Gottfried Semper

A German architect and theorist, Semper exerted a wide influence on design thinking and education in Victorian Britain, whether through his part in the organization of the Great Exhibition, London, of 1851, the establishment of the South Kensington Museum (the future Victoria and Albert Museum), his involvement in pedagogy, or his writings. His influence has also been closely identified with the formative period of Modernism in Germany in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Having studied law and mathematics, Semper went on to train as an architect in Munich in 1825. During the 1830s he travelled in Europe, where he began to form his ideas about ornament and architecture, having a particular affinity with the Italian Renaissance. He took up an architectural teaching post in Dresden in 1934 and gained widespread recognition for his design of the Dresden Opera House (1838-41). He also designed porcelain for the Meissen factory (1835-48). Having been involved in the 1848 Revolution, Semper was forced to leave Germany for Paris, before moving in 1850 to London, where he became involved with the Henry Cole circle and the design of a number of sections of the Great Exhibition. He went on to teach metalwork and furniture design at the Government Schools of Design in London. Subsequently, in 1855, Semper moved to Switzerland where he retained a professorship at Zurich Polytechnic until 1871, when he moved to Vienna and then Italy. His ideas were conveyed through his writings, in which he devoted considerable attention to design and the applied arts. His major texts included Wissenschaft, Industrie and Kunst (Science, Industry and Art, 1853) and Der Stil (1861-3). Amongst Semper's most far-reaching ideas were those concerned with the notion of ‘types’—seen as the essence of objects in relation to their function and form. Such ideas (like those of Viollet-le-Duc in France) were taken up in progressive design circles in Germany in the later 19th and early 20th centuries, when there was considerable debate about the notion of a ‘machine aesthetic.’ He was also concerned with the premiss that materials provided the basis for creativity.

Hamburg-born German architect. He is said to have studied his subject under von Gärtner in Munich (1825), though this is doubtful, but he definitely worked under Gau in Paris from 1826, where he became acquainted with Hittorff's theories of polychromy in Ancient Greek architecture. From 1830 to 1834 he travelled in Southern Europe, and in 1834 he published Vorläufige Bemerkungen über bemalte Architectur und Plastik bei den Alten (Preliminary Remarks on Polychrome Architecture and Sculpture in Antiquity), a pamphlet dedicated to Gau, which created quite a stir. Partly as a result of this publication he was appointed Professor at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts the same year. While at Dresden (1834–49) he designed some of his best buildings, including the Hoftheater (Court Theatre—1838–41, destroyed), a Cinquecento Revival building with an exterior that made clear what were the internal arrangements, not uninfluenced by F. Gilly's design for a National Theatre of the 1790s. This structure was replaced after a fire with the celebrated Opera House, also designed by Semper, and built 1871–8 under the direction of Semper's son, Manfred (1838–c.1914). It was destroyed in 1945 but rebuilt in the 1980s. It is arguably his greatest achievement, one of the most beautiful theatres in the world. He also designed the eclectic Synagogue (1838–40—destroyed 1938) in a mix of Byzantine, Lombardic, Moorish, and Romanesque styles, with a polychrome interior of great richness; the Villa Rosa in a Quattrocento manner (1839—destroyed); the sumptuous Oppenheim Palais in Cinquecento Revival (1845–8—destroyed); and the Gemäldegalerie (Picture Gallery) attached to Pöppelmann's Zwinger (1847–54—restored 1955–6 after war damage). In 1835 he designed the polychrome ‘Antique’ rooms in the Japanese Palace, Dresden, which caused a sensation because of their vivid Classical beauty.

Having fallen foul of the Saxon authorities after the 1848–9 revolution, Semper went first to Paris and then to London, where he met Henry Cole the energetic member of the 1851 Exhibition committee, in 1850. Semper gained valuable introductions through Cole, and designed the Canadian, Danish, Swedish, and Turkish sections for the 1851 Exhibition in the Crystal Palace. His connections and his book, Wissenschaft, Industrie, und Kunst (Science, Industry, and Art—1852) brought him to the attention of Prince Albert, who was greatly interested in Semper's ideas about the relationship between architecture, design, industry, and education. Semper taught design while in London, but his most remarkable achievement was his detailing of the great funeral-car for the Duke of Wellington's exequies (1852). Disappointed with his lack of opportunity in London, however, he took up a teaching post at the Zürich Polytechnic, where he remained until 1871. While there he designed the fine Zürich Polytechnikum (1855–63—now ETH, Zürich), and made designs for his friend, the composer Richard Wagner's (1813–83) proposed (but unrealized) Festspielhaus (Festival Theatre—1864–7) for Munich which influenced the building (1876) designed by Brückwald that Wagner eventually succeeded in erecting in Bayreuth. Semper won the competition to design the Town Hall at Winterthur, Switzerland (1862—built 1865–70). In 1851 Semper had published Die vier Elemente der Baukunst (The Four Elements of Architecture) in which he identified those elements as hearth, platform, roof and its supports, and non-structural enclosure (of textiles, etc.) to keep out the weather. Having seen a Caribbean hut at the Great Exhibition, he found these four elements perfectly expressed, but believed that each of them could be subject to transformations, together or separately, and that those transformations could become rapid in a period of industrialization and change, as normal evolutionary processes would be subjected to enormous outside pressures. He went on to develop his ideas in his most important book, Der Stil in den technischen und tektonischen Künsten, oder praktische Äesthetik (Style in the Technical and Structural Arts, or Practical Aesthetics—1861–3), which proposed that artefacts and architecture acquire meaning from the ways in which they are made and from their functions, so Semper described materials and their uses, investigating how design motifs appeared and how those motifs were transferred from one material or context to others. In architecture, he noted how traditional and familiar forms retained traces of very early, primitive uses. In Semper's theory he conceived four essential categories of making artefacts: weaving (producing textiles and patterns); moulding (creating pottery from clay); carpentry (providing essential structures of timber, especially walls, partitions, and roofs); and masonry (involving building with stone for hearth, walls, piers, etc.). To the four processes he added working with metal, and came to the conclusion that the greater part of the forms used in architecture actually originated in those processes (now five) themselves. From these he derived his theory of style, and argued that architecture was reducible to the materials and processes associated with their uses. Semper believed that long before Man made a building he evolved patterns (e.g. in weaving, which he called Urkunst, or original art, meaning the source of art, providing prototypical models), and that these preceded the evolution of structural form, so ornament, far from being an afterthought, was actually more basic and symbolic than structure. He further developed his theory to postulate how political, religious, and social institutions create conditions by which appropriate and poetic expression is given to architectural forms. Thus architecture should be expressive of its purpose and the parts of a building easily distinguished. This is very far from the ‘materialist’ and ‘functionalist’ position he is often held (by those who either have not understood his (admittedly) prolix texts, or who have distorted his meanings for reasons of their own) to have adopted: in fact he stated that his conception of basic forms and their origins was the antithesis of the view which held that architecture was nothing more than evolved construction, a demonstration of statics and mechanics, and a pure revelation of material. For example, he noted that the patterns and ornaments used in producing textiles might reappear on walls constructed of other materials, while swags or garlands on several buildings often reappear as sculpted or painted elements on friezes, and in their transformations the materials used are of no great importance. Claims for Semper as a proto-Modernist are as absurd as those which hold Baillie Scott, Voysey, et al. were forerunners of the Bauhäusler, for he derided Viollet-le-Duc as a materialist, and could not accept that monumental architecture could be created using iron structures (he did not approve of Paxton's Crystal Palace). He was, however, an influence on Semiotics (see semiological school).

The final years of Semper's architectural life were spent in Vienna, where his style became more florid than in his Dresden period. He collaborated with Karl von Hasenauer on the design of the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Art History Museum) and the Natural History Museum (1872–81), which face each other across Maria-Theresien-Platz: they are fine essays in the Italian High Renaissance Revival, and were built under the direction of von Hasenauer. Semper and Hasenauer also worked on the Burgtheater (Castle Theatre), in an assured Renaissance Revival style (1872–86) with a curved front reminiscent of the Dresden Opera House. The grandiose and triumphal Neue Hofburg (New Palace—1870–94), where the double columns of the east front of the Louvre, a Roman triumphal arch, and various Renaissance Revival motifs are quoted, was planned to harmonize the Imperial Palace with the new Museums, and formed part of a great Forum, the plan of which was essentially Semper's, although von Hasenauer was mostly responsible for the realization of the buildings.

Bibliography

• Architectural Review, cxxxvi/809 (July 1964), 57–60
• Bernhard (1992)
• J. Curl (2000a)
• Ettlinger (1937)
• M. Fröhlich (1991)
• Herrmann (1984, 1992)
• Hvattum (2004)
• Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, iii, 254 ff.
• Laudel (1991)
• Mallgrave (1996)
• Mallgrave & Herrmann (1988)
• Middleton & Watkin (1987)
• Pevsner (1972)
• Placzek (ed.) (1982)
• Rykwert (1973)
• Semper (1851, 1860–3, 1884, 1966, 1989)
• Jane Turner (1996)
• Vogt et al. (eds.) (1976)
• Wagner-Rieger (1980)
• Ziesemer (1999)

The full bibliography for this book is available to download as a pdf file.
Download the bibliography for A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (PDF: 1.2MB)

This article is a translation-work in progress of the Gottfried Semper article from German to English. If you are confident enough in your competence of German and English, you can help Wikipedia by assisting in the translation.

Gottfried Semper
Gottfried Semper
Personal information
Name	Gottfried Semper
Nationality	German
Birth date	November 29, 1803(1803-11-29)
Birth place	Mecklenburg, Germany
Date of death	May 15, 1879 (aged 75)
Work
Significant buildings	Semper Opera House

Gottfried Semper (November 29, 1803 - May 15, 1879) was a German architect, art critic, and professor of architecture, who designed and built the Semper Opera House in Dresden between 1838 and 1841. In 1849 he took part in the May Uprising in Dresden and was put on the government's wanted list. Semper fled first to Zürich and later to London. Later he returned to Germany after the 1862 amnesty granted to the revolutionaries.

Semper wrote extensively about the origins of architecture, especially in his book The Four Elements of Architecture from 1851, and he was one of the major figures in the controversy surrounding the polychrome architectural style of ancient Greece. Semper designed works at all scales, from a baton for Richard Wagner to major urban interventions like the re-design of the Ringstraße in Vienna.

Contents 1 Life 1.1 Early life (to 1834) 1.2 Dresden period (1834 - 1849) 1.3 Post-revolutionary period (1849 - 1855) 1.4 Zürich period (1855 - 1871) 1.5 Later life (from 1871) 2 Work (selected) 3 Legacy 4 References 5 See also 6 External links

Life

Early life (to 1834)

Semper was born into a well-to-do industrialist family in Altona. The fifth of eight children, he attended the Johanneum School in Hamburg before starting his university education at Göttingen in 1823, where he studied history and mathematics. He subsequently studied architecture in 1825 at the University of Munich under Friedrich von Gärtner. In 1826, Semper travelled to Paris in order to work under the architect Franz Christian Gau and he was present when the July Revolution of 1830 broke out. Between 1830 and 1833, he travelled to Italy and Greece in order to study the architecture and designs of antiquity. In 1832, he spent four months involved in archaeological research of the famous Akropolis in Athens.

During this period, he became very interested in the Biedermeier-inspired polychromy debate, which centred around the question whether buildings in Ancient Greece and Rome had been colorfully painted or not. His 1834 publication Vorläufige Bemerkungen über bemalte Architectur und Plastik bei den Alten (Preliminary Remarks on Polychrome Architecture and Sculpture in Antiquity) brought him sudden recognition in architectural and aesthetic circles across Europe[1].

Dresden period (1834 - 1849)

Dresden, Interior of the first Hoftheater (Semper Oper)

On September 30, 1834 Semper obtained a post as Professor of Architecture at the Königlichen Akademie der bildenden Künste (today called the Hochschule) in Dresden thanks largely to the efforts and support of his former teacher Franz Christian Gau and swore an oath of allegiance to the King (formerly Elector) of Saxony, Anthony Clement. The flourishing growth of Dresden during this period provided the young architect with considerable creative opportunities. In 1838-40 a synagogue was built in Dresden to Semper's design, it was ever afterward called the Semper Synagogue and is noted for its Moorish Revival style.^[1] Semper's student, Otto Simonson would construct the magnificent Moorish Revival Leipzig synagogue in 1855.

Certain civic structures remain today, such as the Elbe-facing gallery of the Zwinger Palace complex. His first building for the Dresden Hoftheater burnt down, and the second, today called the Semperoper, was built in 1841. Other buildings also remain indelibly attached to his name, such as the Maternity Hospital, the Synagogue (destroyed during the Third Reich), the Oppenheim Palace, and the Villa Rosa built for the banker Martin Wilhelm Oppenheim. This last construction stands as a prototype of German villa architecture.

On September 1, 1835 Semper married Bertha Thimmig. The marriage ultimately produced six children.

A convinced Republican, Semper took a leading role, along with his friend Richard Wagner, in the May 1849 uprising which swept over the city . He was a member of the Civic Guard (Kommunalgarde) and helped to erect barricades in the streets. When the rebellion collapsed, Semper was considered a leading agitator for democratic change and a ringleader against government authority and he was forced to flee the city.

He was destined never to return to the city that would, ironically, become most associated with his architectural (and political) legacy. The Saxon government maintained a warrant for his arrest until 1863. When the Semper-designed Hoftheater burnt down in 1869, King John, on the urging of the citizenry, commissioned Semper to build a new one. Semper produced the plans, but left the actual construction to his son, Manfred.

Post-revolutionary period (1849 - 1855)

After stays in Zwickau, Hof, Karlsruhe and Strasbourg, Semper eventually ended up back in Paris, like many other disillusioned Republicans from the 1848 Revolutions (such as Heinrich Heine and Ludwig Börne). In the fall of 1850, he travelled to London, England. But while he was able to pick up occasional contracts — including participation in the design of the funeral carriage for the Duke of Wellington and the designs of the Canadian, Danish, Swedish, and Ottoman sections of the 1851 Exhibition in the Crystal Palace — he found no steady employment. If his stay in London was disappointing professionally, however, it proved a fertile period for Semper's theoretical, creative and academic development. He published Die vier Elemente der Baukunst (The Four Elements of Architecture) in 1851 and Wissenschaft, Industrie und Kunst (Science, Industry and Art) in 1852. These works would ultimately provide the groundwork for his most widely regarded publication, Der Stil in den technischen und tektonischen Künsten oder Praktische Ästhetik, which was published in two volumes in 1861 and 1863.^[2]

Zürich period (1855 - 1871)

Gottfried Semper

As the onset of the industrial revolution, the Swiss Federation planned to establish a polytechnical school. As the principal judge for the competition held to select a design for the new building, Semper deemed the submitted entries unsatisfactory and, ultimately, designed the building himself. Proudly situated (where fortified walls once stood), visible from all sides on a terrace overlooking the core of Zurich, the new school became the herald of a new epoch. The building (1853-1864), which despite frequent remodeling continues to evoke Semper's concept, was initially required to accommodate not only the new school (known today as the ETH Zurich), but the existing University of Zurich, as well.

In 1855 Semper became a professor of architecture at the new school and the success of many of his students who attained success and renown served to ensure his international fame. The Swiss architect Emil Schmid was one such student. With his income as a professor, Semper was able to reunite his family, bringing them to Zurich from Saxony. The City Hall in Winterthur is among other buildings designed by Semper in Switzerland.

Semper provided Bavaria's King Ludwig II with a conceptual design for a theatre dedicated to the work of Richard Wagner to be built in Munich. The project, developed from 1864 to 1866, was never realized, although Wagner 'borrowed' may of its features for his own later theatre at Bayreuth.

Zürich, Hauptgebäude der ETH

Stadthaus Winterthur

Later life (from 1871)

Franz von Lenbach's portrait of Gottfried Semper shortly before his death

To be completed The 'Museum-question' was discussed in Vienna during the 1860s. Works forming the imperial art collection were scattered among several buildings. Semper was assigned to submit a proposal for locating new buildings in conjunction with redevelopment of the Ringstrasse. In 1869 he designed a gigantic 'Imperial Forum' which was not realized. The National Museum of Art History and the National Museum of Natural History were erected, however, opposite the Palace according to his plan, as was the Burgtheater. In 1871 Semper moved to Vienna to undertake the projects. During construction, repeated disagreements with his appointed associate architect (Karl Freiherr von Hasenauer), led Semper to resign from the project in 1876. In the following year his health began to deteriorate. He died two years later while on a visit to Italy. German text

In den 1860er Jahren wurde in Wien die „Museumsfrage“ diskutiert. Die Exponate der kaiserlichen Kunstsammlungen waren in verschiedenen Gebäuden untergebracht. Semper erhielt den Auftrag, einen Vorschlag für Neubauten an der Ringstraße zu machen. Er entwarf 1869 ein riesiges „Kaiserforum“, das jedoch so nicht verwirklicht worden ist. Vor der Wiener Hofburg entstanden als Ergebnis seiner Pläne das Kunsthistorische und das Naturhistorische Hofmuseum und auch das Burgtheater. 1871 siedelte Semper wegen dieser Aufträge nach Wien um. Mit dem ihm zur Seite gestellten Architekten Karl Freiherr von Hasenauer kam es bei den Bautätigkeiten in Wien immer wieder zu Reibereien. 1876 beendete er daher seine Architektentätigkeit an diesem Projekt. Im Folgejahr hatte Semper gesundheitliche Probleme zu bewältigen. Zwei Jahre später starb er auf einer Reise in Italien.

Semper's (second) Dresden Opera House as it is today

Work (selected)

• Dresden
  • Hoftheater – 1838-1841 (destroyed by fire in 1869)
  • Villa Rosa – 1839 (destroyed in the Second World War)
  • Semper Synagoge – 1839-1840 (destroyed on November 9, 1938 - Kristallnacht)
  • Oppenheim-Palace – 1845-1848
  • Painting Gallery (Dresden Gemäldegalerie)– 1847-1855
  • Neues Hoftheater (Semperoper) – 1871-1878
• Zürich
  • City Hall – 1858 (only concept for competition; not built)
  • Polytechnical School, (ETH Zurich) – 1858-1864
  • Observatory - 1861-1864
• Winterthur
  • City Hall – 1865-1869
• Vienna
  • Municipal Theater (Burgtheater) – 1873 - 1888
  • Museum of Art History (Kunsthistorisches Museum) (1872 – 1881, finished 1889)
  • Natural History Museum (Naturhistorisches Museum) (1872 – 1881, finished 1891)

Legacy

This section requires expansion.

Semperdepot, Lehargasse, Vienna

References

1. ^ H.A. Meek, The Synagogue, Phaidon, 1995, p. 188
2. ^ Curl, James Stevens (Paperback). A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (Second Edition ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 880. ISBN 0-19-860678-8. 

• Berry, J. Duncan. The Legacy of Gottfried Semper. Studies in Späthistorismus (Ph. D. Diss., Brown University, 1989).

• Hvattum, Mari. Gottfried Semper and the Problem of Historicism (Cambridge, 2004). ISBN 0521821630

• Herrmann, Wolfgang. Gottfried Semper: In Search of Architecture (Cambridge, MA/London, 1984). ISBN 026208144X

• Karge, Henrik (ed.). Gottfried Semper. Die moderne Renaissance der Künste (Berlin, 2006). ISBN 3422066063

• Mallgrave, Harry Francis. Gottfried Semper - Architect of the Nineteenth Century (New Haven/London, 1996). ISBN 0300066244

• Mallgrave, Harry Francis. Modern Architectural Theory: A Historical Survey, 1673-1968 (Cambridge, 2005). ISBN 0521793068

• Mallgrave, Harry Francis. Architectural Theory: An Anthology from Vitruvius to 1870 (Malden, MA/Oxford, 2006). ISBN 1405102586

• Muecke, Mikesch W. Gottfried Semper in Zurich - An Intersection of Theory and Practice (Ames, IA, 2005). ISBN 978-1-4116-3391-9

• Nerdinger, Winfried and Werner Oechslin (eds.). Gottfried Semper 1803-1879 (Munich/Zurich, 2003). ISBN 3791328859

• Semper, Gottfried. The Four Elements of Architecture and Other Writings. Trans. Harry F. Mallgrave and Wolfgang Herrmann (Cambridge, 1989). ISBN 0521354757

• Semper, Gottfried. Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts; or, Practical Aesthetics. Trans. Harry F. Mallgrave (Santa Monica, 2004). ISBN 0892365978

See also

• Dresden school
• Neorenaissance
• Historicism
• Architectural theory
• Alfred Friedrich Bluntschli
• Hans Auer
• Constantin Lipsius
• Paul Sédille
• Otto Wagner
• Camillo Sitte
• Hendrik Petrus Berlage
• Bernard Maybeck
• Christopher Dresser
• Alois Riegl
• Richard Wagner
• Gesamtkunstwerk
• Architectural Realism

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Gottfried Semper

• Villa Garbald
• Wagner and Semper

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