary or probable’ and what formed a 77

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unity of action.57 To serve as an object for imitation, in other words, action has to be relevant with respect to the ethically constituted horizon of necessity and probability that governs a human world. Grassi lucidly explains this important point: “The mimesis tes praxeos is thus directed, not towards just any action offering itself as object for imitation . . . The object of mimesis should rather be acts specific to man; i.e., ethically determined praxis. . . . The object of art is the peculiar possibilities of man”.58 Praxis encompasses not merely what is but what might be; it represents an ethically structured field of possibilities, from which any action draws its meaning.

Mythos If praxis denotes a field of possibilities governed by necessity and probability, it remains to be asked how such a field can be informing or informed by art. To answer this question, we must turn to the third key term in Aristotle’s Poetics: the notion of the ‘plot’, or mythos. “The imitation of the action is the plot”,59 Aristotle wrote. “Thus, what happens – that is, the plot – is the end for which the tragedy exists.”60 In Paul Ricoeur’s analysis of the Aristotelian mythos, he starts by defining mimesis not as the “redoubling of presence . . ., but rather the break that opens the space for fiction.”61 Ricoeur argues that this ‘opening’ is the primary role of the poetic work. It involves a threefold process, referred to by Ricoeur as mimesis 1, 2, and 3.62 I will not adopt this terminology, but will rather translate Ricoeur’s threefold mimesis into two simple questions: How does the mythos come about, and what purpose does it serve? The first step in the mimetic process concerns the way in which praxis can become the object of art; how, in other words, it is configured into a plot. Aristotle insisted that in order to make a plot, one needs to know not only a multitude of human actions, but also what gives them unity.63 Ricoeur writes: “The composition of a plot is grounded in a pre-understanding of the world of action, its meaningful structures, its symbolic recourses, and its temporal character . . . If it is true that plot is an imitation of action, some preliminary competence is required: the capacity for identifying action in general by means of its structural 78

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features.”64 This capacity is precisely what characterises Aristotle’s poet: the capacity to see unity in plurality.65 It is this knowledge that permits the poetic configuration of the mythos or, in Ricoeur’s word, the ‘emplotment’ to take place.66 As he writes: “[the mythos] draws a meaningful story from the diversity of events and incidents . . . transforms the events or incidents into a story.”67 The plot mediates between praxis as invisible and unarticulated background (what Heidegger speaks of as ‘concealment’68 ) and its embodiment and articulation in the work of art. The emplotment of art clarifies the domain of praxis, conferring to it, Ricoeur writes, “an initial readability”.69 Gadamer sums up this idea: “The work of art transforms our fleeting experience into the stable and lasting form of independent and internally coherent creation.”70 The process of emplotment extracts a stable and intelligible ‘story’ from the particularities of human action. By outlining the framework within which human action takes place, the plot offers a possibility to represent and make sense of this action itself. As such, the poetic configuration has a power to reveal new insights into our lives and actions, and even a power to change them, insofar as “a life thus examined is a life changed.”71 Poetic imitation in this sense is a circular process, revolving around the mediating function of mythos. By articulating our horizon of understanding, the mythos establishes a possibility to reflect on ourselves, at the same time revealing and transforming our world. Mimesis of praxis, thus, is not “the inert transmission of some already dead deposit of material, but the living transmission of an innovation always capable of being reactivated by a return to the most creative moments of poetic activity.”72

Poiesis Semper, in one of his late essays, asked the following fundamental question: “In a most general way, what is the material and subject matter of all artistic endeavour?” He answered the question himself: “I believe it is man in all his relations and connections to the world”.73 Semper’s emphasis on these ‘relations and connections’ brought him close to the Aristotelian notion of praxis. Rejecting a notion of art as a matter of 79

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formal composition, always insisting on its ethical significance and its power to embody human situations, Semper approached – if in a partial and inarticulate way – a poetics of architecture in the Aristotelian sense. Semper’s poetics may be explored by means of Ricoeur’s threefold mimetic process: the (partial) recognition of praxis, the poetic configuration of praxis, and, finally, the self-reflection and potential transformation of praxis. Semper identified two means by which the tacit background of human existence was brought to articulation: the ritual and the act of artistic making. These modes of representation were for Semper two primordial ways to order ‘reality into world’. Both ritual and artefact represent – although in different ways and to different degrees – an emplotment: a poetic configuration of reality into a structured representation. This affinity comes to expression most clearly in Semper’s notion of the artistic motif. Seen as the primordial reification of ritual action, the motif is precisely that poetic configuration of praxis into story that Ricoeur identified as emplotment. It being the rhythmic imitation of time embodied in weaving or the cultic gathering represented in hearth and altar, the motifs of art embody the situational structure of human action (Figure 25). In doing so, they establish a domain within which ethical orientation can take place. For Semper, art and architecture are meaningful by virtue of this capacity for poetic-mimetic representation. If we adopt Ricoeur’s (and Aristotle’s) terminology, therefore, Semper’s artistic motif can be described as a mediating link between praxis and its representation: the primary gathering of praxis into a plot or story. The role of the motif is to confer to praxis that ‘initial readability’ that Ricoeur wrote about, thus allowing a reflective distance to emerge through the poetic configuration. This is not a ‘denial’ of reality in a narrow sense.74 In fact, it is the opposite: a recognition of art and artistic making as the domain in which the ontological foundations of a human world first can be recognised.75 Art and architecture involve a constant interpretation and reappropriation of the latent significance of human praxis. Echoing Heidegger, Ricoeur notes that art, seen as poetic representation, approaches “the heart of reality which is no longer the world of manipulable objects, but the world into which we have 80

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Figure 25. Delphian sacrificial dance. Gottfried Semper, Der Stil (2nd ed. 1878), vol. 1, p. 24. Edinburgh University Library.

been thrown by our birth and within which we try to orient ourselves by projecting our innermost possibilities upon it, in order that we dwell there, in the strongest sense of the word.”76 Semper was, as we have seen, interested not so much in art and architecture as a formal product as he was in the process of making art. This was not a technical concern in the modern sense, although Der Stil undeniably ended up as something like a catalogue of techniques. I believe Semper’s notion of making has more in common with what Aristotle would call poiesis: a particular mode of making informed by a particular kind of knowledge. This poetic knowledge was precisely what Aristotle required of the poet: the capacity to recognise and represent the concealed unity of human action. Architecture, in Semper’s view, involves precisely such a ‘thoughtful making’: a making informed by 81

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Figure 26. Assyrian sacred tree. Gottfried Semper, Prolegomenon to Der Stil (2nd ed. 1878), vol. 1, p. 73. Edinburgh University Library.

the knowledge of human praxis, whose role it is to clarify and embody such praxis (Figure 26). Recognising architecture as mimesis of praxis in the Aristotelian sense, Semper approached a poetics of architecture. He recognised 82

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architecture as an embodiment of human actions and situations as they are situated in an ethical field, and found this representation to be crucial for man’s orientation in the world.77 Without this link to praxis – for Semper, guaranteed by the relative constancy of the artistic motifs – art and architecture would be unintelligible and meaningless. Semper’s famous declaration that “the haze of the carnival candles is the true atmosphere of art” may signify, therefore, something other than the aesthetic escapism that the passage is often taken to evoke.78 It may hint that the poetic essence of art – architecture included – lies in its capacity not to escape reality, but rather to render it visible through the mask of emplotment.79 In these first three chapters, we have seen how Semper redefined neoclassical origin theory, locating the origins of architecture in a creative principle rather than a formal model. Similarly, he redefined the idea of imitation from an emulation of ideal nature to a creative interpretation of human situations. He relied heavily on Goethe’s theory ¨ of metamorphosis and Botticher’s notion of architecture as a structural symbol, yet he refused to accept their conclusion that architecture is an autonomous imitation of itself. For Semper, architecture was meaningful only insofar as it retained its capacity to represent, in his own words, “man in all his connections and relations to the world.” It is this particular mode of representation that I have tried to elucidate by drawing on the Aristotelian notion of mimesis of praxis: art as the poetic configuration of a human world. Semper himself, however, never developed the poetics of architecture into more than scattered and ambiguous reflections. The factor that prevented him from pursuing this insight was, paradoxically, the very means by which he sought to realise it: his dream of a ‘method of invention’ or a ‘practical aesthetics’.

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emper’s sensitive recognition of the social and symbolic significance of architecture made the shortcomings of contemporary architectural discourse and practice all the more obvious to him. “Notwithstanding our many technical advances, we remain far behind them (our ancestors) in formal beauty, and even in the feeling for the suitable and the appropriate”, he wrote, a complaint frequently repeated throughout his work.1 Yet, the state of decay in the arts was not merely the fault of the artists. Semper saw the ‘Babel-like confusion’ confronting him at the Great Exhibition of 1851 as “nothing more than the clear manifestation of certain anomalies within existing social conditions, whose causes and effects up to now could not be seen by the world so generally and so distinctly.”2 Semper conceived the question of style not simply as an aesthetic problem, but also as a political, ethical, and philosophical issue with critical implications for contemporary society. The second step of Semper’s theoretical project was intended to address this critical state of affairs. He alleged that to counter the contemporary crisis, it was necessary to systematise architectural design into a “logical method of inventing”.3 Opposed to the “characterless schematism and thoughtless caprice”4 of the architecture of his day, Semper’s method was to teach how to “make artistic use of our social needs as factors in the style of our architecture in the same way as has been done in the past.”5 This procedure would contribute towards

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getting a clear insight over [art and architecture’s] whole province and perhaps also it would form the base of a doctrine of Style, and a sort of topic or Method, how to invent, which may guide us to find a more natural way of invention.6 The explicit aim of Semper’ Practical Aesthetics was to establish the methodology for this ambitious enterprise.7 Not merely a history of individual works, the practical aesthetics was to define the forces – historical, material, and spiritual – affecting the origin and development of art, and in this way prepare a systematic approach to artistic making.8 By means of the practical aesthetics, Semper attempted to turn art’s poetic-mimetic potential into a systematic procedure “that with a logical certainty would lead to true form”.9 I will trace this attempt through three steps: first, Semper’s theory of formal beauty, with its implied formalisation of the artistic motifs; second, his theory of symbolic form and its corresponding ideal of aesthetic autonomy; and third, his attempt to ‘factorialise’ the correspondence between art and society by means of a formula for style.

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Little discussed in contemporary scholarship, Semper’s theory of formal beauty [Theorie des Formell-Sch¨onen10 ] has often been regarded as irrelevant and incomprehensible – a curious mixture of Naturphilosophie and abstract aestheticism, with a rather dubious connection to Semper’s overall project. This judgement is undoubtedly caused by the obscurity of the theory itself. Deeply ambiguous and at times desperately tedious, Semper never managed to integrate it successfully into his main body of work. Nor, for that matter, did he complete it as a coherent argument. Although the theory of formal beauty enjoys a prominent presence in Semper’s writings, its various presentations are full of discrepancies, presenting considerable difficulties for the reader. Yet, it may be that these discrepancies – and the intellectual struggle that gave rise to them – should make us pay more attention rather than less, and that a 88

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Figure 27. The adornment of the human body: Egyptian necklaces. Gottfried Semper, Der Stil (2nd ed. 1878), vol. 1, p. 14. Edinburgh University Library.

reconsideration of the Theorie des Formell-Sch¨onen can yield new insight into Semper’s overall project. The most accessible introduction to Semper’s theory of for¨ mal beauty is found in his Zurich lecture, “Uber die formelle 11 Gesetzm¨assigkeit des Schmuckes”. The lecture begins in a familiar way, defining art as the means by which man imitates and appropriates the laws of nature.12 In this lecture, however, Semper wanted to probe deeper into the nature of this ‘cosmic’ law.13 With this in mind, he returned once again to the notion of the motif, in which such lawfulness manifests itself in its purest form. A formal analysis of the motifs, he suggested, might reveal the very principle of configuration in art and nature alike. Some of the simplest and most primordial examples of the artistic motifs were found in the adornment of the human body (Figures 27 and 28). Semper examined three categories of such adornment: the hanging [Behang], the encircling [Ring], and those that emphasise direction [Richtungsschmuck].14 The earring, for instance, is a Behang which adorns the body by acting as a reference to its totality.15 Although 89

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Figure 28. The adornment of the human body: Egyptian headdresses. Gottfried Semper, Der Stil (2nd ed. 1878), vol. 1, p. 198. Edinburgh University Library.

adorning only a small part of the body (i.e., the earlobe), the Behang establishes a local symmetry which contrasts with the body as a whole. In this way, it makes manifest the relationship between part and totality. As Semper lyrically described it: “Thus the ear-ring, by making manifest the vertical pull of gravity, accentuates the soft, . . . gravitydefying curve of the neck.”16 Originating in the universal human desire to imitate the wholeness of the cosmos, the Behang establishes the body as a dignified totality by means of a contrasting symmetry. The other categories of adornment work in similar ways but with different means. Whereas the ring emphasises the body’s proportionality (e.g., the arm-rings of the Assyrian warriors), the Richtungsschmuck emphasises direction and movement, as the seemingly weightless flight of garlands contrasts and heightens the body’s line of gravity (Figure 29).17 The three categories of adornment embody three particular motifs of art and represent, as such, three distinct kinds of order. So far, we are within the framework of Semper’s origin theory; however, in the attempt to establish a scientific basis for his practical aesthetics, Semper went one step further. He extracted from the motifs certain 90

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Figure 29. The adornment of the human body: Assyrian warrior with armrings. Gottfried Semper, Der Stil (2nd ed. 1878), vol. 1, p. 22. Edinburgh University Library.

principles of configuration which, in turn, could serve as axioms for a ‘science of design’. The symmetry of the Behang, the proportionality of the ring, and the directional order of the Richtungsschmuck were for Semper more than genres of decoration. They represented universal 91

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principles of configuration [Gestaltungsmomente], governing artistic as well as natural form.18 On the basis of these three principles – symmetry, proportionality, and directionality – Semper set out to establish his theory of formal beauty. The importance of the Gestaltungsmomente is confirmed in the Prolegomenon to Der Stil and in “Attributes of Formal Beauty”.19 In these essays, Semper applied a considerably more abstract approach, expanding the scope of his survey from works of art to phenomena of nature. If we follow the progressing complexity of natural form from the crystal through to man, he suggested, we can trace the universal principles of configuration from their most basic forms to their highest manifestation.20 Whereas in the essay on adornment, the Gestaltungsmomente were closely linked to the ritual origins of the motif, Semper now presented them as purely formal principles. Instead of Behang, Ring, and Richtungsschmuck, he now referred strictly to the principles of configuration: symmetry, proportionality, and directionality. His aim, he told his readers, was to “examine the formal laws and logic noticeable in the creation of artistic works . . . , to comprehend the laws of beauty in general and artistic beauty in particular by a purely empirical method.”21 Semper started his investigation in the Prolegomenon by looking at the simplest natural form: the “absolute, all-embracing uniformity [of ] the circle”.22 The circle and the sphere are examples of a symmetrical Gestaltungsmoment, displaying a radial symmetry by Semper labelled ‘eurythmy’.23 This radial order is primarily manifest in crystalline structures such as snow crystals and minerals, but is also found in organic beings; for instance, in the cross section of the stem of a plant (Figure 30).24 Eurythmic configurations are ordered around a central point and appear as self-sufficient wholes: Their character . . . is perfect regularity, . . . in a sense they are true worlds within worlds because they isolate themselves completely from the universe, are self-sufficient, and by their form express the possibility of existing without the outer world.25 92

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Figure 30. The eurythmic principle of configuration as found in flowers and snow crystals. Gottfried Semper, Prolegomenon to Der Stil (2nd ed. 1878), vol. 1, pp. xxv–vi. Edinburgh University Library.

As self-sufficient and isolated ‘worlds’, these formations do not refer to a larger whole, but rather establish themselves as independent microcosms.26 This character of wholeness is crucial for their application in art. The wreath which crowns the human head and the circular 93

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Figure 31. Axial symmetry as found in natural form. Gottfried Semper, Prolegomenon to Der Stil (2nd ed. 1878), vol. 1, p. xxxi. Edinburgh University Library.

enclosure erected around the hearth are both manifestations of microcosmic eurythmy, expressing “the absolute concept of encirclement symbolically, and therefore allud[ing] to the encircled as the proper object, and the centre of the eurythmic order”.27 One by one, and in obsessive detail, Semper examined the Gestaltungsmomente and their manifestations in nature as well as art. Axial symmetry, found in higher organisms like plants and animals, is a manifestation of the relationship between part and whole, Semper explained (Figure 31).28 It is a macrocosmic principle of configuration which always refers to a larger whole.29 The same is the case for the principle of proportion, whose domain is the orderly relationship between parts.30 Semper’s use of the terms ‘microcosm’ and ‘macrocosm’ echoed a long intellectual tradition. The idea of the human body as a mikros kosmos – a ‘little world’ which participates in and makes manifest a larger whole – is ancient, running through Greek philosophy as well as Christian theology as a fundamental paradigm of order.31 In this tradition, the 94

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microcosm of the body was understood as an analogous representation of a cosmic whole, mediating between the universal and the particular.32 As presented by Semper, however, microcosmic theory was radically transformed. From being a means of expressing the link between the part and the whole, microcosm was now understood as a completely self-sufficient configuration, constituted by the immanent interaction of Gestaltungsmomente. Semper was not alone in this conceptual shift. He appealed, among others, to his contemporary, Adolf Zeising, whose Neue Lehre von den Proportionen des menschlichen K¨orpers (1854) described the human body as a ‘Bild der Gottheit’ and as a paradigm of beauty in art.33 Although Zeising still appealed to the old idea of beauty as a manifestation of the good, his analysis in fact rendered beauty a purely formal phenomenon, constituted by symmetry and proportion. Drawing on Goethe’s organicism, Zeising’s aesthetic morphology sought to establish principles for aesthetic-organic configurations.34 He viewed these configurations as autonomous and self-sufficient wholes or microcosms, completely separated from any macrocosmic reference.35 August Wilhelm Schlegel provides the most coherent summing up of this attitude and brings us back to the question of architecture: In the animal world . . ., perfect symmetry announces a complete and independent, autonomous whole, ‘a small world’, and in architecture the appearance of wholeness is brought about in a similar way. Only in this way is the work recognised and isolated qua work: i.e., as the realisation of a unique and indivisible plan.36 Schlegel’s notion of the microcosm of art comes close to Semper’s own idea of the crystal as a mikros kosmos. Both form an alternative and autonomous order with no relation to a reality outside itself. No longer signifying mimetic participation, microcosm has come to mean a self-sufficient whole, constituting “true worlds within worlds”.37 A similar transformation is apparent in Semper’s use of the term ‘macrocosm’. Traditionally signifying the whole – that is, the paradigm for microcosmic imitation – in Semper it became itself a mode of 95

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representation: a reference of the part to the whole. In this sense, his notion of macrocosmic order actually resembles the traditional notion of microcosm: “the reference to the relationship between the particular and the universal”.38 The immanent notion of microcosm came to its most explicit expression in Semper’s analysis of the third Gestaltungsmoment: the principle of directionality. There are three directional forces working on all phenomena, Semper explained. The simplest and most primordial is the force of gravity, which constitutes a constant pull downwards. The second – rather loosely defined – is the “willpower of the living organism.”39 This is not a Schopenhauerian Wille, but simply the direction of movement: vertical in plants and horizontal in most animals, including humans.40 Working counter to both gravity and willpower, moreover, is a third direction: the vital force [Lebenskraft]. Semper insisted that this is the predominant direction of the organism, working horizontally in most animals and vertically in man, coinciding with their respective axis of growth [Gestaltungsachsen].41 Against the inevitable burden of gravity, then, living beings put up two modes of resistance: the axes of will and growth. These axes take on different characteristics in different kinds of beings. In fish, for instance, the directions of growth and will coincide: the only conflict of forces active here is between the vertical line of gravity and the horizontal direction of movement and growth, a relationship manifested in the unidirectional shape of the fish head.42 In man, on the other hand, each of the three axes has its own direction. His vital force points vertically upwards, his direction of will moves horizontally along, and the force of gravity pulls him downwards. This coordinate system of forces is manifested most clearly in the human head, Semper argued, where the vertical axis stands perpendicular to the direction of the eyes, ears, and mouth (Figure 32). The head, as the manifestation (or, using Semper’s terminology, the ‘authority’43 ) of direction, represents “the high symbol of absolute free will, equally independent of selfpreservation and material constraints.”44 The principle of directionality sums up Semper’s theory of formal beauty. The three Gestaltungsmomente constitute a field of forces in which individual forces interact with each other.45 Both natural and 96

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Figure 32. The human head as a manifestation of the equilibrium of forces. Gottfried ¨ Geschichte Semper, sketch of a woman’s head from the Parthenon Frieze. Institut fur ¨ und Theorie der Architektur (gta), ETH Zurich.

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Figure 33. The human body as a manifestation of the equilibrium of forces. Gottfried ¨ Semper, sketch of female figures from the Parthenon, eastern pediment. Institut fur ¨ Geschichte und Theorie der Architektur (gta), ETH Zurich.

artificial configurations are formed by this ‘conflict of forces’.46 Like Schelling, who proclaimed that “What we call matter is nothing but force”,47 Semper presented Gestalt as a hierarchical system of forces.48 In the lowest manifestations of inorganic form, the three Gestaltungsmomente are not individually manifest, but rather “converge into a single moment”.49 From the nondirectional centre of gravity in the crystal to the axiality of most plants, and further to the three-dimensional organisation of the animal, the principles of configuration evolve gradually from simple to complex. This evolution culminates in the human body, where the three axes of gravity, growth, and will are all distinctly present, forming a three-dimensional vector system corresponding to the three spatial dimensions (Figure 33).50 The interaction between these independently articulated forces is what defines formal beauty: “not so much an attribute of the work as an effect, in which the most diverse moments within and without the object . . . are simultaneously active”.51 These ‘moments’ (or principles), moreover,

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are ‘absolutely formal’: . . . that is to say, they adhere to the abstract and formal attributes of the finished phenomenon; they exclude as foreign all that is extrinsic to the phenomenon, everything that does not relate to it directly, in particular the development in history and the differences in material.52 Understanding beauty as the interrelation of formal Gestaltungsmomente, Semper developed an aesthetic theory in which all Gestalt – natural or artificial – can be seen as the autonomous result of a formal configuration.53 In Semper’s opinion, the three Gestaltungsmomente – symmetry, proportionality, and directionality – together form a complete whole and are the exclusive factors of formal beauty. Just as it is impossible to envision a fourth dimension of space, he argued, it is “impossible to add a fourth quality homogeneous with the three mentioned above.”54 This prompts a question, however: If Gestalt is the manifestation of inner forces, and if the same forces are at work in all phenomena, natural or manmade, why do these forces manifest themselves so differently in different things? For Semper, the answer was inevitable: The inner forces manifest themselves differently according to the purpose of the configuration. In addition to the Gestaltungsmomente themselves, therefore, there is something guiding their interaction. This, Semper conceded, is a fourth and superior principle of configuration: The fourth element is the cardinal point of the phenomenon; it is the phenomenon’s purpose. The quality of beauty that arises from the interaction and orderly arrangement of the parts of the phenomenon around this fourth center is fitness of content [Inhaltsangemessenheit].55 Fitness of content, as Semper explained further, arises from the “harmonious interaction of these different factors, making the whole

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appear as unity of purpose [Zweckeinheit]”.56 To achieve this unity is the ultimate aim of the collaboration of the three Gestaltungsmomente, and the telos of the organism as a whole. The significance of this notion of purpose becomes clearer if we look at how it manifests itself. As long as the purpose differs for different kinds of beings, so will the means by which this purpose is expressed. The purpose of minerals and crystals, for instance, is limited to their actual Gestalt, determined by the indifferent point of gravity. Radial symmetry is, therefore, an adequate manifestation of the purpose of the crystal, making its ‘authority of purpose’ identical to the ‘authority of symmetry’; namely, the formal accentuation of the centre.57 The same is the case for some plant and animal formations, Semper explained, and even for simple architectural forms like the pyramid and the obelisk, where purpose is manifested simply through formal regularity (Figure 34).58 For higher plants and animals, the expression of purpose is more complex. In these configurations, the interaction between different forces constitutes a unique Gestalt with a particular character. In more complex plants, this character is usually constituted by means of proportion, which serves as “the reflector of the unit of purpose”.59 In other animals (‘snake, pike, the stag’) and in industrial objects (‘the fast sailing ship, the war chariot, the tobacco pipe’), the directional authority is dominant.60 Only in man and his works, however, does the manifestation of purpose reach its full complexity: Here . . . the unit of purpose is reflected in the most noble and expressive way because two authorities, the microcosmic and the directional, jointly reflect it. The way in which the authority of purpose appears in the Greek temple is analogous to the way it appears in man: the crowning pediment is the proportional dominant part and, at the same time, the reflector of the approaching sacrificial procession of the Hellenes.61 In the particular beauty that emerges when something is fit to its purpose, the purely formal configuration is sublimated into an expression of goodness and truth. In Semper’s words, “Fitness of content 100

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Figure 34. The eurythmic principle of configuration as found in architectural form. Gottfried Semper, Der Stil (2nd ed. 1878), vol. 2, p. 360. Edinburgh University Library.

adds to formal beauty the attribute of goodness; in other words, it is what the Greeks called ‘callogathia’”.62 Although the Gestaltungsmomente of symmetry, proportion, and direction are purely formal, their purposeful interaction transcends the aesthetic sphere and is sublimated 101

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into the domain of ethics. This is the highest level of formal beauty in which pure Gestalt takes on the role of a moral symbol. Semper is here at his most impenetrable, leaving the reader to extrapolate his half-developed notions and contradictory distinctions. Still, some conclusions can be drawn. Semper presented purposiveness as a result of the interaction of the Gestaltungsmomente. Purpose, in other words, is no longer understood as ‘that for the sake of’, but rather as an immanent property of form. This immanentisation of purpose is perhaps the most critical implication of Semper’s theory of formal beauty. It prepares a notion of art as an autonomous microcosm: an aesthetic totality with its own organic principles of configuration, separated from human reality in everything but as a formal symbol. This line of argument is close to modern aesthetics as it had culminated in Kant, and I will return to its significance in later chapters. A more immediate question must be addressed first, however – namely, of how it was possible for Semper to reconcile his theory of formal beauty with his anthropological notion of architectural origins. How could the motif – understood as mimesis of praxis – suddenly be equated with a system of forces and seen as a product of formal laws? Although Semper never answered this question satisfactorily, he did make some interesting attempts, the most coherent of which is found in his theory of symbolic form.

T H E T H E O RY O F S Y M B O L I C F O R M A N D T H E A E S T H E T I C E V O L U T I O N O F A RT

Semper made several attempts at classifying and systematising the notion of symbol. In his London lectures, for instance, he drew a threefold distinction between ‘natural’, ‘technical’, and ‘mystical’ symbols.63 Natural symbols, he explained, “are derived from analogies in nature and [are] self-understanding [sic] for every one who has some feeling for nature and the dynamical significance of natural forms”.64 The motifs of art – e.g., the wreath, the knot, the bead – are all examples of such natural symbols: primordial manifestations of the human Nachahmungstrieb.65 Technical symbols are closely related to their 102

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natural counterparts, permeating works of art and industry as faint traces of old techniques and materials.66 The translation of the motif of binding into the stylised mouldings of architecture or furniture offers a good example of technical symbols: the gradual modification of natural symbols into conventional representations of construction. If natural and technical symbols form a harmonious synthesis, the last category fits more uneasily into the triad. This is what Semper called mystical or tendentious [tendezi¨ose] symbols. These were not “intended to be of general understanding”, he explained, but were “composed on mystical types, comprehensible only to those who were initiated into the secrets of religion.”67 The mystical symbols are conventional signs, referring to “the special destination [sic] of the building or to the God of the temple and the religion of the founders.”68 In most preclassical art, however, conventional symbols cannot be singled out as an independent set of signs, but rather are merged with natural and technical symbols. In Assyrian art, for example, free art had not yet emancipated itself from utility and technique.69 Its animal-head furniture, bullneck capitals, caryatids, and colossi all merge natural, technical, and mystical symbolism in a manner paradigmatic for primitive art (Figure 35).70 Notwithstanding its symbolic value, the preclassical synthesis of tendentious and natural symbolism was a fragile one. In Egyptian art, for instance, Semper claimed that natural symbolism had been altogether suppressed “by that mystical symbolism which had been expressly invented by the priestly foundations . . . so as not to be understood by the vulgars and forming the hieratical language intelligible for priests only.”71 The ‘hieratical Pharaoh style’ substituted natural symbols for conventional hieroglyphs.72 So, while the natural symbol is a presentation of its own essence, the tendentious symbol is merely an allegorical representation of external ideas. In drawing this distinction, Semper aligned himself with German idealist aesthetics. Goethe, for instance, saw the allegory as a questionable form whose alien content threatened the purity of art.73 Herder proclaimed symbolic (as opposed to allegorical) representation as the only truly artistic form, in which the artwork signified nothing but itself.74 The symbol was seen as an immediate Wesensschau and the work of art as a “self-expressing Gestalt symbol”.75 Karl Philipp Moritz summed 103

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Figure 35. Persian bullneck capital. Gottfried Semper, Der Stil (2nd ed. 1878), vol. 1, p. 358. Edinburgh University Library.

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up this line of thinking: The figure, insofar as it is beautiful, should signify nothing and speak of nothing which is external, but speak only of itself. Its external surface should speak of its inner essence and only thus be significant. True beauty consists in this; that a thing means only itself, signifies only itself, and comprises only itself; that it is in itself a complete whole.76 The distinction between symbol and allegory would become a powerful conceptual tool for the emerging discipline of art history. Whereas preclassical art had not yet been emancipated from its allegorical fetters, art at its highest stage was freed from external concepts and dedicated to pure beauty. The development from allegorical to symbolic art could be construed in terms of a historical evolution, describing the rise and fall of civilisations according to their degree of aesthetic autonomy. Semper eagerly adopted this line of argument. Although the preclassical merging of natural and tendentious symbols (or, to put it in other words, of symbolic and allegorical modes of representation) was interesting in a historiographical sense, it was still immature with respect to formal beauty.77 He argued that the Egyptians, in their attempt to represent an extra-aesthetic content in tangible form, were “sinning against the rules of formal beauty”.78 The tendentious content of Egyptian art prevented it from achieving aesthetic perfection. Only in classical art would such a fulfilment take place; only here did art emancipate itself from tendentious allegories and realise itself as formal beauty. According to Semper, Greek art was completely emancipated from all elements [external to itself ] as a beauty whose only purpose is itself. This emancipation from the nonformal elements of form . . . was the constant aspiration of Greek art, in big and in small.79 Unlike Assyrian art, in which representations of plants and animals still carried a mystical meaning, the Greeks had disentangled the double 105

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Figure 36. The Greek cyma as structural symbol. Gottfried Semper, sketch from Karl ¨ ¨ Geschichte und Theorie der Botticher’s Die Tektonik der Hellenen (1852). Institut fur ¨ Architektur (gta), ETH Zurich.

symbolism of their ancestors and adopted their motifs in a purely aesthetic-structural manner.80 Greek art, as Herder put it, “had been made to speak as art, without alien attributes”.81 Semper used the Greek cyma moulding as an example of such aesthetic purification (Figure 36). ¨ In the cyma, he explained (with an unmistakable reference to Botticher), mystical meaning was shed for a pure expression of the “conflict between the vital force and gravity”.82 Only with this aesthetic emancipation could art become truly organic, he insisted.83 ‘Barbaric’ art, on the other hand, would always remain an ‘aggregate’ in which “the elements of structure and decoration are joined in a more or less inorganic, almost mechanical way”.84 Emancipated from any outer purpose, Greek art had been ‘spiritualised’ [Vergeistigert] into a formal-aesthetic 106

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equilibrium of forces, governed by the laws of formal beauty and composed by means of symmetry, proportion, and direction. As a spiritualisation [Vergeistigung] of traditional motifs of art, Greek architecture displays a ‘purposiveness without purpose,’ and presents as such a universal expression of formal beauty.85 By construing architectural history as a gradual spiritualisation of the motifs of art, Semper established an important vehicle for his practical aesthetics. Although originating in the mimesis of praxis, art at its highest stage metamorphoses into a purely formal beauty, in which its reference to praxis has been fully spiritualised. This spiritualisation or sublimation takes place through a historical evolution whereby the origin of art in praxis is gradually reified as pure form. Such a formalisation was a necessary presupposition for the practical aesthetics. Only if it is possible to extract positive laws of configuration from the motifs of art could a method of invention be formulated. Far from an isolated oddity in Semper’s texts, therefore, the theory of formal beauty with its accompanying notion of symbolic representation forms an integral part of the practical aesthetics. THE FORMULA FOR STYLE

If the theory of formal beauty defined the formal laws governing the artistic motifs, it was clearly not enough to explain the complex phenomenon of art. To do so, it would be necessary to grasp not only the formal configuration of the motif, but also the way this configuration was modified according to particular circumstances. The theory of formal beauty, thus, was merely the first step towards a practical aesthetics. Recognising that the work of art was not merely Gestalt, but also a cultural product, Semper admitted that his practical aesthetics was incomplete without a theory of style that could comprehend in detail the law-like character [Gesetzlichkeit] that becomes apparent in art during the process of becoming, to deduce generally valid principles from what one has found, and in accordance with them to establish the basic features of an empirical theory of building.86 107

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Such a theory should not only consider the demands of Gestalt, but should also deal with more unruly factors such as cultural conditions and historical change. A theory of style must consider all these factors, including the way they interacted in the work of art. By means of this theory, Semper wanted to explain the “correspondence of an art object with its genesis, with all the preconditions and circumstances of its becoming”.87 The task of the practical aesthetics was to map this correspondence and to establish a method by which to “identify the different values of a [mathematical] function composed of many variable coefficients, . . . primarily with the intention of revealing the inner necessity that governs the world of artistic form, as it does nature.”88 Semper’s practical aesthetics, then, presented the relationship between formal laws, cultural praxis, and architectural representation as a mathematical function, in which art is understood as a product of a functional relationship between verifiable coefficients. Any work of art could be seen as “the uniform result or function of several variable values that unite in certain combinations and form the coefficients of a general equation.”89 These ‘certain combinations’ could be expressed by the formula U = C(x,y,z,t,v,w . . . ). Semper further explained that As soon as one of these coefficients changes, the result U must also be different and must in its general appearance show a distinct character that distinguishes it from other closely or distantly related results. Where this is not the case and where the result does not show modifications that correspond to the changed elements making up the function, there it is false and lacking in quality.90 Let us take a closer look at these coefficients of style. As we have already seen, U stands for the ‘result’: the work of art or, more correctly, the style that unites the individual works into a coherent cultural phenomenon. Semper defined style as “giving emphasis and artistic significance to the basic idea and to all intrinsic and extrinsic coefficients that modify the embodiment of the theme in a work of art.”91 The formula for style was supposed to define the way in which these coefficients work together. The functional expression – the C in Semper’s 108

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formula – is the mathematical expression of the relationship between the coefficients. It is an expression of the essential mode of creation, comprising all aspects that could affect the work of art, architecture, or craft.92 The variables, Semper declared, are of two kinds: . . . first, those elements that are contained, as it were, in the work itself and that comply with certain compelling natural and physical laws that are the same under all circumstances and at all times; second, those elements that have an influence on the genesis of the work of art from the outside.93 Among the first kind – the ‘inner necessities’ – Semper emphasised first and foremost the purpose of the work.94 Also belonging to this class are the formal, material, and technical aspects that constitute the artefact. Although Semper does not say so explicitly, it should be clear that these inner coefficients have much in common with the Gestaltungsmomente encountered in the theory of formal beauty, whose harmonious interaction constitutes the purposiveness of the work of art. Seen as natural and a-historical, the Gestaltungsmomente exercise the same claim on the artist at all times and in all cultures, constituting stable and unchanging inner coefficients of art.95 The external variables of style are more multifarious: “to be taken into account first are local . . . influences and factors, such as climate, topography, national education, political-religious and social institutions, historical memories and traditions”, Semper explained.96 Also included among them is the personal contribution of the artist: “the artist’s hand, his individual taste and artistic attitude.”97 This category of coefficients comprises the historical variables of style, changing with time and circumstance and effecting the historical transformation of the motifs through time.98 The formula for style attempted to account for all these coefficients and to define their interrelation in order to determine the correct or incorrect correspondence between an artwork and its origins. With this device, Semper could, among other things, ‘prove’ the inadequacy of contemporary eclectics, because they had failed to let the change in the variables produce a change in the final result. In other words, they had failed to let style be the outcome of contemporary 109

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conditions. Semper had produced a kind of ultimate test for rating the truth content of architecture, and was indeed approaching the ‘fundamental principle for invention’ that he had sought for so long.99 Semper never attempted to implement the formula directly. He saw it as a ‘crutch’, an idealised expression for the complex reality of art.100 Even on an analogical level, however, the formula reveals an ambitious dream: that of capturing the history of art as a system in which all components are fully accessible to the historian. This dream presupposes a transparency of history and culture, implying that if one only understands society well enough, one can calculate its artistic expression – and vice versa: from a given style one can deduce the cultural conditions that produced it. Art, then, becomes a document of cultural history, “an account”, as Semper wrote, “of the state of civilisation and of the character of bygone generations, like the fossil shells and the coral trees give us an account of the low organisations, which once inhabited them.”101 An extraordinary example of this idea of correspondence between artistic expression and cultural conditions is found in Semper’s wellknown comparison between the Egyptian situla and the Greek hydria (Figure 37). Both are ceramic vessels made to collect and carry water; yet, they utilise the formal and purposive repertoire of art in very different ways. Shaped to fetch water from the shallow banks of the Nile, the situla is vertical and smooth with a simple form. It has a low balancing point and a slender, hinged handle, making it suitable to carry on a yoke – a feature confirmed in its lack of a foot or base. The significance of these features transcends a purely functional level, however. The rounded, drooping vessel of the situla is typical of the monolithic and unidirectional Gestaltungsmoment that in Semper’s view characterises Egyptian art. In the hanging vessel, the three axes governing Gestalt were not yet fully and freely expressed, but rather compressed into a simple manifestation of gravity. This corresponds, Semper implied, to the hierarchical structure of Egyptian society, with its principle of subordination and religious dogmatism. The Greek hydria, on the other hand, with its upward-striving posture and articulated foot and mouth, represents the three directional forces in their full articulation. The hydria was shaped to fetch 110

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Figure 37. Greek hydria and Egyptian situla. Gottfried Semper, Der Stil (2nd ed. 1878), vol. 2, p. 4. Edinburgh University Library.

water from springs rather than riverbeds; hence, its generously receiving mouth (Figure 38). It was meant to be carried on the head rather than on a yoke; hence, its stable proportions and its wide foot. Yet, the hydria does more than simply fulfil its function. The Gestalt of the vessel takes on the role as a ‘national emblem’, signifying the moral perfection of Greek art and society alike.102 Semper enthusiastically espoused the value of the hydria at the expense of its Egyptian counterpart: In what meaningful way did this insignificant artwork express symbolically the floating spirit and clear essence of the spring-loving Greeks; compared to the situla, in which . . . gravity and equilibrium created a quite opposite expression, yet no less representative of the spirit of the Egyptian people . . . The essence of all Egyptian architecture seems to be contained within this product of the Nile, like in an embryo, a relationship equally apparent between the form of the hydria and certain types of Doric architecture!103 111

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Figure 38. Greek women carrying hydrias. Gottfried Semper, Der Stil (2nd ed. 1878) vol. 2, p. 5. Edinburgh University Library.

In this curious attempt at finding formal equivalents for moral factors, the underlying assumptions of Semper’s practical aesthetics become clear. The meaning of the artwork is a property of its formal Gestalt. Art’s capacity for representation has become a matter of correspondence between formal and sociocultural factors, a correspondence that, in turn, has been sublimated into a moral symbol. In Semper’s theory of style, the artwork is reduced to a passive Ab-bild – it merely corresponds to the given conditions of society.104 Even when Semper incorporated spiritual and ideal factors in his formula for style, these had themselves been quantified into ‘factors’ corresponding to tangible artistic expressions. As Stockmeyer writes, “In place of an ideal concept of purpose . . ., the things are explained with reference only to themselves, according to the law of cause and effect . . . History-writing becomes a ‘Géometrie des forces’.”105 Semper’s reading of the situla and hydria was based on comparison as a methodological tool. A comparative method, needless to say, relies on the availability of commensurable entities. Semper had established this commensurability in his theory of formal beauty and refined it in the formula for style. By presenting the artwork as a result of the lawful 112

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interaction of coefficients, the formula for style made it possible to compare art through time and place. The formula itself – the basic interrelation between coefficients, that is – remains the same throughout time. The ‘result’ of the formula, thus, is the commensurable outcome of a standard set of relations. Architectural styles from different historical epochs can be understood as commensurable phenomena insofar as they can all be reduced to the same equation. As products of the same functional relationship, their difference is merely a product of the varying influence of historically determined coefficients. The formula was an attempt to find an expression for style in which the variety of elements constituting it, as well as the products resulting from it, could be presented in a clear and commensurable way.

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k “In raschem Siegeslauf hat die vergleichende Methode ein Gebiet des Erkennens nach dem anderen ihrer Herrschaft unterworfen und mit wie herrlichem Erfolg.” E. Zitelmann 1

S

emper’s practical aesthetics involved several methodological steps. If the theory of formal beauty explained the ‘intrinsic coefficients’ of art, and the formula for style explained their modification by particular historical conditions, one step was still missing: a way to understand the correspondence between style and society as it unfolds through history. Missing, in other words, was an overall matrix in which individual historical moments could be coordinated into a comprehensive system of world history. If this could be achieved, it would be possible to explain the correspondence between artistic form and social-material conditions throughout history – for the first time establishing a complete and systematic science of the origin and development of art. Looking for precedents for this ambitious project, Semper found contemporary human sciences in a deplorable state. In his view, the lack of proper methodology had made the study of man a “chaos of facts and experiences” accumulated “without coherence or principles”.2 To counter this confusion, Semper sought a method that could “find again those connections between the things, and . . . transform into an organic system of comparison what was before only an exterior 114

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and more or less arbitrary system of coordination and of exterior order.”3 Such a move from an ‘analytic’ to a ‘synthetic’ science, he argued, had already been achieved in a few other disciplines: Philosophy, history, politics and a few other branches of the natural sciences were raised to [the] comparative viewpoint by the great men of the past centuries, while in the other sciences, because of the abundance and complexity of their material, inferences only timidly begin to join with research.4 In Semper’s opinion, comparison was the methodological device capable of elevating the history of art to a proper science: “The comparative method applied to the study of the history of art is the only way to achieve a true knowledge and appreciation of these important moments of the monumental style”.5 He was not alone in making this appeal. The comparative method had been celebrated as the nineteenth century’s ‘ruler of science’6 and the means by which the ‘individual event’ of history and culture could be lifted “up to the level of more general truths”.7

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Semper’s dream of establishing a comparative science of architecture was not without precedents. To order historical samples chronologically and to compare them according to scale was a strategy applied already by Serlio, Palladio, and Scamozzi, to mention but a few.8 These early comparative histories were rather modest in scope, limiting themselves to a few building types and the geographical area of Europe. J. B. Fischer von Erlach (1656–1723) took a more comprehensive approach in his Entwurf einer historischen Architektur (1721), which has been called the first comparative world history of architecture (Figure 39).9 In the format of a picture book with short comments on each entry, Fischer von Erlach presented a broad selection of works both real and mythical: “the most noted buildings of foreign nations, both ancient and modern, taken from the most approv’d historians, 115

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Figure 39. Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, Entwurf einer historischen Architektur, Vienna 1721, book III, fol. XV. By permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.

original medals, remarkable ruins and curious authentick designs”.10 Providing a cross-cultural and transhistorical overview of architecture, Fischer von Erlach sought to demonstrate the existence of universal rules of symmetry and regularity that unite even the most diverse styles and customs.11 Despite its comparative ambitions, the Entwurf actually presented little by way of a systematic comparison. Fischer von Erlach focused on the individual qualities of each work rather than their common features. In this sense, his work had more in common with the baroque WunderKammer than with a modern collection, emphasising each object’s emblematic meaning rather than the internal logic of the collection 116

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itself.12 Throughout the eighteenth century, this focus would change. Julien-David Leroy (1724–1803), for example, used comparison as a vehicle for a systematic historiography in his Les Ruines des plus beaux monuments de la Gr`ece (1758). Leroy’s focus was no longer on the emblematic value of the works depicted, but rather on the relationship between them: “My aim in measuring the monuments was primarily to find out the relationship of different Greek monuments among themselves and with those of the peoples who came before and after them in the mastery of the fine arts, as well as the relationship of Greek monuments with those described by Vitruvius.”13 This principle is illustrated in Leroy’s famous table (Figure 40), which shows the historical development of Egyptian, Phoenician, Christian, Greek, and Roman temples.14 Here, we see architecture evolve from the simple to the complex in a series of typological transformations: a model that would have radical implications for the way architectural history was conceived. As Bergdoll points out: “The Greek temple was no longer the inviolable type of perfection, but rather a moment of harmony and perfection on a longer developmental continuum. While Leroy was not the first to create such plates lining up histories of building types by floor plan, he was the first to use them as the basis for a theory of comparative architectural history.”15 With Leroy, comparison had become an instrument by which to measure historical development and to classify works of architecture according to evolutionary lines of progress or decay. Semper did not refer to Leroy when seeking precedents for his own Vergleichende Baulehre. However, he did appeal to the work of one of Leroy’s students: Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand (1760–1834), whose books he found “remarkable for the comparing idea which they contain”.16 “The Frenchman Durand came closest . . . to this goal”, Semper wrote; namely, “the reunification of arbitrarily separated doc´ trines into a general theory of building”.17 A lecturer at the new Ecole Polytechnique, Durand had radicalised the comparative matrix of his mentor and made an unprecedented attempt to systematise architectural history and design.18 His Recueil et Parall`ele des édifices de tout genre, anciens et modernes (1799) aimed to provide a complete and instant insight into architectural history by surveying “all building types throughout all times and in all societies.”19 Like Leroy, Durand presented 117

Figure 40. The historical development of temples. Julien-David Leroy, Les Ruines des plus beaux monuments de la Gr`ece (2nd ed. 1770), fol. 1. By permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.

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Figure 41. Comparison of Greek and Egyptian temples. Claude-Nicolas-Louis Durand, Recueil et Parall`ele des edifices en tout genre, anciens et modernes (1799–1801). fol. 1, Brussels edition, undated. Glasgow University Library, Department of Special Collections.

the works in parallel rows of plans, sections, and elevations, drawn to the same scale and sorted according to type (Figure 41).20 The drawings emphasised geometrical composition, carefully removing idiosyncratic features and standardising each design according to typological norms.21 By these means, Durand explained, one could “manifest . . . in the most evident way possible the spirit that reigns in these magnificent productions”.22 As Legrand explained in his introduction to the Recueil: The perfection of a correct system will here outshine every form of seduction which has prevailed in the absence [of such comparisons]. Defects will stand out all the more 119

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when placed in parallel with the purity of form, licences will be exposed for what they are in reality, and mixed genres, which have only an ambiguous character since they are composed of several others, will be side by side along with their constituent elements reproduced from the original monuments and will thus be exposed, either in borrowing their forms, or in bringing close together, often discordant parts.23 Although Durand based his comparative matrix on a notion of type, it was no longer the ideal type of his mentor, Leroy.24 Abandoning metaphysical notions of harmony and beauty, Durand understood the aim of architecture as to fulfil functional and representational demands with as much economy as possible.25 His ‘type’ was the geometric translation and optimisation of these demands. By systematically extracting and classifying such types from the history of architecture, the Recueil was to provide students of architecture with empirical standards for design. Durand’s most explicit attempt to move from a descriptive to a prescriptive theory of architecture came with Précis des Le¸cons d’architecture (1802–5).26 Written as a design manual for his students at the Polytechnique, the book analysed architectural form into its simplest components or ‘elements’ (e.g., the orders, arcades, gates),27 and mapped their combinations in architectural ‘parts’ like “porticoes, atriums, vestibules, interior and exterior stairs, rooms of every kind, courts, grottoes, and fountains” (Figure 42).28 Systematically progressing from the combination of elements into parts and parts into complete buildings, the Précis presented a step-by-step guide to architectural composition.29 According to Durand, the student of architecture must learn to “combine different elements among themselves, and . . . pass from there to different parts of the building, and from these parts to the whole – this is the path that one must follow if he desires to learn how to compose”.30 This gradual progress from simple to complex sums up the didactic program of the Précis. By means of typological standards, the architect could deduce the correct combination of elements and parts (Figure 43). For Durand, architectural composition had become an ars

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Figure 42. Parts of buildings: “Vestibules”. Claude-Nicolas-Louis Durand, Précis des Le¸cons d’architecture (2nd ed. 1819), fol. 10, Partie 2eme. By permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.

combinatoria governed by the demands of the type and the law of utility and economy.31 As he wrote: [Architecture is] the composition of the whole of buildings which is nothing other than the result of the assemblage of their parts. It is necessary to know the former before occupying oneself with the latter; as these parts are solely a compound of the basic elements of buildings, and as all particular principles must be derived after the study of general principles, it will be these basic elements that constitute the prime object of the architect’s study.32

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Figure 43. “Combinaisons verticales”. Claude-Nicolas-Louis Durand, Précis des Le¸cons d’architecture (2nd ed. 1819), fol. 4, Partie 2eme. By permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.

Semper found Durand’s practical ambitions compelling, and readily agreed that architecture could be classified according to its simplest elements.33 He might even have agreed with Durand’s definition of architecture as an ‘assemblage of . . . parts’ had it not been for their very different notions of the nature and interaction of these parts. For Durand, they were simply formal elements, stripped to a pure geometrical form and combined to fulfil a functional task. For Semper, on the other hand, they were the motifs of art: a primordial merging of functional needs and symbolic representation. Moreover, in Semper’s view, these parts were not simply assembled; rather, they were products of a complex interaction between historical and 122

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natural factors in a process he had tried to express in his algebraic formula for style. It was on this basis that Semper criticised Durand’s ‘inorganic’ approach and the ‘lifeless schematism’ resulting from it: “He loses himself into tabular formulas, he puts the things into rows and brings about a sort of alliance between them by mechanical ways instead of showing the organic laws by which they are connected together.”34 Despite these shortcomings, Semper recognised in Durand’s work the beginning of a new method of invention. He saw it as his task to complete a comparative science of architecture, for which Durand’s time ‘was not ripe’.35 However, this ambitious project required a new and advanced criterion for comparison, one that could replace Durand’s mechanistic typology with a new dynamic-organic notion of type. By means of this new tertium comparationis, Semper envisaged the possibility of moving from a static and artificial system of comparison to one that was comprehensive and natural. For this he sought his model – not in architectural theory, but rather in the new sciences of comparative anatomy and linguistics.

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Biological and evolutionary metaphors permeate Semper’s writings. Architecture grows like an organism, he implied, and should consequently be studied like one.36 It was this organic working of the work of art that he set out to analyse and systematise in the formula for style. The use of biological metaphors was hardly a novelty with Semper. It drew on the general rhetoric of German idealism and romanticism, particularly Goethe’s aesthetic organicism and Herder’s ‘vitalism of the mind.’37 Yet, when calling for an organic understanding of art, Semper did not refer to Goethe or Herder but rather, famously, to the French anatomist Georges Baron Cuvier (1769–1832). He sought “a method analogous to that which guided Cuvier in his comparative osteology, but applied to architecture”. Such a method, he continued, “will by necessity greatly facilitate an overall view of this field and . . . will also permit an architectural theory of invention to be based on it”.38 123

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c Biblioth`eque centrale Figure 44. Galérie d’anatomie comparée, Paris c. 1830.
M.N.H.N. Paris.

A contemporary of Durand in Paris, Cuvier has often been dismissed as a last ‘fixist’, uneasily situated between the class-based taxonomies of Linnaeus and Buffon and Darwin’s evolutionism.39 Far from being a reactionary leftover, however, Cuvier was situated at the very centre of biological research of his day, establishing the anatomical collection in the Jardin de Plantes (Figure 44) alongside such scholars as ´ Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829) and Etienne Geoffrey St-Hilaire (1772–1844). He was appointed professor of comparative anatomy in 1802, and published in 1805 his famous Le¸cons d’anatomie comparée, which Semper is reported to have had on his desk while writing Vergleichende Baulehre.40 The affinity between these two scholars ran deeper than Semper’s nostalgic memory of his strolls in the Jardin de Plantes.41 In fact, Cuvier’s comparative anatomy provided Semper with key aspects of his own comparative method.42 Although Cuvier has been celebrated as the father of comparative anatomy, comparison had already long served as a methodological 124

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principle in natural history. The novelty of Cuvier’s taxonomic system did not lie in the use of comparison per se, but rather in what was being compared. Whereas Carl Linnaeus (1707–78) had based his classification system on comparison between the number, form, and situation of plants’ reproductive organs, Cuvier ordered his tableau élémentaire according to the performance and interaction of different organs (Figure 45). He rejected Linnaeus’s taxonomy based on physical appearance and replaced it with one based “rather on the functions themselves” and their internal relations.43 Comparing functional relations rather than form, Cuvier arrived at a new notion of type: “an expression of definite and basic constant relationships in the structure of living things that are fixed and unalterable and upon which all knowledge of them depends.”44 According to this typology, the animal is an organism in which every part is functionally and structurally adjusted to one overall purpose: survival. The animal is defined by the relation and interaction between its organs, not the formal properties of the organs themselves.45 Cuvier’s new type, then, served as a paradigm according to which any living thing could be identified and categorised within a comparative matrix. Cuvier’s functional comparison radically expanded the taxonomy of Linnaeus. Comparison now needed to consider not only a selected part of a plant or animal’s organs, but also the total functional scheme of the organism. Cuvier’s new type established exemplary patterns for such schemes, and constituted not a formal but rather a functional-structural entity. This new typology meant that organisms could be compared according to relationships between parts rather than according to the character of the parts themselves. In this way, the difficult problem of qualitative judgement could be avoided, and biology could attain a new scientific legitimacy. As Cuvier wrote: “We are . . . able to establish certain laws which rule these relations and are employed like those which are determined by the general [mathematical] sciences”.46 Due to this methodological innovation, Cuvier asserted, “the history of animals no longer displays the arbitrary and irregular progress that it did twenty years ago; it has become a rational science.”47 By implying that the object of study – whether an animal organ or the whole animal – can be defined solely in relation to other organs 125

Figure 45. Comparative dissection drawings of fish stomachs. Georges Cuvier, Le¸cons d’anatomie comparée, Paris 1805, vol. 5, fol. XLIII. Glasgow University Library, Department of Special Collections.

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and animals within a comparative matrix, Cuvier’s comparative method introduced a new level of precision in biology. The qualitative aspect of life – that is, the contextual meaning of plants, animals, and men – could be absorbed into a functional scheme, governed by an overall purpose of survival. Based on a typology of fixed species and the principle of the correlation of parts, the palaeontologist could reconstruct an animal’s complete structure from “a single bone, from a single fragment of a bone: a method which has given such curious results when applied to fossilised animals.”48 From this point of view, the meaning of an animal was internalised and “present in its bones”, so to speak: a function of its own internalised functions.49 As Foucault points out: From Cuvier onwards, it is life in its non-perceptible, purely functional aspect that provides the basis for the exterior possibility of a classification. The classification of living beings is no longer to be found in the great expanse of order; the possibility of classification now arises from the depths of life, from those elements most hidden from view.50 The real novelty in Cuvier’s taxonomy was the ambition to establish a natural system of classification, capturing life itself in the comparative matrix. Linnaeus had never extended his ambitions this far, but had humbly declared that he sought only the “best artificial system possible”.51 Yet, artificial was not the same as arbitrary. Situated firmly within a baroque worldview, Linnaeus saw the study of nature as a study of a divine hierarchy and the naturalist as the “publisher and interpreter of the wisdom of God” (Figure 46).52 This task had certain inherent limits. Despite man’s privileged position in the hierarchy of beings, he cannot comprehend fully God’s plan. The world, Linnaeus declared, “is altogether made up of wonders, and displays such a degree of contrivance and perfection, as mortals can neither describe nor comprehend”.53 The only way men can approach this perfection is through signs and symbols: “all which appears manifests traces of divine wisdom and power”.54 The artificial taxonomy, therefore, is not only the only system available to man, it is also a meaningful emblem of God’s creation.55 From this point of view, the choice of the reproductive 127

Figure 46. Emblematic representation of nature. Frontispiece to Carl Linnaeus, Fauna Svecica, Stockholm 1761. Glasgow University Library, Department of Special Collections.

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organs as the tertium comparationis of botany was far from arbitrary. As the source of life and regeneration, these organs were emblems of God’s creation and potent symbols by which nature could be represented.56 Far from setting up a neutral and natural system of classification, Linnaeus aimed for an artificial and symbolic one. His ambition was never to equate reality with his system, but merely to represent it in a meaningful way. Only with Cuvier’s comparative anatomy do we see a system with the ambition to be natural, using the very principle of life as an index for classification. As Cassirer writes: “Systematic biology . . . as understood and practised by Cuvier, was no mere device of classification and arrangement that can be easily apprehended, but a disclosure of the very framework of nature herself.”57 Whereas Linnaeus’s taxonomy operated as an analogous and symbolically significant representation of a world order, Cuvier aimed to present reality directly, devoid of symbolic or mediating significance. With Cuvier, thus, the metaphorical and mediating significance of scientific representation is no longer recognised as legitimate, necessary, or real. This is perhaps why the taxonomic projects of Linnaeus and his contemporaries fell so soon into disrepute. They could suddenly be seen as systems of mere classification, and considered simply a first, primitive step towards a natural science of life.58 Cuvier, then, did not share Linnaeus’s notion of science as a means of representation. He expanded the ambitions on behalf of science into a dream of revealing the very essence of nature. This expansion – paradoxically – imposed a curious limitation in the scope of natural science. Because the comparative matrix was thought to be a comprehensive presentation of nature herself – not just an analogy, but also an equation of nature – it was forced to provide its full meaning, so to speak, from within. The metaphysical aspect of living creatures, their place and meaning within the great chain of being, was now compressed into the tableau élémentaire of the natural scientist.59 Life, as Foucault writes, had ceased to be addressed as an ontological mode and had become instead a functional definition – an autonomous and self-contained phenomenon that for the first time allowed for a biology: a science of life.60 The parallel between Cuvier and Semper is clear. Rejecting Durand’s formal type, Semper based his taxonomy of architecture on a 129

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functional-structural principle of comparison. Semper’s type, thus, like Cuvier’s, was not a formal but rather a functional entity, making it possible to compare functional relations rather than form. In Semper’s taxonomy, the artistic motifs played much the same role that the organs did in Cuvier’s anatomy: morphological units upon which a comparative matrix could be based. In a certain sense, Semper’s reinterpretation of Durand resembled Cuvier’s reinterpretation of Linnaeus: the transition from a comparison based on the appearance of parts to a comparison based on a set of internal relations. This transition may be seen as a move from an arithmetric to an algebraic understanding of systems, a development we encountered rather literally in Semper’s formula for style. By construing the work of art as an organism – a self-contained system understood as the interrelation of definable parts – the possibility for a complete and scientific knowledge of the architectural organism seemed to open up. Semper’s formula for style was an attempt to bring to visibility the organic workings of the coefficients of style. Cuvier’s anatomy and Semper’s practical aesthetics both rested on a powerful presupposition: that the processes of life and creation were – or at least could become – fully accessible to the scientist and the historian. Furthermore, they both believed that the purpose of the organism – whether natural or aesthetic – could be found within its constituent parts. This notion of organic systems had gained its philosophical justification in Kant’s teleology, presented in his Critique of Judgement.61 Kant’s question in his third Critique had been roughly the following: What is it that justifies us in seeing nature as a whole that assumes the form of a logical system?62 In the same way that he had traced the foundation of pure reason, he now set out to uncover the foundation for our empirical understanding of nature. Kant answered his own question by following the pattern from his two earlier Critiques. We can assume a lawfulness and purposiveness in nature, he declared, because our understanding itself requires it. Although we have no proper concept under which to subsume our empirical experience of nature – a requirement, Kant insisted, for knowledge proper – we nevertheless have certain ‘ideas’ of it.63 These ideas are strictly regulative; they do not provide any knowledge of nature as such, yet they allow us to investigate nature according to our own mode of understanding.64 130

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Regulative ideas, Kant explained, “are not created by nature, rather we question nature according to these ideas”.65 One of the regulative ideas facilitating our understanding of nature is the idea that nature is purposive; that is, that it works according to a plan.66 Yet, the fact that we have this idea does not mean that someone (e.g., God) has actually made the world in a purposeful manner.67 The idea of God serves only to symbolise the highest form of systematic unity to which empirical knowledge can be brought: the “purposive unity of things”.68 God – now understood as a regulative idea of the lawfulness and purposiveness of nature – is a property of our mental faculties, not a principle of nature an sich. As Kant summed up: This lawfulness is a formal purposiveness of nature that we simply assume in it; it provides no basis for a theoretical cognition of nature, nor for a practical principle of freedom, but it does give us a principle for judging and investigating nature: a principle by which to seek, for particular experiences, the universal laws.69 With this assertion, Kant put teleological explanation on a radically new footing. No longer a final cause in the traditional sense, purposiveness was now recast as an internal principle of the ego cogito.70 Nature is purposive, but purposive only with respect to our judgement of it. It is so only because reason – in order to be able to deal with it – demands that nature assumes an order analogous to reason’s own: a coherent system of parts constituting an individual whole.71 For Kant, thus, the teleological judgement of nature is granted by the peculiar constitution of our cognitive faculties “attributing to nature a reference to this our need [for systematicity]”.72 Kant’s notion of purposiveness refers neither to any utilitarian purpose that nature may serve, nor is it concerned with the ontological status of nature per se.73 Kant would dismiss the first as irrelevant and the latter as beyond human comprehension. Being simply a judgement of the suitability of organic systems to our understanding of them, Kant’s purposiveness is a “purposiveness without purpose”.74 Such 131

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immanent purposiveness does not hold only for nature as a whole, he argued, but also for every organised being, including the work of art.75 Kant defined such organised beings as ‘natural purposes’, and explained that “a thing exists as a natural purpose if it is . . . both cause and effect of itself”.76 Organisms are self-sufficient systems made up of parts which interact in an ordered way, each part being understood in terms of the whole and the whole being understood in terms of the parts. Kant defined this system-organism as . . . an organised unity, and not an aggregate. It may grow from within, but not by external addition. It is thus like an animal body, the growth of which is not by an addition of a new member, but by the rendering of each member, without change of proportion, stronger and more effective for its purpose.77 With Kant, purposiveness lost the metaphysical connotations it had had in Aristotelian teleology and that it still retained in the metaphysics of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716). The notion of purpose was confined within the subjective (if universal) consciousness as a formal category; it became an immanent principle of reason rather than as an external telos connecting phenomena to an overall world of meaning. This sheds light on the tendencies that we have observed in Cuvier and Semper. The new scientific legitimacy of biology and aesthetics alike relied on the possibility of viewing their respective subject matters as self-referential systems, whose full meaning could be grasped within the system itself. For scientific knowledge of such a system to be possible, none of its components could be hidden from view; the purpose of the organism must be regarded as its immanent property, available for observation and explanation. Cuvier’s taxonomy and Semper’s historical matrix, with their mutual ambition of being ‘natural’, left no room for extrinsic references, as it were. They became self-contained systems whose purpose was provided from within. This line of thinking had been prepared by Kant, when he internalised teleological explanation as a purely formal principle of the subjective understanding. 132

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C O M PA R AT I V E L I N G U I S T I C S

Kant’s notion of organic systems formed a paradigm not only for the new science of biology, but also for other disciplines striving for scientific legitimacy. A prominent example can be found in the study of language. As Friedrich Schlegel enthused: “ . . . comparative grammar furnishes as certain a key to the genealogy of language as the study of comparative anatomy has done to the loftier branch of natural science”.78 Comparative linguistics was defined by one of its founders as “the examination of the language-organism and . . . its development”.79 Semper adopted this definition almost literally, replacing ‘language’ with ‘art’: Just as contemporary linguistics is trying to demonstrate the family relationships between different human idioms, to trace the transformation of individual words through the centuries and to identify their original roots; just as linguistics in this way has succeeded in elevating itself to a real science . . . we may justify a similar ambition in the domain of art, which would focus its attention on the development of the art-forms from the germs and roots, out of which they were undoubtedly born.80 By moulding his comparative project on the methodological ideal of linguistic and biology, Semper sought to give to architecture the scientific legitimacy that in his view it so desperately needed. Comparison was not a new principle in the study of languages. As in natural history, it had long been an important methodological device. Leibniz had promoted the comparison of languages as a useful means to understand the nature of the human spirit.81 Belonging to a tradition by which language was understood not as a conventional system, but rather as a set of substantial signs, Leibniz saw linguistics as a means to unravel the real meaning of things.82 The study and comparison of languages was a key to the original unity between sound and significance: a unity lost gradually in the course of time or removed 133

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by a jealous God at the Tower of Babel. From this point of view, traces of the lingua paradisiaca still glimmer through contemporary languages and can be uncovered through careful comparison.83 The vehicle for such comparison was etymology.84 By following the transformation of words backwards in time, one could approach the true meaning and essence of reality itself. As such, the study of language was not a linguistic, but rather a metaphysical pursuit, important only insofar as it, in Leibniz’s words, “gives us the opportunity to find eternal and universal truths.”85 By the early nineteenth century, the notion of language had changed and, with it, the scope and objectives of its study. Linguistics, like anatomy, sought to free itself from the emblematic worldview upon which it had been based and to establish itself as an autonomous science. As in anatomy, this emancipation would be propelled by a new notion of type. Rather than categorising languages in terms of etymological roots, nineteenth-century linguists such as Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829), Franz Bopp (1791–1867), and Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835) turned their focus to grammatical structure. Two main types of language became apparent from this point of view: the first consisted of languages that expressed modification of meaning (e.g., change of tense, gender, case) by changing the root sounds of words or sentences;86 the second included languages that expressed such change by adding new sounds or words. Respectively labelled ‘inflectional’ and ‘affixional’ languages,87 the former type included Sanskrit, Latin, and Greek, whereas the latter consisted of Chinese, Semitic, and Arab languages, as well as the ‘primitive’ languages of the American Indians and the Malays.88 It is immediately apparent which type is being introduced here; no longer etymologically induced, type was now defined according to a set of inner relations within language itself. Rather than focusing on the word and its reference, one studied grammatical structure with no reference to the ‘outside’, as it were.89 The theory of inflection shifted the emphasis from etymology to grammar and, as such, it implied – much in parallel with Cuvier’s new anatomy – a move from a substantial to a relational understanding of its subject matter.90 As Wilhelm von Humboldt pointed out, “inflection itself is completely 134

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meaningless, [it] contains nothing but the pure concept of the relation”.91 Opposed to the Leibnizian notion of language as a sign of an ultimate reality, Humboldt, Schlegel, and their contemporaries saw language as an autonomous system with its own inner logic. From this point of view, “there are no eternal ideas in language or behind language; there is no natural, universal significance”.92 They pursued not a reality that lay behind language, but rather the reality of language itself. The new notion of grammatical types closely paralleled Kant’s idea of organic systems. As Kant had distinguished between organic and mechanical systems, so could the linguist – based on this new typology – distinguish between organic and mechanical language types. August Wilhelm Schlegel summed up Kant’s distinction when he declared that “Form is mechanical when it is imparted through external force, merely as an accidental addition without reference to its character . . . Organic form, on the contrary, is innate; it unfolds itself from within, and reaches its determination simultaneously with the fullest development of the seed.”93 Implicit in this organic analogy lies a criteria for evaluation. Whereas inflectional languages with their internal sound change could be seen as organic, the additive principle of affixional languages was condemned as mechanical.94 Friedrich Schlegel described the IndoEuropean languages as ‘living germs’ with an innate capacity for change and development.95 The inflectional languages are organically grown, he argued; their structure forms an ‘organic tapestry.’96 The affixional languages, on the other hand, do not display this organic unity. Their roots are not “fertile seeds but merely a heap of atoms, which any arbitrary wind may easily disperse and scatter. Their internal connection is nothing but a purely mechanical and external addition.”97 Inflectional languages – which just so happened to be the Indo-European languages – are more organic and hence more sophisticated than their Asian, American, and African counterparts. The latter could be dismissed as mechanical compilations, lacking the ‘artful simplicity’ of a truly organic structure.98 Just as Semper could ‘prove’ the superiority of Greek art due to its self-sufficient and organic structure, nineteenth-century linguistics ‘proved’ the organic superiority of inflectional languages. 135

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Let me sum up the points raised in this chapter and bring the discussion back to Semper’s practical aesthetics. Semper redefined the notions of type and comparison from the mechanistic model of Durand – which used form as a basis for comparison – to an organic model, comparing according to functional and structural relationships. In doing so, he followed the precedent of Cuvier, Schlegel, and Humboldt, whose shift from a substantial to a relational understanding of life and language seemed to promise a science of organic wholes. This notion of organic systems, adapted from Kantian philosophy, furnished the comparative method with a new tertium comparationis. No longer referring to a reality to which the organic system belongs, the comparative disciplines formulated immanent criteria for meaning and truth, thus opening the possibility of an autonomous science of life, language, and art. In this way, the comparative method – with its claim for commensurability – challenged the traditional notion of art and science as modes of representation of a world order. Within the comparative matrix, the world order itself had become an abstract set of coefficients, potentially open for scientific explanation. Semper’s ambitions on behalf of the practical aesthetics must be understood in this light. By seeing the work of art as an organism which at its highest level has shed its links to praxis for an immanent interaction of Gestaltungsmomente, Semper sought to formulate a science of art.

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6 : T O WA R D S A M E T H O D OF INVENTING

k “Comparative theory of building therefore presents a logical method of inventing, which we vainly seek in rules of proportion and obscure principles of aesthetics.” Gottfried Semper 1

S

emper’s practical aesthetics was meant to provide a vehicle for historical interpretation, a basis for educational reform, and a logical method of inventing. In short, it was to provide a total method for the interpretation, diffusion, and production of architecture and art. So far, I have examined only the first part of this diverse ambition: the comparative method as a vehicle for explaining the historical development of art. Now it is time to approach the final step of the practical aesthetics: the dream of a method to guide not only the interpretation, but also the production of architecture. Semper’s hope of moving from a descriptive to a prescriptive theory of architecture relied on the framework of the comparative method. Although comparative anatomy and linguistics had provided a model for the interpretation of organic wholes, they had been less explicit about the possibility for systematic prediction. The disciplines in which this ambition was formulated most explicitly were neither anatomy nor linguistics, but rather the new sciences of man: sociology and political science. By means of comparison, these disciplines aimed to progress from explanation and description to experimentation and prediction, 137

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establishing a science of human culture. This was the ambition that fuelled and informed Semper’s method of inventing.

C O M PA R I S O N A S E X P E R I M E N T : C O M T E A N D

LA PHYSIQUE SOCIALE

Semper presented his ideas on the hierarchy of sciences in Science, Industry, and Art. Here, as we saw in Chapter 5, he described an epistemological evolution in which increasingly complex areas of knowledge became the object of scientific explanation. Semper asserted that the comparative sciences – among which he included “philosophy, history, politics, and a few higher branches of the natural sciences” – formed the highest level in this hierarchy, constituting the final stage in the evolution of knowledge.2 The practical aesthetics was the vehicle by which the study of art and architecture was to be elevated to such a level. In this sense, the practical aesthetics represented the final stage in the evolving knowledge of art, opening for a complete insight into its origins, its development, and its creation. Semper’s line of argument bears a strong affinity to the French philosopher and sociologist Auguste Comte (1798–1857), a contemporary of Semper in Paris.3 Comte envisioned the hierarchy of science as a gradual ascent of knowledge. Whereas the simplest empirical science – astronomy – had reached its scientific (or ‘positive’, in Comte’s terminology) stage in the seventeenth century, physics, chemistry, and biology had followed only gradually, and had reached their status as legitimate sciences over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.4 The area of knowledge that had yet to find its positive form was the study of human society, a shortcoming Comte took upon himself to amend. His ambition, set out in the Cours de Philosophie Positive (1830–42), was to establish a positive science of society: a sociology or, in Comte’s own words, a social physics. Corresponding to the gradual ascent of knowledge was a gradual differentiation of method.5 Whereas astronomy relied on direct observation, its successors (i.e., physics and chemistry) refined this method into idealised observation (i.e., experimentation). For the most 138

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complex areas of reality, however – the domain of life and society – these methods no longer sufficed. As Comte explained: “If biological phenomena are incomparably more complex than those of any preceding science, the study of them admits of the most extensive assemblage of intellectual means (many of them new) and develops human faculties hitherto inactive or in a rudimentary state”.6 This ‘extensive assemblage’ encompassed, first and foremost, the methodological principle of comparison, a principle inaugurated in biology and coming to full fruition in the new sociology.7 Just as the biologist compares different stages in the development of organisms, the student of society must investigate . . . as profoundly and completely as possible, all the states through which civilization has passed, from its origin to the present time. We must consider their coordination and connection and how they can be combined under general heads capable of furnishing principles, making manifest the natural laws of the development of civilization.8 In this schema, the comparative method represented the highest stage in the methodological development of positive science. Similar to the way in which physics and chemistry refined the techniques of observation by means of experiments, social science was to develop experimentation further by means of comparison. By establishing a matrix within which different social and political structures could be studied in parallel, comparative sociology could be regarded as the “real experiments in social physics, even better fitted than pure observation to manifest or confirm the natural laws that preside over the collective progress of mankind.”9 The comparative method thus established an experimentum mentis in the realm of history. By providing a framework within which society could be observed through time and place, the comparative method furnished the scientist-historian with a predictive device equivalent to the experiment in natural science. In the laboratory-like condition of the comparative matrix, the historian could generate and test his hypotheses and, in this way, unravel the laws of social organisation. Comte 139

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was inspired by the precedent of Cuvier, who had himself seen comparison as “experiments ready prepared by the hand of nature”.10 Comparison was the means by which the student of organic wholes could gain control over his subject matter, equal to that of his colleague in physics or chemistry. This idea would have a great impact on the new comparative disciplines of the nineteenth century. In anthropology, for instance, the comparative method was explicitly described as a form of experimentation. “The vast range of societies open to observation and the history of institutions experiment for us”, one prominent spokesman for comparative anthropology proclaimed.11 The cultural scientist, in this view, does not so much conduct experiments as observe – within the laboratory of history – experiments being conducted.12 This is the tacit positivism at the heart of early social science, presupposing an epistemological model within which human culture in all its aspects is rendered an accessible object of analysis and explanation.13 Semper’s practical aesthetics shared these ambitions to a large extent. If the comparative method of biology and linguistics provided him with a notion of art as an organic system potentially open for explanation, then his notion of invention and its methodology (presented in Chapter 4) came remarkably close to Comte’s experimental comparison. The modern notion of experiment entails certain presuppositions. An experiment depends on the possibility to abstract the object of study from its entanglement with the world, to isolate it in an ideal condition in which all factors working upon it and within it can be observed, and their laws and regularities explained.14 Such idealisation – insofar as it succeeds – grants the possibility to extend the scope of the experiment; from observing and explaining the object as it appears here and now, one can move on to predicting and planning the way it will develop in the future. The possibility of such an extension was paramount to Comte’s definition of science. “From science comes prevision, from prevision comes action”, he proclaimed.15 This dictum holds for all the positive sciences, not least for social physics, which in Comte’s view was the most advanced of them all.16 Social phenomena are susceptible

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to prevision, he insisted: “. . . here, as in other cases, and more than in other cases, the office of science is . . . to modify phenomena; and to do this, it is necessary to understand their laws.”17 Comte’s idea of prevision, then, involved more than simply to foresee a course of events. For him, prevision was equal to production: the possibility to modify the future according to laws extracted from the past. Comparative sociology aimed not only to explain social order, but also to change it. It was to exhibit . . . the philosophic picture of the social future as deduced from the past – in other words, determining the general plan of reorganization destined for the present epoch. . . . we need the application of these results to the present state of things so as to determine the direction that ought to be impressed on political action with a view to facilitating the definitive transition to a new social state.18 This positivist creed involves not merely a descriptive but also a prescriptive idea of science. If you can unravel the laws by which the human world is governed through history, then you can determine – with scientific certainty – the correct solution for today or tomorrow. Social physics, as Comte concluded in the Cours, “is the only possible agent in the reorganization of modern society”.19 It should be clear that Comte’s positive philosophy was more than a classification of history and science. It was, in fact, a sociopolitical method of inventing, whose aim was “the coordination of the social past, and its result the determination of the system that the march of civilization tends to produce in our time.”20 The eschatological ring is no coincidence.21 In Comte’s late writings, the positive reorganisation of society took the form of a ‘Religion of Humanity’, which was to effect a salvation of society and the end of history.22 The advent of positive religion represented the final stage in the evolution of knowledge, constituting “a universal system for which the whole course of modern progress has been preparing the way”.23 On this epistemological level, all forms of mental activity would have reached a positive stage, making

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it possible to “systematize feelings and actions” once and for all.24 As Comte enthused: Positivism offers . . . a system that regulates the whole course of our private and public existence by bringing feeling, reason, and activity into permanent harmony. In this final synthesis, all essential conditions are far more perfectly fulfilled than in any other.25 Comte’s social physics was, first and foremost, a method to predict and implement the correct order for modern society. This dream would continue to haunt the nineteenth century, forming a common denominator for positivism, historicism, and romanticism alike, and constituting the intellectual framework within which Semper’s practical aesthetics was conceived.

P O I E S I S A N D P R O D U C T I O N I N S E M P E R ’S METHOD OF INVENTING

The particular strand of positivism that underlies Semper’s practical aesthetics is gradually becoming apparent. By adopting comparison as his methodological vehicle, Semper aimed to establish a science of art capable not only of explanation, but also experimentation. This ambition was clearly expressed in the formula for style. Establishing ideal conditions for observing the interaction of the coefficients of style, the formula aimed for a complete introspection into the origins and development of art. It established not only a hermeneutic device by which style could be interpreted, but also – in theory at least – an experimental device by which it could be planned and executed. Although Semper’s famous appeal for “a sort of topic or Method, how to invent”26 echoes a classical rhetorical tradition as well as a modern scientific one, there is no doubt that in his elaboration of the method, his ultimate guide is modern science.27 The practical aesthetics was intended as a modern scientific enterprise and was to encompass – following Comte’s epistemological hierarchy – observation, comparison, and prevision.28 142

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Like Comte’s ‘practical theology’, the practical aesthetics relied on the possibility to expand the comparative method from a mode of explanation into a procedure for production. The “comparative theory of building, therefore”, Semper himself concluded, “presents a logical method of inventing which we vainly seek in rules of proportion and obscure principles of aesthetics”.29 The equation of scientific knowledge with productive knowledge is an important characteristic of nineteenth-century thought. E. Voegelin has argued that the Victorian era, by substituting the bios theoreticos for the homo faber, exchanged the question of truth for that of usefulness.30 This ideal of knowledge may be seen as epitomised in the engineer, a figure particular to the nineteenth century: The engineer . . . has complete control of the particular little world with which he is concerned, surveys it in all its relevant aspects and has to deal only with ‘known quantities.’ . . . The application of the technique which he has mastered, of the generic rules that he has been taught, indeed presupposes such complete knowledge of the objective facts; those rules refer to objective properties and can be applied only after all the particular circumstances of time and place have been assembled and brought under the control of a single brain.31 The comparative-experimental method – as it was transferred to social science by Comte and to aesthetics by Semper – involved an attempt to apply precisely such an engineering technique to human society and its expressions. This attempt presupposes “that the director possesses the same complete knowledge of the whole society that the engineer possesses of his limited world.”32 Inspired by the practical´ mindedness of Durand (whose Ecole Polytechnique, incidentally, was the centre of Comtean philosophy, as well as the cradle of modern engineering), Semper’s practical aesthetics presented a theory of architecture in which the social, historical, and material factors of art were all regarded as accessible to observation and experimentation – accessible, that is, to be manipulated and controlled in the same way that the engineer controls the variables of his project.33 Within this 143

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intellectual framework, theory has become synonymous with operative theory, no longer a mode of contemplation, but rather a procedure leading towards results.34 The practical aesthetics was to provide such a theory. It was, in Semper’s words, “a tool, an instrument or at least an arrangement for production or for action.”35 Aesthetic theory, here, has become a mode of production based on the full availability of its raw material: the cultural conditions themselves. It has become a practical aesthetics in the Kantian sense of the word: “nothing more than the theory of what belongs to the nature of things, except that here this theory is applied to the way we can produce these things according to a principle.”36 This is far from classical poetics. Although poiesis also signifies a production of sorts, it is a production of a rather different kind. From a poetic point of view, the work of art is not a product of a set of coefficients already defined. Rather, it is the work of art itself that brings, through creative imitation, the foundation of a cultural community into partial articulation so that the common horizon of understanding can be recognised. In Semper’s mathematical analogy, this relation is turned upside down. The method of inventing requires a transparency of history and culture; it presupposes a world in which all historical, spiritual, and practical factors are already present and defined, so that the result of their interaction can be calculated and serve as the paradigm for a correct style.37 In the Aristotelian conception of art as poetic imitation, the purpose of art was constituted by its capacity to articulate – however partially and locally – the unity of human praxis. In this sense, the purpose of the work of art was always to articulate something beyond the limits of introspection. Semper’s formula for style, with its ambition to determine a correct correspondence between cultural coefficients and the work of art, implied a dream of rendering these coefficients available for explanation and reproduction. The most problematic aspect of the formula does not lie in its supposed promotion of functionalism, as some modern scholars have hinted.38 It lies rather in the ambition inherent in the formula to understand artistic creation as the manipulation of verifiable and fully accessible factors within a set relation. In this operation, the enigmatic relation between praxis and poiesis that grounded 144

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the Aristotelian notion of mimesis is captured as a transparent relation that can be expressed analogous to a mathematical function. The work of art is the end product of a fully comprehensible and objectifiable interaction between manageable and neatly identifiable variables, and can as such be determined with mathematical certainty. The representational capacity of the work of art is reduced to a matter of the correct correspondence between a given set of coefficients. Semper did not attempt, as I have already pointed out, to implement his method of inventing directly. Nor did he succeed in turning his sketchy mentions of an Erfindungsmethode into a rigorous scientific method. Yet, he always insisted on both the desirability and the possibility of such a project, a vision that continued to fuel his hopes for a third volume of Der Stil. It seems to me urgent to recognise the epistemological presuppositions of this vision even when it itself remained unfulfilled, and I have attempted to do this by looking at Comte’s epistemological hierarchy. What remains, however, is to examine why Semper, despite obvious difficulties, continued clinging to a dream of a scientifically sound Erfindungsmethode. My hypothesis is a simple one. Semper’s method of inventing was a rescue operation: a strategy to save architecture from the excesses of historicism by granting it the legitimacy of a science. Yet, by a curious inversion, it was precisely the intellectual framework of historicism that allowed Semper to attempt to merge his poetics of architecture with a practical aesthetics. In the last and final part of this study, I will situate this uneasy fusion within the framework of historicist thinking to appreciate more fully both the ambitions and the limitations of Semper’s method of inventing.

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k THE APORIAS OF HISTORICISM

7: SEMPER AND THE “STYLE OF OUR TIME”

k “The great question is, are we to have an architecture of our period, a distinct, individual, palpable style of the nineteenth century?” T. L. Donaldson 1

I

f in Part II I mapped the theoretical framework that underlies Semper’s practical aesthetics, it is now time to address how Semper believed this framework could affect contemporary architectural practise. Having looked at Semper’s theory of practise, in other words, we must now examine his practise of theory. Although Semper warned against attempting to implement the formula for style directly, he nevertheless insisted on its applicability. The practical aesthetics was meant to be not just another contribution to aesthetic speculation, but also “sufficiently specific and complete in itself to be of practical use”.2 My concern in Chapter 7 is to identify this ‘practical use’ and to look for the way in which Semper’s practical aesthetics delineated the role and responsibility of architecture in the nineteenth century. More than anything, the architectural discourse of the first half of the nineteenth century was conditioned by the problem of selfexpression: how to conceive and craft a ‘style of our time’. At the time Semper formulated his theory of style, the question “In which style should we build?” had already fuelled debate for decades. The debate rested on two related assumptions. First, it relied on a notion of style understood as the relative character of time and place. Second, it presupposed that history could be seen as a succession of epochs that 149

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evolve according to laws and manifest themselves by means of style. Although these assertions sound self-evident to twenty-first–century ears, they actually signalled a great intellectual shift and constituted key aspects of the intellectual framework of historicism. The present chapter approaches this issue by looking at the nineteenth-century dilemma of style and Semper’s entanglement in it.

THE “DILEMMA OF STYLE”3

The term style, or stile, had been used since the Renaissance to denote the particular characteristics of an artist, but made its way into architecture only in the first half of the eighteenth century.4 As van Eck has shown, the eighteenth-century notion of style was closely linked to concepts taken from rhetoric, such as caract`ere, maniera, and genre.5 In the same way that poetry could be tragic, comic, or bucolic, architecture also had its genres, expressed by means of style.6 In this context, style was understood as variations within the universally valid architectural language of classicism.7 The rhetorical notion of style received its first serious challenge in the late eighteenth century, from the emerging discipline of art history heralded by Winckelmann and Quatrem`ere de Quincy. Although the universal validity of classicism was still being upheld, the arguments used to defend it underwent significant changes, some of which were examined in Chapter 2. Classicism was now seen as valid not because it represented an a priori embodiment of beauty, but rather because it manifested the best possible conditions and the noblest possible men. While struggling to retain an absolute notion of style, the art historians of the late eighteenth century unwittingly made it a relative expression of particular historical conditions.8 By the early nineteenth century, the relative notion of style had come to be taken for granted. Whereas in the eighteenth century style presupposed a given language from which one could draw, nineteenth-century architects saw each style as a language in itself – that is, an autonomous system of meaning with its own particular logic. Different historical styles were conceived as different but analogous 150

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systems, each corresponding to a particular set of values. Moreover, these systems were regarded not only as passive impressions of past civilisations, but also as didactic tools for the formation of the present. The demand for a ‘style of our time’, then, aspired not only to represent the present but also to form it; the dilemma of style, consequently, became a dilemma of moral ideals and how to emulate them. Two distinct approaches dominated the debate.9 The revivalists argued for the reappropriation of one or another historical style, seeing it – whether it be Greek classicism or German gothic – as an appropriate expression of modern society. The eclectics, on the other hand, argued that only a synthesis of all past styles could form the true expression of the present. Let us look briefly at these positions. The revivalists did not form a unified camp, but rather consisted of several different positions split by stylistic preference, as well as the type of argument put forward in its defence. Defenders of classicism followed Winckelmann’s and Aloys Hirt’s notion of antiquity as a timeless ideal. To emulate the classical style was to emulate an ideal civilisation, a powerful paradigm for the new sense of national identity which emerged in the nineteenth century.10 In Germany, for instance, Leo von Klenze and Karl Friedrich Schinkel (in his classical period) saw in Greek architecture an “ideal valid for all times”, an ideal to be realised in ¨ the new German state (Figure 47).11 Friedrich Gilly and Karl Botticher, on the other hand, emphasised the structural economy of classicism, seeing its aesthetic rationality as a model for modern society.12 In either case, classicism was justified as the appropriate self-expression of the modern nation state, manifesting its rationality and improving its morality in one simultaneous effect. A similar duality between a moral-symbolic and a structuraleconomic argumentation was found among the medievalists. EugéneEmmanuel Viollet-le-Duc saw in Gothic a structural principle suitable for modern iron construction, an argument similar to that presented by ¨ Heinrich Hubsch on behalf of a byzantinesque Rundbogenstil.13 However, the medievalists tended more often to emphasise the moral and didactic aspects of style. Echoing the ecstatic tone of Goethe’s “Deutsche Architektur”, they hailed Gothic as a source of spiritual renewal for a corrupt modernity. By adopting the Gothic style, one 151

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Figure 47. Leo von Klenze, Walhalla, 1814–46.

could access the particular values embodied in medieval civilisation and, in this way, reconquer an authentic relation between artistic form and meaning.14 Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, for instance, whose London Parliament Semper so despised, saw in the spiritual force of Gothic a possibility for a salvation of the present and a renewal of the Christian state (Figure 48).15 From this point of view, the notion of style was fully relativised. Gothic was seen as the self-expression of the modern nation, not because of its universal validity as an architectural language, but because of an alleged relationship between ‘now’ and ‘then’. These revivalist positions were opposed by various factions of eclectics. The synthetic eclectics argued that the style of today could not be a straightforward revival of the past, but rather must consist in the adaptation of all known styles into a new synthesis, constituting a 152

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Figure 48. “The Present Revival of Christian Architecture”. Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, An Apology for the Revival of Christian Architecture in England, 1843.

new artistic expression for a new time.16 This was the position informing King Maximilian II of Bavaria’s unprecedented architectural competition, the purpose of which was to invent a new style.17 The competitors were encouraged to apply all known architectural styles in a synthetic attempt to express the “character of the time”.18 Similar ambitions were expressed by Saint-Simonian theorists who saw stylistic synthesis as the inevitable outcome of the progress of history.19 The typological eclectics, on the other hand, took a different position: rather than encouraging the fusion of styles, they promoted the use of different styles for different building types.20 The Ringstrasse in Vienna 153

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is a notable example of this attitude, using typological eclecticism as a means to affirm the historical legitimacy of a new bourgeois society and its institutions.21 It is not necessary to investigate the ‘battle of styles’ in more detail. I am less concerned with the intricacies of the individual positions than with the underlying assumptions of the discourse as a whole. In the nineteenth century, style had come to be seen as the relative character of a particular civilisation, formed by specific cultural and material conditions. Through history, this character attained a moral significance, becoming a paradigm to be emulated and appropriated by the present. The choice of style, thus, was not simply a matter of aesthetic preference. Rather, it was a vehicle for moral improvement as in Pugin, a symbol of national renewal as in Schinkel and Klenze, ¨ an expression of rationality and progress as in Hubsch, or the selfrepresentation of a new social class as in the Vienna Ringstrasse. However, if style was not conceived as an aesthetic choice, it was nevertheless seen as a matter of choice, and history was considered raw material for the self-invention of the present. Semper criticised this assertion repeatedly and relentlessly. His own theory of style, in fact, was developed as a means to counter the stylistic licentiousness of the nineteenth century.

S E M P E R : S T Y L E A S R E S U LT

In Semper’s view, contemporary attempts to fabricate a “style of our time” were fundamentally flawed both artistically and intellectually. He attacked virtually every position in contemporary architectural discourse and practice, dividing his adversaries into four categories: the ‘Materialists’, the ‘Historians’, the ‘Aestheticians’, and the ‘Gothic Romantics’.22 He scolded the latter for their “arbitrary and unnatural manners”,23 accusing them of “becoming engrossed in a past or alien world that is no longer understood and can be made to fit our present conditions only with difficulty”.24 He disliked the “antiquated, foreign, or self-invented order”25 of the ‘Historians’ and dismissed them for their “negation of the present”.26 The nineteenth-century 154

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Figure 49. Leo von Klenze, Munich Residence, 1826–35.

city, in his view, was turning into a pretentious assemblage of lies and idiosyncrasies (Figure 49): The young artist traverses the world, crams his notebooks full of pasted on tracings of every kind, then returns home with the cheerful expectation (taking care to show his 155

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specimens to the right connoisseur) that soon he will receive the commission for a Walhalla a` la Parthenon, a basilica a` la Monréale, a boudoir a` la Pompeii, a palace a` la Pitti, a Byzantine church, or even a bazaar in the Turkish taste! What miracles result from this invention! Thanks to it our major cities blossom forth as true extraits de mille fleurs, as the quintessence of all lands and centuries, so that in our pleasant delusion we forget in the end to what century we belong.27 From Semper’s sweeping generalisations, some fairly specific arguments can be extracted. The failure of contemporary architects consisted not so much in their borrowing from the past as in their lack of understanding of the present: their inability to see that a true style must grow out of actual forces in contemporary society. To import a historical style without regard for its conditions of becoming was to Semper not only wrong, but also impossible. Style, in his view, was neither a matter of creation ex nihilo nor of literal copying; rather, it was a product of old factors modified according to new conditions. This insight set Semper apart in the contemporary debate. Although the battle of style was fought over which style to choose, Semper did not regard style as a matter of choice at all, but rather as a result of certain conditions: “the uniform result . . . of several variable values that unite in certain combinations”.28 Neither the eclectics nor the revivalists, in Semper’s view, had addressed the complex relationship between society and art. To do this was the task he took upon himself. As discussed in Part II, Semper’s theory of style presupposed that to determine style, one must determine its constituent coefficients. The problem of style was a problem of interpretative introspection: the extent to which modern society could understand and define the forces working in it and on it. Only if these conditions were revealed could a new style crystallise: “A vast field of inventiveness will be revealed to us once we try to make use of our social needs as factor in the style of our architecture.”29 The particular difficulty faced by the modern period, however, was the disarray of these conditions themselves. How can we presume to understand other cultures and

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epochs, Semper pessimistically asked, when “we do not even precisely know our own present conditions.”30 In the state of ‘Babylonian confusion’ that the nineteenth century found itself, no coherent artistic style could emerge – and least of all, a new style, as long as modern society had failed to produce new cultural or material factors. The attempt to invent a new style irrespective of such factors was, in Semper’s opinion, as meaningless and as incomprehensible as inventing a new language:31 “No modern Anthemius of Tralles or Isodor of Miletus will be ingenious enough to create a new style unless a new concept of universal historical importance had first become overwhelmingly evident as an artistic idea”.32 Only if the factors influencing style were themselves renewed could style change; only when a new idea crystallised could modern society find its adequate expression in art and architecture. As Semper resignedly concluded in one of his last essays: People reproach us architects for a lack of inventiveness – too harshly, since nowhere has a new idea of universal importance, pursued with force and consciousness, become evident. We are convinced that wherever such an idea should really take the lead, one or the other of our young colleagues will prove himself capable of endowing it with a suitable architectural dress. Until that time comes, however, we must reconcile ourselves to make as best as we can with the old.33 This passage sums up Semper’s attitude to the nineteenth-century dilemma of style. Although sharing his contemporaries’ view of style as relative, he refused to see it as a matter of choice. Semper maintained that style is a result of particular cultural conditions and that it cannot be arbitrarily invented. The present was undeniably in a particularly difficult position as long as its cultural conditions were confused and difficult to interpret. Even so, the task of the artist remained the same: to embody the present conditions as truthfully and correctly as possible, for in this way, to at least clarify rather than confuse an already muddled situation.

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T H E N E C E S S I T Y F O R D I S I N T E G R AT I O N A N D T H E N E W S Y N T H E S I S O F A RT

Having looked at Semper’s demands for style as a result, we still have not come any closer to understanding how, in Semper’ view, the artist was to tap into his own time and embody it by means of style. Semper tried to approach this question in “A Critical Analysis and Prognosis of PresentDay Artistic Production”, an essay prepared as a preface to the Theory of Formal Beauty. Semper started the analysis with a lyrical description of the balance between destruction and regeneration of the cosmos – a suitable analogy, he proposed, to describe similar phenomena on the horizon of art.34 The ambiguous state of cosmic nebulas makes it impossible to determine whether they are “age-old systems robbed of their centres . . . , or whether they are cosmic dust being formed around a nucleus”.35 Most probably, Semper concluded, both these processes are present simultaneously. Formation and destruction oscillate in a dialectical process, the synthesis of which is the birth of a new system. This observation may be useful when the contemporary state of the arts is to be assessed, he suggested. Society and art are undoubtedly in the midst of a crisis. But does this crisis necessarily imply a final disintegration into chaos? Semper believed that it did not. Just as the disintegration of cosmic systems always prefigures the advent of a new order, so does the present artistic confusion contribute to the formation of a new system of art and society alike. The conditions of contemporary art are visible as “mysterious fog patches on the horizon of art history”. They signal “the disintegration of monumental art and . . . the reversion of its elements into a general and indifferent state of being”. Yet, they also indicate “new art formations that, slowly emerging from the chaos of wrecked worlds of art, suddenly crystallise at the moment of coming to life around a new centre to which everything relates.”36 Semper’s cosmic analogy should be examined carefully because it contains his solution to the dilemma of style. From his point of view, a new style could only emerge out of the complete disintegration of the old. In terms of architecture, this disintegration implied the breaking down of monumental styles into their elementary motifs which, in 158

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turn, served as starting points for a new unity. It was in this turbulent situation – unpleasant to observe but rich in possibilities – that Semper situated the contemporary crisis.37 Semper did not criticise his fellow artists for distorting the motifs they borrowed from history. On the contrary, he criticised them for not distorting them enough, for not disintegrating them according to the need of the present: What about our magnificent monuments with their frescos, painted glass, statues, pediments, and friezes! They do not belong to us. Out of their elements nothing new has arisen that we could possibly call our own. They have not become part of our flesh and blood. Although they are presently being collected with great care, they have not yet disintegrated sufficiently, let alone has anything new been created.38 Semper’s conception of the artistic motifs and their metamorphosis implied that architecture consists in the constant reappropriation of ancient motifs according to present conditions. According to Semper, then, the solution to the contemporary crisis lay neither in the invention of a new style nor in the uncritical adaptation of past styles, but rather in the modification of traditional motifs according to forces active in the present. Only in that way, he insisted, could art and architecture become “our own flesh and blood” rather than borrowed garments.39 This appropriation involved the disintegration of the motif: the gradual transformation, recombination, and spiritualisation of traditional elements.40 Only by means of such disintegration could the needs and spirit of today be translated into a coherent style. This might not be a completely new style, but it would nevertheless be unique, as long as contemporary conditions – material, industrial, social, and political – pressed their unmistakable fingerprint on the ancient motifs. From this perspective, the ‘Babel-like confusion’ of the modern age did not merely signify crisis and decay; rather, it signified the necessary reorganisation of society and art alike, preparing the ground for a new unity. The present chaos represented a period of disintegration necessarily preceding a new synthesis: a new union of life and art. The artist played an important role in this process. Although he alone 159

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could not bring about anything new, he might – by disintegrating and reappropriating the ancient motifs of art – contribute towards a new unity. A new level of ambition had entered Semper’s theory of style. Style, for him, was the result of present conditions, but could also serve to clarify and articulate these very conditions “in one great effect, and after one directing Idea”.41 The transformatory power of art – a favourite theme in romantic aesthetics – appeared here in the midst of Semper’s apparent determinism. Semper envisioned the ‘style of our time’ to be a new and timely synthesis of the disintegrated motifs of art. This synthesis was necessarily linked to social transformation: a new style must spring from a new synthesis of the conflicting forces of modern society. Such a synthesis was encountered once before in Semper’s historical analyses. The Greeks had inherited the disintegrated motifs of Middle Eastern and Egyptian art and synthesised them, in an act of aesthetic sublimation, into a new unity. This was precisely what Semper envisioned for nineteenth-century art: We have arrived at the start of a new cycle, about where in the old cycle the Greeks were before the time of the Ionian poets. For four hundred years our practical science has worked for the disintegration of old traditions, just as genius and workmanship in early Greek times digested the half-forgotten traditions.42 By means of the disintegration and sublimation of the motifs of the past, the chaos of the present may be elevated into a new unity of the future. To effect such a unity was the task of the Gesamtkunstwerk, described by Semper as “an all-embracing artistic whole that would express the highest stage reached by man in his moral and political development”.43 No longer simply a passive result, art at its highest stage was to transform the world into an aesthetic unity. Wilhelm Dilthey thus celebrated Semper as the originator of the total work of art: “It was the key Idea underlying both the artistic achievements and the aesthetic writing of the great Semper. If only he were alive today, since such great tasks confront us now without any artist his equal.”44 160

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Underlying Semper’s musings on style lay a particular notion of history. The practical aesthetics construed history as an oscillation between coherence and chaos, a gradual succession of unified and discordant periods. The present was characterised by incoherence, but contained the germ of a future unity. The practical aesthetics was to teach the present how to interpret its own conditions, for thus to prepare modern society for its aesthetic sublimation in a future Gesamtkunstwerk. In the following chapter, I will investigate this particular notion of history and, in the process, situate Semper’s thinking within the intellectual framework of nineteenth-century historicism.

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k FROM GESCHICHTEN TO GESCHICHTE: THE O R G A N I C U N I T Y O F H I S T O RY

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emper’s practical aesthetics presupposed a strict correspondence between style and its historical conditions of becoming, a correspondence he accused his contemporaries of having ignored to disastrous effect. This idea of correspondence rested on distinct assertions about history: about the way history is structured and about the way we can access this structure as a guide to the present. Semper’s assertions were not original. They arose out of a rich German tradition for historical thinking that emerged in the second half of the eighteenth century and came to its full articulation in the nineteenth. One influential contribution to this tradition was Wilhelm von Humboldt’s “Ueber die Aufgabe des Geschichtschreibers” (1822). Advising the historian about his task and how to conduct it, Humboldt boldly declared the historian’s objective to be “the depiction of what takes place [Darstellung des Geschehenen]”.1 The self-evident ring of this statement is deceptive. For what is das Geschehene? In answering this question, Humboldt presented a key to nineteenth-century philosophy of history. The ‘stuff of history’ is not simply individual historical events, but rather what binds them together as an apparent unity. The essential task of the historian is to articulate this unity. “What has taken place . . . is only partially visible in the world of the senses”, Humboldt explained. “The remainder must be added through feeling, deduction, and conjecture.”2 Individual 162

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historical events must be grasped in their ‘inner, causal connections’.3 Nothing in themselves, the events constitute merely the necessary foundation for history: ‘its material, but not history itself.’4 The German philosopher and historian, Reinhart Koselleck, has pointed out the radical assertion lurking behind Humboldt’s seemingly commonplace views. Examining Humboldt’s assertion that ‘history itself’ is something over and above individual events, Koselleck refers to the old topos historia magistra vitae.5 For classical authors such as Thucydides and Cicero, history was not an abstract unity, but rather a collection of concrete examples that guided ethical and political conduct.6 This tradition retained its authority well into the eighteenth century, before which time it would have been impossible to talk – in the manner of Humboldt – about “the task of the historian” without further qualification.7 “If anyone had said before 1780 that he studied history”, Koselleck writes, “he would have at once been asked by his interlocutor: Which history? History of what?”8 With Humboldt’s notion of history in and for itself, therefore, we encounter a distinctly modern idea. No longer a series of events with an exemplary significance, history was recast as something behind the events – something that governs them and ties them together as a whole. This new notion dovetailed a new use of the word. Whereas before the mid-eighteenth century one would talk about histories [die Geschichten], the latter part of the century introduced the term as a subjectless and objectless singular: history [die Geschichte].9 It was to this new history that Humboldt appealed, in a statement that encapsulates the transition from Geschichten to Geschichte: History . . . does not serve primarily through individual examples of what is to be followed or avoided, which are often misleading and seldom instructive. Rather, its true and inestimable use – arising more through the form which adheres to events rather than through the events themselves – is to enliven and refine our sense for the treatment of reality.10 In rejecting the traditional topos of historia magistra vitae, Humboldt presented history not as a collection of examples, but as an 163

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abstract unity. The object and essence of history was no longer the events themselves, but rather “the form which adheres to the events”. For Humboldt and his generation, history had taken on a new level of autonomy over and above the field of concrete experience. Having already examined the Kantian notion of organic systems, Humboldt’s understanding of history as a set of ‘inner causal connections’ has an unmistakably familiar ring. History was now understood as a system, characterised by internal coherence, autonomy, and unity, and growing from within rather than by a process of external addition.11 Kant himself had anticipated the possibility of replacing the aggregate of histories with a system of history in his “Ideas for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View” (1784).12 It was this possibility that Humboldt had in mind when he advised the historian to seek the ‘creative powers’ of history,13 to respect its ‘living breath’ and articulate its ‘inner character’.14 The identification of the organic, system-like character of history was what allowed the historian to reach beyond individual events to ‘history itself’. From this point of view, history is a living, individual totality with its own inner purpose, the articulation of which is the task of the historian.15 The organic notion of history had been anticipated already by the German Sturm und Drang writers.16 For Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803), for instance, history was the ‘fermentation of human powers’, bound together not as an intellectual aggregate, but rather as a living whole.17 Although still echoing the classical notion of history as a cycle of birth, growth, and decay, Herder’s historical organicism took on a new dimension. No longer signifying the eternal recurrence of stages of civilisation, Herder used the organic metaphor to express the uniqueness of each such stage while also emphasising their lawful succession. The organic metaphor thus allowed him to unite two seemingly opposite concepts: unique individuality and absolute lawfulness. If history could be seen as an organic system, complete at any stage of its development, then individuality and lawfulness would be reconciled.18 This congenial fusion would constitute the framework of historicist thinking, making Herder’s Auch eine Philosophie der Geschichte zur Bildung der Menschheit – in Meinecke’s words – a ‘splendid charter of historism’.19 164

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‘Historism’ – or ‘historicism’, which is now the accepted English term – has been defined in many different ways. Troeltsch described it in the broadest possible sense as the “historicizing of our knowing and experiencing”, a transformation he identified with the nineteenth century.20 Meinecke put it more strongly, characterising the rise of ‘historism’ as “one of the greatest intellectual revolutions that has ever taken place in Western thought.”21 Herder and Humboldt were key figures in this revolution, and from their texts we can extract a more precise definition of historicism itself. Historicism implies a view of history as an organic whole, complete in itself at any point, yet evolving according to (potentially) comprehensible laws. This organic paradigm, however, is open to two rather different interpretative emphases. Whereas romantic philosophy and later the German historical school emphasised the uniqueness and individuality of historical epochs, French positivist thinking emphasised the lawfulness of epochal succession and the possibility for historical prediction. A curious fusion took place within historicist thinking, merging enlightenment rationalism with its apparent antithesis: romantic individualism. Gadamer has seen this uneasy fusion as one of the key ‘aporias of historicism’.22 Let us look briefly at these positions. Although recognising both the individuality and the lawfulness of history, Herder chose to emphasise the former. He argued that every nation and every civilisation has its own measure [Maßstab] according to which it must be judged. If one committed the error (as he accused Winckelmann) of judging a period “by the measure of a different time”, one would gain little understanding of its true spirit.23 Like an organic whole, a civilisation is an autonomous totality with “its centre of happiness within itself”.24 It can be understood only in relation to its Volksgeist: the unique and individual character in which all expressions of life in a certain period of time appear united. We have encountered the idea of Volksgeist before, in the origin theories of Montesquieu and Quatrem`ere de Quincy. However, with Herder the Volksgeist had become a historical phenomenon, shifting with the flow of time. Whereas for Montesquieu and the enlightenment historians, national character was primarily connected to place – to climate, soil, and topography – for Herder, it became primarily temporal, a 165

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continually changing Spirit of the Age [Zeitgeist]. As he wrote: “The spirit of the century interwove and joined . . . the most disparate qualities . . . joined them to a whole.”25 For Herder, as well as for the historicist tradition following him, Volksgeist was temporalised into Zeitgeist, into the organic coherence of the epoch.26 If German thinking tended to emphasise the individuality of epochs, the French tradition – continuing the enlightenment legacy – focused on historical lawfulness and prediction. Comte’s social physics was clearly conceived within this tradition. In fact, Comte’s hierarchy of knowledge (discussed in Chapter 6) was based directly on the organic notion of history. According to Comte and his mentor, Claude Henri de Saint-Simon (1760–1825), history described an oscillation between ‘organic’ and ‘critical’ periods.27 Whereas the former were periods in which all social forces formed an organic unity, the latter were periods of crisis in which the correspondence between society and its beliefs had broken down. From this point of view, the Middle Ages had been an organic period – its science, art, social structure, and religious belief all in perfect correlation. The modern period, on the other hand, was in a critical state, its social structure no longer ‘fitting’ its knowledge and beliefs.28 The nineteenth century constituted a transitory and mongrel stage of world history, in which the conviction of theological and metaphysical beliefs had been lost but not yet replaced by positive knowledge.29 The modern age lacked organic coherence: its social, political, and epistemological structure no longer corresponded to its actual historical stage of development.30 This historical organicism, with its principle of correspondence and its idea of immanent wholes, formed the foundation for Comte’s social science. Just as Cuvier had developed an experimental science of organic wholes, Comte envisioned an experimental science of the organism of history. Within the comparative matrix, epochal organisms could be observed and explained, their future configurations predicted and implemented. This organic-aesthetic historicism constituted the framework within which the ‘battle of style’ was fought. As discussed in Chapter 7, the nineteenth-century debate on style presupposed that history could be conceived of as a systematic whole, constituted by distinct and 166

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homogeneous epochs, each with a particular character and a distinct style. The different epochs, in their turn, constituted unique and organic expressions, all ‘equal before God’.31 Semper’s practical aesthetics must be understood within this intellectual framework. From the historical school, he took the idea that each epoch forms an organic whole endowed with its own unique character. Each style, then, is the manifestation of such epochal character, representing a unique value system potentially accessible for appropriation. Style was the unifying fingerprint of the epoch, growing out of the epochal conditions of becoming. The task of the present was to achieve such an organic coherence between style and sociohistorical conditions – and, in this way, consolidate itself as a true epoch. From the positivists, moreover, Semper took the idea that this organic sublimation of the modern epoch could be planned and implemented in a rational manner. The notion of epoch, thus, served not only as a descriptive, but also as a prescriptive device. Like Comte, Semper believed in the possibility of explaining and predicting the inner workings of the epochal organism, rendering (art) history into a positive science by which the aesthetic synthesis of the future could be prepared.32 The ambiguous framework of historicism informed not only Semper’s vision of the past, but also his view of the present and future. If history is envisioned as a succession of coherent epochs – organic wholes in which all expressions of life adhere to a dominant Zeitgeist – then the discrepancies of the present must seem all the more conspicuous. To be sure, the sense of crisis expressed by Semper and his nineteenth-century contemporaries was a response to a time of great social and intellectual upheaval. However, this disorder must have seemed particularly acute when seen against the background of a past construed as coherent and organic. The cry for a unified and unifying ‘style of our time’ was caused not only by a chaotic present, but also by a particular notion of the past which made the present seem essentially deficient. Construing the past as a succession of organic epochs, one could justify the demand that the present too should unite in one organic unity, in one coherent epoch, in one style, and in one Volk. This was Semper’s ambitions on behalf of the Gesamtkunstwerk: the aesthetic-organic unification of a ‘critical’ age. 167

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“There is no inherent limit to the capacity of the artist to shape reality.” W. Dilthey 33

The epochal consciousness emerging with nineteenth-century historicism was not directed ‘backwards’ but rather ‘forwards’. If, as Humboldt insisted, the historian’s task was to grasp and articulate the organic unity of the past, he was closely complemented by another figure, whose task it was to realise this unity in the present and to provide direction for the future: this was the role of the artist.34 Charged with manifesting the spirit of the age, the artist was to give a tangible expression to his own time, and thus to realise it as an epoch proper. The modern age posed certain difficulties for such a ‘realisation’, however, because it seemed to lack the organic unity that would allow a true style to emerge. It was in response to this problem that the notion of the Gesamtkunstwerk assumed such importance in nineteenth-century philosophy and aesthetics. The term Gesamtkunstwerk suggests a synthesis of individual arts into one total artwork.35 For Semper, as Mallgrave has pointed out, architecture was a Gesamtkunstwerk by its very nature, fusing arts and craft into a higher unity.36 Yet, when Semper evoked the “grand allembracing artistic whole”37 of the Gesamtkunstwerk, he had in mind something more than a synthesis of individual art forms. He aimed at a cultural synthesis, a unification of modern culture into an organic, epochal whole. Semper’s friend and compatriot, Richard Wagner (1813–83), was an important source for these visions, and Wagner’s essay “The Artwork of the Future” (1849) coined the term Gesamtkunstwerk in its modern sense. Reading more like a political manifesto than an aesthetic treatise, the essay proclaimed that the artwork of the future would rescue man from the ‘baleful state’ of modernity.38 Whereas enlightenment thinkers had confined art to an isolated domain of aesthetics – severed from life and fragmented into ‘art varieties’ – the artwork of the future was to fuse art and life into a new aesthetic-political 168

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synthesis and thus save man from the “errors, perversities, and unnatural distortions of modern life.”39 Wagner often returned to his diagnosis of the present as somehow ‘un-natural’.40 He argued that the modern age had not yet grasped the ‘necessity’ by which it could be inaugurated as a true epoch. Echoing Saint-Simon and Comte, Wagner regarded the nineteenth century as a critical period, characterised by ‘bad coherence’.41 Only an artwork sprung from the actual needs and forces of the present could amend this disintegration, yet these needs and forces were all but clear: “Where are the life-conditions which shall summon forth the Necessity of this Art-work and this redemption?”42 Wagner, like Semper, appealed to the present to grasp its own epochal conditions and to realise them – and thus itself – through art: In common . . . shall we close the last link in the bond of holy Necessity; and the brother-kiss that seals this bond, will be the mutual Art-Work [Gesamtkunstwerk] of the Future. . . . for in this Art-work we shall all be one – heralds and supporters of Necessity, knowers of the unconscious, willers of the unwilful, betokeners of Nature – blissful men.43 This passage sums up Wagner’s and Semper’s notion of the Gesamtkunstwerk. The true work of art is an organic expression of its time, out of whose needs it grows. Such art is ‘natural’ in the sense that it is a necessary rather than arbitrary expression of the present conditions. “The future will settle everything”,44 Semper enthused. “The shackles would fall by themselves if the urge that drives the present became more generally aware of its aim. Here is victory and freedom!”45 The Gesamtkunstwerk, as envisioned by Wagner and Semper, was simultaneously a manifestation and an actualisation of modern society, sublimating it into an aesthetic totality. Through the Gesamtkunstwerk, the modern nation was to be constituted aesthetically; the hidden depth of the Volk was to be articulated in the total work of art. The dream was to merge art and life, making art the ultimate expression for the Lebensgefuhl ¨ of the time, and joining the disintegrated arts together again in a higher unity. This was an idea deeply rooted in romantic 169

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philosophy. Friedrich Schlegel anticipated it when he called for a universal poetry that could “vitalise poetry and poeticise life”.46 Against the aesthetic differentiation of the Enlightenment, art was called upon to transcend its aesthetic confines in order to serve as a transformatory power for life and society.47 As Wagner proclaimed: “It is for Art . . . and Art above all else, to teach this social impulse its noblest meaning, and guide it towards its true direction.”48 A curious reciprocity reveals itself here between art and the conditions from which it springs. The Gesamtkunstwerk was to emerge out of the depth of a united Volk, yet it was also to serve as the means by which to bring about such a unity. The aesthetic revolution that Wagner envisioned was not simply a consequence of a future ‘Manhood of Humanity’, but also the very event that would create such a future. The Gesamtkunstwerk was a means of redemption, a vehicle for salvation from the ‘baleful state’ of modernity, actualising the new conditions of humanity and fulfilling its deliverance to the ‘promised land’.49 The task of the artist was to transform contemporary society from a critical to an organic epoch in the Saint-Simonian sense. His mission was “to bring about a metamorphosis of the mass into a Volk, a civilisation into Culture”.50 “In this Art-work we shall all be one”, Wagner wrote – a united Volk fully in charge of its own future.51 Semper’s prophetic statement sums up this argument: For everything will only remain an eerie phantasmagoria until our national life develops into a harmonious work of art, analogous but richer than Greek art in its short golden age. When this happens, every riddle will be solved! Where are they who have thought of the possibility!52

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Both Wagner and Semper believed the Gesamtkunstwerk to be the means by which the organic unity of the future could be manifested and actualised. From this point of view, history was refashioned into a kind of aesthetic project, and the Gesamtkunstwerk into the aesthetic equivalent 170

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of the epoch: an organic whole potentially open for description, explanation, and implementation. The topos of history as a work of art had already been elaborated by Giambattista Vico (1668–1744). In the New Science (1725), Vico divided reality into two principal spheres: divine and human. Whereas God is the creator of the natural world, man is the maker of civil society. “Whoever reflects on this”, Vico wrote, “cannot but marvel that the philosophers should have bent all their energies to the study of the world of nature, which, since God made it, He alone knows; and that they should have neglected the study of the world of nations, or civil world, which, since men had made it, men could come to know.”53 A complete knowledge of God’s creation is not granted man; he can fully understand only what he has made himself. Vico’s ideas may sound deceptively modern, heralding ideas of what Koselleck coined the ‘constructability of history’: that history is ours to make.54 However, for Vico, human history still belonged within a transcendent order and was not yet seen as history in and for itself.55 When the constructability of history was invoked at the end of the eighteenth century, this understanding had changed, a transformation linked to the shift from Geschichten to Geschichte.56 Whereas Vico considered human history a set of exemplary events and institutions still deriving their meaning from a telos outside history itself, the late eighteenth century increasingly saw history as an immanent and self-regulating system. The demand for its constructability was thus radically extended. It no longer concerned only man-made institutions situated in history, but also included the making of history itself.57 Man has a history “not because he participates in it, but because he produces it”, Schelling wrote in 1798.58 Conceiving history as a comprehensible system whose workings do not depend on divine providence but rather on human prevision, history was rendered a malleable material for the crafting of progress.59 In Engels’s words, history was ours to make: The extraneous objective forces that hitherto governed history pass under the control of man himself. Only from that time will man himself, more and more consciously, make his own history – only from that time will the social causes set 171

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in movement by him have, in the main and in a constantly growing measure, the result intended by him. It is the ascent of man from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom.60 This notion of the constructability of history is far removed from that of Vico. In fact, Vico’s dictum about the making of history has been fully inverted. Whereas Vico suggested that man can understand what he has made, the reverse is true with Engels: man can make what he has understood.61 History, understood as an organic whole governed by an immanent purposiveness rather than an external telos, is a phenomenon whose workings may be explained by means of a scientific method, predicted by means of rational prognosis, and implemented by means of a political or aesthetic program. If we opened this section by looking at the affinity between the artist and the historian in nineteenth-century thinking, we have now reached the point where the two merge almost completely. From the historicist point of view, the possibility to understand history guaranteed a possibility to produce history. In the case of Wagner, Semper, and many of their contemporaries, this production was to take place by means of an aesthetic revolution. Historicist thinking turned the artwork of the future into the future as a work of art. For romantic aesthetics, the ‘all-embracing artistic whole’62 of the Gesamtkunstwerk was a means by which to mend the enlightenment split between art and life. Yet, by augmenting an already isolated aesthetic whole into an autonomous and alternative world, romantic aesthetics radicalised rather than bridged the aesthetic differentiation. The Gesamtkunstwerk – despite its ambitions in the opposite direction – represented the ultimate aestheticisation of art and history alike. As H¨ausler writes: Though rejecting the rationalist vocabulary of the preceding century, the nineteenth-century Romantics pushed yet further the tendency towards a complete emancipation, the assignment of Art to a separate sphere. If the eighteenth century had consigned art to an autonomous realm to 172

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improve its status, the Romantics adopted this same principle of aesthetic autonomy only to raise art from here onto a level above all other spheres of knowledge and experience, neatly separating it from the other ‘lower’ aspects of life.63 By projecting an already isolated aesthetic paradigm onto the whole world, the aesthetic revolution of the romantics paradoxically confirmed the very differentiation it was trying to overcome. Gadamer articulates this succinctly : “The experimental search for new symbols or a new myth that will unify everyone may certainly gather a public and create a community, but since every artist finds his own community, the particularity of such communities merely testifies to the disintegration that is taking place.”64 This comment is relevant with regard to Wagner’s and Semper’s shared vision of the Gesamtkunstwerk. For them, the Gesamtkunstwerk was a ‘precursor of redemption’: the means by which the new epoch was to crystallise.65 It was an aesthetic project, carefully designed to unify a fragmented modernity. With this idea – which for Semper implied a dream not only of a total artistic expression, but also of a method that could secure the correctness of this expression itself – he radicalised the romantic quest for aesthetic totality and approached a Comtean idea of the makeability of history. Although romantic aesthetics conceived art as refuge and redemption from the disenchanted world of reason, the dream of an aesthetic revolution relied itself on an unsurpassed instrumentality, in which the Gesamtkunstwerk of the future had become a matter of prognosis and implementation. Conceived as both a product of and an instrument for a new aesthetic synthesis, the concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk testified to the close affinity between positivism and romanticism within the framework of historicist thinking. Semper’s practical aesthetics bears out this affinity particularly clearly. It was more than an attempt to systematise architectural design procedures – it was, in fact, a radical assertion of the makeability of history, an assertion presupposing that history could be rendered transparent to the ‘designs of reason’. Here, the real impact of historicism on Semper’s thinking becomes visible. Far from being simply a matter of stylistic choice, historicism has to do with the way in which history is envisioned as being available to the present. Semper’s 173

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practical aesthetics implied strong claims concerning this availability. Presenting style and epoch as a transparent interaction of quantifiable factors, the practical aesthetics established a complete introspection into history and culture as the necessary presupposition for architectural production. Semper’s method of inventing was in this sense a fundamentally historicist device: the attempt to establish a methodology for the aesthetic sublimation of modern society.

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hapter 8 examined the intellectual framework of historicism, looking at the way such seemingly adverse tendencies as historical individualism and historical determinism were fused within it.1 Trying to grasp this ambiguous framework, I drew on Gadamer’s notion of the aporias of historicism, by which he pinpointed the inherent tension in historicist thought between romanticism and positivism. This peculiar fusion was made possible by the organic analogy, recasting history as a self-regulating system, complete at every point yet governed by comprehensible laws. The organic paradigm seemed to do for history what it had done for anatomy and linguistics: to allow for a methodical explanation and prediction of historical phenomena, establishing a science of history and historical expressions. This aspiration lies at the heart of nineteenth-century historicism, pointedly defined by Heidegger as history becoming “an object of contemplation for method”.2 However, if the aesthetic-organic framework of historicism sheds light on certain ambiguities within Semper’s practical aesthetics, it does not illuminate the aspect of Semper’s thinking that I have called his poetics; that is, his notion of art as a creative interpretation of praxis. Emphasising the inalienable presence of the past embodied in art, Semper’s poetics of architecture presented a mode of history very different from the historicism of style and epoch. Following Gadamer, we may talk about this as Geschichtlichkeit: the inescapable historicity of human existence.3 Notwithstanding the historicist attempt at reducing history to a matter of methodology, there always remains a historical 175

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dimension unaffected by this reduction, a dimension constituted by the fact that our lives are “always already affected by history”.4 Semper’s poetics addressed this historicity as it came to expression in works of art and architecture. Having so far described the aporias of historicism as the ambiguous fusion of romanticism and positivism, we are now encountering a deeper aporia located at the heart of Semper’s thinking. It is a conflict between a recognition of the profound historicity of art on the one hand, and a historicist dream of developing a method by which to master history and art alike on the other. In this concluding chapter, I will situate Semper’s work within this tension and, in this way, return to my initial point of departure: the conflicting relationship between Semper’s poetics of architecture and his practical aesthetics. One last close reading will help me do this. It is a reading of the German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey (1833–1911), whose philosophy of history made the deeper aporias of historicism abundantly clear. A younger contemporary of Semper, Dilthey was, in fact, a great admirer of Der Stil, celebrating it as an “enlightening model for how an important historical problem should be solved in aesthetics.”5 The appraisal indicates the affinity that existed between the two scholars, allied in a mutual search for a science of history and historical expressions.

W I L H E L M D I LT H E Y : H I S T O R I C I T Y AND HISTORICISM

Writing in the last decades of the nineteenth century, Dilthey could coolly evaluate the dual origins of historicism. In his view, neither the German historical school nor the Anglo-French tradition of social science had managed to elevate the study of historical phenomena to the status of an objective science. Although the historical school had developed sensitive insights into historical phenomena, it had neglected the methodological rigor demanded from a proper science.6 And although social science in the tradition of Comte and Mill had outlined a rigorous methodology, it lacked “that intimate sense of historical reality 176

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necessary for appreciating the essential nature of history.”7 With one position emphasising method over substance and the other substance over method, no secure foundation had been found for the human sciences.8 Dilthey’s own philosophical project was informed by this criticism. He wanted to retain the concrete richness of the historical phenomenon while also developing an objective science of history, thus accommodating both the insights of the historical school and the rigors of positivism. Although sharing their ambitions, however, Dilthey rejected both romantic and positivist attempts at formulating the problem of history. Neither a matter of metaphysics nor of ‘facts’, Dilthey saw history as a matter of epistemology: of how we can come to possess objective knowledge of the historical world. As he asked: “We are now confronted by the question of the scientific knowledge of . . . human existence. Is such a knowledge possible, and what means do we have to attain it?”9 Posing the question in this way, Dilthey followed Kant’s precedent. Kant’s critical project had been to show how scientific knowledge – pure or empirical – is possible. Extending this approach, Dilthey set out to prove the possibility of a Geisteswissenschaft: a science of history and culture. In the same way that Kant had located the possibility of knowledge in man’s transcendental faculties, Dilthey identified historical knowledge as an epistemological rather than an ontological problem, and sought to complement the Kantian Critiques with a Critique of Historical Reason.10 With Dilthey, as Gadamer notes, “the claim of the pure science of reason was extended to historical knowledge. It was a part of the encyclopaedia of the mind.”11 Attempting to clear the ground for a legitimate Geisteswissenschaft, Dilthey sought the simplest constituent element of history as his point of departure. In contrast to natural science, which structures its research around supposedly neutral facts, the human sciences must base their research on data always already pregnant with meaning.12 Following the romantic tradition, Dilthey located this nucleus of meaning in the lived experience [Erlebnis] of the individual. The individual’s Erlebnisse, he argued, constitute a structure by means of which “one’s inner life is woven into continuity”.13 Such experiences form a nexus of meaning 177

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which structures not only the individual psyche, but also the historical world. In fact, the historical world “exists nowhere else but in the representations of such an individual.”14 Historical knowledge, then, springs from the depth and totality of human self-consciousness, and any science of man must begin there.15 Starting from the individual’s experience of life, the Geisteswissenschaften were to gradually expand their scope until they achieved “the analysis of our total lived experience of the human world”.16 The possibility for such an expansion was given by the affinity between individual and world: “The first condition for the possibility of a Geisteswissenschaft lies in the consciousness that I am myself a historical creature”,17 Dilthey declared: I myself, who experience and know myself from within, am a constituent of this social body . . . the other constituents are similar to me and are thus for me likewise comprehensible in their inner being. I understand the life of society.18 With our recent discussion of Vico’s ‘human history’ in mind, Dilthey’s statement sounds familiar. Man’s comprehension of the life of society is different from his comprehension of nature.19 Whereas nature is known as an object experienced from the outside, the historical world is known, as it were, from within. Because man is himself a part of a historical world, he knows that world by its affinity to his own being.20 This participation was, for Dilthey, the epistemological guarantee for historical knowledge: I understand the historical world because I am myself a historical creature. Yet, this insight is only the starting point for a science of history. If historical knowledge is to be elevated to a science proper, it cannot remain a matter of subjective intuition. The extrapolation that links self-consciousness to the consciousness of others cannot merely be spontaneously given, but rather must be achieved through a systematic procedure. Only by means of such a procedure can the historian transcend the particularity of his own life and grasp an ever-expanding horizon of historical understanding. We may attain historical knowledge, in other words, only by means of a method of interpretation.21 178

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Dilthey’s methodology entailed a two-step procedure. The first step was constituted by the principle of sympathy, described previously: By using the experiences of my own life to understand the expressions of others, I can gradually expand the understanding I have of myself into a complete understanding of the historical world. Historical knowledge, in this sense, is a kind of augmented self-consciousness in which the individual’s life experience has become “the starting point for an expansion that in a living transposition, fills out the narrowness and fortuitousness of his private experience”.22 This principle of sympathy implied the second methodological step, that of comparison: If by sympathy I can understand the ‘other’ in history, then by comparison I can assemble a potentially infinite number of ‘others’, the interrelation of whom constitutes the structure of history.23 Comparison, Dilthey explained, allows me to transcend my particular situation and opens the possibility of a “complete science of history . . . the presentation and explanation of the system of human culture.”24 Dilthey’s historical method, then, was a means by which the limitations of subjective consciousness could be transcended. Through sympathy and comparison, the historian was to rise above his own relative viewpoint to an objective and comparative overview of history.25 As in the case of Cuvier and Comte, Dilthey’s comparative method was based on certain essential presuppositions. It presupposed a world in which all historical phenomena are equally present and accessible for the sympathetic historian, thus allowing for a complete and objective overview of history. A certain ‘simultaneity of history’ was thereby established within the comparative matrix, pinpointed by Gadamer when he writes that “Comparison essentially presupposes that the knowing subjectivity has the freedom to have both members of the comparison at its disposal. It openly makes both things contemporary.”26 This contemporaneity, we might add, can be achieved because the comparative method considers not the particular significance of the objects of study, but rather their formal relations. Count Yorck pointed this out to Dilthey in a letter: “Comparison is always aesthetic; it is always concerned with the pattern of things.”27 The implications of this formalisation were discussed in Chapters 5 and 6 . Construing its object of study as a set of formal relations, the comparative method established a 179

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laboratory-like condition in which the inner workings of life, language, or history could be unravelled. This comparative experimentation, as we saw in the work of Comte, had not only explanatory but also predictive ambitions. If the laws and forces of history could be explained, then their future manifestations could be foreseen. Dilthey shared this ambition on behalf of the human sciences, tacitly accepting Comte’s dictum that “all science has prevision for its end”.28 The aporia of Dilthey’s science of history runs deeper than the rift between historical individualism and determinism. It is a conflict between a recognition of the fundamental historicity of human existence on the one hand, and the dream of developing a method by means of which this historicity can be mastered on the other. Gadamer demonstrates how the second ambition inevitably cancels the first.29 Lived experience is always situated, Gadamer argues: it belongs, as Dilthey himself knew, to a particular time, place, and situation. Man is situated (or ‘thrown’, in Heidegger’s word) within a particular horizon of understanding, a horizon which is historically constituted. In this sense, historical consciousness is not an “infinite intellect for which everything exists, simultaneous and co-present”, but rather remains “always entangled in the context of historical effect.”30 A method demands, by definition, that this entanglement be transcended and replaced by an objective overview. The essential nature of historicity, therefore, can never be grasped by means of method, and Dilthey was able to harmonise the epistemological demands of the human sciences only by neglecting the essential historicity of the human situation. In the new Geisteswissenschaften, as Gadamer points out, the ontological reality of historicity was ultimately discarded for the epistemological construction of historicism.31

SEMPER AND THE QUESTION OF METHOD: A CONCLUSION

The affinity between Dilthey and Semper is striking: they both recognised the depth and complexity of historical expressions; they both sought a scientific procedure that could encompass this complexity 180

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without compromising the demand for objectivity; and, finally, they both claimed to have found it in the ‘contemporising’ procedure of the comparative method. By means of this method, Dilthey and Semper came to turn their recognition of the historicity of the human world into a dream for its transparency and, further, into an operative method for its prediction. The key to understanding Semper’s unlikely fusion of poetics and practical aesthetics must be sought within this second aporia of historicism. To approach the question of historicity in Semper’s work, it is necessary to return to his reflections on origins. Semper located the origins of art and architecture not in a formal model, but rather in the creative instinct of man. From his point of view, art served as a vehicle for man’s practical and existential orientation in the world, and could not be understood in isolation from this task. The notion of motif played a key role in these reflections. As the simplest ‘translation’ of ritual action into form (e.g., the embodiment of rhythm in the motif of weaving), the motifs constituted the primordial nuclei of art. With time, these motifs metamorphosed into new materials and were transformed according to new needs, yet they remained recognisable configurations with a relative stability, guaranteeing the continuity and legibility of art through history. In this sense, the motifs had a distinctly historical character. The kind of history at stake, however, was not the history of historicism – an object to be analysed by means of method – but rather history as a continuous and involuntary presence, granting recognisability and meaning to the world. Semper’s motifs of art constituted an omnipresent resonance, revealing the past and, by doing so, renewing the present. Semper, like Dilthey, did not seek his point of departure in empirical facts, but rather in phenomena always already pregnant with meaning.32 For both scholars, this meaning resided in the particular historicity of human experience and expression, in the way the past exercises a continuous effect upon the present. Gadamer has called this particular ‘effect’ of history Wirkungsgeschichte: history as it works on us through language, art, and tradition. From this point of view, “time is no longer primarily a gulf to be bridged because it separates; it is actually the supportive ground of the course of events in which the present 181

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is rooted.”33 For Semper, the kind of making that takes place in art, craft, and architecture testified to this ‘supportive ground’ of history. It is a mode of history never directly available for observation, yet it exercises a continuous effect on our thinking and making. Art, in Semper’s sense of the term, embodies history as it works on the present and, in doing so, establishes a reinterpretation of both the past and the present itself. It is in this sense that art can be described as mimesis of praxis: a creative interpretation of a human world. Ricoeur, following Aristotle, described the working of art as emplotment: the configuration of ‘reality into world’.34 This emplotment involves history insofar as what it reveals is a historical world. Yet, this does not mean that the artwork is concerned only with the past. On the contrary, the work of art, as Ricoeur points out, makes it clear that “the past is no longer something over and done with . . . but something that . . . is now preserved in the present.”35 Semper knew this when he emphasised the constant need to reappropriate the ancient motifs of art, to transform them and make them “our own flesh and blood”.36 For him, the past was a necessary and inalienable presence, and the task of art was the constant interpretation and reinterpretation of this historicity. As mimesis of praxis, the work of art brings something to visibility that would otherwise remain unseen. It does not only reproduce an already existing reality, but also brings forth something new. Ricoeur talked about this double effect as the poetic capacity of art. When I somewhat cautiously called Semper’s reflections on the origin and development of architecture a poetics, it had to do with this dual capacity. Poiesis signifies ‘fiction’ or ‘fabrication’. To talk about the poetic fiction of architecture is to suggest that architecture imitates human praxis in a poetic fashion: at the same time revealing and transforming the word in which it is situated.37 This was indeed what Semper suggested when he emphasised the need to disintegrate and reappropriate the ancient motifs of art according to the needs of the present. For him, architecture was something which both reveals and transforms the very ground of human existence. This poetic fiction did not imply a ‘denial of reality’ in any narrow sense.38 Rather than an aesthetic escape from reality, the poetic fiction of art represented in a certain sense a privileged access to reality itself. The work of art – which for Semper meant the process of 182

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making as well as the actual result – is an activity fundamental to man’s ‘being-in-the-world’, to borrow Heidegger’s phrase: an activity whose primary significance is ontological rather than aesthetic. Having reminded ourselves of the main points of Semper’s poetics of architecture, it is time to confront the difficult question of method; that is, the question of how Semper could reconcile his recognition of the poetic capacity and historicity of art with the methodological demands of his practical aesthetics. Like Dilthey, Semper (at least, in his poetics) refused to reduce his subject matter to a matter of narrowly defined facts. In this sense, he was certainly neither a materialist nor a functionalist, but rather had a broad and inclusive view of the means and ends of architecture. At the same time, however, alarmed by the contemporary sense of crisis, Semper sought to save architecture from ‘eccentric opinion’ by giving it the legitimacy of a science and the procedure of a method. This ambition entailed a peculiar dilemma: the meaning of art is not objectively given, but rather resides within a particular horizon of understanding. Semper recognised this, stating that art can never be invented ex nihilo, but relies on a shared memory.39 Yet, if art were to be made the legitimate object of a method, this horizon must be transcended. Method, as we saw in Dilthey, presupposes that the contextual significance of the object of study be overcome, that it be disentangled from its involvement with the world and made the object of ideal observation and explanation.40 This disentangling was precisely what took place in Semper’s practical aesthetics. By formalising the notions of motif and style into coefficients that can be treated in a methodical manner, Semper gradually abandoned his contextual understanding of art in favour of a formal analysis. I followed this process through three steps: (1) the first step reduced the notion of motif to a purely formal configuration in the theory of formal beauty; (2) the second step rendered style a result of a transparent interaction between definable coefficients in the formula for style; and (3) the third step placed these ‘results’ within the universal expanse of the comparative matrix, establishing for art a complete view “over its whole province”.41 By means of this overview, the slippery problem of style could be made no longer a matter of ‘choosing appropriately’, but rather a question of ‘defining correctly’. Instead of 183

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being a matter of ethical judgement, the ‘style of our time’ would be a matter of method and its correct application. I wrote in the Introduction that Semper’s dilemma could be framed as a tension between his concern for the ontological significance of art and his demand for its epistemological explanation. Now we may return to this tension. Faced with the demands of method, Semper was forced to shift his emphasis from the meaning of art itself to the meaning of the procedures by which art can be investigated. Like Dilthey, he replaced an insight into the historicity of art with a historicist demand for methodical explanation, testifying to the positivist dictum that “we seek no other unity than the unity of method”.42 Again, Dilthey’s case is instructive. Dilthey recognised historicity as an ontological phenomenon, an essential feature of human existence. In his historical critique, however, this ontological problem was offered an epistemological solution, in which the question of historicity became a question of how and by what means it might be known.43 Thus, for all his criticism of naive neo-Kantianism, Dilthey actually continued the tendency initiated by Kant’s ‘Copernican revolution’: he replaced the ontological question of the world with an epistemological question of how to investigate it. Unlike the first question, the latter could be answered without recourse to a transcendent reality, and could as such be considered scientifically legitimate. This conflation of substance and method is characteristic of historicism and positivism alike. Both presuppose, as Habermas points out, “that the meaning of knowledge is defined by what sciences do and can thus be adequately explicated through the methodological analysis of scientific procedures.”44 Habermas describes this shift, so conspicuous in the nineteenth century, as a ‘flattening’ of the realm of reflection, in which ontology is reduced to epistemology and subsequently to a set of methodological principles transparent to reason.45 Semper’s practical aesthetics testified to this flattening. Starting from a concern for the ontological significance of art, he ended with a purely epistemological construction in which the question of the truth of art was overshadowed by a question of procedural correctness. In this sense, Quitzsch was right when he identified Semper’s failure as an epistemological one, but wrong when assuming that the failure could have been avoided. The intellectual framework 184

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of historicism, although seemingly allowing Semper to proceed from a poetics of art to its implementation in a practical aesthetics, forced him in reality to lay aside his original question. This is the inherent naiveté of historicism: “In trusting to the fact that its procedure is methodical, it forgets its own historicity.”46 Semper’s theoretical reflections on architecture remain suspended in the aporia of historicism. He recognised the historicity of art, yet he was ultimately forced to sacrifice this recognition for methodological coherence. This reduction is nowhere more clearly expressed than in Semper’s plan for an “Ideal and Universal Collection”, formulated during his London exile. Simultaneously inspired and alarmed by the Great Exhibition of 1851, Semper set out to outline the principles by which an ideal collection should be organised. This would not be simply another museum, but rather a complete encyclopaedia of human culture: A Complete and Universal Collection must give, so to speak, the longitudinal Section – the transverse Section and the plan of the entire Science of Culture; it must show how things were done in all times; how they are done at present in all the Countries of the Earth; and why they were done in one or the other Way, according to circumstances; it must give the history, the ethnography and the philosophy of Culture.47 Semper outlined the organisation of such a collection in some detail, the structure of which anticipates the organisation of Der Stil. The universal collection would form a great comparative matrix in which the artefacts were arranged – not according to chronology or aesthetic value (the two most common criteria for museum classification at the time),48 but rather according to the four primordial techniques of making and their corresponding ‘elements’ (Figure 50). The section comprising textile art, for instance, would begin with the simplest wickerwork, expand to more refined textile products, and culminate in the metamorphosed motif of Bekleidung in its different guises. Similarly, the other elements of architecture would be traced from their simplest origins to their most sublimated expressions and presented in their development through time and place. An additional section would 185

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Figure 50. Sketch diagram for an ideal museum. Gottfried Semper, Practical Art in Metals and Hard Materials: Its Technology, History, and Styles. Unpublished manuscript, London 1852. V&A Picture Library.

display products of ‘mixed character’, demonstrating the “blending together of the four Elements [in] High Art and Architecture.”49 In this way, Semper hoped to establish “a good Comparative System of Arrangement”,50 “a sort of Index to the History of Culture”51 that would enable “the Student to see the things in their mutual relations, to observe their mutual affinities and Dissimilarities, and to find out the Laws and Premises upon which all these mutual positive and negative relations depend.”52 186

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Semper’s universal collection was to allow human culture in all its aspects to be captured and displayed in the simultaneity of the comparative matrix. By means of this matrix, which would grant “a clear insight over [art’s] whole province”, the laws of artistic making were to be revealed and a practical aesthetic formulated.53 What is extraordinary about Semper’s ambition is not so much its breadth as its depth. ‘Universal’ collections and ‘general’ histories were favourite pursuits in nineteenth-century scholarship. Semper’s ‘Ideal and Universal Collection’, however, was not only supposed to display everything, but also to explain it: capturing the full meaning and manifold of human creativity in one universal overview. Its significance was to be guaranteed not by the particular meaning of the artefacts displayed, but by the methodological arrangement itself, displaying human culture and history as an immanent system whose laws are available for explanation and prediction. Within the laboratory of the comparative matrix, the riddles of art and history were to be solved once and for all. Semper’s project for a universal collection provides a good example of the historicist emphasis of method over substance, the idea that the ‘truth’ or ‘correctness’ of an inquiry can be guaranteed by procedure rather than by content. As such, the collection testifies to the inevitable formalisation implied in the historicist obsession with method. For the historicist mind, as Count Yorck reminded us, everything is a pattern, instantly available to methodical explanation. This observation seems an apt comment on Semper’s universal collection. By means of this collection, establishing a comparative overview over the ‘province of art’, Semper aimed to reveal the laws of artistic making and to render them available for observation, explanation, and prediction. Yet, this approach seems, paradoxically, to limit rather than expand the questions that can be asked about art and its significance. Although seeming to establish a complete and systematic overview, the practical aesthetics excluded questions about the ontological meaning of art for the sake of epistemological clarity. It may now be possible to assess Semper’s attempt to turn architectural interpretation and creation into a scientific procedure and to appreciate the deep dilemma inherent in his position. Although recognising the historicity of artistic making, Semper’s sense of crisis 187

THE APORIAS OF HISTORICISM

on behalf of contemporary art and architecture led him to quantify both history and artistic making into factors of systematic analysis. The practical aesthetics presupposed that the work of art in all its aspects could be understood as a result of clearly definable coefficients and their interaction. By means of this analogy, Semper formulated a theory of style that had both explanatory and predicative capacity. Yet, Semper achieved this theoretical coherence only at the cost of abandoning his initial insight into the poetic capacity of art. From the point of view of his poetics, artistic making was a vehicle for interpretation, a vehicle by means of which the concealed horizon of a human world could be brought to a partial articulation. The practical aesthetics, on the other hand, set up quite a different set of presuppositions, according to which the coefficients of art were already fully defined. Unlike the poetics, which took the opacity of the world as its point of departure, the practical aesthetics required a complete transparency of history and culture before the act of making could even begin.

188

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k

T

he dream of fully capturing one’s own horizon of understanding, and objectifying the presupposition for understanding itself, was one that could not have succeeded. As Vesely points out, “in order to do so, it would have been necessary to transform the whole culture to which architecture inevitably belongs into verifiable conditions and to make them part of a complete functional system.”1 Semper himself implicitly testified to this recognition by the incompleteness of his project. “I can assure you,” he wrote to his impatient publisher awaiting the third volume of Der Stil, “that it was not carelessness, indifference, and certainly not ill will, but motives and emotions of quite a different nature that prevented me again and again from fulfilling . . . the obligations I have towards you and the public”.2 In this epilogue, I would like to touch upon these ‘feelings and motives’, to scrutinise more closely, that is, the inherent limits of a ‘science of architecture’. This investigation takes us back to Kant, whose Critiques were precise attempts to investigate the inherent limits of human reason. Knowledge, for Kant, was possible only insofar as intuition – received through the sensate faculty – can be subordinated under laws given by the understanding itself. Our knowledge of the phenomenal world is restricted to those aspects of it that can be subsumed under the categories of the understanding, such as cause and effect, substance, and so on. These aspects of the empirical reality give rise to determinate judgements (i.e., knowledge) because they belong to principles

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“native to the understanding itself.”3 Everything else – for instance, the notion of nature’s purposiveness – will generate only reflective judgements; that is, judgements on phenomena which cannot be subsumed under an a priori law, but merely under regulative ideas.4 These phenomena transcend the possibility for secure knowledge and represent as such the limits of our pure reason, beyond which our thinking no longer has – or can have – any possibility of attaining scientific certainty. This is Kant’s critique of the rationalist’s unlimited faith in reason. His Critique of Pure Reason was the attempt to outline the limits of our conceptual knowledge and, as such, the limits of a scientific objectification of the world. Although our notion of nature as purposeful is necessary for any investigation into nature, this purposiveness itself cannot be turned into an object of science. The notion of purpose is rather serving as a border concept, indicating the limits beyond which scientific knowledge cannot reach. The notion of purpose in nature indicates, in Kant’s words, “a supersensible basis of [nature’s] reality, though we could not cognize this basis.”5 Our understanding is able to know a priori whatever laws it itself prescribes to nature, through the categories. Beyond the categorical understanding, however, we cannot have theoretical knowledge, but can only think: We saw that, as far as nature’s construction in terms of particular laws is concerned (for whose systematic coherence we do not have the key), those principles pertain merely to reflective judgement: they do not determine the actual [an sich] origin of these beings, but only say that the character of our understanding and of our reason is such that the only way we can conceive of the origins of such beings is in terms of final causes. And hence we are certainly permitted to strive as hard and even as boldly as possible to explain such beings mechanically. Indeed, reason calls upon us to make this attempt, even though we know that there are subjective grounds why we can never make do with a mechanical explanation, grounds that have to do with the particular kind of limitation of our understanding.6 190

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This all too brief glimpse into Kant’s epistemology can perhaps shed light on the utopian nature of Semper and Dilthey’s mutual ambitions to make human expression the object of science. Our knowledge of the world is based on something which itself cannot be ‘known’ in the strict sense of scientific knowledge. The historically given ground upon which a cultural community rests is what determines our knowledge about the world, and cannot itself be objectified. As Gadamer points out: To be historically means that knowledge of one-self can never be complete. All self-knowledge arises from what is historically pre-given, . . . because it underlies all subjective intentions and actions and hence both prescribes and limits every possibility for understanding any tradition whatsoever in its historical alterity.7 Let us return to Semper for a last reflection. His thinking embodies a tension characteristic, I believe, for the modern period. It is a tension between – on the one hand – an inescapable reliance on tradition and – on the other – a dream of a clean slate. Semper recognised tradition as that which constitutes man’s horizon of understanding, thus governing his thinking and making. With this recognition, he testified to an understanding of art as a poetic imitation and interpretation of a life-world. The attempt to elevate a poetic interpretation into a scientific method, however, was one that inevitably cancelled the poetics itself. The particular historicity of art, in which its poetic potential resides, can never be rendered transparent for a methodical explanation. As Harries puts it: Like a poem, no way of life is given so transparently that it unambiguously declares its meaning. There can be no definitive statement of that meaning; it must be established, ever anew and precariously, in interpretation. All building, and more self-consciously architecture, participates in this work. Building is a response interpreting a way of life.8 191

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This poetic potential was precisely what Semper had recognised in his reflections on the origins of architecture as the mimetic interpretation of praxis. In his practical aesthetics, however, imitation became calculation and praxis adhered to practice: a verifiable entity, no longer the horizon conditioning our understanding, but itself fully available for scientific knowledge. Artistic creation, then, became a matter of correspondence between style and its effective causes, a correspondence that could be utilised in the production of art. Semper’s attempt to restore an authentic relation between art and society by means of a scientific method inevitably turned design into an operative device for calculation rather than an act of interpretation. The incompletion of Semper’s project indicates, however, that a full appropriation of the poetic dimension is not possible. There always remains, in the midst of any attempt of instrumentalisation, a poetic power of architecture to mediate between an inexhaustible tradition and a concrete situation. The historicity that is involved in acts of poetic interpretation – in the making of a building, for instance – inevitably opens a dimension of meaning inaccessible to scientific analysis. Only by recognising the incompatibility of Semper’s poetics and his practical aesthetics is it possible to assess the meaning of his theoretical work and to reassess its continued influence – explicit or implicit – on our contemporary architectural discourse and practice.

192

NOTES

k PROLEGOMENON

1 2

3

4

5

6 7 8

Genesis 10:11–12. On the excavation and reception at the British Museum, see R. D. Barnett and A. Lorenzini, Assyrian Sculpture in the British Museum, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart 1975, p. 20; and E. Miller, That Noble Cabinet, A History of the British Museum, Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press 1974, pp. 213–20. For an account of the debate that ensued, see I. Jenkins, Archaeologists & Aesthetes in the Sculpture Galleries of the British Museum 1800–1939, London: British Museum Press 1992, pp. 151–70. The notion of ‘motif’ [Ger. Motiv] is key in Semper’s architectural thinking, and will be central in the following discussion. It is not easily translatable, as the German Motiv is used in a very wide sense, encompassing both artistic ‘motifs’ and human ‘motives’ as these terms are used in English. However, The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of ‘motif’ as “a distinctive feature or element in a design or composition . . . also, the dominant idea of a work. . . . a leading figure or short phrase, a subject or a theme” is roughly consistent with Semper’s own, and I will apply this term in the following discussion. The notion of motif will be examined more closely in the introduction and in chapter 3. ¨ Der Stil in den technischen und tektonischen Kunsten ¨ oder praktische Asthetik. Ein Handbuch fur ¨ Techniker, Kunstler ¨ und Kunstfreunde, vol. 1 (1860), Mittenwald: M¨aander 1977, pp. 386–7. Ibid., pp. 383–4. Ibid., pp. 381 and 383. ‘Tectonic’ in this context refers to wooden constructions. ¨ Semper defined ‘style’ as the “Ubereinstimmung einer Kunsterscheinung mit ihrer Entstehungsgeschichte, mit allen Vorbedingungen und Umst¨anden ihres Werdens”. “Ueber Baustile” (Zurich lecture, 4 March 1869), MS 280, in H. and M. Semper (eds.), Kleine Schriften (1884), Mittenwald: M¨aander 1979, p. 402.

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9

10

11

12

British Museum, no. 124564–6. For an iconographical analysis of the relief, see A. Parrot, Nineveh and Babylon, trans. S. Gilbert and J. Emmons, London: Thames and Hudson 1961, pp. 36–7. “Outline for a System of Comparative Style Theory” (London lecture, 11 November 1853), MS 122, fol. 17, in RES, Journal of Anthropology and Aesthetics 6, Autumn 1983, pp. 5–32. Georges Cuvier, Discourse sur les Révolutions de la Surface du Globe (Paris 1828), quoted in E. Cassirer, The Problem of Knowledge, trans. W. H. Woglom and C. W. Hendel, Yale University Press 1950, pp. 130–1. An expression borrowed from H. G. Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. J. Weinheimer and D. G. Marshall, London: Sheed & Ward 1989, part II.I.2: “Dilthey’s Entanglement in the Aporias of Historicism”.

INTRODUCTION

1

2

3

4 5

“Ein Fundamentalprincip der Erfindung, welches . . . mit logischer Sicherheit die wahre Form . . . finden liess.” H. Semper, Gottfried Semper, ein Bild seines Lebens und Wirkens, Berlin: Calvary 1880, p. 12. J. Rykwert, “Gottfried Semper and the Conception of Style”, in Vogt, Reble, ¨ and Frolich (eds.), Gottfried Semper und die Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts, Basel: Birkh¨auser 1976, p. 79. It was A. Riegl in his Late Roman Art Industry (1901) who first classified Semper as a materialist (Rome: Bretschneider 1985, p. 9). E. Stockmeyer saw him as promoting ‘immanent idealism’ (Gottfried Sempers Kunsttheorie, Zurich: Rascher ´ 1939, p. 38). A. Pérez-Gomez accuses him of postulating “functionalism as a fundamental premise of architectural intentionality” (Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press 1992, p. 7), whereas H. Bauer points out that in Semper’s theory, “sprechen gleichzeitig deutscher Idealismus und Historismus” (“Architektur als Kunst,” in Bauer [ed.] Probleme der Kunstwissenschaft, Berlin: Gruyter 1963, p. 161). H. Quitzsch reads Semper ¨ as a proto-Marxist (Die Asthetischen Anschauungen Gottfried Sempers, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag 1962), whereas L. Ettlinger characterises him as an ‘ardent liberal.’ (“On Science, Industry and Art, Some Theories of Gottfried Semper”, Architectural Review, CXXXVI, 1964, p. 57.) M. Wigley sees Semper as rebelling against enlightenment reason (“Untitled: The Housing of Gender”, in Colomina [ed.], Sexuality and Space, Princeton Architectural Press 1992, pp. 365– 6), whereas K. Marx dismissed “the Saxon Semper” as a petit bourgeois (letter ¨ to Engels, 31 August 1851, quoted in Quitzsch, Die Asthetischen Anschauungen Gottfried Sempers, p. 12). H. F. Mallgrave, “Commentary on Semper’s November Lecture”, RES: Journal of Anthropology and Aesthetics, no. 6, Fall 1983, p. 31. ¨ ¨ “Offentlicher Lehrkursus uber die allgemeine Geschichte der Baukunst”, MS 19. Published as Semper’s “Dresdner Antrittsvorlesung” in H. Laudel, Gottfried Semper: Architektur und Stil, Dresden: Verlag der Kunst 1991, pp. 221–34.

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6

7 8

9

10

11

12

The full quote is “Die Geschichte der Kunst muss erlernt werden, weniger um dieser gelehrten Richtung zu gehorchen, obgleich auch diese hier zu ¨ ¨ berucksichtigen ist, da nun einmal mit den Wolfen geheult werden muß, aber d. Architektur hat ihre Vorbilder zur Darstellung einer Idee nicht fertig in ¨ den Gestalten und formlichen Erscheinungen der Natur, sondern sie beruht auf unbestimmbaren aber nicht desto weniger sicheren und festen Gesetzen ¨ (die mit den Grundgesetzen der Natur ubereinzustimmen scheinen), nach ¨ denen sie alle r¨aumlichen Bedurfnisse der menschlichen Verh¨altnisse ord¨ erweckende Weise zusammenfugt.” ¨ net und auf eine das Kunstgefuhl Ibid., pp. 223–4. Ibid., pp. 230–1. On the translation of the German Motiv with English Motif, see Prolegomenon, note 4. My distinction between the ontological and epistemological aspects of Semper’s thinking does not coincide with K. Frampton’s distinction between the ontological and the representational aspects of architecture, a distinction he partly attributes to Semper, Studies in Tectonic Culture, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press 1995, p. 16. Whereas Frampton seems to use the term ‘ontology’ to refer to the constructive elements of architecture (as opposed to the representational skin), I use it to refer to the significance of art for human existence. Trans. Preliminary Remarks on Polychrome Architecture and Sculpture in Antiquity, in H. F. Mallgrave and W. Herrmann (eds. and trans.), Gottfried Semper: The Four Elements of Architecture and Other Writings, Cambridge University Press 1989, pp. 74–129. Further on the publication of Vorl¨aufige Bemerkungen and Semper’s subsequent appointment to the Bauakademie, see ibid., introduction, pp. 2–16 and 45–73. ¨ For an account of Semper’s early travels, see M. Frohlich, Gottfried Semper. Zeichnerischer Nachlass an der ETH Zurich: ¨ Kritischer Katalog, Basel: Birkh¨auser 1974, pp. 12–30; and H. F. Mallgrave, Gottfried Semper; Architect of the Nineteenth Century, Yale University Press 1996, pp. 38–53. Semper had studied under Frans Christian Gau in Paris in 1826–7 and 1829. Under Gau’s tutelage, he was introduced to the architect and archaeologist, Jaques-Ignace Hittorf. Both Gau and Hittorf had undertaken archaeological research in Italy and the Near East, and Hittorf’s polychrome reconstruction of ‘Temple B’ at Selinus is often seen as the beginning of ‘The Polychrome Controversy’. For a thorough account of this controversy, see D. van Zanten, The Architectural Polychromy of the 1830s, New York: Garland 1977. Further on Hittorf, see D. D. Schneider, The Work and Doctrines of Jaques Ignace Hittorf, 1792–1867, New York: Garland 1977. See, for instance, Johann Joachim Winckelmann, who saw “noble simplicity and sedate grandeur in gesture and expression” as the defining characteristics of Greek classicism. On the Imitation of the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks (1755), in Winckelmann: Writings on Art, D. Irwin (ed. and trans.), London: Phaidon 1972, p. 72.

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13

14

15 16 17

18 19 20

21

22 23

24

25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

Although incomplete, the inventory of Semper’s Dresden library (MS 148, unpublished manuscript in the Semper archives) contains an impressive collection of classical and contemporary authors, supporting Hans Semper’s claim that his father was exceptionally well read. Gottfried Semper, ein Bild, p. 12. Prospectus to Vergleichende Baulehre (MS 52), in W. Herrmann (ed. and trans.), Gottfried Semper: In Search of Architecture. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press 1984, p. 168. MS 52–77, unpublished manuscript in the Semper archives. For a detailed account of Semper’s exile, see Herrmann, In Search, chapter 2. Trans. The Four Elements of Architecture: A Contribution to the Comparative Study of Architecture (1851), in Mallgrave and Herrmann, The Four Elements of Architecture and Others Writing, pp. 74–129. Ibid., p. 102. Ibid., p. 102. “On the Origin of Some Architectural Styles”, (London lecture, December 1853), MS 138, fols. 1–23, in RES, Journal of Anthropology and Aesthetics 9, Spring 1985, pp. 53–60. Semper wrote these lectures in English, a language he never fully mastered. I do not attempt to correct Semper’s mistakes when quoting from the London lectures, but rather adhere to the texts as published. Semper used ‘element’, ‘motif ’, and ‘type’ – even ‘idea’ and ‘symbol’ – more or less indistinguishably, referring to archetypal ‘Ur-formen’ or ‘Urmotiven’ of art and architecture. In some texts, however, he presented the ‘motifs of art’ as a potentially infinite number of primordial ‘themes’ in artistic making, whereas the ‘elements of architecture’ are motifs reified into the four basic architectural configurations of mound, wall, hearth, and roof. See, for instance, The Four Elements of Architecture, pp. 101–26. “Outline for a System of Comparative Style Theory”, MS 122, fol. 9, p. 9. Science, Industry, and Art, Proposals for the Development of a National Taste in Art at the Closing of the London Industrial Exhibition (1852), in Mallgrave and Herrmann, The Four Elements of Architecture and Others Writings, p. 136. A selection of Semper’s London lectures was published in RES, Journal of Anthropology and Aesthetics, no. 6, Autumn 1983; no. 9, Spring 1985; and no. 11, Spring 1986. N. Pevsner, Some Architectural Writers of the Nineteenth Century, Oxford: Claredon 1972, p. 260. “Outline for a System of Comparative Style Theory”, MS 122, fol. 5–6, p. 9. Semper introduced the term ‘Practical Aesthetics’ in the title of Der Stil. “Outline for a System of Comparative Style Theory”, MS 122, fol. 32, p. 16. Ibid., fol. 15, p. 11. Ibid., fol. 6, p. 9. Second Prospectus to Der Stil (MS 196 and MS 205), in Herrmann and Mallgrave, The Four Elements of Architecture and Others Writings, p. 179. Although this correspondence remains implicit in Der Stil, Semper spelled it out clearly in The Four Elements of Architecture, pp. 103–4.

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33 34 35 36

37

38 39

40

41

42

See Herrmann, “The Genesis of Der Stil, 1840–1877”, In Search, pp. 88–117. First Prospectus to Der Stil, quoted in Herrmann, In Search, p. 101. In Search, pp. 104–112. The second edition of Der Stil was published by Bruckmann Verlag, Munich 1878; third edition by M¨aander Kunstverlag, Mittenwald 1977. Semper’s essays and lectures were edited by his sons, Hans and Manfred Semper, and published in 1884 as Gottfried Semper, Kleine Schriften, Berlin 1884; second edition Mittenwald: M¨aander 1979. W. Dilthey, The Three Epochs of Modern Aesthetics and Its Present Task (1893), trans. M. Neville, in R. A. Makkreel and F. Rodi (eds.), Wilhelm Dilthey, Poetry and Experience, Selected Works, vol. V, Princeton University Press 1985, pp. 190–204. See H. F. Mallgrave and E. Ikonomou (eds.), Empathy, Form, Space: Problems in German Aesthetics, 1873–1893, Santa Monica: Getty 1994, introduction. Alois Riegl, Late Roman Art Industry (1901), p. 9. See also Riegl’s Stilfragen (1893), trans. by E. Kain, as Problems of Style, Foundations for a History of Ornament, Princeton University Press 1992, p. 4. Riegl’s emphasis on Semper’s ‘materialism’ was later perpetuated by, among others, L. Venturi, History of Art Criticism, trans. C. Morriatt, New York: Dutton 1936, pp. 226–7; and W. Waetzold, Deutsche Kunsthistoriker, Berlin: Hessling 1965, pp. 130–9. As Mallgrave points out, Richard Streiter applied the notion of ‘Realism’ – borrowed from the literary genre associated with Zola, Flaubert, and others – to the new tendency in architecture in his Architektonische Zeitfragen (1898). Otto Wagner, Modern Architecture, ed. and trans. H. F. Mallgrave, Santa Monica: Getty 1988, introduction, pp. 3–4. Otto Wagner proclaimed that “no less a person than Gottfried Semper first directed our attention to this truth (even if he unfortunately later deviated from it); namely, that art is governed by necessity only.” Modern Architecture, p. 91. Hendrik P. Berlage similarly enthused: “Like all the great spirits, Semper looked toward the future; he is one of those who, as Heine says, ‘nod to each other over the centuries’.” “Thoughts of Style in Architecture” (1905), in Hendrik Petrus Berlage, Thoughts on Style 1886–1909, Santa Monica: Getty 1996, p. 137. Hermann Muthesius hailed “the brilliant Gottfried Semper, . . . one of the most important writers on architecture of the century”, in Style Architecture and Building-Art, Transformations of Architecture in the Nineteenth Century and its Present Conditions, trans. S. Anderson, Santa Monica: Getty 1994, p. 68. As Berlage lamented: “If only Semper, who said things of undying value in Der Stil, had drawn the consequences in his architecture, how differently architecture would have developed under his influence in Germany and here in Switzerland.” “The Foundations and Development of Architecture”, in Thoughts on Style, pp. 235–6. The modernist reading of Semper has received much critical attention lately, and I will not discuss it further. For an account of the early Semper reception, see Mallgrave, Gottfried Semper, Epilogue: “The Semper

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43 44 45

46 47 48 49

50

51

52 53 54 55 56 57 58

59

60

Legacy: Semper and Riegl”. See also S. Georgiadis, “Sempers schwierige ¨ Ruckkehr aus dem zweiten Exil”, in Werk, Bauen + Wohnen, no. 4, 1992, pp. 61–2; and R. Haag Bletter, “Gottfried Semper”, in Macmillan Encyclopaedia of Architects, vol. 4, London : Free Press 1982, pp. 25–33. Quitzsch, Die a¨ sthetischen Anschauungen Sempers, p. 15. Laudel, Architektur und Stil, pp. 20–1. Quitzsch, Die a¨ sthetischen Anschauungen Sempers, pp. 6–7. Laudel, Architektur und Stil, pp. 12–20. Semper’s most explicit criticism of capitalism is found in Science, Industry, and Art, p. 135, where he describes the capitalist system as “dangerous for the industrial arts, decidedly fatal for the traditional higher arts”. Quitzch, Die a¨ sthetischen Anschauungen Sempers, pp. 5–15. Ibid., p. 36. ¨ aus dem zweiten Exil”, in Werk, S. Georgiadis, “Sempers schwierige Ruckkehr Bauen + Wohnen, no. 4, 1992, pp. 61–2. The majority of Semper’s drawings and manuscripts were gathered in Zurich after his death by a committee of devotees planning a Semper museum. This dream was never realised, but the material constitutes the core of the ¨ Zurich archives, catalogued in M. Frolich, Gottfried Semper, Zeichnerischer Nachlass an der ETH Zurich, ¨ Basel: Birkh¨auser 1974; and W. Herrmann, Gottfried Semper, Theoretischer Nachlass an der ETH Zurich, ¨ Basel: Birkh¨auser 1981. ¨ “Semper and the Conception of Style”, in Vogt, Reble, and Frolich (eds.), Gottfried Semper und die Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts, Basel: Birkh¨auser 1976, pp. 68–81. For Rykwert’s use of the term ‘anthropology’, see The Idea of a Town, The Anthropology of Urban Form in Rome, Italy and the Ancient World, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press 1995. Rykwert, “Semper and the Conception of Style”, p. 81. Mallgrave, Gottfried Semper, Architect of the Nineteenth Century, Yale University Press 1996, p. 300. Mallgrave, introduction, The Four Elements of Architecture, p. 40. Mallgrave, Gottfried Semper, Architect of the Nineteenth Century, p. 300. Ibid., p. 8. Aristotle, Poetics, trans. J. Hutton, New York: Norton 1982. Rykwert, “Semper and the Conception of Style”. See also D. Vesely, “The Nature of Creativity in the Age of Production”, in Scroope, Cambridge Architecture Journal, Issue 4, 1992, pp. 25–30. I leave this to the experts, most notably Mallgrave, who has already presented weighty analyses of Semper’s built work in his Gottfried Semper; and Laudel, who leads the present recataloguing of Semper’s design legacy for the 2003 Semper bicentenary. I rely here on Gadamer’s notion of ‘horizons of understanding’, Truth and Method, pp. 302–7.

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“The Basic Elements of Architecture”, (1850, preface to Vergleichende Baulehre), MS 58, fols. 15–30. Trans. in Herrmann, In Search, p. 196. The Ten Books on Architecture, trans. M. Hicky Morgan, New York: Dover 1960, Book II, Chapter 1, p. 38. Der Stil, vol. 2, pp. 210 and 275. ¨ Motiv, nicht as materielle “ . . . mystisch-poetische, zugleich kunstlerische, Vorbild und Schema des Tempels”. Der Stil, vol. 2, p. 275. As Herrmann points out, this is the only place in the whole volume that Semper applied bold typescript. In Search, p. 169, “Semper’s Position on the Primitive Hut”. Probleme der Kunstwissenschaft, p. 139, “Architektur als Kunst”. For an account of the enlightenment cult of origins, see W. Lipp, Natur, Geschichte, Denkmal: Zur Entstehung des Denkmalbewusstsein der burgerlichen ¨ Gesellschaft, Frankfurt am Main: Campus 1987. See also A. Lovejoy, Essays in the History of Ideas, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press 1948, pp. 78–98, “The Parallels Between Classicism and Deism”; and S. Toulmin, Cosmopolis, the Hidden Agenda of Modernity, Chicago University Press 1990. For two succinct analyses of the role of the origin cult in architectural thinking, see J. Rykwert, On Adam’s House in Paradise: The Idea of the Primitive Hut in Architectural History, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press 1981; and K. Harries, The Ethical Function of Architecture, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press 1996, chapter 9, “Tales on the Origins of Building”. Cosmopolis, pp. 69–80. René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, trans. J. Cottingham, Cambridge University Press 1986. Second Meditation: “The Nature of the Human Mind and How It Is Better Known than the Body.” See, for instance, Lipp’s account of the theological origin debates in the late seventeenth century. Natur, Geschichte, Denkmal, p. 189. Francis Hutcheson (1694–1746), An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (London 1726); David Hume (1711–76), The Natural History of Religion ´ (London 1757); Etienne Bonnot de Condillac (1715–80); Essai sur l’origine des Connoissances humaines: Ouvrage ou l’on r`eduit a` un seul principe tout ce qui concerne l’entendement humain (Amsterdam 1746); Denis Diderot (1713–84), “Recherches Philosophiques sur l’origine et la Nature du Beau” (Paris 1751); Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78), Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’in`egualité parmi les hommes (Amsterdam 1755); Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803), Abhandlung uber ¨ den Ursprung der Sprache (Berlin 1772); Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749– 1832), Die Italienische Reise (?1786–88), trans. W. H. Auden and E. Mayer, Italian Journey; London: Penguin 1962. Laugier, An Essay on Architecture (1753), trans. W. and A. Herrmann, Los Angeles: Hennesey & Ingalls 1977, p. 11. Ibid., p. 13. Ibid., p. 12. See Rykwert, On Adam’s House, chapter 5, “Reason and Grace”.

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17 18 19 20 21 22

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An Essay on Architecture, p. 1. For more on the increasing relativisation of the notion of proportion in the eighteenth century, see W. Herrmann, Laugier and Eighteenth-Century French Theory, London: Zwemmer 1985, pp. 37–8. Franc¸ois Blondel, Cours d’Architecture, Ensigné dans l’Academie, Paris 1698. ´ Quoted in A. Pérez-Gomez, Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science, p. 47. Laugier, An Essay on Architecture, pp. 3 and 7–8. Ibid., avertissement to the second edition, p. 147. Ibid., p. 4. Discourse on the Method (1637), trans. R. Stoothoff, The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 1, Cambridge University Press 1990, part two, pp. 116–22. Throughout the eighteenth century, Cartesian and Newtonian philosophy had been diffused into common knowledge with the popular writings of Voltaire (Elements de la Philosophie de Newton, Paris 1738) and Algarotti (Le Newtonianism pour les Dames, Paris 1738), among others. Laugier was profoundly influenced by this academic fashion. See Herrmann, Laugier, pp. 36–8, and Rykwert, Adam’s House in Paradise, chapter 3. Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Meditiationes Philosophicae de Nonnullis ad Poema Pertinentibus (1735) trans. Reflections on Poetry by K. Aschenbrenner and W. Holther, University of California Press 1954; and Aesthetica, 1751. An Essay on Architecture, pp. 2–3. See Lipp, Natur, Geschichte, Denkmal, p. 15. See also Lovejoy on the eighteenthcentury conception of nature as a principle of uniformity. Essays in the History of Ideas, p. 79. As Boullée wrote: “If I went back to the source of all the fine arts, I should find new ideas and thus establish principles that would be all the more certain for having their source in nature.” “To Men Who Cultivate the Arts”, in H. Rosenau (ed.) Etienne-Louis Boullée, Architecture, Essay on Art, London: Academy 1976, p. 82. Natur, Geschichte, Denkmal, pp. 245–6. Ibid., pp. 247–50. Architecture, Essay on Art, introduction, p. 83. Herrmann, Laugier, p. 48. C. van Eck, Organicism in Nineteenth-Century Architecture: An Inquiry into its Theoretical and Philosophical Background. Amsterdam: Architectura & Natura 1994, p. 96. Guillaume de Salluste du Bartas (1544–90), quoted in Margaret Hodgen, Early Anthropology in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, University of Pennsylvania Press 1964, p. 207. Der Stil, vol. 2, pp. 210 and 275. ¨ “ . . . kein Phantasiebild, sondern ein hochst realistisches Exemplar einer Holzkonstruktion aus der Ethnologie entlehnt”, ibid., p. 276. For an account of this argument in the context of the French Beaux-Arts, see B. Bergdoll, Léon Vaudoyer, Historicism in the Age of Industry, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press 1994, pp. 1–108.

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38

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Ibid., p. 9. For a presentation of the impact of travel literature on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century thinking, see, for instance, B. M. Stafford, Voyage into Substance, Art, Science, Nature, and the Illustrated Travel Accounts, 1760–1840, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press 1984. See also M. Bell, Goethe’s Naturalistic Anthropology: Man and Other Plants, Oxford: Claredon 1994, pp. 35– 41; and J. Honigmann, The Development of Anthropological Ideals, Homewood, Illinois: Dorsey 1976, pp. 54–60. The French tradition of the Grand Tour was another important source of new knowledge about antiquity. From 1778 onwards, the French Grand Prix pensionnaires in Rome were required to do an archaeological study of an ancient monument rather than a treatise, a requirement contributing greatly to archaeological knowledge and interest. The Napoleonic expedition to Egypt in 1798– 1800 likewise contributed to new historical and ethnological knowledge. See Bergdoll, Léon Vaudoyer, p. 7. See S. Lavin, Quatrem`ere de Quincy and the Invention of a Modern Language of Architecture, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press 1992, p. 63. Henry Home, Lord Kames (1696–1782), Sketches of the History of Man, Edinburgh 1779, vol. 1, p. 1. Quoted in F. Voget, “Progress, Science, History and Evolution in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Anthropology”, Journal of the History of Behavioral Sciences, vol. 3, 1967, p. 135. The Spirit of the Laws, trans. T. Nugent, Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica 1952. Ibid., Book XIX, “Of Laws in Relation to the Principles which Form the General Spirit, Morals, and Customs of a Nation” §1, p. 135. A term borrowed from Lovejoy, Essays in the History of Ideas, pp. 79–82. See, for instance, The Spirit of the Laws, Book XIX, §4, “On the General Spirit of Mankind”: “Mankind are influenced by various causes: by the climate, by the religion, by the laws, by the maxims of government, by precedents, morals, and customs; whence is formed a general spirit of nations.” On his use of the term ‘character’, see, for instance, Book XIX, §10: “Of the Character of the Spaniards and Chinese.” Ibid., Book XIV, §1: “Of Laws in Relation to the Nature of the Climate”. As he continued in §2: “We ought not, then, to be astonished that the effeminacy of the people in hot climates has almost always rendered them slaves; and that the bravery of those in cold climates has enabled them to maintain their liberties. This is an effect which springs from natural causes.” ¨ “Man bildet nichts aus, als wozu Zeit, Klima, Bedurfnis, Welt, Schicksal Anlass gibt.” Auch eine Philosophie der Geschichte zur Bildung der Menschheit (1774), ed. H. S. Irmscher, Stuttgart: Reclam 1990, p. 32. Herder, for instance, considered art and craft as an ‘archive of peoples’: “Ihre Ges¨ange sind das Archiv des Volkes”, S¨amtliche Werke, Berlin 1877–1913, vol. IX, p. 533, quoted in Lipp, Natur, Geschichte, Denkmal, p. 123. Encyclopédie Méthodique, Paris 1788–1825, vol. 3, p. 424, quoted in Lavin, Quatrem`ere de Quincy, p. 86.

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Lavin concludes that Quatrem`ere was perhaps the first theorist to “challenge the theoretical tyranny of the primitive hut.” Quatrem`ere de Quincy, p. 87. Encyclopédie méthodique, vol. 3, p. 424, quoted in Lavin, Quatrem`ere de Quincy, p. 21. See, for instance, De l’architecture e` gyptienne considerée dans son origine, ses principes et son gˆout, et comparée sous les mˆemes rapports a` l’architecture grecque, Paris 1803, whose first section treats ‘the diversity of architectural origins’. Quoted in Lavin, Quatrem`ere de Quincy, p. 56. Ibid., p. 22. In the Encyclopédie méthodique, Quatrem`ere identified two kinds of architectural character: caract`ere essentiel and caract`ere relatif. Whereas the former denoted universal and ideal types, the latter referred to the aspects of architectural expression relative to climate, ground, and government. As he wrote: “Le caract`ere, quel qu’il soit dans la nature, considéré dans son ensemble ou dans le détail de ses productions, est une qualité dépendante, soit du systˆeme général auquel est subordonné l’univers, soit des causes accidentelles qui sont la suite & le complément de ce systˆeme.” Encyclopédie Methodique, vol. 1, p. 482, entry ‘Caract`ere’. See also Jaques-Guillaume Legrand, Essai sur l’historie général de l’architecture (1799). Legrand supported Quatrem`ere’s tripartite origin theory, and developed a theory of the correspondence between social, material, and architectural form. As he wrote: “Les mˆemes besoins, diversement satisfaits dans d’autres climats, des matériaux et des usages différens, ont nuancéles autres Architectures.” Essai sur l’histoire générale de l’architecture, 2nd edn., Paris 1809, pp. 27–8. I am indebted to Anthony Gerbino for pointing out this passage to me. Lavin, Quatrem`ere de Quincy, p. 70. Bergdoll, Léon Vaudoyer, p. 2. As Vaudoyer wrote in a letter to his father (23 March 1830): “A civilisation’s architecture should take its character from 1. its institutions, 2. its usages, 3. its climate, 4. the nature of materials.” Quoted in Bergdoll, Léon Vaudoyer, p. 107. Legrand, Essai, p. 37, quoted in Gerbino, “Imitation, Character, Typology: The Concept of Style in the Architectural Theory of Jaques-Guillaume Legrand”, Unpublished essay, University of Cambridge 1994, p. 7. ´ Semper, although never a student at Ecole des Beaux-Arts, had close contact to the Beaux-Art circles during his stays in Paris and Rome and during his travels to Greece (his travel companions were Jules Goury and Mathieu Prosper Morey, the Grand Prix winner of 1831). For more on Semper’s Paris connections, see Mallgrave, Gottfried Semper, pp. 25–38. Semper often referred to Quatrem`ere in admiring terms. See Der Stil, vol. 1, pp. 218, 220, 237, 315, 404 (note 1), 464 and 499; and Der Stil, vol. 2, p. 270 (note 2). Most of these references concern Quatrem`ere’s polychrome reconstruction of Phidia’s Athena for the Parthenon, in Le Jupiter Olympien (1815). Vergleichende Baulehre, chapter 14, MS 66, fol. 188, quoted in Herrmann, In Search, p. 165.

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As Semper wrote: “We believe we are fully justified in not admitting the grotto as a motif of consequence to architecture and in disregarding it completely when inquiring into the origins of architecture”, in “The Basic Elements of Architecture”, p. 200. ¨ ¨ also die Folge der Culturzust¨ande bei den verschiedenen Volkern “Wir mussen der alten und neuen Welt, der alten und neuen Zeit aussuchen, sie neben einander stellen und daraus das Bild der Entwicklung der gesamten Menschheit zu erkennen versuchen.” Allgemeine Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit, Leibzig: Teubner 1843–51, vol. 1, p. 22. Semper referred explicitly to Klemm twice: Der Stil, vol. 1, pp. 98 and 102. As Mallgrave points out, however, his reliance on Klemm was probably greater than what this scarce acknowledgement shows. “Gustav Klemm and Gottfried Semper, the Meeting of Ethnological and Architectural Theory”, RES, Journal of Anthropology and Aesthetics, 9 Spring 1985, pp. 69–79. Practical Art in Metals and Hard Materials: Its Technology, History, and Styles. Unpublished manuscript, London 1852, fol. 1. J. Leopold, Culture in Comparative and Evolutionary Perspective: E. B. Tylor and the Making of Primitive Culture. Berlin: Reimer 1980, pp. 67–90. For a general outline of Klemm’s theory, see Mallgrave, “Gustav Klemm and Gottfried Semper” pp. 71–4. See F. W. Voget, “Progress, Science, History, and Evolution in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Anthropology”, Journal of the History of Behavioral Sciences, vol. 3, 1967, pp. 132–155. Mallgrave, “Gustav Klemm and Gottfried Semper”, p. 73. “Die Anf¨ange der Kunst finden wir aus den niedrigsten Stufen der Cultur, wo wir auch die Anf¨ange des Staates fanden, indem der Mensch den Trieb hat, das was in ihm vorgeht, was ihm erscheint, nach Aussen darzustellen und mit diesen ¨ Darstellungen seine Umgebung zu schmucken.” Allgemeine Kulturgeschichte, vol. 1, p. 214. As he wrote: “Je mehr sich das gesellschaftliche Leben zum Volksleben, zum ¨ Staate, zur Theocratie ausbildete, desto mehr Hulfsmittel zu Bewahrung und Pflege des Wekenswerthen, mithin auch der Sage, finden wir entstehen. Dergle¨ ¨ ichen Hulfsmittel sind die Knoten, die man aus Otdia in Schnuren knupfte, um sich Namen zu merken, die chronologischen Knoten der Neger in Kongo und die Wampums der nordamericanischen Indianer. Endlich ist noch der Tanz als Tr¨ager der Sage zu nennen; der Tanz – doch nicht etwa in der Bedeutungslosigkeit der modernen Salonwelt – sondern als plastische Darstellung, als mimische Erz¨ahlung einer Reihe Thatsachen”. Ibid., pp. 2–3. “Der Schmuck dieser heiligen St¨atten erweckt die Kunst, namentlich Baukunst, Tanz, Musik.” Ibid., p. 23. ¨ “Man malte die Geschichten formlich ab – und erkl¨arte sie durch gebun¨ dene Rede. Die gebundene Rede ging wohl zuforderst aus der Verbindung der Erz¨ahlung mit dem Tanze und mit dem Tone hervor. Diese gebundenen Erz¨ahlungen wurden, als die Theocratie Tempel und bei diesen Priester und Priesterschulen hervorgebracht, eingelernt und an Festtagen vorgestellt, somit

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aber der Nachwelt bewahrt und von dieser sp¨ater, nachdem die Schrift mit ¨ alle Zeiten Worten, Silben und endlich mit Buchstaben sich herausgebildet, fur gerettet.” Ibid., p. 3. Klemm emphasised that architecture originated in the collective cult, not ¨ in the individual’s need for shelter: “Auch die Architektur – die im Suden ¨ aus leichten, luftigen Zelten, im Norden aus den Steinhohlen sich entwick¨ ¨ elte, hat ebenfalls im offentlichen Leben ihre eigentliche Begrundung, und ¨ aus der offentlichen Architektur haben dann die Wohnh¨auser ihren besten ¨ das offentliche ¨ Schmuck entlehnt. Die a¨ ltesten Geb¨aude fur Leben, scheinen mir ¨ ¨ ¨ lediglich Erhohungen gewesen zu sein, auf denen offentliche Opfer, offentliche Sitzungen und Versammlungen gehalten wurden. Wir finden auf mehreren ¨ ¨ Inseln der Sudsee aufgehohte Pl¨atze, auf denen Gerichte und dergl. gehalten werden.” Ibid., p. 216. Schiller’s idea that “man is only wholly man when he is playing” seems to be an implicit source of inspiration for Klemm, as does Hegel’s notion of the spirit’s ‘self-recognition’ through embodied representation. F. Schiller, On the Aesthetic Education of Man in a Series of Letters, trans. R. Snell, Bristol: Thoemmes 1994, 15th Letter, p. 80; G. W. F. Hegel, Introduction to Aesthetics, trans. T. M. Knox, Oxford: Claredon 1979, “The Work of Art as a Product of Human Activity”, pp. 30–1: “Art seems to proceed from a higher impulse and to satisfy higher needs . . . Man brings himself before himself by practical activity, since he has the impulse, in whatever is directly given to him, in what is present to him externally, to produce himself and therein equally to recognise himself.”

DOCTRINE

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On the Aesthetic Education of Man in a Series of Letters, 9th letter, p. 52. “A Critical Analysis and Prognosis of Present-Day Artistic Production”, preface to Theorie des Formell-Sch¨onen, 1856–9, MS 178, fols. 1–29, trans. Herrmann, In Search, p. 257. Prolegomenon to Der Stil, vol. 1, trans. Mallgrave and Herrmann, The Four Elements of Architecture and Other Writings, p. 196. “The Attributes of Formal Beauty”, Introduction to Theorie des Formell–Sch¨onen, 1856–9, MS 179, fols. 1–46, trans. Herrmann, In Search, p. 219. See also ibid., p. 220: “As a cosmic art, tectonics forms a triad with music and dance inasmuch as they are not imitative arts either; furthermore, all three have the same cosmic conception of their task and a similar idealistic way of expression.” Prolegomenon to Der Stil, p. 193. An Essay on the Nature, the End, and the Means of Imitation in the Fine Arts, 1823, trans. J. C. Kent, London 1837, p. 176. Traité des beaux arts réduit a` un mˆeme principe, Paris 1746. For a presentation of Batteux’s thesis, see F. X. J. Coleman, The Aesthetic Thought of the French Enlightenment, University of Pittsburgh Press 1971, pp. 22–100; and P. O. Kristeller, “The Modern System of the Arts” in P. Kivy (ed.), Essays on the History of Aesthetics, Rochester University Press 1992, pp. 199–201.

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16 17 18 19 20

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Des beaux arts réduit, p. 25. Translated and quoted in Coleman, The Aesthetic Thought of the French Enlightenment, p. 94. An Essay on Imitation in the Fine Arts, p. 97. Ibid., p. 202 (my emphasis). Ibid., p. 216. Quatrem`ere distinguished between an ideal and a particular model, a distinction he also used in the entry on imitation in the Encyclopédie Méthodique. He would, however, sometimes substitute ‘ideal model’ for ‘type’, as, for instance, in the entry on ‘type’ in the Encyclopédie Méthodique, vol. 3, p. 545. For a presentation of the changing meaning of this term in enlightenment and romantic art theory, see M. H. Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Literary Tradition, Oxford University Press 1953, chapter 2: “Imitation and the Mirror”, pp. 30–46. An Essay on Imitation in the Fine Arts, p. 204. As Quatrem`ere explained: “as nature neither had furnished nor could furnish any perfect and complete model for imitation, as regards art, so it remained for the genius of the artist itself to complete by a judicious combination, the qualities of the particular model. This the true imitator did, and he could alone do it by generalising, through extensive observation, the study of nature and reducing it to a system.” Ibid., p. 223. Panofsky has described this attitude thus: “that classical art itself, in manifesting what natura naturans had intended but natura naturata had failed to perform, represented the highest and ‘truest’ form of naturalism.” Renaissance and Renaissances in Western Art, Stockholm: Almquist & Wikell 1960, p. 30. See also J. Bialostocki, “The Renaissance Concept of Nature and Antiquity” in Acts of the Twentieth International Congress of the History of Art, vol. 2, Princeton 1963, pp. 19–30. Quoted in R. Wellek, A History of Modern Criticism, vol. 1, The Late Eighteenth Century, London: Cape 1955, p. 13. Winckelmann, On the Imitation of the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks (1755), trans. D. Irwin, in Winckelmann, Writings on Art, London: Phaidon 1972, p. 67. Quatrem`ere de Quincy, Entry on ‘autorité’ in Encyclopédie Méthodique, vol. 1, p. 176. Quoted in Lavin, Quatrem`ere de Quincy, p. 104. An Essay on Imitation in the Fine Arts, p. 264. Already Winckelmann, influenced by Montesquieu, had emphasised the role of climate and constitution in the aesthetic perfection of ancient Greece. See On the Imitation of the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks, p. 61. J.W. von Goethe, Maximen und Reflexionen, quoted in H. von Einem, Beitr¨age zu ¨ Goethes Kunstauffassung, Hamburg: Schroder 1956, p. 149. “The Attributes of Formal Beauty”, p. 219. Both quoted in A. K. Wiedmann, Romantic Roots in Modern Art: Romanticism and Expressionism: A Study in Comparative Aesthetics, Surrey: Gresham 1979, p. 47. ¨ “Jedoch setzte Aristoteles irriger Weise das ganze Wesen der schonen Kunst in die Nachahmung. Wir leugnen nicht, das wirklich ein nachahmendes Element in ¨ ihr sey, aber das macht sie noch nicht zur schonen Kunst; vielmehr liegt dies eben

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26

27

28 29

30

31

in einer Umbildung des Nachgeahmten nach Gesetzen unseres Geistes, in einem Handeln der Phantasie ohne a¨ usserliches Vorbild.” Die Kunstlehre (1801–2) ¨ in E. Behler (ed.), August Wilhelm Schlegel, Vorlesungen uber ¨ Asthetik, vol. 1 ¨ (1798–1803), Munich: Schoning 1989, p. 213. Schlegel admitted that Aristotle probably meant ‘representation’ [Darstellung] when speaking about ‘imitation’, and accused modern authors of misunderstanding the Aristotelian mimesis (ibid., p. 213). Yet, Schlegel himself exacerbated this misunderstanding in his many attacks on Aristotle’s ‘disastrous doctrine’. See ibid., p. 252. ¨ “Wird nun Natur in dieser wurdigsten Bedeutung genommen, nicht als eine Masse von Hervorbringungen, sondern als das Hervorbringende selbst, und der Ausdruck Nachahmung ebenfalls in dem edleren Sinne, wo es nicht heisst, ¨ die Ausserlichkeiten eines Menschen nach¨affen, sondern sich die Weise seines Handelns zu eigen machen, so ist nichts mehr gegen den Grundsatz einzuwen¨ den, noch zu ihm hinzuzufugen: die Kunst soll die Natur nachahmen.” Ibid., p. 258. ¨ As Schlegel wrote: “Wo aber soll der Kunstler seine erhabne Meisterin, die schaffende Natur, finden . . . ? In seinem eignen Innern, im Mittelpunkte seines Wesens durch geistige Anschauung, kann er es nur, oder nirgends. Die Astrologen haben den Menschen Mikrokosmus die kleine Welt genannt, was sich philosophisch sehr gut rechtfertigen l¨asst. Denn wegen der durchg¨angigen Wechselbestimmung aller Dinge, ist jeder Atom Spiegel des Universums. Der ¨ eine fremde Mensch ist aber das erste uns bekannte Wesen, das nicht blos fur Intelligenz Spiegel des Universums w¨are, sondern weil seine Th¨atigkeit in sich ¨ ¨ sich selbst seyn kann. Die Klarheit, die Energie, die Fulle, ¨ zuruckgeht, es auch fur die Allseitigkeit womit sich das Universum in einem menschlichen Geiste abspiegelt, und womit sich wiederum dieses Abspiegeln in ihm spiegelt, bestimmt ¨ den Grad seiner kunstlerischen Genialit¨at, und setzt ihn in den Stand eine Welt in der Welt zu bilden.” Ibid., p. 259. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, chapter I, 117, 1. Quoted in U. Eco, Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages, trans. H. Bredin, Yale University Press 1989, p. 94. Eco, Art and Beauty, chapter IX, pp. 92–104. On the changing conception of creativity from the Hebrew tradition to the eighteenth century, see R. Kearney, The Wake of Imagination: Ideas of Creativity in Western Culture, London: Hutschinson 1988. “ . . . sie soll wie die Natur selbst¨andig schaffend, organisiert und organisirend, lebendige Werke bilden, die nicht erst durch einen fremden Mechanismus, wie etwa eine Penduluhr, sondern durch inwohnende Kraft, wie das Sonnensystem, ¨ beweglich sind, und vollendet in sich selbst zuruckkehren. Auf diese Weise hat Prometheus die Natur nachgeahmt, als er den Menschen aus irdischem Thon formte, und ihn mit einem von der Sonne entwandten Funken belebte; ein ¨ Mythus der uns gleich ein schones Beyspiel an die Hand giebt”. Die Kunstlehre, p. 258. C. Taylor, Sources of the Self, Cambridge University Press 1989, p. 375.

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42

43

Quoted in ibid., p. 378. As Goethe reprimanded pedantic neoclassicists, probably targeting Laugier: “If you had rather felt than measured, if the spirit of the pile you so admire had come upon you, you would not simply have imitated it because they did it and it is beautiful; you would have made your plans because of truth and necessity, and a living creative beauty would have flowed from them.” “On German Architecture”, in J. Gage (ed. and trans.), Goethe on Art, London: Scholars 1980, p. 105. Ibid., p. 105. Cf. the quasi-epiphany in which the architect of Strasbourg Cathedral himself told Goethe: “All this was necessary, and I made it beautiful.” Ibid., p. 107. Introduction to Propyl¨aen, in Goethe on Art, p. 6. See also “Simple Imitation of Nature, Manner, Style” (1789), ibid., pp. 22–3. “On German Architecture”, in ibid., p. 109. Also known as “Palladio Architecture”. This essay was not published in Goethe’s lifetime. In ibid. pp. 196–200. Ibid., pp. 196–7. As he wrote in “Dritte Wallfahrt nach Erwin’s Grabe”: “Individuelle Keimkraft ¨ ¨ nur treibt wie die Geschopfe der Natur so selbst¨andige kunstlerische Werke hervor.” Quoted in von Einem, Beitr¨age zu Goethes Kunstauffassung, p. 94. “Palladio Architecture”, p. 197. Schlegel also invoked the principle of metamor¨ nothwendig phosis in architecture: “Man sieht, dass nach dieser Ansicht alle fur geachteten Theile in der Architektur allegorisch zu nehmen sind, und das Bauen aus Stein eine best¨andige Maskerade des Bauens aus Holz ist. Gesetzt nun auch ¨ sie liesse sich historisch durchfuhren, indem man solche alte Denkm¨aler nachwiese, wo der Ursprung aus den Formen des ersten Materials sichtbarer zu seyn scheint als in andern, und sie liessen sich in eine st¨atige Stufenfolge zusammen¨ ¨ reihen, von dem ersten Ubergange an bis zur grossten Entfernung von jenem ¨ ¨ die Regeln der Baukunst noch nichts bewiesen Ursprunge, so wurde dadurch fur ¨ werden konnen.” Die Kunstlehre, p. 313. von Einem convincingly argues that Goethe’s notion of metamorphosis in art and architecture derived directly from his study of plants. Beitr¨age zu Goethes Kunst-Auffassung, p. 90. A similar argument is made by van Eck, Organicism in Nineteenth-Century Architecture, p. 110. For a discussion on the ‘immanentisation’ of art that takes place in Goethe’s thinking, see von Einem, Beitr¨age zu Goethes Kunst-Auffassung, p. 90, where he argues that Goethe’s notion of organic form made it for the first time possible to locate the meaning of art ‘within’ the artwork itself: “Damit konnte das Abh¨angigkeitsverh¨altnis der Kunst von den ¨ ¨ die seit Jahrhunderten vorgeaußerkunstlerischen M¨achten gedanklich gelost, ¨ tragene und gerade in der franzosischen Theorie des 18. Jahrhunderts noch ¨ einmal neu formulierte ‘ewige Luge von Verbindung der Natur und Kunst’ ¨ ¨ (um einen Goetheschen Ausdruck zu gebrauchen) endgultig uberwunden und

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44 45 46

47 48

49

50

51

52 53

54

¨ die Kunst als eine selbst¨andige schopferische Kraft der Natur gleichgestellt werden.” Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775–1854), The Philosophy of Art, trans. D. W. Stott, University of Minnesota Press 1989, p. 167. Die Tektonik der Hellenen, 2nd edition, Berlin: Ernst & Korn 1874, title page. For the first use, see e.g., “The Attributes of Formal Beauty”, p. 219; for the ¨ Tektonik (Zimmerei)”, second use, see Der Stil vol. 2, “Siebente Haubtstuck. p. 209. “Eine wirkliche innere Geschichte der hellenischen Tektonik”, Die Tektonik der Hellenen, 1st edition, Potsdam: Riegel 1852, p. xi. “Das Princip der hellenischen Tektonik ist nachweisbar ganz identisch mit dem Principe der schaffenden Natur: den Begriff jedes Gebildes in seiner Form auszusprechen. Aus diesem Principe allein entspringt ein Gesetz der Form, ¨ ¨ des werkth¨atigen Subjektes steht, welches hoch uber der individuellen Willkuhr ¨ innerhalb seiner Gr¨anzen die allein wahre, die hochste Freiheit einschliesst und ¨ der Erfindung eine unversiegbare Quelle eroffnet.” Tektonik, 1st edition., p. xiv. See also ibid., §3, p. 6. ¨ ¨ “Die Natur hat sich uberall der korperlichen Form als Organ bedient, um in dieser das Wesen und den Begriff eines jeden organischen Gebildes nach allen Beziehungen anzusprechen. Auf solche Weise ist bei den Vegetabilien wie bei ¨ lebenden Geschopfen, der ihrem Dasein zu Grunde liegende Begriff, als ganz ¨ identisches Abbild seiner selbst, in der korperlichen Form des Stoffes zur Erscheinung gelangt . . . Aus der gewordenen Form, kann der Begriff dann auch zweifellos erkannt werden.” Tektonik, 2nd edition., § 4.1, p. 18. “Hinsichtlich des Begriffes im Verh¨altnisse zur Form, findet das Gesagte auch ¨ volle Anwendung auf die kunstlich geschaffenen, die tektonischen Bildungen: nur tritt hier an Stelle jener Urform des Keimes, ein intellectuelles Urbild, welches von der Idee aus dem tektonischen Begriffe erst gefunden und nach ihm gestaltet ist.” Ibid., p. 19. See, for instance, preface to the Tektonik, 1st edition, p. xv. In the second edition ¨ of the Tektonik, Botticher substituted the term ‘Kernform’ for ‘Werkform’. In the following discussion, I will use the term ‘Kernform’, retaining ‘Werkform’ in quotes from the second edition. “Die Kernform jedes Gliedes ist das mechanisch notwendige, das statisch fungierende Schema . . .” Tektonik, 1st edition, Vorwort, p. xv. “Die Materie als solche kann nicht Darstellung einer Idee seyn. Denn sie ist . . . durch und durch Kausalit¨at. Ihr Seyn ist lauter Wirken.” A. Schopenhauer (1788–1860), Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, (1819), vol. 1, book 3, §43, p. 251. ¨ In Gesammelte Werke, Wiesbaden: Brockhaus 1972. Further on Botticher’s debt to Schopenhauer, see Bauer, “Architektur als Kunst” in Bauer (ed.) Probleme der Kunstwissenschaft, pp. 147–152, and van Eck, Organicism in Nineteenth-Century Architecture, p. 165. ¨ “Jedes Bauglied bloss in der Werkform beschlossen gedacht . . . erfullte seine statische und raumbildende Leistung vollkommen und ohne Weiteres: allein

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55 56 57

58 59

60

61 62 63

64

irgend welches a¨ usserliche Merkzeichen das beide Eigenschaften, nach allen ihren Beziehungen, dem Anblikke sogleich erkennbar und verst¨andlich machte, war an ihm noch nicht vorhanden. . . . Kurz es verhielte sich jedes Glied im Schema der blossen Werkform scheinbar todt.” Tektonik, 2nd edition, §5.1, p. 24. “Funktion-erkl¨arende Charakteristik”, Tektonik, 1st edition, p. xv. Tektonik, 2nd edition, §5.2, p. 25. For further definitions of Kunstform v. Kernform, see ibid., §5.2, pp. 25–6 (footnote); §4.7, p. 20, and §6.1, p. 31. ¨ to emphasise that the Kunstform is not simply a It was important for Botticher layer of decoration, added after the structure has been built. Ornament, insofar as it is true, he insisted, “ . . . entsteht mit demselben Augenblicke in welchem das mechanische Schema des Gliedes koncipirt wird; der Gedanke an beide ist Eins, sie werden beide mit einander geboren. Erst mit ihrer Erscheinung wird der Begriff jedes Gliedes offenbar, . . . sobald sie durch Aufpr¨agung einer Bildform als ein vom Geiste Gezeichnetes, durch Gedanken Belebtes erscheint.” Tektonik, 1st edition, p. xv. Tektonik, 2nd edition, §6.6, p. 36. ¨ “Der hiernach aus dem Werkstoffe folgerecht gestaltete Korper wird in seiner ¨ Form dann nichts anderes sein, als das materialisirte und verkorperte Urbild des ¨ Begriffes.” Tektonik, 2nd edition, §4.3, p. 19. Botticher thus broke with the view ¨ of his teacher Karl Otfried Muller (to whom he dedicated the first edition of the Tektonik), who warned that “the artistic idea is never a concept”. Ancient Art and Its Remains, or a Handbook of the Archaeology of Art (1830), trans. J. Leitch, London 1850, §7. ¨ ¨ The Egyptians, according to Botticher, “drukken in dem Ornament der ¨ auf den Cultus aus, niemals statisbaulichen Glieder nur symbolische Bezuge ¨ ches Verhalten, niemals Verknupfung zu einem statischen Systeme.” Tektonik, 2nd edition, §5.3, p. 27. “ . . . der Grenze des irdisch Darstellbaren.” Tektonik, 2nd edition, §1, p. 3. Note the Hegelian undercurrent in this argument. Ibid., §1, p. 3. The full quote reads: “Der hellenische Grundsatz, die materielle statische ¨ Leistung jedes tektonischen Korpers durch analoge Kunstformen auch bildlich an demselben zu versinnlichen, so dass mittelst dieser sein Begriff in allen ¨ Beziehungen vor Augen gestellt wird, enth¨alt das einzig gultige Gesetz, nach ¨ ¨ ¨ ihren welchem uberhaupt tektonische Gebilde erzeugt werden konnen, die fur Begriff eben so wahr als in ihrer Form allgemein verst¨andlich sind: es hat gle¨ ¨ alle Erzeugnisse der Tektonik, vom kleinsten Ger¨athe bis iche Gultigkeit fur ¨ zum grosten Bauwerke. In diesem Gesetze ist nicht bloss der Weg zur Findung ¨ der Formen gezeigt, es zieht auch jeder beliebigen oder willkurlichen Bildung vorweg eine feste Schranke.” Tektonik, 2nd edition, §5.3, p. 27. Architecture should “ . . . nach dem Begriffe gemessen werden nach welchem sie Dasein empfangen hat. In diesem ist die Bedingung ihrer Gestalt, die mass¨ deren Beurtheilung enthalten. Falsch gebildet erscheint eine gebende Norm fur

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65

66 67 68 69 70 71

¨ solche Korperform, wenn sie ihrem Begriffe widerspricht: inhaltslos wenn gar kein Begriff in ihr zu erkennen ist.” Tektonik, 2nd edition, §4.4, p. 19. ¨ expanded on the possibilities for a new style in “The Principles of the Botticher Hellenic and Germanic Ways of Building with Regard to Their Application to Our Present Way of Building”, trans. and ed. W. Herrmann, In What Style Should We Build? The German Debate on Architectural Style, Santa Monica: Getty 1992, p. 153: “No one realized that the origin of all specific styles rests on the effect of a new structural principle derived from the material and that this alone makes the formation of a new system of covering space possible and thereby brings forth a new world of art-forms.” Ibid., p. 157. Ibid., p. 158. Organicism in Nineteenth-Century Architecture, pp. 170–1. ¨ Tektonik, MS 150, in the See, for instance, his detailed notes from Botticher’s Semper Archives. MS 169, fol. 12, quoted in Herrmann, In Search, p. 141. Letter to J. K. B¨ahr, 25 December 1852, quoted in Herrmann, In Search, p. 141.

SEMPER

1 2 3

4

5

6

AND

THE

POETICS

OF

ARCHITECTURE

See Bauer, “Architektur als Kunst”; in Bauer (ed.) Probleme der Kunstwissenschaft; and Stockmeyer, Gottfried Sempers Kunsttheorie. ¨ ¨ “ . . . fruchtlose Grubeleien . . . die nicht selten zu sch¨adlichen Irrthumern und ¨ falschen Theorien gefuhrt haben.” Der Stil, vol. 1, p. 2. “Es darf hier nur an den seit Vitruv hundertf¨altig wiederholten Versuch erinnert werden, den dorischen Tempel in allen seinen Theilen und Gliedern aus ¨ der Holzhutte herzuleiten und zu entwickeln, oder an den Irrthum, den selbst ein Gau theilen konnte, dass der a¨ gyptische Tempelbau dem Troglodytenthume ¨ ¨ seinen Ursprung verdanke, welches dahin gefuhrt hat, dass man uber die Culturgeschichte Aegyptens ganz falsche Theorieen fasste . . . Der Grottenbau sollte ¨ auch in Indien den Grundtypus der Baukunst bilden (was wo moglich noch abentheuerlicher klingt), so wie das Zelt der Mongolen dem geschweiften Dache der Chinesen zum Urbilde dienen musste.” Ibid., p. 2. ¨ “[Es ist] unmoglich die Baukunst, die den Ausdruck und das Geh¨ause der Gesellschafts organismen erfindet, bis zu ihren ersten Anf¨angen zu verfolgen.” Ibid., pp. 5–6. “Diese Versuche gingen aus einer richtigen Sch¨atzung der Wichtigkeit hervor, ¨ ¨ die sich an die Frage uber die Urverwandtschaften der Kunstformen knupft, allein man verfuhr dabei, wie wenn einer die verschiedenen Sprachen auf das Lallen der Kinder, auf die unarticulirten Naturstimmen der animalischen Welt, ¨ uhren ¨ oder auf das Pescher¨ah der wildesten St¨amme zuruckf wollte, was, glaube ich, auch schon versucht worden ist.” Ibid., p. 2. On the reconsideration of the chronology and span of human history in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, see I. Hallowell, “The History of

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N O T E S T O P P. 6 5 – 6 8

7

8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

17

18 19

Anthropology as an Anthropological Problem”, Journal of the History of Behavioral Sciences, vol. 1, 1965, p. 29. “Die rohesten St¨amme die wir kennen, geben nicht das Bild des Urzustandes ¨ der Menschheit, sondern das ihrer Verarmung und Verodung zu erkennen. ¨ Vieles deutet bei ihnen auf einen Ruckfall in den Zustand der Wildheit oder ¨ richtiger auf eine Auflosung des lebendigen Organismus der Gesellschaft in ihre ¨ Elemente hin. . . . ihre jetzigen provisorischen Zeltd¨acher und Smalas konnen ¨ mit grosserem Rechte als die Sinnbilder ihrer heutigen Fremd – und Heimath¨ hat, sie die Urtypen orientalischer Baukunst zu losigkeit gelten, als man dafur nennen.” Der Stil, vol. 1, p. 3. Prolegomenon to Der Stil, in Mallgrave and Herrmann, The Four Elements of Architecture and Other Writings, p. 183. Ibid., p. 196. For an insightful reading of this aspect of Semper’s thinking, see Mallgrave, Gottfried Semper, pp. 290–302. “The Attributes of Formal Beauty”, p. 219. Prolegomenon to Der Stil, p. 196. Ibid., p. 196. Ibid., p. 196. “The Attributes of Formal Beauty”, p. 219. “ . . . weil sie sich dadurch gleichsam als Urkunst zu erkennen gibt, dass alle ¨ anderen Kunste . . . ihre Typen und Symbole aus der textilen Kunst entlehnen, w¨ahrend sie selbst in dieser Beziehung ganz selbst¨andig erscheint und ihre Typen aus sich heraus bildet oder unmittelbar der Natur abborgt.” Der Stil, vol. 1, p. 13. ¨ die fruhesten ¨ “Vielleicht das a¨ lteste technische Symbol und, . . . der Ausdruck fur ¨ kosmogonischen Ideen die bei den Volkern auskeimten.” Der Stil, vol. 1, p. 180. See also ibid., p. 83: “Es ist in allen theogonischen und kosmogonis¨ chen Systemen das gemeinsam gultige Symbol der Urverkettung der Dinge, der ¨ ¨ und uber ¨ Nothwendigkeit – die a¨ lter ist, als die Welt und die Gotter, die alles fugt ¨ ¨ Alles verfugt. Der heilige Fitz ist das Chaos selbst, das verwickelte uppige, sich selbst verschlingende Schlangengewirr, aus welchem alle ornamentalen Formen, die ‘struktiv th¨atigen’ hervorgingen, in welches sie, nach vollendetem Kreislaufe ¨ der Civilisation, unab¨anderlich zuruckkehrten.” Semper on the braid, see Der Stil, vol. 1, p. 184. On the wreath, see ibid., p. 15. ¨ “Die Naht ist ein Nohtbehelf, der erfunden ward, um Stucke homogener Art, ¨ und zwar Fl¨achen, zu einem Ganzen zu verbinden und der, ursprunglich auf ¨ Gew¨ander und Decken angewendet, durch uralte Begriffsverknupfung und selbst ¨ sprachbr¨auchlich das allgemeine Analogon und Symbol jeder Zusammenfugung ¨ ursprunglich getheilter Oberfl¨achen, zu einem festen Zusammenhange geworden ist. In der Naht tritt ein wichtigstes und erstes Axiom der Kunst-Praxis in ¨ ihrem einfachsten, ursprunglichsten und zugleich verst¨andlichtsten Ausdrucke auf – das Gesetz, n¨amlich, aus der Noht eine Tugend zu machen.” Der Stil, vol. 1, pp. 78–9.

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20 21 22 23

24

25

26

27 28 29

30

J. Rykwert, “Semper and the Conception of Style”. See also Mallgrave, Gottfried Semper, p. 292. See Der Stil, vol. 1, §18, “Die Nath”, pp. 78–84. Science, Industry, and Art, p. 136. The Four Elements of Architecture, pp. 103–4. Original emphasis. See also Der ¨ Stil, vol. 1, pp. 227–8: “Als fruheste von H¨anden produzierte Scheidewand, als ¨ den ursprunglichsten vertikalen r¨aumlichen Abschluss den der Mensch erfand, ¨ mochten wir den Pferch . . . erkennen, dessen Vollendung eine Technik erfordert, die gleichsam die Natur dem Menschen in die Hand legt.” See, for instance, “If climatic influences and other circumstances suffice to explain this phenomenon of cultural history, and even if we cannot deduce from it that we are dealing with a universally valid rule about the development of civilization, it nevertheless remains true that the beginnings of building coincide with those of weaving. . . . As the first partition wall made with hands, the first vertical division of space invented by man, we would like to recognize the screen, the fence made of plaited and tied sticks and branches, whose making requires a technique which nature hands to man, as it were. The passage from the plaiting of branches to the plaiting of hemp for similar domestic purposes is easy and natural.” Der Stil, vol. 1, p. 213, trans. Rykwert, Adam’s House, p. 30. See Der Stil, vol. 1, pp. 277–83. Semper’s famous remark on enclosure and clothing is found in ibid., p. 227: “Die Kunst des Bekleidens der Nacktheit des Leibes (wenn man die Bemalung der eigenen Haut nicht dazu rechnet . . . ) ist ver¨ ¨ muthlich eine jungere Erfindung als die Benutzung deckender Oberfl¨achen zu ¨ Lagern und zu r¨aumlichen Abschlussen.” Semper saw this assertion confirmed by the etymological connection between Wand [wall] and Gewand [clothing]. Ibid., p. 229. “Die Wand ist dasjenige bauliche Element das den eingeschlossenen Raum als solchen gleichsam absolute und ohne Hinweis auf Seitenbegriffe formaliter vergegenw¨artigt und a¨ usserlich dem Auge kenntlich macht.” Der Stil, vol. 1, p. 227, trans. Mallgrave and Herrmann, The Four Elements of Architecture and Other Writings, p. 254. Ibid., p. 228. “On the Origin of Some Architectural Styles”, fol. 1, p. 53. On Semper’s famous encounter with the ‘Caraib hut’ at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London, see Herrmann, In Search, “Semper’s Position on the Primitive Hut”, pp. 165–73. ¨ “Wer nur den Grundplan eines antiken Hauses betrachtet uberzeugt sich sehr bald dass die jetzt fehlenden Draperien unbedingt im Geiste restituirt werden ¨ ¨ wohnliche Zwecke geeignet erscheinen zu lassen. Dies tritt mussen um es fur ¨ noch mehr hervor wenn wir die Lebensweise der Alten berucksichtigen und ¨ z. B. uns erinnern dass, bei den Romern wenigstens, nach altem Brauche das Ehebett des Familienvaters in dem Atrium des Hauses seinen Platz hatte und eben daselbst die Frau, inmitten ihrer weiblichen Dienerschaft, die h¨auslichen Arbeiten des Spinnens und Webens verrichtete.” Der Stil, vol. 1, pp. 277.

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N O T E S T O P P. 7 2 – 7 6

31

32 33 34

35 36 37 38 39 40

41 42 43

44

Far from having a secondary and ornamental role, thus, Semper argued that the Bekleidung was a key feature of the Roman house. He even maintained that the main task of the peristyle columns was to accommodate the textile partition. Ibid., p. 283. “Rein symbolischen Andeutung des verschlossenen Raums.” Ibid., p. 279. ¨ The motifs of Bekleidung “zeigen sich zwar . . . in sp¨aterer Verknocherung des Gedankens als wirkliche Mauerw¨ande”. Ibid., p. 278. “ . . . deren Motiv eben nichts weiter als die Nachahmung solcher mit Draperien und Scheerw¨anden ausgestatter Stoen und Hallen ist . . . Hier zeigt er sich [das Bekleidungsr-motiv] in seiner ganzen Fruchtbarkeit und in allen Variet¨aten sp¨aterer stilistischer Ausbildung und Verbindung.” Ibid., p. 283. “A Critical Analysis and Prognosis of Present-Day Artistic Production”, p. 256. Ibid., p. 253. Bekleidung is a theme that runs through the whole of Der Stil, but is presented ¨ particularly succinctly in vol. 1, §66, “Excurs uber das Tapezierwesen der Alten”. “Das Original ist schon Kopie . . . ”, Der Stil, vol. 2, p. 173. Aristotle, Poetics, p. 1447a. ¨ See, for instance, Botticher’s revealing misreading of Aristotle’s Poetics: “Wie gut die Alten sich der Bildungsweise und des Verh¨altnisses dieser Gestaltungen bewust gewesen sind, ergiebt sich aus einer bekannten Stelle in der Poetik des Aristoteles. Hier wird von den Gebilden der Kunst gesagt, sie seien eine Nachahmung von Erscheinungen [mimesis ton phainomenon] und eine Zusammensetzung derselben nach einer bestimmten Nothwendigkeit [anagk`e]. Diese Nothwendigkeit ist nichts Anderes als der von der Idee vorbedingte Begriff, dem entsprechend die Zusammensetzung geschieht.” Tektonik, 2nd edition, §6.5, p. 34. As van Eck points out, however, Aristotle never used the phrase mimesis ton phainomenon, and never intended the theory of mimesis as a realist doctrine (Organicism in Nineteenth-Century Architecture, note 60 to chapter 5, p. 332). I am indebted to Prof. Roberto Torretti for his computer search through Aristotelis Opera. Ex recognitione 1. Bekkeris edidit Academia Regia Borussica. Berlin: G. Reimer, 1831, confirming that the expression mimesis ton phainomenon does not appear in the text. Poetics, p. 1450a. H. Koller, Die Mimesis in der Antike, Nachahmung, Darstellung, Ausdruck, Bern: Francke 1954. The connection between mimesis and music is confirmed by classical authors such as Pindar, Aischylos, Athenaios, Xenophon, and Plutarch. See Koller, Die Mimesis in der Antike, pp. 13, 21, and 40–2. “Der griechische Tanz als Verbindung von Wort, Melodie, Rhythmus und Gestik bildete tats¨achlich die naturgegebene Einheit menschlichen Ausdruckes. Mimesis bleibt deshalb immer an den Menschen gebunden, sie ist seine Formwerdung.” Ibid., p. 210. For a critical assessment of Koller’s argument, see G. F. Else, “Imitation in the Fifth Century”, Classical Philology, no. 53, 1958, pp. 73–90.

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N O T E S T O P P. 7 6 – 7 8

45

46 47 48 49 50

51

52 53

54 55 56

57 58

59 60

Plato, The Laws, Book II, 653d–654a, trans. A. E. Taylor in E. Hamilton and H. Cairns (eds.), Plato, the Collected Dialogues, Princeton University Press 1989. All references to Plato are taken from this edition. Significantly, this rhythmical choir-song and dance is the only art allowed into Plato’s ideal state. The Laws, Book VII, 816b–817e. Ibid., Book II, 655. See, for instance, Timaios 28–29, where imitation is presented as the principle on which the world is created and maintained. Parmenides, 130e–131a. Aristotle comments on this change of term in Metaphysics, Book 1, vi, 3. See also S. Halliwell, Aristotle’s Poetics, London: Duckworth 1986, pp. 115–16, and H. G. Gadamer, “Art and Imitation” in The Relevance of the Beautiful and Other Essays, Cambridge University Press 1986, pp. 101–2. Kunst und Mythos, Hamburg: Rowohlt 1957, p. 115. For a discussion of the role of mimesis in Platonic cosmology, see L. Golden, Aristotle on Tragic and Comic Mimesis, Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars 1992, p. 59. See also Halliwell, Aristotle’s Poetics, p. 118: “Mimesis is both the means by which the eternal produces and fashions the world and correspondingly the means by which the human mind can ascend or aspire in its search for knowledge: mimesis carries an active philosophical and theological significance.” The Laws, Book II, 668. Plato drew here on Pythagorean ideas, more specifically on the teachings of Damon, a fifth-century Pythagorean mystic to whom Plato refers specifically in the Republic, Book III, 400. Damon developed a theory of the analogous relation between the order of music (and numbers) and the order of the human soul. From this point of view, the composition and performance of music involves an ethical choice. See Plato, The Laws, Book II, 668. For a presentation of Damon’s teaching and Plato’s interpretation of it, see Koller, Die Mimesis der Antike, p. 23. Poetics, 1449b, 1450a, 1450b, and 1451b. Ibid., 1448a. As E. Grassi notes, praxeos, prattein, and the related pratonto (singular) and pratontas (plural) signify action and acting men as ethically situated. Theorie des Sch¨onen, pp. 123–9. See also D. Vesely, “Architecture and the Poetics of Representation”, Daidalos, September 1987, pp. 30–2. Poetics, 1451a. “Die mimesis tes praxeos richtet sich demnach nicht auf jede beliebige Handlung, die sich als Gegenstand der Mimesis darbietet, . . . Gegenstand der ¨ den Menschen spezifische Handlung sein, das Mimesis darf vielmehr nur die fur heißt diejenige Praxis, die vom Ethos bestimmt wird und von ihm ihren Sinn ¨ erh¨alt . . . Gegenst¨ande der Kunst sind also die dem Menschen eigentumlichen M¨oglichkeiten.” Die Theorie des Sch¨onen in der Antike, pp. 127–8. Poetics, 1450a. Ibid., 1459a.

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61 62 63 64 65

66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74

75

76 77

Time and Narrative, vol. 1, trans. K. McLaughlin and D. Pellauer, University of Chicago Press 1983, p. 45. Ibid., chapter 3: “Time and Narrative: Threefold Mimesis”, pp. 52–87. Poetics, 1451a. Ibid., p. 54. Poetics, 1451a–b. In this sense, the structure of praxis comes close to what in contemporary hermeneutics is called a ‘horizon of understanding’: a shared level of understanding constituting a background for communication. See Gadamer, Truth and Method, pp. 302–7. Time and Narrative, pp. 45–51. Ibid., p. 65. See, for instance, “The Origin of the Work of Art”, in D. Farrell Krell (ed.), Martin Heidegger, Basic Writings, London: Routledge 1993. Time and Narrative, p. 58. “The Relevance of the Beautiful”, in The Relevance of the Beautiful and Other Essays, p. 53. Ricoeur, “Narrated Time”, trans. R. Sweeney, in A Ricoeur Reader: Reflection and Imagination, ed. Mario J. Valdés, University of Toronto Press 1991, p. 351. Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, p. 68. “On Architectural Styles” (Zurich lecture, 1869), in Mallgrave and Herrmann, The Four Elements of Architecture and Other Writings, p. 269. Cf. Semper’s famous footnote in Der Stil: “Every artistic creation, every artistic pleasure presupposes a certain carnival spirit, or to express myself in a modern way – the haze of the carnival candles is the true atmosphere of art. The denial of reality, of the material, is necessary if form is to emerge as a meaningful symbol, as an autonomous human creation”, vol. 1, p. 231, note 2. Note that it is a denial of material reality that Semper is promoting here and, as Mallgrave rightly notes, this should be understood less as an appeal for reality’s destruction than for its ‘theatrical suspension’ (Gottfried Semper, p. 300). I believe, however, that one may develop an even more radical interpretation of this passage by relating it to the Aristotelian notion of poiesis. From this point of view, the empirical manifold of reality must in a certain sense be ‘denied’ in order for a meaningful ‘story’ (or ‘symbol’, in Semper’s word) to emerge: an event constituting the very core of the mimetic process. In this sense, Semper’s call for a Vernichtung der Realit¨at lies at the heart of his latent poetics of architecture. The notion of the ontological significance of art is informed by the thinking of Heidegger; see, for instance, “The Origin of the Work of Art”, pp. 139–212; and Gadamer, “The Relevance of the Beautiful”. Ricoeur, “The Function of Fiction in Shaping Reality”, A Ricoeur Reader, p. 133. The possibility of seeing architecture as a poetic art in the Aristotelian sense is implied in the Greek notion of drama itself. As Vesely points out, the poetic configuration (plot) in the drama is carried by the Chorus. Chorus is linked to the Chora: the space or place of the dramatic performance. Choric work (which both Plato and Aristotle used as the definition of mimesis) cannot be separated

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78 79

from its spatial situatedness. (“Architecture and the Poetics of Representation”, p. 33.) Semper echoed this insight, talking about architecture as a choric work and the architect as the choragus. (Preliminary Remarks on Polychrome Architecture, p. 53.) In extending the Aristotelian notion of mimesis of praxis to the domain of architecture, I follow the precedents of Vesely, ibid.; Harries (The Ethical Function of Architecture); J. Rykwert (The Dancing Column, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press 1996); and D. Leatherbarrow (The Roots of Architectural Invention: Site, Enclosure, Materials, Cambridge University Press 1993), among others. Der Stil, vol. 1, p. 231, note 2. See note 74 for a further discussion. Wladimir Weidlé touches on this mimetic-poetic capacity of architecture: “Vom Augenblick an, wo sie [die Baukunst] zu ‘sprechen’ anf¨angt, ist ihre Sprache mimetisch . . . Nur durch Mimesis vermag der Mensch dem von ihm Gedachten ¨ und Erlebten eine Gestalt zu geben, die nicht einfach daruber berichtet, wie ¨ das gewohnliche Sprache tut, sondern dieses Gedachte und Erlebte in sich ¨ ¨ den Horer, ¨ verkorpert, mit ihm eins wird und fur den Betrachter, eben das ist, was sie vermitteln soll.” Gestalt und Sprache des Kunstwerkes, Studien zur Grundlegung einer nicht¨asthetischen Kunsttheorie. Mittenwald: M¨aander 1981, p. 54.

SEMPER

1 2 3 4 5 6

7

8 9 10

11

AND

PRACTICAL

AESTHETICS

Science, Industry, and Art, p. 134. Ibid., p. 130. Prospectus, Vergleichende Baulehre, p. 171. Ibid., p. 170. Prospectus, Der Stil, p. 179. “Outline for a System of Comparative Style-Theory”, MS 122, fols. 5–6, p. 9. The question of how to understand this call for a ‘method’ or ‘topic’, echoing both modern scientific positivism and classical rhetoric, will be discussed further in chapter 6. Although Semper used this term for the first time on the title page of the first volume of Der Stil, the idea of a ‘practical’ theory of art occurs earlier. See, for instance, Prospectus, Vergleichende Baulehre, p. 171. Der Stil, vol.1, p. 276. “ . . . ein Fundamentalprincip der Erfindung, welches . . . mit logischer Sicherheit die wahre Form . . . finden liess.” H. Semper, Gottfried Semper, p. 12. Semper planned to publish a work with this title shortly after his arrival in Zurich, ¨ describing it to his publisher as an “umfassenderen Werk uber die gesamte Formenwelt” (quoted in Herrmann, Theoretischer Nachlass, p. 118). The work was never published, but exists as an unpublished manuscript (MS 168–181 in the Semper archives) and as fragments in several of Semper’s published writings. “Ueber die formelle Gesetzm¨assigkeit des Schmuckes und dessen Bedeutung als Kunstsymbol” (Zurich lecture, 1856), MS 163–4. In H. and M. Semper (eds.) Kleine Schriften, pp. 304–43. For more on Semper’s Zurich lecture series, see Mallgrave, Gottfried Semper, pp. 270–1.

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12

13

14 15

16

17 18

19

20

21 22 23

24 25

¨ “Wo der Mensch schmuckt, hebt er nur mit mehr oder weniger bewusstem Thun eine Naturgesetzlichkeit an dem Gegenstand, den er ziert, deutlicher hervor.” ¨ “Uber die formelle Gesetzm¨assigkeit des Schmuckes”, Kleine Schriften p. 305. “Welches ist nun aber dieses kosmische Gesetz? Vielleicht l¨asst sich demselben dadurch auf die Spur kommen, dass wir den Schmuck in bestimmte Kategorieen ¨ teilen, und dabei die charakteristischen Unterschiede der schmuckenden Ele¨ mente berucksichtigen.” Ibid., p. 310. Ibid., p. 310. ¨ indem er auf dessen Beziehung zu dem “Der Behang . . . ziert den Korper, Allgemeinen hinweist, an welches die Einzelerscheinung gebunden ist, und mit dieser Hinweisung den Eindruck der ruhigen Haltung, des richtigen Verhaltens der Erscheinung zu dem Boden, worauf sie steht, hervorruft.” Ibid., pp. 310–11. “So hebt das Ohrgeh¨ange, indem es der Schwerkraft folgend eine Vertikallinie versinnlicht, die zarte vorw¨arts gebogene, von der Schwerkraft unabh¨angige Kurve des Nackens.” Ibid., p. 311. On the Ringschmuck, see ibid., p. 314; on the Richtungsschmuck, see ibid., pp. 319–21. Semper’s terminology is inconsistent regarding the principles of configuration. In the “Attributes of Formal Beauty”, he referred to them as ‘qualities’, ‘at¨ die formelle Gesetzm¨assigkeit des Schmuckes” tributes’, and ‘unities’. In “Uber and Prolegomenon to Der Stil, however, he simplified his terminology, referring mainly to Gestaltungsmomente[principles of configuration]. “Attributes of Formal Beauty” was probably written between 1855 and 1859. It is unclear whether the many manuscript versions of this essay were meant to form an independent work, as Herrmann suggests (Theoretischer Nachlass, pp. 118–19), or whether they were preparatory drafts for the Prolegomenon to Der Stil, as held by Mallgrave (Gottfried Semper, p. 273). The two texts are in part almost identical, and I will refer to both in the following discussion. As he wrote: “Since in every phenomenon that claims perfection the principle of individualisation is symbolised clearly and distinctly by a certain arrangement of parts, there appear three moments of configuration [Gestaltungsmomente] that can be active in the generation of form.” Prolegomenon to Der Stil, p. 198; see also “Attributes of Formal Beauty”, p. 228. “Attributes of Formal Beauty”, p. 225. Prolegomenon to Der Stil, p. 198. Ibid., p. 200. Although Semper borrows Vitruvius’s term here, his definition has little to do with Vitruvius’s, who defines ‘eurythmy’ as “beauty and fitness in the adjustment of the members” (The Ten Books on Architecture, book 1, chapter 2, p. 14), not as radial symmetry. Prolegomenon to Der Stil, p. 200. “Attributes of Formal Beauty”, p. 230. See also Prolegomenon to Der Stil, p. 198: “A Principle of Configuration for Complete, Self-Contained Forms Indifferent to the Outside”.

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26 27

28 29

30 31

32

33

34

35 36

37

38 39

Prolegomenon to Der Stil, pp. 198–206; “Attributes of Formal Beauty”, pp. 230–5. Prolegomenon to Der Stil, p. 201. On the wreath as ‘microcosmic’ adornment, see ¨ “Uber die formelle Gesetzm¨assigkeit des Schmuckes”, p. 315. Semper is not consistent in his use of the terms ‘microcosmic’ and ‘macrocosmic’. Whereas in Pro¨ legomenon to Der Stil and “Uber die formelle Gesetzm¨assigkeit des Schmuckes” he sees eurythmic order as ‘microcosmic’, in “Attributes of Formal Beauty” he groups eurythmy under the heading “On Macrocosmic Authority”, p. 234. Prolegomenon to Der Stil, pp. 203–4. Whereas the eurythmic order of the crystal is characterised by a self-sufficient perfection, the symmetrical order of, for example, the leaf refers to the larger whole of the tree. See “Attributes of Formal Beauty”, p. 231, and Prolegomenon to Der Stil, pp. 203–5. Prolegomenon to Der Stil, pp. 211–12. For a presentation of the history of microcosmic thinking, see G. P. Conger, Theories of Macrocosms and Microcosms in the History of Philosophy, Columbia University Press 1922; and R. Allers, “Microcosmus, from Anaximandros to Paracelsus”, in Traditio, Studies in Ancient and Medieval History, Thought and Religion, vol. II, New York 1944, pp. 319–407. As a Pythagorean text stated it: “Man is a microcosm because he has in him the four elements as well as all the powers of the cosmos”. Photius, quoted in Conger, Theories of Macrocosms and Microcosms, p. 19. Neue Lehre von den Proportionen des menschlichen K¨orpers auch einem bisher unbekannt gebliebenen, die ganze Natur und Kunst durchdringenden morphologische Grundge¨ setze, Leibzig: Weigel 1854, pp. 1 and 137: “Das Rein-Schone”. Further on Zeising’s impact on Semper, see Laudel, Gottfried Semper: Architektur und Stil, pp. 164–73; and Mallgrave, Gottfried Semper, pp. 271–2. Similar speculations were presented by the botanist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle (1778–1841), who based his ‘organography’ on the principle of symmetry. See Cassirer, The Problem of Knowledge, p. 135. Neue Lehre, part 2, pp. 146–58: “Von der Bedeutung der Proportionalit¨at im ¨ Gebiete des Formell-schonen”. ¨ “In der Thierwelt . . . verkundigt die vollendete Symmetrie ein geschlossenes und selbst¨andiges, sich selbst bestimmendes Ganzes, ‘eine kleine Welt’; und so wird auch in der Architektur die Erscheinung der Ganzheit dadurch erreicht. Das ¨ Werk wird dadurch erst als Werk, d. h. als Ausfuhrung eines einzigen untheilbaren Entwurfs erkannt, und isolirt.” Die Kunstlehre, p. 311. “Attributes of Formal Beauty”, p. 230. Semper (and Schlegel) understood ‘microcosm’ in a very different manner than its traditional meaning, in which the microcosmic reference to the whole had been emphasised over and above its autonomy and isolation. “ . . . des Hinweisens auf den Bezug der Einzelerscheinungen zum Allgemeinen”, ¨ “Uber die formelle Gesetzm¨assigkeit des Schmuckes”, p. 311. Prolegomenon to Der Stil, p. 206.

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40

41

42 43

44 45 46

47

48

49

50

Schopenhauer defined will as the vital force governing both body and mind of living beings, and would probably not have approved of Semper’s distinction between will and vital force. Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (1819), book 2, §18, pp. 118–23. Semper was probably familiar with Schopenhauer’s philosophy through Richard Wagner, who had discovered Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung in 1854 (Wagner, My Life, London: Constable 1994, pp. 614–17). Yet, Semper did not make direct references to Schopenhauer, and his speculations on force and matter could equally well derive from Schelling. For more on Semper and Schopenhauer, see Mallgrave, Gottfried Semper, pp. 271–6. ¨ die formelle Gesetzm¨assigkeit des Prolegomenon to Der Stil, p. 207. In “Uber Schmuckes”, pp. 236–7, Semper seems to suggest that the ‘predominant direction’ of a being is not simply the direction of growth, but somehow the sum or the relationship between all the different directional forces working upon it. Prolegomenon to Der Stil, p. 213. By ‘authority’, Semper meant the visual manifestation of the Gestaltungsmomente. Ascribing the term to Vitruvius, he defined it as “the emphasis given to certain formal components of a phenomenon that stands out from the rest and thereby become within their sphere the leaders of the chorus, as it were, and the visible representatives of a unifying principle”. Prolegomenon to Der Stil, p. 209; “Attributes of Formal Beauty”, pp. 233–40. Prolegomenon to Der Stil, p. 213. Semper spoke about this as a ‘threefold integrated unity’ which governs all form. Prolegomenon to Der Stil, p. 198. Ibid., p. 206: “In this struggle of the organic vital force [Lebenskraft] against both the material and will power, nature unfurls her most glorious creations; it is manifested in a beautiful elastic curve of a palm, whose majestic leaf corona vigorously straightens up while bending to the general law of gravitation as a whole and its individual parts (the leaves of the corona).” Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling, Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature (1798), trans. E. E. Harris and P. Heath, Cambridge University Press 1988, introduction, p. 18. For a discussion of this idea, see J. I. Esposito, Schelling’s Idealism and Philosophy of Nature, Bucknell University Press 1977, “Schelling and the Analysis of Organic Form”, pp. 68–78. ¨ “Die Aesthetik des Rein-Schonen hat ihre materielle Grundlage in der Dynamik und Statik. Jede in sich abgeschlossene Form hastet so zu sagen an ¨ einem korperlichen, bei dessen Gestaltung und Erhaltung Kr¨afte th¨atig sind.” ¨ “Uber die formelle Gesetzm¨assigkeit des Schmuckes”, p. 326. Prolegomenon to Der Stil, p. 198. This idea echoes Schelling’s notion of gravity as he presented it in the introduction to Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature, pp. 20–1. Prolegomenon to Der Stil, p. 198. An elaboration of this idea can be found in ¨ August Schmarsow, Grundbegriffe der Kunstwissenschaft, am Ubergang vom Altertum zum Mittelalter kritisch er¨ortert und in systematischem Zusammenhange

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51 52 53

54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62

63

64 65

66 67 68 69

dargestellt, Leibzig: Teubner 1903, chapter 3, “Menschliche Organisation”. Schmarsow was a great admirer of Semper. He adopted his theory of formal beauty and succeeded in presenting it in a considerably clearer manner than Semper himself. Another perhaps less successful attempt at systematising the theory of formal beauty is that of Albert Fischer, “Die a¨ sthetischen Anschauun¨ gen Gottfried Sempers und die moderne psychologische Asthetik”, Archiv fur ¨ die gesamte Psychologie, vol. 2, Leibzig 1904, pp. 362–422. Prolegomenon to Der Stil, p. 197. “Attributes of Formal Beauty”, p. 241. See, for instance, the Prolegomenon to Der Stil, p. 209: “Art, like nature, displays a similar variety of combinations but cannot exceed nature’s bounds by an inch; its principles of formal configuration must be in strict accordance with the laws of nature.” “Attributes of Formal Beauty”, p. 229. Ibid., p. 229. Ibid., p. 230. Ibid., p. 234; Prolegomenon to Der Stil, pp. 209–10. Prolegomeon to Der Stil, p. 213. Semper did not explain this rather dubious assertion further. “Attributes of Formal Beauty”, p. 240. Ibid., p. 240. Ibid., p. 240. ¨ Ibid., pp. 229–30. See also “Uber die formelle Gesetzm¨assigkeit des Schmuckes”, ¨ p. 329: “Diejenige Eigenschaft des Schonen, die aus dem Sichordnen aller Teile um diesen idealen Mittelpunkt der Beziehungen herum zu einer ¨ Einheit hoheren Grades hervorgeht, ist die Inhaltsangemessenheit, . . . Sie l¨asst ¨ zugleich als gut and zweckentsprechend erscheinen.” das Formell-Schone In Der Stil, this distinction appears in many different versions. Semper distinguished between ‘technical’, ‘utilitarian’, and ‘tendentious’ symbols (vol. 1, p. 377); between ‘structural-functional’ and ‘tendentious’ (vol. 1, p. 386); and between ‘real’ and ‘tendentious’ symbols (ibid.). In “On Architectural Symbols”, MS 140, MS 142, fols. 6–19, pp. 62–7, he distinguished between ‘structural’ and ‘traditional’ symbols, equating the former with what he elsewhere called ‘natural symbols’, fols. 6–8, p. 63. “On Architectural Symbols”, fols. 6–7, pp. 62–3. By ‘self-understanding’, he seems to mean ‘self-explanatory’ or ‘self-evident’. ¨ ¨ Semper described natural symbols as the “naturliche Gemeingut aller Volker, ¨ worauf gleichsam die Natur selbst diese verwies und hinfuhrte.” Der Stil, vol. 1, p. 415. “On Architectural Symbols”, fol. 7, p. 63. See also Der Stil, vol. 1, p. 377. “On Architectural Symbols”, fol. 7, p. 63. See also Der Stil, vol. 1, p. 382. “On Architectural Symbols”, fol. 7, p. 63. ¨ “Die assyrischen Kunstger¨athe sind desshalb eben so uberaus interessant, weil sie den Doppelsinn dieser Symbole noch an ihnen herauslesen. Die freie Kunst

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70 71

72

73

74 75 76 77

78

79

80

81 82

¨ letzteres beh¨alt dafur ¨ hat sich an ihnen noch nicht aus dem Ornamente abgelost, ¨ hohere Bedeutung als die des einfachen Zierrahts.” Der Stil, vol. 1, p. 386. Der Stil, vol. 1, p. 383 and pp. 387–9. “On the Relation of Architectural Systems with the General Cultural Conditions”, London lecture, 29 November 1854, MS 144, fols. 1–39, in RES, Journal of Anthropology and Aesthetics 11, Spring 1986, pp. 42–53. fol. 5, p. 44. “ . . . setzt der hieratische Pharaonenstil das symbolische Ornament, das gleichsam aus einer Reihung von Hieroglyphen besteht, und dem nur selten zugleich struktur-symbolischer Sinn innewohnt”, Der Stil, vol. 1, p. 415. See B. A. Sørensen, Symbol und Symbolismus, in den a¨ sthetischen Theorien des 18. Jahrhunderts und der deutschen Romantik, Copenhagen: Munksgaard 1963, pp. 58– 9. Sørensen’s book offers a thorough presentation of the changing notions of symbol and allegory in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century aesthetics, with particular reference to Herder and Goethe. ¨ Art, Herder proclaimed, “musse durch sich selbst bedeuten.” “Andrastea”, quoted in Sørensen, Symbol und Symbolismus, p. 59. “ . . . sich selbst aussprechende Gestaltsymbol”, Sørensen, Symbol und Symbolismus, p. 109. ¨ Uber die bildende Nachahmung des Sch¨onen (1788), pp. 49–53, quoted in Sørensen, Symbol und Symbolismus, p. 82. Semper here echoed Herder, who had lamented how in preclassical art “ . . . die ¨ symbolische Allegorie hatte die Kunst ubermannt.” Kritische W¨aldern, quoted in Sørensen, p. 61. See Der Stil, vol. 1, p. 387: “durch barokes unorganisches Verbinden hetero¨ gener Bestandtheile animalischer Formen . . . sundigten sie gegen die formellen ¨ Schonheitsregeln”. ¨ Greek art is “von jenen Elementen vollst¨andig emancipiert, als Schones an sich nur noch sich selbst Zweck. Die Emancipation von den nicht formalen Elementen der Form, in dem angedeuteten Sinne, war das stete Streben der hellenischen Kunst im Grossen und im Kleinen.” Der Stil, vol. 2, p. 142. “Die hellenische Kunst dagegen spaltet diesen Doppelsinn und weiset jeder ¨ H¨alfte die ihr gebuhrende Stelle an. Sie fasst die ornamentalen Symbole ¨ vorzugsweise in struktiv-funktionellem Sinne, mit moglichst gemilderter und ¨ Bedeutung, die ihnen noch bleibt; der leisester Anspielung auf tendenziose ¨ hoheren Kunst weist sie ihre neutralen Felder an, wo sie, von der Struktur und dem n¨achsten materiellen Dienste des Systemes unabh¨angig, sich frei entfaltet.” Der Stil, vol. 1, p. 386. See also ibid., p. 348. “Die Kunst der Griechen wards gebildet, als Kunst zu sprechen ohne fremde Attribute.” Zerstreute Bl¨atter, quoted in Sørensen, Symbol und Symbolismus, p. 62. “On Architectural Symbols”, fol. 10–13, p. 64. See also Der Stil, vol. 1, p. 390, ¨ where his debt to Botticher becomes even clearer: “So werden ‘Strukturschema’ und Kunstschema’ identificirt und der organische Gedanke, der in Hellas seine ideale Anwendung in der Baukunst erh¨alt, ist hier schon in realer Weise ausgesprochen. Alles ist fertig, es fehlt nichts als der belebende Prometheusfunken!”

221

N O T E S T O P P. 1 0 6 – 1 0 9

83 84

85

86 87

88

89

90 91

92 93 94

Der Stil, vol. 1, p. 509 (footnote). “Auch hierin bildet sie [Greek architecture] den Gegensatz zu der barbarischen Baukunst, in welcher dieselben Elemente, n¨amlich Struktur und Dekoration . . . mehr oder weniger unorganisch, gleichsam mechanisch und in eigentlichster materiellster Kundgebung zusammentreten.’ Der Stil, vol. 1, p. 225–6. Der Stil, vol. 1, p. 224. The principle of Bekleidung, for instance, was appropriated by the Greeks in a manner no longer material “sondern nur noch symbolisch und in vergeistigtester Weise”. Ibid., p. 224. The Kantian background to this line of thinking will be discussed in chapter 5. “A Critical Analysis and Prognosis of Present-Day Artistic Production”, p. 259. See also “Attributes of Formal Beauty”, p. 241. ¨ “Ubereinstimmung einer Kunsterscheinung mit ihrer Entstehungsgeschichte, mit allen Vorbedingungen und Umst¨anden ihres Werdens.” “Ueber Baustile”, p. 402. In this instance, I do not follow Mallgrave and Herrmann’s translation in Four Elements of Architecture and Other Writings. Prolegomenon to Der Stil, p. 183. See also “A Critical Analysis and Prognosis of Present-day Artistic Production”, p. 259: “A theory of building based on these principles will therefore be different from the theory of architecture. Reviewing the field of history, it will not apprehend and explain as facts the monuments of different countries and different times, but will resolve them as different values of a variable function of given variable coefficients; it will do this in order to reveal the law and inner necessity that reigns throughout the world of art forms as throughout nature.” “The Attributes of Formal Beauty”, p. 241. The theory was presented for the first time in “Outline for a System of Comparative Style-Theory”, MS 122 and 124. “The Attributes of Formal Beauty”, p. 241. Science, Industry, and Art, p. 136. For more on the discrepancies between Semper’s different definitions of style, see Mallgrave, “Commentary on Semper’s London Lecture,” RES, Journal of Anthropology and Aesthetics 6, Fall 1983, pp. 23–31. “Outline for a System of Comparative Style-Theory”, MS 124, fol. 5, pp. 8–9. “Attributes of Formal Beauty”, p. 242. Ibid., p. 242. Semper was ambiguous in his description of the inner coefficients. In a draft for “Outline for a System of Comparative Style-Theory” (MS 124), purpose was presented as constituting the functional relation itself – i.e., making up the C in the formula (fols. 6–7). In a different version of the same lecture (MS 122), however, Semper described purpose as one of the inner coefficients; i.e., exercising a constant influence in the functional expression, but only as one of several coefficients within it. Hans Semper, when editing Kleine Schriften after his father’s death, chose to merge the two manuscripts and include in MS 122 the passages from MS 124 where Semper defined C as purpose. As Mallgrave has pointed out, this has led to a simplified interpretation of Semper

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as a protofunctionalist: “not only has the so-called first class of variables come to be perceived as exerting a controlling or dominant influence over the second, but with ‘use’ (Zweck) deposited into this class, Semper’s theory has been read as blatantly purposeful”, “Commentary on Semper’s November Lecture,” p. 28. I agree with Mallgrave that Hans Semper’s version is misleading. Yet, Semper’s notion of ‘purpose’ as an inner coefficient of the work is not without its own problems, as long as it implies that ‘purpose’ is a product of the immanent interaction of Gestaltungsmomente. I discuss this ‘immanentisation’ more closely in chapters 5 and 6. 95

96 97 98

99 100

101

102

The Gestaltungsmomente and the ‘inner coefficients’ of art seem to be two ways of grasping the same thing: namely, the inherent lawfulness governing form and matter. Due to the considerable inconsistency in Semper’s presentation of both, it is difficult to claim that these concepts are identical, yet his seamless transition in “The Attributes of Formal Beauty” from a discussion of the Gestaltungsmomente (defined as “the formal law and logic noticeable in the creation of artistic works”, p. 225) to the formula for style and its ‘inner coefficients’ (defined as what is “contained in the work itself and that comply with certain compelling natural and physical laws”, p. 242) should be enough to alert us to their affinity. The ambiguous role of ‘purpose’ in the discussion of the ‘inner coefficients’ likewise mirrors Semper’s curious introduction of purpose as a fourth Gestaltungsmoment, discussed earlier in this chapter. “Attributes of Formal Beauty”, p. 242. Ibid., p. 242. On the distinction between natural and historical coefficients in Semper’s formula, see F. Piel, “Der Historische Stilbegriff und die Geschichtlichkeit der Kunst” in Bauer (ed.) Probleme der Kunstwissenschaft, pp. 28–9. “Fundamentalprinzip der Erfindung”, H. Semper: Gottfried Semper, ein Bild, p. 12. “Outline for a System of Comparative Style-Theory” (MS 124), fol. 6, p. 18: “It will be said, that an artistic problem is not a mathematical one, and that results in fine arts are hardly obtainable by calculation. This is very true, and I am the last to believe that mere reflection and calculation may at any time succeed in filling the place of talent and natural taste. Also I only wanted this schedule as a crutch for leaning on it in explaining the subject. I therefore will be kindly allowed to prosecute my proposition.” “On Architectural Symbols”, fol. 2, p. 61. Further on Semper’s notion of architecture as a ‘Lapidargeschichte’ of society, see, for instance, Der Stil, vol. 1, pp. 212 and 406; Der Stil, vol. 2, p. 3; and Prospectus to Vergleichende Baulehre, pp. 170–1. See also his late criticism of the potential determinism implied in this view, in “On Architectural Styles” (Zurich lecture, 4 March 1869), MS 280, trans. Mallgrave and Herrmann, Four Elements of Architecture and Other Writings, p. 268. “Diese bedeutungsvollen Formen wurden als solche erkannt, und in Folge dessen ¨ zu religiosen und nationalen Emblemen erhoben”. Der Stil, vol. 2, p. 5.

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104

105

THE

1

2 3 4

5 6

7

8

“Wie bedeutsam tritt das schwebende geistige und klare Wesen der quellenverehrenden Hellenen schon aus dieser untergeordneten Kunstgestaltung sym¨ bolisch heraus, gegenuber der Situla, bei welcher das physische Gesetz der Schwere und der Gleichgewichts einen ganz entgegengesetzten, aber dem Geiste des a¨ gyptischen Volks nicht minder entsprechenden, Ausdruck fand! . . . Noch ¨ mehr! – die Grundzuge der gesammten a¨ gyptischen Architektur scheinen in dem Nilheimer gleich wie im Embryo enthalten zu sein, und nicht minder auffallend ist die Verwandtschaft der Form der Hydria mit gewissen Typen des dorischen Baustils!” Der Stil, vol. 2, pp. 5–6. For a further discussion on Semper’s notion of correspondence ¨ [Ubereinstimmung], see Bauer, “Architektur als Kunst”, pp. 164–5. See also Michael Podro, The Critical Historians of Art, Yale University Press 1991, ¨ chapter IV, “From Semper to Goller”, pp. 44–58. “An Stelle eines idealen Zweckbegriffs . . . werden die Dinge aus sich selbst erkl¨art nach dem Gesetz von Ursache und Wirkung . . . Geschichtsschreibung wird zur “Géometrie des forces.” Stockmeyer, Gottfried Sempers Kunsttheorie, p. 29.

C O M PA R AT I V E

METHOD

E. Zitelmann, “Der Materialismus in der Geschichtsschreibung”, Preuss. Jahrbuch 1876, p. 177, quoted in E. Rothhacker Logik und Systematik der Geisteswissenschaften, Munich: Oldenbourg 1965, p. 91. Prospectus, Vergleichende Baulehre, p. 170. “Outline for a System of Comparative Style-Theory”, MS 122, fol. 3, p. 8. Science, Industry, and Art, p. 133. See also Prospectus, Vergleichende Baulehre, p. 170: “Out of this chaos, the Descartes and Newtons, the Cuviers, Humboldts, and Liebigs created a new, so-called comparative form of science, animated by a worldview [Weltidee].” Second Prospectus to Der Stil, p. 179. “Im 19. Jahrhundert ist die vergleichende Methode geradezu zur Herrscherin in der Wissenschaft geworden.” A. Harnack: 1907, quoted in Rothhacker, Logik und Systematik, p. 91. Wilhelm Dilthey, Der Aufbau der geschichtlichen Welt in den Geisteswissenschaften, in Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 7, pp. 25–6: “Mit diesem grossen Blick der historische ¨ Schule verband sich dann eine methodischer Fortschritt von der hochster Bedeutung. Von der aristotelischen Schule ab hatte die Ausbildung der vergleichenden ¨ deren Methoden in der Biologie der Pflanzen und Tiere den Ausgangspunkt fur Anwendung in den Geisteswissen schaften gebildet . . . Indem nun die historische Schule die Ableitung der allgemeinen Wahrheiten in den Geisteswissenschaften ¨ sie die vergleichende durch abstraktes konstruktives Denkens verwarf, wurde fur ¨ Methode das einzige Verfahren, zu Wahrheiten von grosserer Allgemeinheit aufzusteigen.” Sebastiano Serlio (1474–1554), VI Libri dell’architettura (1537–51); Andrea Palladio (1508–80), Quattro libri dell’architettura (1570); Vincenzo Scamozzi

224

N O T E S T O P P. 1 1 5 – 1 2 0

9 10

11

12

13

14 15 16 17

18

19 20

21

22 23

(1552–1616), L’idea dell’architettura universale, (1615). On the emergence of the comparative method in architecture, see A. Vidler, The Writing of the Walls, Princeton Architectural Press 1987, pp. 7–33. H.-W. Kruft, Geschichte der Architekturtheorie, von der Antike bis zu Gegenwart, Munich: Beck 1991, p. 205. Entwurf einer historischen Architektur. In Abbildung unterschiedenes beruhmten ¨ Geb¨aude, des Alterthums und fremdes V¨olcker, (Vienna 1721), trans. Thomas Lediard, preface to the first English edition, London 1737. Entwurf, “Vorrede”. Further on the question of relativism in Fisher von Erlach’s work, see H. Sedlmayr, Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, Munich: Wien 1956, ¨ pp. 39–43: “Begrunder des ‘Reichsstils’.” See, for instance, A. A. Sheldon, “Cabinets of Transgression: Renaissance Collections and the Incorporation of the New World”, in J. Elsner and R. Cardinal (eds.), The Cultures of Collecting, London: Reaktion 1994. Fischer von Erlach was influenced by Athanasius Kircher, whose work testifies to the emblematic role of comparison and classification in the baroque period. See Sedlmayr, Fischer von Erlach, p. 14; and Vesely, “Architecture and the Conflict of Representation”, AA Files 8 1987, p. 26. Observation sur les Edifices des Anciens Peuples précédées de réflexions préliminaires sur la critique des “Ruines de la Gr`ece”, Amsterdam 1767, pp. 7–8. Quoted in Bergdoll, Léon Vaudoyer, p. 13. See also Lavin, Quatrem`ere de Quincy, p. 16. Les Ruines, second revised edition, Paris 1770. Bergdoll, Léon Vaudoyer, p. 13. Prospectus, Vergleichende Baulehre, p. 169. “Influence of Historical Research on Trends in Contemporary Architecture”, in Herrmann, In Search, p. 190. See also Prospectus, Comparative Theory of Architecture, p. 169; and “Outline for a System of Comparative Style-Theory”, MS 122, fol. 6, p. 9. For Durand’s life and work, see S. Villari, J. N. L. Durand (1760–1834), Art and Science of Architecture, New York: Rizzoli 1990; and W. Szambien, Jean-NicolasLouis Durand, 1760–1834. De L’imitation a` la norme. Paris: Picard 1984. Villari, J. N. L. Durand, p. 55. Durand applied a mixture of historical and typological criteria for classification, separating, for example, Egyptian temples, Roman palaces, and Moorish details while also operating with classes like ‘Round temples’. Further on Durand’s classification system, see L. Madrazo, “Durand and the Science of Architecture”, Journal of Architectural Education, vol. 48, no. 1, September 1994, pp. 13–14. W. Oechslin has traced some of Durand’s ‘purified’ designs back to their originals, in “Premises for the Resumption of the Discussion of Typology”, Assemblage 1, 1986, pp. 46–51. Recueil, preface, p. 17, quoted in Villari, J. N. L. Durand, p. 56. J. G. Legrand, “Essai sur l’histoire générale de l’architecture”, preface to the second edition of Durand’s Recueil, Paris 1809, p. 40. Quoted in Bergdoll, Léon Vaudoyer, p. 37.

225

N O T E S T O P P. 1 2 0 – 1 2 3

24

25

26 27 28

29

30 31

32 33

34 35 36 37

Durand himself never used the term ‘type’, but referred instead to genre. For the changing notion of type and genre in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, see Lavin, Quatrem`ere de Quincy; and A. Vidler, “The Idea of Type: The Transformation of the Academic Ideal, 1750–1830”, in Oppositions, no. 8, 1977. See, for instance, Durand’s recommendations for circular plans on the ground of ´ economy. Précis des le¸cons d’architecture données a` l’Ecole Polytechnique, p. 8. Quoted from the 1819 edition, in Peréz-Goméz, Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science, pp. 299–300. ´ Précis des le¸cons d’architecture données a` l’Ecole Polytechnique, 2 vols., Paris 1802–5. The “Partie graphique” was added in the 1821 edition. Précis, vol. 1, pp. 29–30. Quoted from the 1823 edition in Villari, J. N. L. Durand, p. 60. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 81. Quoted from the 1823 edition in Villari, J. N. L. Durand, p. 60. Durand’s Cartesian approach has been pointed out by, among others, Madrazo, “Durand”, note 5, p. 22. As he writes: “First of all we shall see how architectural elements should be combined with one another, how they are assembled each in relation to the whole, horizontally as well as vertically; and in the second place how, through these combinations, a formation of such different parts of the building . . . is achieved. Once we have noted these parts well, we shall see how they combine in turn in the composition of the entire building.” Précis, vol. 1, p. 29. Quoted from the 1823 edition in Villari, J. N. L. Durand, p. 60. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 92. Quoted from the 1823 edition in Villari, J. N. L. Durand, p. 64. ´ The implications of this shift have been discussed, for instance, by Pérez-Gomez, Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science, chapter 9, “Durand and Functionalism”, pp. 198–326. Précis, vol. 1, p. 28. Quoted from the 1823 edition in Villari, J. N. L. Durand, p. 59. See “Outline for a System of Comparative Style-Theory”, MS 122, and Prospectus to Vergleichende Baulehre. A student in Paris in the 1820s, Semper probably knew Durand’s work well, through both his tutor Gau and his contacts with the ´ ´ Ecole Polytechnique and Ecole de Beaux Arts. See Mallgrave, Introduction to The Four Elements of Architecture and Other Writings, note 7. “Outline for a System of Comparative Style-Theory”, MS 122, fol. 7, p. 9. Ibid., fol. 7, p. 9. See, for example, Prospectus to Vergleichende Baulehre, p. 169. See, for example, Goethe’s letter from Italy to Frau von Stein: “As I have looked upon nature, so do I now look upon art, and I am now achieving what I have striven for so long, a more perfect conception of the highest things which men have made.” Quoted in Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp, p. 206. For more on the ‘aesthetic organicists’, see ibid., “German Theories of Vegetable Genius.” On Herder’s vitalism, see F. Beiser, The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from

226

N O T E S T O P P. 1 2 3 – 1 2 7

38 39

40 41 42

43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

52

53

Kant to Fichte, Harvard University Press 1987, pp. 127–60. On the use of biological metaphors in historiography, see, for example, A. D. Breck, “The Use of Biological Concepts in the Writing of History,” in Breck and Yourgrau (eds.), Biology, History and Natural Philosophy, London: Plenum 1972. Prospectus, Vergleichende Baulehre, p. 170. For biographical data on Cuvier, see W. Coleman, Georges Cuvier, Zoologist, Harvard University Press 1964, pp. 5–25. For a discussion of Cuvier’s relation to Aristotelian and Darwinian biology, respectively, see Cassirer, The Problem of Knowledge, pp. 118–36; W. Coleman, Biology in the 19th Century, Cambridge University Press 1977, pp. 17–19; and M. Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, London: Routledge 1970, pp. 263–79. See Mallgrave, Introduction to The Four Elements of Architecture and Other Writings, p. 31. Prospectus, Vergleichende Baulehre, p. 170, and “Outline for a System of Comparative Style-Theory”, MS 122, fol. 3, p. 8. See Rykwert, “Gottfried Semper and the Conception of Style,” pp. 74–7. In contrast, Mallgrave has been critical of what he sees as the exaggerated emphasis on Cuvier in recent Semper research. “A Commentary to Semper’s November Lecture” RES, Journal of Anthropology and Aesthetics 6, Fall 1983, p. 26. Foucault, The Order of Things, p. 264. Cassirer, The Problem of Knowledge, p. 138, my emphasis. See Coleman, Georges Cuvier, pp. 3 and 98–107. Cuvier, Le régne animal distribué d’apr`es son organisation (1817), vol. II, p. 28, quoted in Coleman, Georges Cuvier, p. 63. Cuvier, “Animal”, Dictionnaire des sciences naturelles (1816), vol. II, p. lii, translated and printed in Coleman, Georges Cuvier, p. 74. Cuvier, “Rapport Historique sur le progr`es des sciences naturelles”, pp. 329–30, quoted in Foucault, The Order of Things, p. 270. Georges Cuvier, Discourse sur les révolutions de la surface du globe (Paris 1828), quoted in Cassirer, The Problem of Knowledge, pp. 130–1. The Order of Things, p. 268. C. Linnaeus, The Elements of Botany, trans. H. Rose, London 1775, p. 231, quoted in Coleman, Georges Cuvier, p. 20. On ‘artificial’ versus ‘natural’ systems of classifications, see Cassirer, The Problem of Knowledge, pp. 127–9. As he wrote: “If . . . the Maker of all things, who has done nothing without design, has furnished this earthly globe, like a museum, with the most admirable proofs of his wisdom and power; if, moreover, this splendid theatre would be adorned in vain without a spectator; and if he has placed in it Man, the chief and most perfect of all his works, who is alone capable of duly considering the wonderful æconomy of the whole; it follows, that Man is made for the purpose of studying the Creator’s works, that he may observe in them the evident marks of divine wisdom.” Reflections on the Study of Nature, London: Nicol 1785, pp. 13–14. Ibid., p. 4.

227

N O T E S T O P P. 1 2 7 – 1 3 1

54 55

56

57 58

59 60

61

62

63

64 65

Ibid., p. 17. For a study of the emblematic worldview of early natural history, see W. B. Ashworth; “Natural History and the Emblematic Worldview”, in D. C. Lindberg and R. S. Westman (eds.), Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution, Cambridge University Press 1990, pp. 303–32. Linnaeus was strongly influenced by hermetic philosophy, particularly Count Gustaf Bonde, whose Clavicula Hermeticæ Scientiæ was published in 1732. Further on Linnaeus and hermeticism, see K. R. V. Wikman, Lachesis and Nemesis: Four chapters on the Human Condition in the Writings of Carl Linnæus, Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell 1970. As Linnæus wrote, “Should I not from the perpetual movement and order of the stars see the Conservator and from the reproduction of animals and plants, when they are referred back to the unity, see the Creation”? Lachesis Naturalis quæ tradit Diætam naturalem and Nemesis Divina, quoted in Wickman, Lachesis and Nemesis, p. 100. Cassirer, The Problem of Knowledge, p. 131. See, for instance, Goethe’s Metamorphosis of Plants, in Scientific Studies, ed. and trans. D. Miller, New York: Suhrkamp 1988, vol. 12, p. 94. See also Cassirer, The Problem of Knowledge, p. 156; and Foucault, The Order of Things, p. 140. Further on the idea of a ‘chain of being’, see A. O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being, A Study of the History of an Idea, Harvard University Press 1964. ‘Biology’ was not introduced as a term until about 1800, when it came to replace ‘Natural History’ as a comprehensive label for botany, zoology, palaeontology, etc. See Foucault, The Order of Things, p. 269. Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). Cuvier had a thorough knowledge of Kant through his colleague and teacher in comparative anatomy at the Stuttgart Karlschule, Carl Friedrich Kielmeyer (1765–1844). Kielmeyer explicitly relied on Kant’s notion of organic systems when developing his function-based comparative anatomy, stating that “the organs stand in purposeful relationship to one another . . . each is the effect and cause of the other, and for us, therefore, the relationship is purposeful and not mechanical”. Gesammelte Schriften, F. H. Holler (ed.), Berlin 1938, p. 228. Quoted in C. Coulston Gillispie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. VII, New York: Schribner’s 1973, pp. 366–9. For more on the relation between Cuvier and Kielmeyer’s Kantianism, see Cassirer, The Problem of Knowledge, p. 128. See, for example, the First introduction to the Critique of Judgement, especially section IX: “On Teleological Judging”. In Critique of Judgement, trans. W. S. Pluhar, Indianapolis: Hackett 1987, pp. 421 ff. Critique of Pure Reason, A642–648, B670–676, trans. P. Guyer and A. W. Wood, Cambridge University Press 1998. Further on Kant’s regulative ideas, see J. D. McFarland, Kant’s Concept of Teleology, University of Edinburgh Press 1970, p. 25. Critique of Judgement, §77: “On the Peculiarity of the Human Understanding That Makes the Concept of a Natural Purpose Possible for Use”, pp. 288–94. Critique of Pure Reason, A645–6/B673–4.

228

N O T E S T O P P. 1 3 1 – 1 3 3

66 67

68

69 70

71

72 73 74 75

76 77 78

Ibid., A616–19/B644–7. “In other words, it must be a matter of complete indifference to us, when we perceive such unity, whether we say that God in his wisdom willed it so, or that nature has wisely arranged it thus. For what has justified us in adopting the idea of a supreme intelligence as a schema of the regulative principle is precisely this greatest possible systematic and purposive unity – a unity which our reason has required as a regulative principle that must underlie all investigation of nature.” Ibid., A699/B727. Ibid., A685–7/B713–15: “The highest formal unity that alone rests on concepts of reason is the purposive unity of things; and the speculative interests of reason make it necessary to regard every ordinance of the world as if it had sprouted from the intention of a highest reason. Such a principle, namely, opens up for our reason, as applied to the field of experience, entirely new prospects for connecting up things in the world in accordance with teleological laws, and thereby attaining to the greatest systematic unity among them.” First introduction to Critique of Judgement, part II, p. 393. “What is presupposed [in empirical judgements on nature] is that nature, even in its empirical laws, has adhered to a certain parsimony suitable for our judgement, and adhered to a uniformity which we can grasp; and this presupposition must proceed all comparison, as an a priori principle of judgement”. First introduction to Critique of Judgement, part V, p. 401. Kant’s principle of the reflective judgement is that nature is purposive for our knowledge of it. This principle is a transcendental principle and requires as such a transcendental deduction. See McFarland, Kant’s Concept of Teleology, p. 83. First introduction to Critique of Judgement, part II, p. 394. See also Critique of Judgement, §75, p. 280. Critique of Judgement, § 62. For a comment on this point, see McFarland, Kant’s Concept of Teleology, p. 78. See Critique of Judgement, §15, p. 73, and “General Comment on the First Division of the Analytic”, p. 92. The “purposiveness without purpose” is for Kant the link between the teleological and aesthetic judgement. In the latter, the work is purpose only with respect to our strictly disinterested pleasure in being exposed to “the free play of our cognitive faculties”. In the former, nature is purposive strictly for our cognitive demand of wholeness. See, for instance, Critique of Judgement §15, p. 73: “It is already evident that the beautiful, which we judge on the basis of merely formal purposiveness, i.e., a purposiveness without a purpose, is quite independent of the concept of the good.” Critique of Judgement, §64, p. 249. Critique of Pure Reason, B860–1. The full quote is “Jener entscheidende Punct aber, der hier alles aufhellen wird, ist die innre Structur der Sprachen oder die vergleichende Grammatik, welche ¨ ¨ uns ganz neue Aufschlusse uber die Genealogie der Sprachen auf a¨ hnliche Weise ¨ ¨ geben wird, wie die vergleichende Anatomie uber die hohere Naturgeschichte

229

N O T E S T O P P. 1 3 3 – 1 3 4

79

80

81

82 83

84

85

¨ Licht verbreitet hat.” Friedrich Schlegel, Uber die Sprache und Weisheiten der Indier, Heidelberg: Mohr & Zimmer 1808, book 1, chapter 3, p. 28. “Die Untersuchung des Organismus der Sprachen, und die Untersuchung der Sprachen im Zustande ihrer Ausbildung”, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Ueber das vergleichende Sprachstudium in Beziehung auf die verschiedenen Epochen der Sprachentwicklung (1820), in Werke In funf ¨ B¨anden, eds. A. Flitner und K. Giel, Stuttgart: Cotta 1960, Band III, Schriften zur Sprachphilosophie, p. 7. “Wie nun die neueste Sprachforschung bestrebt ist, die verwandtschaftlichen Beziehungen der menschlichen Idiome zu einander nachzuweisen, die einzel¨ nen Worter auf ihrem Gange der Umbildung in dem Laufe der Jahrhunderte ¨ ¨ ¨ ruckw¨ arts zu verfolgen und sie auf einen oder mehrere Punkte zuruckzuf uhren, woselbst sie in gemeinsamen Urformen einander begegnen, wie es ihr auf diesem Wege gelungen ist, die Sprachkunde zu einer a¨ chten Wissenschaft zu erheben . . . eben so l¨asst sich ein analoges Bestreben auf dem Felde der Kunstforschung rechtfertigen, welches der Entwicklung der Kunstformen aus ihren Keimen und Wurzeln, ihren Ueberg¨angen und Verzweigungen diejenige ¨ Aufmerksamkeit widmet, die ihnen ohne Zweifel gebuhrt.” Der Stil, vol. 1, pp. 1–2. New Essays on Human Understanding, trans. P. Remnant and J. Bennett, Cambridge University Press 1996, book III, chapter 9, §10. For an introduction to Leibniz’s linguistics, see T. Borsche, “Die S¨akularisierung des tertium ¨ ¨ der Ursprunge des vergleichencomparationis: Eine Philosophische Erorterung den Sprachstudiums bei Leibniz und Humboldt”; and R. H. Robins, “Leibniz and Wilhelm von Humboldt and the History of Comparative Linguistics”, both in T. de Mauro and Formigari (eds.), Leibniz, Humboldt, and the Origins of Comparativism. Amsterdam: Benjamin 1990. Robins, “Leibniz and Humboldt”, p. 87. Borsche sums up Leibniz’s notion of the Ursprache in “Die S¨akularisierung des ¨ Gottes erkanTertium comparationis”, p. 104: “Adam als unmittelbares Geschopf nte die Dinge und benannte sie mit ihren wahren Namen. In dem Mass, in dem wir uns von unserem Stammvater entfernen, degeneriert die Erkenntnis, und mit der Zeit wird auch die Sprache korrumpiert. Erneuerung ist nur von einer ¨ ¨ Ruckkehr zu den Ursprungen zu erwarten, zur adamitischen Ursprache”. See, for instance, Court de Gebelin’s Histoire naturelle de la parole (1776), who asserted that “Only comparison of the greatest possible number of languages can lead to the primitive language and to the true etymology of each word.” Quoted in S. Auroux, “Representation and the Place of Linguistic Change Before Comparative Grammar”, in de Mauro and Formigari (eds.), Leibniz, Humboldt, and the Origins of Comparativism, pp. 233–4. “ . . . uns gelegenheit gebe, ewige und allgemeine wahrheiten zu finden, so in allen weltkugeln, ja in allen zeiten, und mit einem worth bey Gott selbst gelten ¨ mussen, von dem sie auch best¨andig hehrfliessen . . . ” [sic]. G. W. Leibniz, Die Philosophische Schriften, Berlin 1875–90, vol. VII, pp. 114–15, quoted in Borsche, “Die S¨akularisierung des Tertium comparationis”, p. 110.

230

N O T E S T O P P. 1 3 8 – 1 4 0

86

87

88

89 90

91

92

93 94

95

96

Friedrich Schlegel described this mode of change as an “innre Ver¨anderung ¨ des Wurzellauts”. Uber die Sprache und Weisheiten der Indier, book 1, chapter 4, p. 45. Ibid., p. 45: “Entweder werden die Nebenbestimmungen der Bedeutung durch innre Ver¨anderung des Wurzellauts angezeigt, durch Flexion, oder aber jedes¨ ¨ sich Mehrheit, mal durch ein eignes hinzugefugtes Wort, was schon an und fur ¨ Vergangenheit, ein zukunftiges Sollen oder andre Verh¨altnissbegriffe der Art bedeutet; und diese beiden einfachsten F¨alle bezeichnen auch die beiden Hauptgattungen aller Sprache.” The inflectional languages shared a “Gleichheit des Princips, alle Verh¨altnisse und Nebenbestimmungen der Bedeutung nicht durch angeh¨angte Partikeln oder ¨ Hulfsverba, sondern durch Flexion, d. h. durch innre Modification der Wurzel zu erkennen zu geben.” Ibid., book 1, chapter 3, p. 35. See H. M. Hoenigwald, “Etymology Against Grammar in the Early 19th Cen´ tury”, in HEL: Histoire, Epistemologie, Langage, vol. 6, no. 2, 1984, pp. 95–100. In this sense, romantic linguistics anticipated the structuralist view of language as a set of relations. Further on this affinity, see Cassirer, “Structuralism in Modern Linguistics”, in Word, Journal of the Linguistic Circle of New York, vol. 1, no. 2, August 1945, pp. 99–120. The true grammatical form, Humboldt continued, “contains the expression of the relationship purely, and contains nothing substantial according to which the understanding could deviate”. In Gesammelte Schriften, vol. IV, Berlin 1903, p. 304–8, quoted in M. L. Manchester, The Philosophical Foundation of Humboldt’s Linguistic Doctrines, Amsterdam: Benjamin 1985, p. 138. “In pointierter Wendung gegen die traditionelle Sprachauffassung, wie sie auch von Leibniz noch vertreten wurde, l¨aßt sich mit Humboldt festhalten: Es gibt keine ewigen Ideen in den Sprachen oder hinter den Sprachen, es gibt keine ¨ naturliche universelle Bedeutung.” Borsche, “Die S¨akularisierung des Tertium comparationis”, p. 112. “On Dramatic Art and Literature” (1808), quoted and translated in M. H. Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp, p. 213. This has been called the ‘inflectional superiority thesis’. See Manchester, The Philosophical Foundation of Humboldt’s Linguistic Doctrines, chapter 7. The implicit racism in this line of thinking is investigated by M. Olender; The Language of Paradise, trans. A. Goldhammer, Harvard University Press 1992. ¨ Uber die Sprache und Weisheiten der Indier, book 1, chapter 4, pp. 50–1: “In der indischen oder griechischen Sprache ist jede Wurzel wahrhaft das, was der Name sagt, und wie ein lebendiger Keim, denn weil die Verh¨altnissbegriffe durch innre Ver¨anderung bezeichnet werden, so ist der Entfaltung freier Spielraum gegeben, ¨ die Fulle der Entwicklung kann ins Unbestimmbare sich ausbreiten, und ist ¨ oftmals in der That bewundrungswurdig reich.” Ibid., p. 51: “Daher der Reichthum einestheils und dann die Bestandheit und Dauerhaftigkeit dieser Sprachen, von denen man wohl sagen kann, dass sie organisch entstanden sein, und ein organisches Gewebe bilden . . . ”

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N O T E S T O P P. 1 3 5 – 1 3 8

97

98

Ibid., p. 51: “ . . . kein fruchtbarer Same, sondern nur wie ein Haufen Atome, die ¨ jeder Wind des Zufalls leicht aus einander treiben oder zusammenfuhren kann; der Zusammenhang eigentlich kein andrer, als ein bloss mechanischer durch ¨ a¨ ussere Anfugung.” Ibid., p. 44: “kunstreiche Einfachheit”.

T O WA R D S

1 2 3

4

5

A

METHOD

OF

INVENTING

Prospectus, Vergleichende Baulehre, p. 171. Science, Industry, and Art, p. 133. The question whether Saint-Simonian or Comtean positivism had any direct influence on Semper is controversial, and Semper himself never explicitly referred to such influence. Yet, given the circumstances of his education and travels, it is likely that he was familiar with aspects of positivist and utopian socialist thought. For instance, Semper was present in Paris when Comte resumed his public lectures on the Cours positive in 1829. As an active supporter and participant in the July uprisings of 1830 in Paris, he was undoubtedly informed ¨ about the Saint-Simonian movement (see Quitzsch, Asthetischen Anschauungen Sempers, pp. 5–15). As Mallgrave points out, Semper could also have come into contact with the Saint-Simonians in the circle around the Grand Prix winners in Rome in the early 1830s (Gottfried Semper, p. 56; see also Bergdoll, Léon Vaudoyer, pp. 114–19; and R. Middleton, “The Rationalist Interpretations of Classicism of Léonce Reynaud and Viollet-le-Duc”, AA Files 2, Spring 1986). During Semper’s Dresden period, the circle around Richard Wagner was close to the Young German movement: the mouthpiece of Saint-Simonism in Germany. This affinity undoubtedly inspired Semper’s and Wagner’s participation in the Dresden uprisings of 1848–9 (see E. M. Butler, The Saint-Simonian Religion in Germany, Oxford University Press 1926; and Wagner, My Life, Part Two, “1842– 1850, Dresden”). During Semper’s Zurich years, he had close contact with the developments in scientific materialism, the closest German equivalent to positivism proper. He was a friend of the materialist physiologist, Jacob Moleschott, whose Der Kreislauf des Lebens (1852) has interesting parallels with Semper’s own Stoffwechsel theory. For more on Moleschott, see F. Gregory, Scientific Materialism in Nineteenth-Century Germany, Dordrecht: Reidel 1977, pp. 80–98. For a complete outline of Comte’s hierarchy of knowledge, see Cours de Philosophie Positive, introduction, chapter 2: “View of the Hierarchy of the Positive Sciences”. In G. Lenzer (ed. and trans.), August Comte and Positivism, The Essential Writings, New York: Harper & Row 1975. As Comte wrote: “The means of exploration are three: direct observation, observation by experiment, and observation by comparison. In the first case, we look at the phenomenon before our eyes; in the second, we see how it is modified by artificial circumstances to which we have subjected it; and in the third, we contemplate a series of analogous cases, in which the phenomenon is more and more simplified. It is only in the case of organized bodies, whose phenomena are extremely difficult to access, that all three methods can be employed; and it

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is evident that in astronomy we can only use the first.” Ibid., book 2, chapter 1, p. 132. Ibid., book 5, chapter 1, p. 166. “The historical comparison of the consecutive states of humanity is . . . the chief scientific device of the new political philosophy.” Ibid., book 6, chapter 3, p. 248. “Plan of the Scientific Operations Necessary for Reorganizing Society” (1822), in Lenzer, August Comte and Positivism, p. 47. As Comte continued: “This science, like all others, possesses general recourses for verification, even independently of its necessary relation with physiology. These recourses are based on the fact that the present condition of the human race considered as a whole, all degrees of civilisation coexist on different points of the globe, from that of the New Zealand savages to that of the French and English. Thus, the connection established by the succession of epochs can be verified by a comparison of places.” Ibid., p. 65. Ibid., pp. 65–6. The full quote is “Calculation, as it were, commands nature, and determines her phenomena more accurately than observation can make them known. Experiment forces her to unveil, and observation watches her when refractory, and is always on the alert to surprise and detect her . . . Mere observation will, however, avail but little without comparison; we must observe attentively the same body in the various positions in which it is at different times placed by nature; and we must compare different bodies with each other, until we can recognise any invariable relation which may exist between their structure and the phenomena which they exhibit. Thus may such bodies, when diligently observed and carefully compared with each other, be considered experiments ready prepared by the hand of nature, who may be supposed to add to or subtract from each other in the manner the experimentalist does in the laboratory with the inert material subject to his control, and herself to present us with the result of such additions or subtractions.” Cuvier, The Animal Kingdom Arranged in Conformity with its Organisation with Additional Description of all the Species Hitherto Named, and of Many not Before Noticed, trans. and ed. E. Griffith and G. B. Whittaker, London 1827, vol. 1: The Class Mammalia, introduction, pp. 4–6. On Comte’s reliance on Cuvier, see L. Kolakowski, Positivist Philosophy from Hume to the Vienna Circle, Harmondsworth: Penguin 1972, pp. 71–7. E. E. Evans-Pritchard, “The Comparative Method in Social Anthropology”, in Evans-Pritchard (ed.), The Position of Women in Primitive Societies and Other Essays in Social Anthropology, New York: Free Press 1965, p. 33. For more on the positivist implications of the comparative method in social anthropology, see L. Holy, Introduction, in Holy (ed.), Comparative Anthropology, Oxford: Blackwell 1987, pp. 1–3. Further on the experimental role of comparison in social anthropology, see F. Eggan, “Some Reflections on Comparative Method in Anthropology”, in Context and Meaning in Cultural Anthropology, Melford E. Spiro (ed.), New York: Free Press 1965, pp. 357–71. Comte’s debt to enlightenment philosophers such as Montesquieu, Turgot, and Condorcet is clearly visible in his attempts to formulate a social physics.

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See J. B. Bury, The Idea of Progress, New York: Dover 1960, pp. 147–58 and 290–312. On the idealisation implied in experiments and the role of this idealisation in modern science, see, for instance, E. McMullin, “The Conception of Science in Galileo’s Work”, in R. Butts and J. Pitts (eds.), New Perspectives on Galileo, Dordrecht: Reidel 1978. Cours, introduction, chapter 1, p. 88. Ibid., book 2, chapter 1, p. 133. Ibid., book 6, chapter 3, pp. 222 and 239. See also ibid., p. 137: “ . . . The universe is not destined for the passive satisfaction of man, but that man, superior in intelligence to whatever else he sees, can modify for his own good, within certain determinate limits, the system of phenomena of which he forms a part – being able to do this by a wise exercise of his activity, disengaged from all oppressive terror, and directed by an accurate knowledge of natural laws.” “Plan of the Scientific Operations Necessary for Reorganising Society”, p. 47. Cours, book 6, chapter 1, p. 210. Ibid., introduction, chapter 1, p. 83. On Comte’s intramundane eschatology, see E. Voegelin, From Enlightenment to Revolution, Duke University Press 1975, pp. 136–90. Comte’s positive religion prescribed a system for collective and individual commemoration and worship, and was set out in Syst`eme de politique positive, ou traité de sociologie instituant la religion de l’humanité (1851–54), in Lenzer, August Comte and Positivism, pp. 309–458. For more on Comtean religion, see T. E. Wright, The Religion of Humanity: The Impact of Comtean Philosophy on Victorian Britain, Cambridge University Press 1986. For a discussion on the relationship between Comte’s early positivism and his later theology, see Voegelin, From Enlightenment to Revolution, p. 136. Note also Comte’s own insistence on the continuity between his early and late work, in the “Preface to the Early Writings” from 1854. This publication reissued Comte’s early writings (including the Saint-Simonian) and was “especially intended to demonstrate the perfect harmony that exists between my youthful efforts and my matured concepts . . . I devoted the first half of my career to constructing, out of the materials supplied by the sciences, a truly positivist philosophy, this being the only possible basis of a universal religion.” In Lenzer, August Comte and Positivism, p. 3. Syst`eme de politique positive, vol. 1, chapter 1, p. 328. Ibid., p. 331. Ibid., chapter 6, p. 381. “Outline for a System of Comparative Style Theory”, MS 122, fols. 5–6, p. 9. Both ‘topic’ and ‘invention’ are familiar concepts in classical rhetoric. ‘Topic’ comes from the Greek topos (place) and signifies both the art of finding arguments and the ‘places’ or ‘commonplaces’ (topi koinoi) where such arguments could be found. Inventio, correspondingly, denotes “the conceiving of topics either true or probable, which may make one’s cause appear probable” (Cicero, De Inventione, trans. C. D. Yonge, London: Bell 1888, book 1.7). With his thorough classical

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Bildung, Semper would undoubtedly have been aware of this connection. Yet, he did not comment on it, reshaping instead these classical concepts in the mould of modern science by choosing the new comparative sciences of anatomy, linguistics, and politics as his methodological ideals (Science, Industry, and Art, p. 133; and Prospectus, Vergleichende Baulehre, p. 170). This tension in Semper’s thinking between ‘method’ and ‘topic’ – ‘inventio’ and ‘invention’ – was lucidly discussed by H. Hipp in a lecture titled, “ ‘Eine Art Topik’ zu Semper” (‘Semper’s Kosmos’, symposium, ETH, Zurich, June 2002), to whom I am indebted. I am also grateful to D. Leatherbarrow, whose incisive comments on this point have been helpful. See the latter’s discussion of inventio as an architectural topic in The Roots of Architectural Invention: Site, Enclosure, Materials, Cambridge University Press 1993. See, for instance, Prolegomenon, Vergleichende Baulehre, p. 170: “A method analogous to that which guided Cuvier in his comparative osteology, but applied to architecture, will by necessity greatly facilitate an overall view of this field and . . . will also permit an architectural theory of invention to be based on it.” Ibid., p. 171. Voegelin, From Enlightenment to Revolution, p. 95. On the radical utilitarianism implied in positivist thinking, see Kolakowski, Positivist Philosophy, pp. 158–200. F. A., Hayek, The Counter Revolution of Science, London: Collier-Macmillian 1955, p. 95. Ibid., p. 97. For a further discussion of this issue, see H. Arendt, “The Concept of History”, in Between Past and Future, Eight Exercises in Political Thought, New York: Penguin 1993, p. 59: “The comparatively new social sciences, which so quickly became to history what technology had been to physics, may use the experiment in a much cruder and less reliable way than do the natural sciences, but the method is the same: they too prescribe conditions to human behaviour, as modern physics prescribes conditions to natural processes. If their vocabulary is repulsive and their hope to close the alleged gap between our scientific mastery of nature and our deplored impotence to ‘manage’ human affairs through an engineering science of human relations sounds frightening, it is only because they have decided to treat man as an entirely natural being whose life process can be handled in the same way as all other processes.” For a presentation of the transition from the Greek theoria, signifying participatory observation, to the modern conception of theory as a procedure for production, see H. G. Gadamer, “What Is Practice? The Conditions of Social Reason”, in Reason in the Age of Science, trans. F. G. Lawrence, Cambridge: MIT Press 1981, pp. 69–87. “Outline for a System of Comparative Style Theory”, MS 122, fol. 21, p. 13. First introduction to Critique of Judgement, part I, “On Philosophy as a System”, p. 386 (my emphasis). See D. Vesely, “Architecture and the Conflict of Representation”, AA Files 8, 1987, p. 24.

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´ As, for instance, Pérez-Gomez has argued. Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science, p. 7. AND THE “STYLE OF OUR TIME” Thomas Leverton Donaldson, “On a New Style in Architecture”, AA Papers, London 1847. “The Attributes of Formal Beauty”, p. 244. The expression is taken from J. M. Crook, The Dilemma of Style, Architectural Ideals from the Picturesque to the Post-Modern, London: Murray 1987. See, for instance, Filarete’s Treatise on Architecture (Milan, circa 1460), trans. J. Spencer, New Haven 1965, vol. 1, p. 12. Quoted in C. van Eck, “Par le style on atteint au sublime: the meaning of the term ‘style’ in French architectural theory of the late eighteenth century”, in van Eck, McAllister, and Van de Vall (eds.), The Question of Style in Philosophy and The Arts, Cambridge University Press 1995, p. 91 and note 8. van Eck, “Par le style on atteint au sublime”, p. 91. Ibid., pp. 94–5. See, for instance, Germain Boffrand’s Livre d’architecture, Paris 1745, pp. 16–24; and Jaques-Franc¸ois Blondel’s Cours d’architecture, Paris 1771, vol. 1, p. 401. Both quoted in van Eck, “Par le style on atteint au sublime”, pp. 92–7. For a discussion of ‘absolute’ versus ‘relative’ conceptions of style in the nineteenth century, see F. Piel, “Der Historische Stilbegriff und die Geschichtlichkeit der Kunst”, in Bauer (ed.), Probleme der Kunstwissenschaft, pp. 18–37. ¨ Heinrich Hubsch’s (1795–1863) essay, “In Which Style Should We Build” (1828), is perhaps the most famous of these contributions. For a thorough presentation of the German debate on style, with translations of its key contributions, see W. Herrmann (ed.), In What Style Should We Build? The German Debate on Architectural Style, Santa Monica: Getty 1992. For a presentation of the German promoters of Greek revival, see M. Schwarzer, German Architectural Theory and the Search for Modern Identity, Cambridge University Press 1995, pp. 38–47. For a particular investigation of classicism in relation to German nationalism, see D. Watkin and T. Mellinghoff, German Architecture and the Classical Ideal 1740–1840, London: Thames and Hudson 1987. ¨ alle Zeiten”. Leo von Klenze (1784–1864), Versuch einer “ . . . ein festes Princip fur Wiederherstellung des toskanischen Tempels nach seinen technischen und historischen Analogien, Munich 1824, quoted in Kruft, Geschichte der Architekturtheorie, p. 350. ¨ Karl Botticher, “The Principles of the Hellenic and Germanic Way of Building with Regard to Their Application to Our Present Way of Building” (1846), in Herrmann, In What Style, pp. 147–67. Friedrich Gilly (1772–1800), “Einige ¨ Gedanken uber die Nothwendigkeit, die verschiedenen Theile der Baukunst ¨ in wissenschaftlicher und praktischer Hindsicht, moglichst zu vereinigen”, in D. Gilly, Sammlung nutzlicher ¨ Aufs¨atze und Nachrichten, die Baukunst betreffend (1797–1805), quoted in Kruft, Geschichte der Architekturtheorie, p. 322.

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Eugéne-Emmanuel Viollet-Le-Duc (1814–79), “The Construction of Buildings, Continued”, in Discourses on Architecture, Vol. 2, trans. B. Bucknall, London: Allen ¨ “In What Style”, pp. 83–100. & Unwin 1959, pp. 51–100, Lecture XII; Hubsch, Influential spokesmen for the Gothic revival in Germany were Sulpiz Boisserée (1783–1854), Geschichte und Beschreibung des Domes von K¨oln (1823); Georg Moller (1784–1852), Denkm¨aler der deutschen Baukunst (1830); Karl Schnaase (1798– 1875), Niederl¨andlische Briefe (1834); and August Reischensperger (1808–95), Die christlich-germanischen Baukunst und ihre Verh¨altnis zur Gegenwart (1845, 1852). For more on the Gothic revival in Germany, see Schwarzer, German Architectural Theory, pp. 48–62. Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812–52), The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture (1841), London: Academy 1973, p. 76. See Schwarzer, German Architectural Theory, pp. 63–8. See A. Hahn, “Der Maximilianstil”, in H. Gollwitzer (ed.), 100 Jahre Maximil¨ ianeum, Munich: Pflaum 1953, pp. 77–167; E. Drueke, Der Maximilianstil. Zum Stilbegriff der Architektur im 19. Jahrhundert. Mittenwald: M¨aander 1981; and Vesely, “Architecture and the Conflict of Representation”, p. 30. Semper himself expressed his criticism of the Maximilian style in “On Architectural Styles”, p. 267. “ . . . in voller Freiheit der verschiedenen Baustyle und ihrer Ornamentik zur ¨ zweckm¨assigen Losung der vorliegenden Aufgabe bedienen, damit die zu erw¨ahlende Bauart keinem der bekannten Baustyle ausschliesslich und speziell ¨ angehore.” Brief for Maximilian II’s competition for a new style, quoted in Kruft, Geschichte der Architekturtheorie, p. 354. For instance, Léonce Reynaud, Léon Vaudoyer, and Hippolyte Fortoul. See Schwarzer, German Architectural Theory, p. 63; Bergdoll, Léon Vaudoyer, pp. 114–19; and Middleton, “The Rationalist Interpretations of Classicism”. Kruft traces this approach to, among others, Christian Ludwig Stiegliz (1756– 1836) and his Beitr¨age zur Geschichte der Ausbildung der Baukunst (1834), in Geschichte der Architekturtheorie, p. 333. See C. Schorske, Fin-de-si`ecle Vienna: Politics and Culture. Cambridge University Press 1979, chapter 2. These categories can be encountered with some variations in many of Semper’s essays and lectures; for instance, “A Critical Analysis and Prognosis of Present-Day Artistic Production”, “Influence of Historical Research”, and Prolegomenon to Der Stil. In the latter he added “Purists, Schematists, and Futurists” to his list. “A Critical Analysis and Prognosis of Present-Day Artistic Production”, p. 255. “Influence of Historical Research on Trends in Contemporary Architecture”, pp. 193–4. “A Critical Analysis and Prognosis of Present-Day Artistic Production”, p. 256. Ibid., p. 257. Preliminary Remarks on Polychrome Architecture, pp. 46–7. See also “On Architectural Styles”, p. 268.

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“The Attributes of Formal Beauty,” p. 241. Second Prospectus to Der Stil, p. 179. “On the Relation of Architectural Systems with the General Cultural Conditions”, fol. 2, p. 43. Vergleichende Baukunde (Zurich lecture, 1863), MS 264, fols. 1–77, unpublished manuscript at the Semper archives, fol. 1: “It is downright nonsense when nowadays architects want to invent new architectural styles. This would be an enterprise like wanting to invent a new language.” Quoted in Herrmann, In Search, p. 161. “A Critical Analysis and Prognosis of Present-Day Artistic Production”, p. 259. “On Architectural Styles”, p. 284. “A Critical Analysis and Prognosis of Present-Day Artistic Production”, p. 245. See also Prolegomenon to Der Stil, p. 182, where he applied the same image. “A Critical Analysis and Prognosis of Present-Day Artistic Production”, p. 245. Ibid., p. 245. See also ibid., p. 248, where Semper pondered whether the signs of crisis experienced by the modern period were “symptoms of a decline brought about by deep-rooted social causes or whether they point to normally healthy conditions temporarily brought into confusion . . . whereby sooner and later the normal state will . . . assert itself . . . to the good and glory of man”. Note the affinity of this argument with Marx’s hope, in The Capital, of hastening the disintegration of the bourgeois-capitalist society so that a new social order may ¨ emerge. See K. Lowith, Meaning in History: The Theological Implications of the Philosophy of History, University of Chicago Press 1949, p. 33. As he writes, “the closer the moment of giving birth to a new system approaches, the more perceptible becomes the stirring of a society that, though still following a purely tellurian and unconscious urge to form and shape, strives after a new identity. In this way society prepares the motif of the art object, without which the new formation could not arise nor have any significance.” “A Critical Analysis and Prognosis of Present-Day Artistic Production”, p. 246. Ibid., p. 253 (my emphasis). See also Science, Industry, and Art, p. 144, where he encourages the cultivation of destructive aspects of modern culture to thus speed up the disintegration and enable a new synthesis to appear. Science, Industry, and Art, pp. 143–4. Ibid., pp. 143–4. See also “A Critical Analysis and Prognosis of Present-Day Artistic Production”, pp. 245–53. “Outline for a System of Comparative Style Theory”, MS 122, fol. 13, p. 10. Science, Industry, and Art, p. 146. “The Attributes of Formal Beauty”, p. 225. Mallgrave emphasises the importance of this idea in Semper’s thinking and presents a lucid discussion of its background and role in Gottfried Semper. See also K. Eggert, “Der Begriff des Gesamtkunst¨ werks in Sempers Theorie”, in Vogt, Reble, and Frolich (eds.), Gottfried Semper und die Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts, pp. 121–8. Dilthey, Three Epochs of Modern Aesthetics, in Dilthey, Poetry and Experience, Selected Works, vol. V, p. 214.

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“On the Task of the Historian”, trans. H. P. Rickman, in K. Mueller-Vollmer (ed.), The Hermeneutics Reader, Texts of the German Tradition from the Enlightenment to the Present, Oxford: Blackwell 1984, p. 105. (The insertions of original terms are mine.) Ibid., p. 105. Ibid., p. 105. Ibid., p. 106. R. Koselleck, Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time, trans. K. Tribe, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press 1985, pp. 21–38. Ibid., p. 22. According to Koselleck, the topos of historia magistra vitae remained, until the eighteenth century, “an unmistakable index for an assumed constancy of human nature . . . The temporal structure of past history bounded a continuous space of potential experience.” Ibid., p. 23. Ibid., p. 201. In German, as Koselleck points out, ‘Historie’ signified traditionally an account of events, whereas Geschichten referred to the events themselves. The new notion of Geschichte, in contrast, would signify both the content and the account of historical events. Ibid., p. 27. “On the Task of the Historian”, p. 108. For Kant’s definition of organic systems, see Critique of Pure Reason, A832/ B860–1. In L. White Beck (ed. and trans.), Immanuel Kant on History, Indianapolis: BobbsMerrill 1963, pp. 24–5. For further comments on Kant’s idea of a systematic history, see Koselleck, Futures Past, p. 30. “Den wirkenden und schaffenden Kr¨aften”, “On the Task of the Historian”, p. 112. I diverge from Rickman’s translation in this passage. “On the Task of the Historian”, p. 107. Ibid., p. 108. For a discussion of Humboldt’s historical individualism, see A. Nabrings, “Historismus als Paralyse der Geschichte”, in Archiv fur ¨ Kul¨ turgeschichte, 65. Band, Wien: Bohlan 1983, pp. 157–212. Further on the organic notion of history, see E. Troeltsch, Der Historismus ¨ und seine Probleme, Tubingen: Mohr 1922, chapter 3.3, “Die Organologie der deutschen historischen Schule”. “G¨arung menschlicher Kr¨afte”, Auch eine Philosophie der Geschichte zur Bildung der Menschheit (1774), Stuttgart: Reclam 1990, p. 51. Some pages later, Herder elaborated this organic metaphor further, describing history as a tree: “Von ¨ Orient bis Rom war’s Stamm: jetzt gingen aus dem Stamme Aste und Zweige; ¨ keiner an sich stammfest, aber ausgebreiteter, luftiger, hoher! . . . Nicht Stamm mehr, das sollt’s und konnt’s nicht sein, aber Krone! . . . Eben das Nicht-Eine, das ¨ ¨ Verwirrte, der Reiche Uberfluss von Asten und Zweigen; das macht sein Natur! ¨ Da hangen die Bluten von Rittergeist, da werden, wenn der Sturm die Bl¨atter ¨ ¨ abtreibt, einst die schonern Fruchte hangen.” Ibid., p. 54.

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See, for instance, F. Meinecke’s description of how Herder’s “splendid sense of natural growth in history enabled him to arrive at a grandiose historical relativism which saw every epoch both as a means and as an end in itself, as an individual entity, and yet as a stage in a further development”; Historism: The Rise of a New Historical Outlook, London: Routledge & Kegan 1972, p. 346. Stadelmann, Der historische Sinn bei Herder, p. 28, quoted in Meinecke, Historism, p. 340. Meinecke sees this fusion as the defining characteristic of ‘historism’: “The historical notion of individuality demands as its complement the quite distinct concept of development. . . . In this double requirement, necessity and freedom is everywhere fused together.” Ibid., p. 126. Die neue Rundschau, 1922, p. 573, quoted in C. Rand, “Two Meanings of Historicism in the Writings of Dilthey, Troeltsch, and Meinecke”, in Journal of the History of Ideas, no. 25, 1964, p. 512. Historism, p. Iiv. Truth and Method, pp. 218–30. “ . . . mit dem Maßstab einer andern Zeit zu messen”, Auch eine Philosophie, pp. 17–18. ¨ “Ihren Mittelpunkt der Gluckseligkeit in sich, wie jede Kugel ihren Schwerpunkt!” Ibid., p. 35. “Der Geist des Jahrhunderts durchwebte und band die verschiedensten Eigenschaften – . . . band’s zu dem Ganzen”. Ibid., p. 48. For more on the new notion of epoch and its role in romantic and idealist ¨ philosophy, see K. Lowith, From Hegel to Nietzsche: The Revolution in NineteenthCentury Thought, trans. D. E. Green, London: Constable 1964, pp. 201–39. On the Industrial System (1821, written partly by Comte in his role as SaintSimon’s secretary), in G. Ionescu (ed. and trans.), The Political Thought of SaintSimon, Oxford University Press 1976, pp. 153–86. Saint-Simon’s notion of historical stages was refined by Comte, who described the three principal stages as the ‘theological’, the ‘metaphysical’, and finally the ‘positive’, or scientific. Of these stages, both the theological and the positive stages were ‘organic’ in the Saint-Simonian sense, forming coherent and unified epochs. As Comte described this historical succession: “I believe that this history may be divided into three grand epochs or states of civilization, each possessing a distinct character, spiritual and temporal. They embrace civilisation at once in its element and its ensemble, which, as pointed out above, evidently constituted an indispensable condition of success.”, “Plan of the Scientific Operations Necessary for Reorganizing Society”, p. 52. Ibid., p. 29. As Saint-Simon wrote: “The nineteenth century is still dominated by the critical spirit of the eighteenth; it still has not adopted the organizational character which really belongs to it. This is the real, primary cause of the frightening prolongation of the crisis . . . But, of necessity, the crisis will come to an end, or at least will change itself into a simple, moral movement, as soon as we can bring ourselves to fill the eminent role assigned to us by the march of civilization, as soon as

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the temporal and spiritual forces which must come into play have emerged from their inertia.” On the Industrial System, p. 153. See also Ibid., p. 175: “So long as the political order does not conform to this national tendency, society will necessarily be in a state of crisis.” As Leopold Ranke wrote in his Weltgeschichte: “I imagine the Deity – if I may allow myself this observation – as seeing the whole of historical humanity in its totality (since no time lies before the Deity), and finding it all equally valuable.” IX parts 2, 5, 7, quoted in Gadamer, Truth and Method, p. 210. Mallgrave points out the Saint-Simonian connection and argues convincingly that Semper’s frequent use of the term ‘organic’ in describing the social, political, and artistic situation of ancient Greece suggests familiarity with Saint-Simonian ideas. Gottfried Semper, p. 56. Dilthey, Three Epochs of Modern Aesthetics, in Dilthey, Poetry and Experience; Selected Works, vol. 5, p. 216. See W. von Humboldt on the affinity between the artist and the historian. “On the Task of the Historian”, pp. 109–111. On the modern notion of the Gesamtkunstwerk, see R. M. Bisanz, “The Romantic Synthesis of the Arts: Nineteenth-Century German Theories on a Universal Art”, Konsthistorisk Tidsskrift, xxxxiv, 1975, p. 39. The notion is also discussed lucidly in G. H¨ausler’s unpublished thesis, “In the Artwork We Become One.” The Problem of the Gesamtkunstwerk in the Visual Arts of the Early Twentieth Century, Cambridge 1989. “Outline for a System of Comparative Style Theory”, MS 122, fols. 13–14, p. 10. Mallgrave has an in-depth discussion of the role of the Gesamtkunstwerk in Semper’s thinking in Gottfried Semper. “The Attributes of Formal Beauty”, p. 225. “The Artwork of the Future”, in Richard Wagner’s Prose Works, trans. W. A. Ellis, vol. 1, London: Reeves 1895, p. 77. Ibid., p. 71. See also ibid., p. 182: “ . . . our modern art is a mere product of culture and has not sprung from Life itself; therefore, being nothing but a hothouse plant, it cannot strike root in the natural soil or flourish in the natural climate of the present.” Ibid., pp. 69–72 and 77–88. Wagner equated ‘nature’ with ‘necessity’, as the following passage indicates: “Nature engenders her myriad forms without caprice or arbitrary aim, according to her need, and therefore of Necessity. The same Necessity is the generative and formative force of human life. Only that which is un-capricious and un-arbitrary can spring from a real need; but on Need alone is based the very principle of Life.” Ibid., p. 69. Ibid., p. 81. Wagner located this discrepancy on political, individual, and aesthetic levels in modern society. Ibid., pp. 86, 91–4, 182–3, 195, and 207. Ibid., p. 195. Ibid., p. 77. Science, Industry, and Art, p. 148. Ibid., p. 130.

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57

58 59

“ . . . die Poesie lebendig und gesellig, und das Leben und die Gesellschaft poetisch machen”. Friedrich Schlegel, Athen¨aum Fragmente, in Kritische Friedrich ¨ 1967, vol. 2: Charakteristiken Schlegel Ausgabe, ed. E. Bettler, Munich: Schoning und Kritiken (1796–1801), Fragment 116, p. 82. ‘Aesthetic differentiation’ is an expression coined by Gadamer. It signifies the enlightenment ideal of a pure aesthetic domain in which art was excluded from the domain of reason and practical interests: “By disregarding everything in which the work is rooted (its original context of life, and the religious and secular function that gave it significance), it becomes visible as the ‘pure work of art.’ . . . the aesthetic consciousness differentiates what is aesthetically intended from everything that is outside the aesthetic sphere . . . Thus, through ‘aesthetic differentiation’ the work loses its place in the world to which it belongs insofar as it instead belongs to the aesthetic consciousness.” Truth and Method, pp. 85–7. “Art and Revolution”, in Richard Wagner’s Prose Works, p. 56. This was another essay written immediately after Wagner’s escape from Dresden in 1849. “The Artwork of the Future”, p. 210. Wagner often returned to the religious significance of the aesthetic revolution. See, for instance, the following passage: “Only when the religion of Egoism . . . shall have been mercilessly dislodged . . . can the new religion step forth of itself to life; the new religion which includes within itself the conditions of the Artwork of the Future.” Ibid., p. 155. Further on the quasireligious significance of art in romantic thought, see Gadamer, Truth and Method, p. 88. H¨ausler, “In the Artwork We Become One”, p. 7. “The Artwork of the Future”, p. 77. The Four Elements of Architecture, p. 78. Giambattista Vico, The New Science, trans. T. G. Bergin and M. H. Fisch from the 3rd edition (1744), Cornell University Press 1994, book 1, section III, p. 96. Futures Past, pp. 35 and 200. For more on Vico’s conception of history, see, for instance, Arendt, “The Concept of History” in Arendt, Between Past and Future, pp. 57–9 and 77. As Koselleck writes: “While for over two thousand years it was a property of Mediterranean and occidental culture that Geschichten were recounted, as well as investigated and written up, only since around 1780 was it conceivable that Geschichte could be made. This formulation indicates a modern experience and even more, a modern expectation: that one is increasingly capable of planning and also executing history.” Futures Past, p. 200. What is novel, Koselleck explains, “is the reference of this determination of action to the newly conceived ‘history in general.’ This seems to place on the agenda no more and no less than the future of the world history, and even to make it available.” Ibid., p. 203. ¨ “Allgemeine Ubersicht der neuesten Philosophischen Literatur”, Philosophisches Journal, no. 8, 1798, quoted in Koselleck, Futures Past, p. 202. Ibid., pp. 204–7. Koselleck quotes Robespierre’s speech on the Revolutionary Constitution, 10 May 1793: “The time has come to call upon each to realise

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60

61

62 63 64 65

his own destiny. The progress of human Reason has laid the basis for this great Revolution, and the particular duty of hastening it has fallen to you.” Ibid., p. 7. Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, trans. E. Aveling, in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Selected Works in Three Volumes, Moscow: Progress 1983, vol. 3, pp. 149– 50. For a discussion of this inversion, see Arendt, “The Concept of History”, p. 77: “Although [Marx’s notion of ‘making history’] is closely connected with Vico’s idea that history was made by man, as distinguished from ‘nature’ which was made by God, the difference between them is still decisive. For Vico, as later for Hegel, the importance of the concept of history was primarily theoretical. It never occurred to either of them to apply this concept directly by using it as a principle of action. Truth they conceived of as being revealed to the contemplative, backward-directed glance of the historian, who, by being able to see the process as a whole, is in a position to overlook the ‘narrow aims’ of acting men, concentrating instead on the ‘higher aims’ that realise themselves behind their backs (Vico). Marx, on the other hand, combined this notion of history with the teleological political philosophies of the earlier stages of the modern age, so that in his thought the ‘higher aims’ – which according to the philosophers of history revealed themselves only to the backward glance of the historian and philosopher – could become intended aims of political action.” Semper, “The Attributes of Formal Beauty”, p. 225. “In the Artwork We Become One”, p. 14. Truth and Method, p. 88. See also ibid., p. 70. I borrow this term from G. Bryant (née H¨ausler) paraphrasing Peter Behrens. “Art as ‘Precursor of Redemption’ ”, Mac Journal 5, 1999.

BETWEEN

1

2 3

4 5 6

POETICS

AND

PRACTICAL

AESTHETICS

The proximity between historical individualism, relativism, and determinism in historicist thought has been explored by I. Berlin, “Historical Inevitability”, in Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty, Oxford University Press 1969. M. Heidegger, The Concept of Time, trans. W. McNeill, Oxford: Blackwell 1992, p. 20E. Gadamer follows Heidegger in the use of this term; see Being and Time, trans. J. Macquarrie and E. Robins, Oxford: Blackwell 1992, division 2, section 5: “Temporality and Historicality”, pp. 424–55. In the following, I will use ‘historicity’ rather than ‘historicality’ when referring to Geschichtlichkeit. Gadamer, Truth and Method, p. 300. Three Epochs of Modern Aesthetics, p. 204. Dilthey wrote of the historical school: “Its study and evaluation of historical phenomena remain unconnected with the analysis of facts and consciousness; consequently, it has no grounding in the only knowledge which is ultimately secure; it has, in short, no philosophical foundation. Lacking a healthy relationship to epistemology and psychology, this school has not attained an explanatory

243

N O T E S T O P P. 1 7 6 – 1 7 8

7 8

9

10

11

12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

21

method.” Introduction to the Human Sciences (1883), trans. M. Neville et al., Princeton University Press 1989, preface, p. 48. Ibid., book 1, p. 75. Dilthey often commented on the dichotomy between a positivist ‘social science’ and the German historical school. See ibid, preface, p. 49, book 1, pp. 74–5, and p. 139: “Two proud disciplines, philosophy of history in Germany and sociology in England and France, claim to give us knowledge of this kind.” “Nun tritt uns die Frage nach der wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnis . . . der großen ¨ Formen singul¨aren menschlichen Daseins uberhaupt entgegen. Ist eine solche ¨ Erkenntnis moglich und welche Mittel haben wir, sie zu erreichen?”, Die Entstehung der Hermeneutik (1900), in Gesammelte Schriften, vol. V, p. 317. Introduction to the Human Sciences, preface, p. 50. For more on Dilthey’s Kantian ambitions, see M. Ermarth, Wilhelm Dilthey: The Critique of Historical Reason, Chicago University Press 1978; and Gadamer, Truth and Method, pp. 219–21. Truth and Method, p. 220. My interpretation of Dilthey is much indebted to Gadamer, especially Truth and Method, part 2.1.2: “Dilthey’s Entanglement in the Aporias of Historicism”, pp. 218–41. As Dilthey wrote: “In the human world the individual is an intrinsic value – indeed the only intrinsic value we can establish indubitably.” “Other Persons and Their Expressions of Life”, trans. K. L. Heiges, in W. Dilthey, Descriptive Psychology and Historical Understanding, The Hague: Nijhoff 1977, pp. 130–1. Gesammelte Schriften, vol. VII, p. 177, quoted and translated in Gadamer, Truth and Method, p. 223. Introduction to the Human Sciences, book 1, p. 81. Ibid., book 1, p. 58. Ibid., book 1, p. 61. Gesammelte Schriften, vol. VII, p. 278, quoted and translated in R. Makkreel, Dilthey: Philosopher of the Human Studies, Princeton University Press 1975, p. 25. Introduction to the Human Sciences, book 1, p. 89. Ibid., book 1, p. 88. Ibid., book 1, p. 158: “These sciences [i.e., the human sciences] have a wholly different foundation and structure than the natural sciences. Their subject matter is composed of units that are given rather than inferred – units that are understandable from within. Here we start with an immediate knowledge or understanding in order to gradually attain conceptual knowledge.” See also Ideas Concerning a Descriptive and Analytic Psychology (1894), in which Dilthey wrote: “Just as the system of Culture – economy, law, religion, art, and science – and the external organisation of society in the ties of family, community, church, and state, arise from the living nexus of the human soul, so can they be understood only by reference to it.” Trans. R. M. Zaner, in Descriptive Psychology and Historical Understanding, p. 31. Dilthey drew here on Schleiermacher’s notion of the individual as a manifestation of universal life. See A. Nabrings, “Historismus als Paralyse der Geschichte”, pp. 70–1. Introduction to the Human Sciences, book 1, pp. 162–9.

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N O T E S T O P P. 1 7 9 – 1 8 0

22 23

24

25 26 27

28

29

30 31

Gadamer, Truth and Method, p. 232. Dilthey discussed the use of the comparative method in the Geisteswissenschaften in his Beitr¨age zum Studium der Individualit¨at, section V: “Gang der vergleichenden Geisteswissenschaften bis zur methodischen Bearbeitung des Problems der Individuation.” Gesammelte Schriften, vol. V, pp. 303–16. In this text, Dilthey traced the development of the comparative method from antiquity to the modern period and, more specifically, from its use in biology and anatomy to the human sciences. His views clearly echo Comte’s idea of epistemological and methodological evolution. “Die vollendete Wissenschaft der Geschichte . . . die Darstellung und Erkl¨arung des Zusammenhangs der menschlichen Kultur.” Quoted in Gadamer, “Das Problem Diltheys. Zwischen Romantik und Positivismus”, in Gesammelte Werke, ¨ vol. 4, Tubingen: Mohr 1987, p. 411. Following Makkreel and Rodi’s translation in Wilhelm Dilthey Selected Works, vol. 1, p. 505, I have translated Zusammenhang as ‘system’ rather than the more literal ‘connection’. Gadamer, Truth and Method, pp. 233–4. Ibid., p. 234. Paul Graf Yorck von Wartenburg, Briefwechseln (1923), p. 193. Quoted and translated in Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 451. The quote continues: “Windelband assigns patterns to history. . . . For Windelband, history is a series of pictures, of individual patterns – an aesthetic demand. To the natural scientist, there remains, beside his science, a kind of human tranquilliser, only aesthetic enjoyment. But your conception of history is that of a nexus of forces, of unities of force, to which the category of ‘pattern’ is to be applicable only by a kind of transference.” Comte, Cours, book 2, chapter 1, p. 133. Further on the operative ambitions of Dilthey’s Geisteswissenschaften, see Gadamer, Truth and Method, p. 239; and “Das Problem Diltheys: Zwischen Romantik und Positivismus”, p. 418–19: “die Prognosen und Planungen der Gesellschaftswissenschaften der Zukunft – w¨are das die erfolgreiche Objektivierung jener Selbstbesinnung, die Dilthey als Ziel vorschwebt? . . . Es ist nicht zu leugnen, daß Dilthey wirklich an ¨ solchem Anspruch festgehalten hat. Er mochte durch die Geisteswissenschaften die Praxis regeln. . . . Er scheint mir unleugbar, daß Dilthey . . . bis zuletzt an der ¨ Uberzeugung seiner Jugend festgehalten hat, daß es in den Wissenschaften und ¨ von den Tatbest¨anden in der wissenschaftlichen Philosophie auf den ‘Ubergang der Wirklichkeit zu dem Sollen, dem Zweck, dem Ideal’ ankomme. [Dilthey, ¨ die Ideale Gesammelte Schriften, vol. V, p. 64] Er teilt mit dieser Uberzeugung der modernen Aufkl¨arung.” Ibid., pp. 418–19. Gadamer follows Heidegger on this point. See Being and Time, division 2, section V: “Temporality and Historicality”, p. 428: “The existential-ontological constitution of human historicality has been covered up by the way Dasein’s history is ordinarily interpreted.” Gadamer, Truth and Method, p. 234. Ibid., p. 240.

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N O T E S T O P P. 1 8 1 – 1 8 5

32

33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

41 42 43

44

45 46 47

The comparison between Semper’s starting point in the motifs and Dilthey’s starting point in the notion of Erlebnis should be made with caution, however. Erlebnis for Dilthey is a purely psychological phenomenon. Semper, on the other hand, never approached a psychological understanding of art (as Schmarsow would do some years later, based on ideas borrowed from Semper), but rather saw it as a strictly objective phenomenon. Truth and Method, p. 297. Grassi, Kunst und Mythos, p. 115. “Narrated Time”, trans. R. Sweeney, in A Ricoeur Reader: Reflection and Imagination, ed. M. J. Valdés, University of Toronto Press 1991, p. 345. “A Critical Analysis and Prognosis of Present-Day Artistic Production”, p. 253. See Ricoeur, “Metaphor and the Main Problem of Hermeneutics”, in A Ricoeur Reader, p. 317. See my discussion of this much-misunderstood quotation in chapter 3, note 74. “Vergleichende Baukunde”, fol. 1, quoted and translated in Herrmann, In Search, p. 161. As Heidegger puts it: “‘Method’ is no longer simply a sequence arranged somehow into various stages of observation, proof, exposition, and summary of knowledge and teachings . . . ‘Method’ is now the name for the securing, conquering proceedings against beings, in order to capture them as objects for the subject.” Heidegger, Nietzsche, trans. F. A. Capuzzi, San Francisco: Harper & Row 1979, vol. 4, p. 120. “Outline for a System of Comparative Style Theory”, fol. 5, p. 9. Comte, Cours, p. 85. As Ricoeur sums up Dilthey’s project: “At the same time that Dilthey brought to reflection the great problem of the intelligibility of the historical as such, he was inclined . . . to search for the key to a solution, not on the side of ontology but in the reform of epistemology itself.” Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, Cambridge University Press 1982, p. 48. J. Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests, London: Heinemann 1972, part 2; “Positivism, Pragmatism, Historicism”, p. 67. See also M. Murray, Modern Philosophy of History: Its Origin and Destination, The Hague: Nijhoff 1970, p. 24, where Murray argues that historicism is defined by precisely this conflation: “A source of confusion permeating most discussions of history comes from the academic conflation of history with historiography, a conflation which ranges from mere carelessness to an explicit philosophical program. This confusion, implicit or explicit, we shall call historicism. Epistemologically expressed, historicism claims that all serious questions about history can be reduced to questions about the methods and disciplines of historiography.” Knowledge and Human Interests, p. 3. Gadamer, Truth and Method, p. 299. “Practical Art in Metals and hard Materials; its Technology, History and Styles”, introduction, § 8. Unpublished manuscript in the Victoria and Albert Museum Library. The work was commissioned by Henry Cole in 1852 to give theoretical

246

N O T E S T O P P. 1 8 5 – 1 9 1

48 49 50 51 52 53

support to his reform of British art education, and earned Semper a professorship in Cole’s new Department of Practical Art. I have not corrected Semper’s English grammar or his idiosyncratic use of capital letters. On nineteenth-century criteria for the arrangement of art collections, see Jenkins, Archaeologists & Aesthetes, chapter 4, pp. 56–102. “Practical Art in Metals and hard Materials; its Technology, History and Styles”, introduction, § 17. Ibid., § 10. Ibid., § 7. Ibid., § 10. “Outline for a System of Comparative Style Theory”, MS 122, fol. 5, p. 8.

EPILOGUE

1 2 3 4

5 6

7 8

“Architecture and the Conflict of Representation.” Semper’s letter to Bruckmann, 10 April 1873. Quoted in Herrmann, In Search, p. 112. I am indebted for this interpretation to W. J. Pluhar, “Translator’s Introduction”, Critique of Judgement, pp. xxiii–lxxxvi. On determinate versus reflective judgements, see Critique of Judgement, §IV of the second introduction: “On Judgement as a Power That Legislates A Priori.” See also Critique of Pure Reason A650–68, B678–96. Critique of Judgement, § 77, p. 293: “On the Peculiarity of Human Understanding That Makes the Concept of a Natural Purpose Possible for Us”. Ibid., p. 316 my emphasis This inherent limit of reason is valid not only for our knowledge of nature, but restricts also our knowledge of man, insofar as it means that our self-knowledge does not encompass the transcendent ego. A science of man, therefore, is possible only insofar as it limits itself to the empirical ego. As far as Kant is concerned, thus, as soon as scientific knowledge wants to objectify beyond the empirical-transcendental reality, our “thinking is mere thinking”. Truth and Method, p. 302. The Ethical Function of Architecture, p. 149.

247

SELECTED SEMPER BIBLIOGRAPHY

k A complete bibliography of Semper’s writings will be available in Harry Francis Mallgrave and Michael Robinson’s forthcoming translation of Der Stil into English: Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts; or, Practical Aesthetics: A Handbook for Technicians, Artists, and Friends of the Arts. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, in press. MS numbers refer to Wolfgang Herrmann’s classification of manuscripts held at ¨ the Semper Archives at the Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule, Zurich. Works published in Semper’s lifetime, correspondence, and manuscripts held outside the Semper Archives are not numbered. Titles in bold indicate the form used in endnote references. ¨ ¨ “Offentlicher Lehrkursus uber die allgemeine Geschichte der Baukunst”, Dresden Lecture (1834), MS 19. Published as Semper’s “Dresdner Antrittsvorlesung” in Heidrun Laudel, Gottfried Semper. Architektur und Stil. Dresden: Verlag der Kunst 1991, pp. 221–34. Vorl¨aufige Bemerkungen uber ¨ bemalte Architektur und Plastik bei den Alten, Altona: J. H. Hammerich 1834. English translation: Preliminary Remarks on Polychrome Architecture and Sculpture in Antiquity. In Harry Francis Mallgrave and Wolfgang Herrmann (eds. and trans.), The Four Elements of Architecture and Others Writings, Cambridge University Press 1989, pp. 45–73. “Vorwort”, Vergleichende Baulehre (1850), MS 55, fols. 1–13. In Wolfgang Herrmann, Gottfried Semper, Theoretischer Nachlass an der ETH Zurich, ¨ Katalog und Kommentare. Basel: Birkh¨auser Verlag 1981, pp. 180–4. English translation: “Influence of Historical Research on Trends in Contemporary Architecture”. In Wolfgang Herrmann (trans. and ed.), Gottfried Semper, In Search of Architecture. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press 1984, pp. 189–95. “Einleitung”, Vergleichende Baulehre (1850), MS 58, fols. 15–30. In Wolfgang Herrmann, Gottfried Semper, Theoretischer Nachlass an der ETH Zurich, ¨ Katalog und Kommentare. Basel: Birkh¨auser Verlag 1981, pp. 185–90. English translation:

249

SELECTED SEMPER BIBLIOGRAPHY

“The Basic Elements of Architecture”. In Wolfgang Herrmann (trans. and ed.), Gottfried Semper, In Search of Architecture. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press 1984, pp. 196–203. “Assyrisch-Chald¨aische Baukunst” (Chapter 10, Vergleichende Baulehre, 1850), MS 58, fols. 94–120. In Wolfgang Herrmann, Gottfried Semper, Theoretischer Nachlass an der ETH Zurich, ¨ Katalog und Kommentare. Basel: Birkh¨auser Verlag 1981, pp. 191–204. English translation: “Structural Elements in Assyrian-Chaldean Architecture”. In Wolfgang Herrmann (trans. and ed.), Gottfried Semper, In Search of Architecture. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press 1984, pp. 204–18. Die Vier Elemente der Baukunst: Ein Beitrag zur vergleichende Baulehre. Brunswick: Vieweg und Sohn 1851. English translation: The Four Elements of Architecture: A Contribution to the Comparative Study of Architecture (1851). In Harry Francis Mallgrave and Wolfgang Herrmann (eds. and trans.), The Four Elements of Architecture and Others Writings, Cambridge University Press 1989, pp. 74–129. “Prospectus” Vergleichende Baulehre (1852). MS not given. In Harry Francis Mallgrave and Wolfgang Herrmann (eds. and trans.), The Four Elements of Architecture and Others Writings, Cambridge University Press 1989, pp. 168–73. “Neue Einleitung”, Vergleichende Baulehre (1852). MS 97. In Wolfgang Herrmann, Gottfried Semper, Theoretischer Nachlass an der ETH Zurich, ¨ Katalog und Kommentare. Basel: Birkh¨auser Verlag 1981, pp. 205–16. Wissenschaft, Industrie, und Kunst: Vorschl¨age zur Anregung nationalen Kunstgefuhles. ¨ Brunswick: Vieweg und Sohn 1852. English translation: Science, Industry, and Art: Proposals for the Development of a National Taste in Art at the Closing of the London Industrial Exhibition. In Harry Francis Mallgrave and Wolfgang Herrmann (eds. and trans.), The Four Elements of Architecture and Others Writings, Cambridge University Press 1989, pp. 130–67. Practical Art in Metals and Hard Materials; its Technology, History and Styles (1852). Unpublished manuscript, National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum, London. “Outline for a System of Comparative Style-Theory” (London lecture, November 11, 1853). MS 122, fols. 1–37 and MS 124, fols. 5–28. In RES, Journal of Anthropology and Aesthetics 6, Autumn 1983, pp. 5–32. German translation: “Entwurf eines Systems der vergleichenden Stillehre”, in Hans and Mannfred Semper (ed. and trans.), Kleine Schriften (Berlin and Stuttgart 1884), Mittenwald: M¨aander Kunstverlag 1979, pp. 259–91. “The Development of the Wall and Wall Construction in Antiquity” (London lecture, 18 November 1853). MS 129, fols. 1–24. In RES, Journal of Anthropology and Aesthetics 11, Spring 1986, pp. 33–41. German translation: “Entwicklung der ¨ Wand- und Wandkonstruktion bei den antiken Volkern”, in Hans and Mannfred Semper (ed. and trans.), Kleine Schriften (Berlin and Stuttgart 1884), Mittenwald: M¨aander Kunstverlag 1979, pp. 383–93. “On the Origin of Some Architectural Styles” (London lecture, December 1853). MS 138, fols. 1–23. In RES, Journal of Anthropology and Aesthetics 9, Spring 1985, pp. 53–60. German translation: “Ueber den Ursprung einiger Architekturstile”,

250

SELECTED SEMPER BIBLIOGRAPHY

in Hans and Mannfred Semper (ed. and trans.), Kleine Schriften (Berlin and Stuttgart 1884), Mittenwald: M¨aander Kunstverlag 1979, pp. 369–81. “On Architectural Symbols” (London lecture, autumn 1854). MS 142, fols. 1–19; MS 141, unpaginated. In RES, Journal of Anthropology and Aesthetics 9, Spring 1985, pp. 61–7. German translation: “Ueber architektonische Symbole”, in Hans and Mannfred Semper (ed. and trans.), Kleine Schriften (Berlin and Stuttgart 1884), Mittenwald: M¨aander Kunstverlag 1979, pp. 292–303. “On the Relation of Architectural Systems with the General Cultural Conditions” (London lecture, 29 November 1854). MS 144, fols. 1–39. In RES, Journal of Anthropology and Aesthetics 11, Spring 1986, pp. 42–53. German translation: “Ueber den Zusammenhang der architektonischen Systeme mit allgemeinen Kulturgeschichte”, in Hans and Mannfred Semper (ed. and trans.), Kleine Schriften (Berlin and Stuttgart 1884), Mittenwald: M¨aander Kunstverlag 1979, pp. 351–67. Inventory of Semper’s Dresden library (incomplete, date unknown). MS 148. Unpublished manuscript, Archiv Geschichte und Theorie der Architektur, ETH ¨ Hongerberg, Zurich. “Ueber die formelle Gesetzm¨aßigkeit des Schmuckes und dessen Bedeutung als Kunstsymbol” (1856). MS 163–4. In Hans and Mannfred Semper (ed. and trans.), Kleine Schriften (Berlin and Stuttgart 1884), Mittenwald: M¨aander Kunstverlag 1979, pp. 304–43. “Vorwort”, Theorie des Formell-Sch¨onen (1856–9). MS 178, fols. 1–29. In Wolfgang Herrmann, Gottfried Semper, Theoretischer Nachlass an der ETH Zurich, ¨ Katalog und Kommentare. Basel: Birkh¨auser Verlag 1981, pp. 238–49. English translation: “A Critical Analysis and Prognosis of Present-Day Artistic Production”. In Wolfgang Herrmann (trans. and ed.), Gottfried Semper, In Search of Architecture; Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press 1984, pp. 245–60. “Einleitung”, Theorie des Formell-Sch¨onen (1856–9). MS 179, fols. 1–46. In Wolfgang Herrmann, Gottfried Semper, Theoretischer Nachlass an der ETH Zurich, ¨ Katalog und Kommentare. Basel: Birkh¨auser Verlag 1981, pp. 217–37. English translation: “The Attributes of Formal Beauty”, in Wolfgang Herrmann (trans. and ed.), Gottfried Semper, In Search of Architecture. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press 1984, pp. 219–44. First Prospectus, Der Stil (1859). MS 195. Unpublished manuscript, Archiv ¨ Geschichte und Theorie der Architektur, ETH Hongerberg, Zurich. Second Prospectus, Der Stil (1859). MS 196. In Harry Francis Mallgrave and Wolfgang Herrmann (eds. and trans.), The Four Elements of Architecture and Others Writings, Cambridge University Press 1989, pp. 174–80. Der Stil in den technischen und tektonischen Kunsten, ¨ oder praktische Aesthetik. Ein Handbuch ¨ Kunst und fur ¨ Techniker, Kunstler ¨ und Kunstfreunde. Vol. I and II. Verlage fur Wissenschaft, Frankfurt am Main 1860–3, Mittenwald: M¨aander Kunstverlag 1977. Prolegomenon and vol. 1, §46–60, translated in Harry Francis Mallgrave and Wolfgang Herrmann (eds. and trans.), The Four Elements of Architecture and Others Writings, Cambridge University Press 1989, pp. 181–263.

251

SELECTED SEMPER BIBLIOGRAPHY

“Vergleichende Baukunde” (Zurich lecture, 1863). MS 264, fols. 1–77. Unpublished ¨ manuscript, Archiv Geschichte und Theorie der Architektur, ETH Hongerberg, Zurich. “Ueber Baustile” (Zurich lecture, 4 March 1869). MS 280. In Hans and Mannfred Semper (ed. and trans.), Kleine Schriften (Berlin and Stuttgart, 1884), Mittenwald: M¨aander Kunstverlag 1979, pp. 395–426. English translation: “On Architectural Styles”, in Harry Francis Mallgrave and Wolfgang Herrmann (eds. and trans.), The Four Elements of Architecture and Others Writings, Cambridge University Press 1989, pp. 264–84. “Der Heerd und dessen Schutz” (Introduction to the third volume of Der Stil, ca. 1870). MS 183, fols. 1–42. In Wolfgang Herrmann, Gottfried Semper, Theoretischer Nachlass an der ETH Zurich, ¨ Katalog und Kommentare, Basel: Birkh¨auser Verlag 1981, pp. 250–60.

252

BIBLIOGRAPHY

k Abrams, Meyer H., The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Literary Tradition. Oxford University Press 1953. Acherknecht, Erwin H., “On the Comparative Method in Anthropology”. In R. Spencer (ed.), Method and Perspective in Anthropology. University of Minnesota Press 1954, pp. 117–25. Adorno, Theodor W., and Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment. Trans. John Cumming, London: Verso 1979. Allers, Rudolf, “Microcosmus, from Anaximandros to Paracelsus”. Traditio, Studies in Ancient and Medieval History, Thought and Religion, vol. 11, New York 1944, pp. 319–407. Antoniades, Anthony, Poetics of Architecture: Theory of Design. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold 1990. Arendt, Hannah, The Human Condition. University of Chicago Press 1989. Arendt, Hannah, Between Past and Future, Eight Exercises in Political Thought. New York: Penguin 1993. Aristotle, Poetics. Trans. J. Hutton, New York: Norton 1982. Auerbach, Eric, Mimesis, the Representation of Reality in Western Literature. Princeton University Press 1953. Bambach, Charles R., Heidegger, Dilthey, and the Crisis of Historicism. Cornell University Press 1995. Barnett, R. D., and A. Lorenzini, Assyrian Sculpture in the British Museum. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart 1975. Bauer, Hermann (ed.), Probleme der Kunstwissenschaft, vol. 1: Kunstgeschichte und Kunsttheorie im 19. Jahrhundert. Berlin: de Gruyter 1963. Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb, Meditiationes philosophicae de nonnullis ad poema pertinentibus (1735). Reflections on Poetry. Trans. K. Aschenbrenner and W. Holther, University of California Press 1954. Becherer, Richard, Science Plus Sentiment: César Daly’s Formula for Modern Architecture. University of Michigan Research Press 1984.

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267

INDEX

k adornment, 20, 44, 48, 66 of the human body, 89–92, 89f, 90f, 91f, 93 see also Gestaltungsmomente allegory, theory of, 103–106 Aquinas, Thomas, 53 Aristotle, 21, 23–4, 52, 75–83, 144–5, 182 Ashurnasirpal II, King, 1, 4, 4f authority, 96, 100 Bartas, Guillaume Salluste du, 35 Batteux, Charles, 49, 51, 52, 75 Bauer, Hermann, 30 Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb, 34 Bekleidung, Semper’s theory of, 63, 70–1, 72–3, 74f, 185, 213n37 Bellori, Giovanni Pietro, 51 Bergdoll, Barry, 37, 42, 117 Berlage, Hendrik Petrus, 18 Blake, William, 52 Blondel, Franc¸ois, 33 Bopp, Franz, 134 Botta, Paul Emile, 1 ¨ Botticher, Karl, 48, 57–63, 59f, 60f, 61f, 74, 106, 151 ´ Boullée, Etienne-Louis, 34 Buffon, Georges-Louis Leclerce, Comte de, 124

Cassirer, Ernst, 129 cave as the origin of architecture, 39, 40f, 42, 43, 64 ceramic art, 15, 16 situla and hydria, 110–12, 111f, 112f see also elements of architecture Chambers, William, 41f Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 163 comparative method, 24, 112–13, 114, 136, 137, 143, 179–80 Gadamer’s critique of, 179 in anatomy, 123–132 in architecture, 115–123, 137, 143, 183, 186–7 in history, 139, 141, 179 in linguistics, 133–136 in social science, 137–42 see also method Comte, Auguste, 24, 138–42, 143, 145, 166–7, 176, 179, 180 religion of humanity, 141–2 ´ Condillac, Etienne Bonnot de, 31 Cuvier, Georges Baron, 5, 24, 123–30, 124f, 126f, 132, 134, 136, 140, 166, 179 dance, 44–5, 66, 70, 76, 80f Darwin, Charles, 124

269

INDEX

Descartes, René, 30, 33–4, 46 Dilthey, Wilhelm, 25, 168, 176–80, 183, 184, 191 on Semper, 16–7, 160, 176 directionality, see Gestaltungsmomente Donaldson, Thomas Leverton, 149 Dresden, 9–12, 12f, 18, 43 Durand, Jean-Nicolas-Louis, 23, 117–123, 119f, 121f, 122f, 129–30, 136, 143 Eck, Caroline van, 35, 63 Eisen, Charles, 32f elements of architecture, 13–14, 15, 35, 159, 185–6 corresponding techniques, 15, 185 enclosure, 14, 70–1 hearth, 13, 71, 80, 94 mound, 14 relation to motifs, 13, 71, 196n21 roof, 14 see also ceramic art, tectonics, masonry; textile art Engels, Friedrich (see also Marx), 171–2 epistemology of art, 10, 14–15, 18, 19, 22, 184, 187 epoch (see also historicism), 149, 166–7, 168–70, 171, 173, 174 etymology (see also comparative method: in linguistics), 134 eurythmy, see Gestaltungsmomente experiment, 137, 138–42, 143, 166, 180, 230n33 Fischer von Erlach, Johann Bernhard, 115–6, 116f formal beauty, Semper’s theory of, 88–102, 105, 107, 114, 183 Foucault, Michel, 127, 129 ¨ Frohlich, Martin, 20 functionalism in anatomy, 125–6 in architecture, 7, 21, 144

Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 25, 79, 165, 173, 175–6, 177, 179, 180, 191, 242n47 on Wirkungsgeschichte, 181–2 Gau, Frans Christian, 11 Gesamtkunstwerk, 160–1, 167, 168–70, 172–3 Gestaltungsmomente, 91–102, 93f, 94f, 97f, 98f, 101f, 107, 109, 110, 136 Gilly, Friedrich, 151 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 23, 31, 52, 54–7, 56f, 58, 62, 74, 76, 103, 151 on imitation, 52, 54–57 organic theory of art, 54–6, 95, 123 Grassi, Ernesto, 77, 78 ¨ Habermas, Jurgen, 184 Harries, Karsten, 191 Hasenauer, Karl von, 17f H¨ausler, Gabriele, 172–3 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 60 Heidegger, Martin, 79, 80, 175, 183 Herder, Johann Gottfried, 25, 30, 38, 103, 106, 123, 164–6 Herrmann, Wolfgang, 16, 20 Hirt, Aloys, 151 historicism, 9, 17, 22, 25, 37, 145, 161, 162–7, 168, 170–4, 175, 180, 181, 184–5 aporias of, 5, 25, 165–7, 175–6, 180, 181, 185, 187 in architecture (see also style), 150–4, 154–7 historicity (see also Gadamer on Wirkungsgeschichte), 175–6, 180–5, 187, 191–2 Hittorf, Jaques-Ignace, 11 Homer, 77–78 ¨ Hubsch, Heinrich, 151, 154 Humboldt, Wilhelm von, 25, 134–6, 162–4, 165, 168 Hume, David, 31

270

INDEX

Linnaeus, Carl, 125–30, 128f Lipp, Wilfried, 34 London, 12, 14, 152 British Museum, 1, 2f Great Exhibition of 1851, 35, 87, 185 Lorrain, Claude, 50f

hut, the primitive, 41f Klemm on, 43, 46 Laugier on, 30–35, 32f Quatrem`ere de Quincy on, 39–42, 43 Semper on, 14, 29–30, 35–37, 36f, 64–72 Vitruvius on, 29–30 Hutcheson, Francis, 31 imitation, 23, 44, 46, 47–63, 64, 95, 144 classical theory of (see also mimesis), 47, 75–83 neoclassical theory of, 47, 48–51, 52, 62, 73, 75 romantic theory of, 48, 52–6 Semper on, 9, 47–8, 52, 63, 64–5, 70, 72–5, 80, 90, 102, 191 inflection, theory of (see also comparative method: in linguistics), 134–5 Kames, Henry Home, Lord, 37 Kant, Immanuel, 144, 177, 184, 198–91 on organic systems, 24, 102, 130–132, 133, 135–6, 164 Klemm, Gustav, 42–46, 44f, 45f, 66–7 Klenze, Leo von, 151, 152f, 154, 155f knots, see textile art Koller, Hermann, 75–6 Koselleck, Reinhart, 163, 171 Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste, 124 Laudel, Heidrun, 18, 198n59 Laugier, Marc-Antoine, 23, 30–35, 32f, 38, 39, 40, 42, 46, 47 Lavin, Sylvia, 42 Layard, Austen Henry, 1 Ledoux, Claude-Nicolas, 34 Legrand, Jaques-Guillaume, 119–20 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 132, 133–5 Leroy, Julien-David, 24, 117–118, 118f

macrocosm (see also microcosm), 94–6 making, Semper’s theory of, 20–1, 80–3, 182–3, 187–8 Mallgrave, Harry Francis, 12, 14, 20–21, 168, 198n59, 241n32 Marx, Karl (see also Engels), 7, 194n3, 238n36, 243n61 marxism, 7, 19, 21 masking, Semper’s ideas on, 20–1, 83, 182, 215n74 masonry (see also elements of architecture), 15, 16 Maximilian II, King, 153 Meinecke, Friedrich, 164, 165 metalcraft (see also elements of architecture), 16 metamorphosis (see also Stoffwechsel; motifs: transformation of), 3, 10, 11, 56, 74, 107, 181, 185 methexis, 77 method, 175, 178–9, 180, 183–4, 191 Semper’s method of inventing, 15, 25, 83, 87, 88, 107, 123, 137–8, 142–5, 173–4 see also comparative method microcosm (see also macrocosm), 53, 66, 93–6, 100, 102 Mill, John Stewart, 176 mimesis, 23–4, 35, 44, 45, 75–7, 78, 79, 82–3, 95, 102, 107, 145, 182, 192 Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, Baron de, 37–9, 43, 165 Moritz, Karl Philipp, 103–4 motifs of art, 2–3, 10, 13–14, 30, 35, 45, 66–72, 80, 83, 88, 89–90, 102, 107, 122, 158–9, 160, 181, 183, 193n4

271

INDEX

motifs of art (cont.) transformation of (see also Stoffwechsel; metamorphosis), 3, 10–11, 13–14, 67–70, 73–75, 107, 159–60, 181–2 relation to elements of architecture, 13, 71, 196n21 (see also elements of architecture) Muthesius, Hermann, 18 mythos (see also Ricoeur on emplotment), 24, 75, 78–9 nature (see also organic systems), 31, 48–9 as inner power, 53–4, 56, 58 as rational axiom, 34–5, 38 la belle nature, 48–51, 52, 56 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 9 ontology of art, 10, 21–2, 183–4, 187 organic systems, 130, 132, 135–6 art as, 5, 54–6, 95, 102, 123, 130, 169–70 history as, 140, 164–5, 166–7, 172, 175 Kant on, 24, 130–32, 133, 135–6 language as, 133–6 see also historicism origin theory, 23, 29–46, 47, 64 origin types, see cave, tent, hut Semper on, 2, 10, 13–14, 16, 18, 21, 29–30, 35–7, 42–3, 64–72, 73–5, 88, 90, 138, 142, 181–2, 185, 192 Palladio, Andrea, 115 Paris, 11, 12, 14, 138 ´ Ecole polytechnique, 117, 120, 143 Jardin de Plantes, 124, 124t Pevsner, Nikolaus, 14 Piranesi, Giovanni Battista, 40f Plato, 73, 76–7 play, 46, 65, 66 plot, see mythos; Ricoeur on emplotment

poetics (see also poiesis), 20–1, 75–80, 144, 182 Semper’s poetics of architecture, 21, 23–5, 79–83, 175, 181–2, 183, 188, 191–2 poiesis, 21, 79–83, 142, 144, 182 polychromy, the controversy of, 11, 13 Pope, Alexander, 51 positivism, 22, 25, 138–42, 167, 173, 175, 176, 177, 184 practical aesthetics, Semper’s theory of (see also method: Semper’s method of inventing; science of art), 14, 19, 24–5, 83, 87–8, 107–8, 114, 137–8, 142–5, 149, 161, 162, 167, 173–4, 175, 176, 181, 182–8, 192 praxis, 23–4, 75, 77–8, 79–83, 102, 107, 136, 144, 175, 182, 192 proportionality, see Gestaltungsmomente Pugin, Augustus Welby Northmore, 152, 153f, 154 purpose, 5, 13, 112, 125, 131–2 as fourth Gestaltungsmoment, 99–102 (see also Gestaltungsmomente) purposiveness without purpose (see also Kant on organic systems), 107, 131 Pythagorean philosophy, 77 Quatrem`ere de Quincy, Antoine-Chrysostome, 23, 35, 46, 150, 165 on imitation, 48–51, 52, 53 on origins, 39–42, 43, 64 querelle des anciens et des modernes, 33 Quitzsch, Heinz, 18–9, 184 rhetoric, 142, 150, 234–5n27 rhythm, 44–5, 66, 70, 181 Plato on, 76–7 Ricoeur, Paul, 78–81 on emplotment, 78–9, 80, 83, 182 Riegl, Alois, 17–18, 44, 194n3 ritual: as the origin of art, 13, 20, 21, 65–7, 80, 92, 181

272

INDEX

Rousseau, Jean-Jaques, 31 Rykwert, Joseph, 20, 69 Saint-Simon, Claude Henri, 153, 166, 169, 170 Scamozzi, Vincenzo, 115 Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph, 56, 98, 171 Schiller, Friedrich, 46, 47 Schinkel, Karl Friedrich, 151, 154 Schlegel, August Wilhelm, 23, 52–4, 57, 62, 74, 95, 135 Schlegel, Friedrich, 24, 133–6, 170 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 59, 96 science of art (see also method; practical aesthetics), 15, 19, 25, 114 seam, see textile art Semper, Gottfried, writings by “A Critical Analysis and Prognosis of Present-Day Artistic Production”, 47, 73, 107, 154, 157, 158–9, 168, 182, 237n22 Der Stil, 2–4, 14, 15–18, 30, 33, 35–6, 36f, 47, 48, 58, 64, 65, 66, 67, 67f, 68, 68f, 69f, 70, 70f, 71, 71f, 72–3, 74f, 80f, 82f, 87, 88, 89f, 90f, 91f, 92, 93, 93f, 94, 94f, 96, 98, 99, 100, 101f, 102, 103, 104f, 105, 106, 107, 108, 110–11, 111f, 112f, 133, 145, 185, 189, 212n23, 220n57, 220n63, 220n66–7, 237n22, 238n34 First Prospectus, Der Stil, 16; Second Prospectus, Der Stil, 15, 115, 156 “Influence of Historical Research on Trends in Contemporary Architecture”, 117, 154, 237n22 ¨ ¨ “Offentlicher Lehrkursus uber die allgemeine Geschichte der Baukunst”, 9–10, 66 “On Architectural Styles”, 79, 108, 157, 237n27 “On Architectural Symbols”, 102–3, 106, 110

“On the Origin of Some Architectural Styles”, 13, 71 “On the Relation of Architectural Systems with the General Cultural Conditions”, 103, 157 “Outline for a System of Comparative Style-Theory”, 5, 14–15, 88, 109, 110, 115, 123, 142, 144, 160, 183, 187 Practical Art in Metals and Hard Materials, its Technology, History and Styles, 185–7, 186f Preliminary Remarks on Polychrome Architecture and Sculpture in Antiquity, 11, 156 “Prospectus” Vergleichende Baulehre, 11–12, 87, 114, 117, 123, 124, 224n4 Science, Industry, and Art, 14, 70, 87, 108, 115, 138, 159, 160, 238n38 “The Attributes of Formal Beauty”, 48, 52, 58, 66, 92, 95, 96, 99, 100, 101, 108, 109, 149, 156, 160, 172, 218n27 “The Basic Elements of Architecture”, 29, 60 The Four Elements of Architecture, 13, 70, 71 “Ueber die formelle Gesetzm¨aßigkeit des Schmuckes und dessen Bedeutung als Kunstsymbol”, 89–92, 96, 98, 220n62 “Vergleichende Baukunde”, 157, 183 Vergleichende Baulehre, 11–12, 42, 117, 124, 143 Serlio, Sebastiano, 115 ´ St.-Hilaire, Etienne Geoffrey, 124 stereotomy, see masonry Stockmeyer, Ernst, 112 Stoffwechsel (see also metamorphosis; motifs: transformation of), 11, 56, 73

273

INDEX

style, 149–50 dilemma of, 61–2, 150–4, 156, 157, 158, 166–7 Semper’s formula for, 15, 88, 107–10, 112–13, 114, 130, 142, 144, 149, 183 Semper’s theory of, 4, 15, 87, 108, 112–13, 114, 154–7, 158–61, 174, 183–4, 188 see also historicism Sulzer, Johann Georg, 51 symbols, theory of, 88, 102–7 symmetry, see Gestaltungsmomente taxonomy in Cuvier, 125–30, 132 in Linnaeus, 125–9 in Semper, 129–30, 132 Taylor, Charles, 54 tectonics (see also elements of architecture), 15, 16, 48, 58, 62, 57–63, 193n7 tent, as the origin of architecture (see also origin theory), 39, 42, 43, 64 textile art, 2, 16, 67, 67f, 71f, 74f, 185 knots, 44–5, 67–8. 68f, 102 seam, 67–9 weaving, 15, 67, 70–1, 70f, 80, 181 see also elements of architecture; Bekleidung Thucydides, 163 topic (see also method; rhetoric), 15, 142, 234–5n27 Toulmin, Stephen, 30

Troeltsch, Ernst, 165 type in Cuvier, 125, 130 in Durand, 119–21, 226n24, 129–30 in Leroy, 117 in Linnaeus,127–9 in nineteenth century linguistics, 134–6 in Semper, 130 Vesely, Dalibor, 189 Vico, Giambattista, 171–2, 178, 243n61 Vienna, 16, 17f, Ringstrasse, 153–4 Viollet-le-Duc, Eugéne-Emmanuel, 151 Vitruvius, 29–30, 31, 34, 65, 71, 117 Voegelin, Eric, 143 Volksgeist, 38, 165–6 Wagner, Otto, 18 Wagner, Richard, 11, 168–70, 172, 173 weaving, see textile art Winckelmann, Johann Joachim, 51, 150, 151 Wordsworth, William, 52 Yorck von Wartenburg, Paul Graf, 179, 187 Zeising, Adolf, 95 Zeitgeist, 18, 166–7, 168 Zitelmann, Ernst, 114 Zurich, 15–16, 20

274