Archaeology vs.

History: Heinrich Hübsch's Critique of Neoclassicism and the

Beginnings of Historicism in German Architectural Theory
Author(s): Barry Bergdoll
Source: Oxford Art Journal , 1983, Vol. 5, No. 2, Architecture (1983), pp. 3-12
Published by: Oxford University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1360230

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 Archaeology vs. History: Heinrich Hiibsch's Critique of
Neoclassicism and the Beginnings of Historicism in German
Architectural Theory

BARRY BERGDOLL

"In Welchem Style Sollen Wir Bauen?" (In what German architectural textbooks, Weinbrenner's
style should we build?) was an impertinent questionArchitektonisches Lehrbuch (Tfbingen, 1810-1825). Like
for a young architect trained in the most rigorous of Karl Friedrich Schinkel, whose own early notes
neoclassical academies to ask. Henrich Hiibsch's for a never-completed Lehrbuch contain an impas-
(1795-1863) provocative plea of 1828 for architecturalsioned critique of Hirt's Baukunst, Hiibsch framed
reform represented the dilemma of eclecticism
hisand
own theory in dialogue with Hirt. Hiibsch did
historicism in architecture as compellingly to hisnot, as later Pugin in England or Viollet-le-Duc
Ger-
man contomporaries as it has subsequently to modern
in France, offer simply a manifesto of a new style
historians of the nineteenth century. Throughout the on the national mediaeval heritage. Rather,
based
nineteenth century, in fact, Hiibsch's title served
he set out to reconstitute the historical model on
architects and critics as an anguished plea for which
direc-contemporary architectural practice was based.
tion and a tacit acknowledgement of the arbitrariness
Proposing a contemporary architecture founded on a
of style in architecture. Paradoxically, it wasrigorous
this analysis of the present as a vital moment
question alone, rather than Hiibschs' analytically
in a larger historical process, Hiibsch, in rejecting
reasoned answer, which continued to echo in thethe
Ger-
archaeological doctrines of eighteenth-century
man architectural press long after his pamphletneoclassicism,
had established a relativist historical
become a rarity. Prepared as a manifesto for a meet-
position.
ing of Nazarene artists at the great Direr festival Theinheated debate between Hirt and Hiibsch in
Nuremberg of 1828, the pamphlet never had athe wide
1820s began with Hiibsch's first pamphlet, Uber
circulation. Yet so vital was the question of stylistic
Griechische Architectur (On Greek Architecture). Pub-
choice to the anxieties and fierce stylistic debates
lishedofin 1822, this pamphlet was devoted exclusively
the mid-century that Hiibsch's name remained at tothe
a systematic refutation of Hirt's major contribution
centre of the discussion even after his theoreticalto the study of classical antiquity. It was instantly
posi-
tion was no longer in dispute. To historians, Hiibsch's
answered by Hirt's angry Vertheidigung der Griechen
tract has come to represent the deathknell of
Architectur gegen H. Hiibsch (Defence of Greek Archi-
classical architectural theory in Germany tecture
- the in opposition to H.Hibsch) and defended in
parallel to Durand and Rondelet's treatises in France
Hiibsch's own rebuttal, his final word, Vertheidigung
- and the announcement of the stylistic pluralism
der Griechen Architectur gegen A.Hirt (Defence of Greek
of the nineteenth century. Yet Hibsch's pamphlet
Architecture in opposition to A.Hirt), which appeared
was anything but an expression of uncertainty. Heappendix to a second edition of Uber Griechische
as an
insisted that only one style could express the Architectur
needs in the following year (1824). Hirt's argu-
and aspirations of any society. In defining that style
ment had been that ancient Greek temples were direct
translations
he established an analytical approach to history and a of earlier wooden structures and thus that
belief that a new style could evolve from theall the elements of the classical orders could be ex-
past,
which were to be fundamental to later nineteenth- plained by reference to timber construction (Fig. 1).
century architectural theories. Goethe, the architect Leo von Klenze, and later even
Hiibsch's early polemical writings of the 1820s Hegel adopted Hirt's point of view. Although this
are the most sustained critique of neoclassical thesis had been much discussed among archaeologists
aesthetics and historical interpretation which had and architects since the late 1780s when Hirt had first
dominated German architectural thinking since arrived in Rome, their quibbles with his ideas had
Winckelmann. Hiibsch directed his attack against revolved on points of archaeological interpretation
the theorist and antiquarian Aloys Ludwig Hirt and and historical evidence. Hiibsch's critique took on
by implication against the influential teachings of Hirt's central thesis, rejecting not only the validity
his own mentor Friedrich Weinbrenner. Hirt's great of Hirt's historical view, but also of Vitruvian tradi-
text, Die Baukunst nach den Grundsdtzen der Alten tion, the accepted basis of architectural theory since
(Architecture according to the Principles of the the Renaissance. While the debate was initially con-
Ancients, Berlin, 1809), not only summarized the ducted on the archaeological plane, it was from the
neoclassical conception of antiquity, it endeavoured first a dispute over the very nature of architecture
to provide a complete architectural textbook for and its relationship to historical processes. The
contemporary needs. Its lessons were especially issue of the relationship of wooden to stone architec-
influential as they formed an integral element of the ture in antiquity was symbolic of the universal
earliest and one of the most widely consulted of relationship of architecture to material and historical
THE OXFORD ARTJOURNAL - 5:2 1983 3
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 after 1828 made him the exponent of the so-called
Rundbogenstil, an amalgam of Romanesque, Lombard
and early Italian Renaissance sources. Hiibsch's
historical method was founded on his earlier
philosophical training in Heidelberg and drew
especially on the scholarship of one of his teach
there, Friedrich Creuzer. He set out to analyze
critically the accepted historical model and to recon-
stitute it on principles which could accommodate the
change and variety of historical phenomena.
Hiibsch's refutation of Vitruvian tradition evolved
slowly during his years at Weinbrenner's Karlsruhe
Bauakademie and his long study of monuments in
Italy and Greece. Initially he was discreet, even
apologetic, about conclusions drawn from his studies
of Greek architecture. In a letter to Georg Moller,
the prominent Darmstadt architect who had first
directed Hfibsch to Weinbrenner's Academy, Hiibsch
sought an opinion of a draft version of his Uber
Griechische Architectur, admitting that his historical
arguments represented a challenge to Weinbrenner's
teaching:

I do not dare send a copy to our old teacher W[einbrenner]

a: as he will, in the end, take it as an affront. He will
anyhow rail against the heretical views I have developed.
*

^ - i-i

:,'I 1 . -- . I hope, however, not to insult you in directly expressing

my views which probably deviate from your own.

Weinbrenner's renowned Karlsruhe Bauakademie,

which Hiibsch attended from 1815 to 1817, was
Fig. 1. Aloys Hirt, The Tuscan Temple after Vitruvius, from
reputed throughout Germany as the upholder of the
Die Baukunst nach den Grundsaitzen der Alten, (plate
highest classical ideals, the only place, according to
2), Berlin, 1809. Drawn by Friedrich Weinbrenner. Goethe, where the "True" was to be found. It was,
however, a truth which Hiibsch was disposed to
conditions. Arguing along rationalist lines, derived
question from the outset, although he took much of
in part from the French treatises of J.N.L. Durandfundamental importance from the rationalist cast of
and J.B. Rondelet, Hiibsch dismissed Hirt's descrip-
Weinbrenner's pragmatic instruction. Unlike most of
tion of Greek architecture vociferously and by the some one hundred students who passed through
the Academy, Hiibsch had pursued a university
extension also implicated modern architecture's
fundamental principles as specious. He insisted that career in Heidelberg from 1813 and 1815, before
turning to architecture. There he had read mathe-
architectural principles were specific to materials and
to their socio-historic context. It was neither con- matics and philosophy in the very years in which a
ceivable that stone temples were based on earlier brilliant constellation of literary figures, historians,
wooden buildings nor that modern architects could and philosophers engaged in a revisionist inter-
emulate the Greeks by copying the forms of their pretation of antiquity and an almost intoxicated
architecture. discovery of the German Middle Ages was at an apex.
Likewise, in the later 1820s, the better known The poles of Hiibsch's experience in Heidelberg,
which later coalesced under Hegel's influence into
French debate over polychromy in Greek architecture
was spearheaded by the archaeological writings of
the dialectical components of his historical point of
Jacques Ignaz Hittorff and the antique recon- view, framed his early critique. The classicial
structions of Henri Labrouste which served as philologist Friedrich Creuzer especially shaped
Hiibsch's critical historical imagination. Creuzer,
symbolical issues in the refutation of the Academy's
view of an historical ideal. Hiibsch's historical recon-who is best known for his efforts to ground the
structions, like those of his French contemporaries, study of Greek mythology on scientific bases, was
represented a denial of the very possibility of an engaged in a radical re-reading of antiquity. Its
immutable architectural ideal which could be method and assumptions would prove fundamental
abstracted from its historical context. It was a debate to Hiibsch's later critique of the neoclassical con-
as much contemporary as historical in its impetus, struct of antique architecture. As Professor Arnaldo
although in 1822 Hiibsch had not yet formulated Momigliani has pointed out, Creuzer was one of a
that architectural programme of his own, which whole generation of German scholars who sought to
4 THE OXFORD ARTJOURNAL - 5:2 1983

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introduce an empirical procedure into the idealist Greek norm, but rather expressions of a different
practice of history. In his early study of Greek context. In their finest realisations they embodied
historiography, Die Historische Kunst der Griechen in the same rational principles as the Greek temples.
Ihrer Entstehung und Fortbildung (The Art of History Hiibsch quickly became associated with Nazarene
Writing among the Greeks, its Origins and Develop- circles in Rome and was considered, in the lively
ment, 1803, second edition 1845), for instance, debates at the Cafe Greco, a spokesman for a new
Creuzer had set out to assess the development of German architecture, an equivalent of the excited
Greek historical writing without recourse to an Nazarene renewal of German painting. Indeed
external ideal of unique validity. He asserted rather Hiibsch's identity with the Nazarene cause is clear
the validity and contextual appropriateness of a from the opening lines of In Welchem Style Sollen
variety of approaches, and made no claims of Wir Bauen?, (published emblematically on Diirer's
superiority for a Thucydides over an Herodotus, but birthday): "Painting and sculpture have in the last
saw each man's writings as the appropriate expres- few years finally abandoned deadly imitation of the
sion of a particular epoch. antique. Architecture alone has not yet reached
Creuzer's was but one voice in the critique of maturity; it continues to imitate the antique style."
Idealism fundamental to Hiibsch's reconstitution of Yet, although Hiibsch was dissatisfied with the
the neoclassical historical model, the theoretical received notion of neoclassicism, he was not prepared
construct which supported the idealist architectural to embrace a mediaeval revival. Embarking on a
theory of Hirt and Weinbrenner. At the same time, lengthy tour of Greece, which resulted in publication
Hiibsch, deeply religious from childhood, was drawn with his fellow travellers Josef Thiirmer and Franz
up in the excited study of the Middle Ages which Heger of Ansichten von Athen mit seine Denkmahlen
centred on the Heidelberg household of the Boisseree (Views of Athens and her Monuments, 1822),
brothers, Sulpiz and Melchior, who later championed Hiibsch set out to develop an historical interpretation
the campaign to complete Cologne Cathedral as a of architecture in which the Greek achievement,
national and Catholic monument. Hiibsch's old understood on its own terms and in its own context,
school friend Georg Moller introduced him into would
this be integral, if not unique. Hiibsch did not
circle, and it was no doubt there that his decision
reject Greek architecture, he reinterpreted it and
insisted that the relationship of contemporary
to pursue architectural training was first formulated.
Moreover, in Creuzer's seminar, Hiibsch formed aarchitecture to historical paradigms must be funda-
mentally different. Refuting the neoclassical doctrine
lifelong friendship with the young historian Johann
of imitation, so emphatically stated in Winckel-
Friedrich B6hmer (1795-1863), his exact contem-
mann's famous exhortation that the only way to
porary, whose devoted pursuit of a popular Christian
and national art would inspire Hiibsch in his achieve
own greatness is to copy the ancients, Hiibsch
architectural theory, which drew its rationale sought
from to cast Greek architecture as an exemplar
the Middle Ages and sought to be comprehensible of his own view that all architecture was a product
to the broadest public. B6hmer later conducted of the
a interaction of universal laws of materials
Society for Old German History, giving the and anti-construction with the particular demands of
quarian researches of the Boisserees and Moller climate
on and socio-economic structure. Greek
Rhenish architecture a larger historical meaning,architecture
one would continue to embody essent
essential to Hiibsch's casting of the Middle truths
Ages about architecture, but these were not tru
as the dialectical counterpart of antiquity. instructive
For for the modern architect except throu
Hiibsch was to view the antique and the mediaevalanalytical reflection and interpretation. Not only
as two parallel developments from which a modern specific history, but the very nature of history,
synthesis might be drawn as the path to a truly to be redefined in this pioneer historicist argumen
contemporary architecture. The premise of Uber Griechische Architectur is t
Greek architecture, despite the numerous pub
Hiibsch's critique of Weinbrenner and Hirt began
tions which had appeared in the half-century s
with his trip to Italy in 1817-1820. Although
Hiibsch followed the programme set forth Leroy,
in and Stuart and Revett, was still vie
Weinbrenner's text, in which a trip to Italy and
through the distorting and anachronistic lense
Roman monuments and Vitruvius's obscure text.
Greece is prescribed to round out the architect's
From Winckelmann on, authors, including Hirt,
training, he examined the monuments with a critical
paid lip service to a distinction between Greek and
eye. In Greece, which neither Hirt nor Weinbrenner
had visited, Hiibsch found an architecture wholely
Roman architecture and were sceptical of Vitruvius's
different in spirit from Roman antiquity. Notaccount
only of Greek buildings. Nonetheless they
did he fail to find Greek buildings consistent continued to discuss a monolithic set of canons for
antique architecture. As current architectural
exemplars of a theory, be it Hirt's or Vitruvius's,
but in Italy, like Schinkel before him, he refused
practice validated itself principally by reference to
to close his eyes to the splendours of later Italian
antiquity, Hiibsch argued that this conflation of two
architecture, especially the Early Christian and traditions had led to false historical descrip-
distinct
mediaeval monuments. These later buildings, tion as well as to a modern architecture based on
Hiibsch would show, were not deviations from a spurious principles. Not only does he intend to treat

THE OXFORD ART JOURNAL - 5:2 1983 5

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T rhetorically. Assuming that "Economic purpose is in
every building the fundamental principle of its
existence, for which stability (Festigkeit) creates the
possibility and which proper construction further
assures", Hiibsch endeavours to demonstrate his-
torically that Greek architecture was determined by
the development of forms in accordance with the
properties of materials, the refinement of structural
techniques and the adjustment of the whole to the
specific demands of climate, social systems and, most
importantly, economic structure. Hence, proceeding
rationally, Greek architects responded to materials
locally available to create a tectonically rational
architecture. In his 1824 response to Hirt's rebuttal
Hiibsch parodied Hirt's arguments by drawing their
logical conclusion:

We would -have to assume that the principles of stone

architecture are inherent in wooden construction or else
we would need to conclude that Greek architecture was
itself negligent of function.

Both Hirt, who labeled Hiibsch a "Radical

Reformer", and Weinbrenner were quick to rise to
the defence of the theory of the origins of stone archi-
tecture in wooden construction, representing as it
did the possibility of an architectural ideal and its
rebirth by imitation (Fig. 2). Hirt replied in his
point-by-point critique of Hiibsch's pamphlet in 1823
and Weinbrenner incorporated a refutation of his
pupil's thesis within the final lessons of his
Architektonisches Lehrbuch of 1825:
Fig. 2. Aloys Hirt, Relationship of Wooden and Stone Ele-
Indeed people have begun to claim that the Greek
ments in the Classical Roof and Pediment, from Die Bau-
stone temples, or even more their principal parts, were
kunst nach den Grundsatzen der Alten, plate 3. not all abstractions from wooden construction and thus
that the elements of the orders do not have their
origins in wood. One rebukes thereby Vitruvius
Greek architecture without reference to Roman
Wood is for all types of buildings much easier and mo
sources, thus refusing a priori a Vitruvian reading,
adaptable than stone, and thus it seems that the Gree
but he proposes to analyze the historical evidence used wooden construction as the prototype for ston
from a radically different set of hypotheses, one construction.
that Since wood is, however, easily destroy
rejects the neo-Platonic aesthetics of neoclassicism
by water and air, they replaced it, where the elemen
are exposed ... the entire construction retained the
and reflects instead the development of a rationalist
point of view, suggested in Weinbrenner's text,character
but of wooden architecture, and all disharmony
derived from the French treatises of Durand and was avoided, which normally would have arisen from
the juxtaposition of two such entirely different materials
Rondelet, widely known in Germany in the early
as wood and stone. The orders were abstracted in just
decades of the nineteenth century:
such a way from wooden construction, which yielded
I have become convinced that in order to arrive at a the most beautiful relationships for architecture in general.
proper standpoint from which to make fundamental (Book 3, pp. 8-10)
judgements [of architecture], one must depart from all
To Weinbrenner and Hirt, architecture was a
contemporary notions of absolute beauty, order, and the
like, and retain pure function alone. matter of a priori ideals of beauty and form
independent of material corporeity. Weinbrenner's
The history of Greek architecture is thus to be textbook, which records in its earliest parts the lessons
Hiibsch followed during his student years, was
reconstituted on functional principles. If materials are
the determinants of form, how is it possible that
grounded in a theory of drawing (Fig. 3). Unlike
architects proceeding rationally would seek to inventDurand, whose celebrated textbook, Prefis des Lefons
a monumental stone architecture by copying wooden donnees a l'Ecole Polytechnique (1802-5) argued for an
buildings? This would be a foolhardy neglect of eacharchitecture based on the simplest and most efficient
material's unique properties and principles of statics.
compositions which made the greatest use of material
"How can a wooden wall instruct one in the capacities, Weinbrenner considered architecture
construction of a wall of stone?", Hiibsch asks primarily an art, not a science. In the tradition of
6 THE OXFORD ARTJOURNAL - 5:2 1983
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 r..L

Fig. 3. Friedrich Weinbrenner, Construction of geometric solids, from Architektonisches Lehrbuch, Book 2, plate 20,
(Tiibingen, 1810-1825).

classical architecture since the Renaissance, Although one can only with difficulty arrive at a satisfactory
Weinbrenner drew a sharp distinction between definition of beauty, it may be said in general, that the
architecture and building, architecture being the art
beauty of a visual object lies in the spatial outlines, and that
of making concrete the transcendent idea of the colour or the material of art objects does not produce
architect. These are a priori ideas in the Kantian beauty, but rather that these only by coincidental appeal
sense, for Weinbrenner, like Winckelmann and Hirt, heighten and strengthen the expression .... Beauty in art is
founded on an idea, and thus the real and proper artist
rejected the notion that architecture was an imitation
must possess alongside his talent for technical execution
of nature. Rather it comprised an autonomous realm
that inspired skill which works freely in the realm of form
of abstract forms determined by formal and material
and knows how to give birth to it and animate it. (Book 3,
values of independent validity. Weinbrenner advisedpp. 5-7).
his students, in words reflective of the turbulent
Napoleonic era in which the Lehrbuch was composed,
that often the building must remain confined toHiibsch, on the contrary, understood history as a
paper. But even as a project, the final beauty
paradigmatic process, not as a formal model. He thus
was complete, for it is the skill of representation,
set out to attack all theories of a priori ideals as the
the ability to project an image ruled by the con-generators of architectural form, be it the neo-Platonic
ventions of perspective and realised in light aesthetics
and of German neoclassicism, the myth of the
shadow which constitutes architecture (Fig. 3). The primitive hut promulgated in the mid-eighteenth cen-
drawing represents the essential idea, for theretury the by the Abbe Laugier, or the traditional canons of
essence of art, its intellectual content, is recorded the
andclassical orders. Although Hirt, like Winckel-
transmitted. Although the second stage of mann, had rejected the Laugierian doctrine that
Weinbrenner's lessons was instruction in the quality
architecture imitated nature - whereby the primitive
of materials and their appropriate constructional hut was the essential building - he still postulated the
laws, beauty always remained independent of timber temple as a sort of type, or Urform, of all later
material for Weinbrenner. The neoclassical outline
architecture (Fig. 1). Unlike Laugier he posited the
drawing, whose conventions are upheld in the plates
development of architecture as the process of the
imitation
from which Weinbrenner's students copied (Fig. 4), of pure forms within the autonomous realm
contains the same modulus of ideal architectural of architecture. Thus, the tectonic perfection of Greek
beauty as a realised structure: trabeation was already fully formulated in timber
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before it was represented, i.e. imitated, in a more Greek architecture as a paragon of the rationalist
permanent material, marble. Hiibsch set out to exor- process of design, Hiibsch used it as a standard in
cise all such "mythical ideals". He was not con- evaluating later architectural history. Imitation and
cerned, however, to postulate an alternative first abstract rules of composition, the principles o
origin, but rather to challenge the very significance of contemporary neoclassicism, were, he maintained
first occurrences. There could be no symbolic primi- wholely alien to Greek architecture, which knew
tive ideal or essence, no unique architectural golden neither canons nor laws apart from those of static
age (Fig. 5). and materials. According to Hiibsch, the Romans
Likewise, the orders, an even more hallowed prin- were not only the historical exemplars of Hirt and
ciple of classical architectural theory, had no inherent Weinbrenner, but also the very originators of arbi
validity apart from that imparted by custom. This trary conventions, or "conventional lies" as he
refutation had, of course, recurred in French theory labelled them. In imitating Greek forms as decorative
since Perrault and was already suggested by Wein- articulation rather than structure, by making the
brenner himself (Uber die wesentliche Theile der Sdulen- order the embodiment of an abstract proportional
ordnungen, On the Essential Parts of the Orders, 1809). system, they had alienated architecture from natural
Hiibsch insisted, however, that the Greeks had not and direct expression:
even developed canons of proportion. They con-
sidered the column foremost as a structural element In such abstractions we must recognize [Roman architec-
ture] as the period in which architecture actually ceased to
and proportioned it according to its material, the
be true and real and began much more to become an optical
building programme, and the static laws of construc-
art, and in which architectural beauty on the whole could
tion. Columns represent neither absolute standardsonly
of be sought in details.
beauty, nor in their unique modes established
"characters" - a keynote of Hirtian aesthetics. As a
Roman architecture was, then, the source of the false
matter of progressive response to material conditions
understanding which took aesthetics, a human per-
and social demands, architecture was to be compre-ception, rather than constructional truth, a material
hended as a development; it was a dynamic system,
quality, as the formal architectural determinant.
not a static ideal. Forms were perfected over time Weinbrenner's
and teaching is clearly implicated in
could only be understood in the context of their Hiibsch's phrase "optical art", for Weinbrenner con-
historical progress. There was neither a primal sidered optics a fundamental aspect of the architect's
essence nor an ideal which could be abstracted from knowledge and training, claiming that "the aesthetic
history. content of a form is derived not only from geometrical
Hiibsch's attack on Hirt's central thesis was thus rendering, but also from habits of seeing".
not merely a refutation of Hirt's historical claims, but In distinguishing Greek from Roman architecture,
also a rejection of one of the fundamental principles of
Hiibsch did not, however, propose the substitution of
classical theory: the doctrine of imitation and the con-
one historical source for another, but rather argued
comittant belief in a transcendent ideal. He agreed for a radically different set of architectural principles
that Greek architecture represented a tectonic perfec-and concept of the architect's relationship to history.
tion of trabeation, but found absurd the claim He
that
did not propose a Greek Revival, as did Hirt and
this structural principle had been translated from
Weinbrenner. Depending as it did on unquestioned
wood into stone. Imitation, a static principle, was authority
no and inappropriate historical image-making,
more the generative factor of ancient architecture
Hiibsch considered modern neoclassicism to be "a
than it could be of contemporary architecture: "Whystyle of lies" and a "make-shift" affair, by implica-
should the architect tie himself to the past and chain
tion socially inappropriate and morally reprehensible.
his work thus to entirely alien shackles! Or howAcan contemporary style could only be ascertained by
evidence of the Beautiful ever be sought in Imita-
analyzing the present moment, its resources and
tion?"
requirements, and subsequently developing the
Hiibsch consented to Hirt's claims that certain
structural system most capable of fulfilling those
ornamental elements, such as guttae or mutules, needs. This logical procedure is the pursuit of
might be vestiges of wooden construction, which, Hiibsch's most famous work, In Welchem Style Sollen
having acquired a symbolic or metaphorical refer- Wir Bauen? (1828), the synthesis of his historical and
ence, were retained in stone construction. These theoretical debate with Hirt. As a plea for contem-
features could not be considered imitations, he in-
poraneity in art, it is the earliest manifesto calling for
sisted, but rather "souvenirs" or recollections of a search for the 'new' by assuming an analytical
earlier constructional elements now abstracted as
stance toward the past. Finally, offering a definition
decorative features. Even they, he claimed, of contri-
the Rundbogenstil as the appropriate response to the
buted to the Greeks' rationalized constructivism:question of style, the pamphlet was to serve as the
"These selections and re-uses of constructions as
programme for Hiibsch's first years as architectural
ornaments have the most intimate interplay with the in Karlsruhe, a post he assumed in 1827.
director
express sobriety of Greek art, and give that character
The analysis of Greek architecture is reiterated in
which one generally calls strength." Hiibsch's second polemical tract as the basis for a
Having thus in his 1822 pamphlet reconstituted
resounding condemnation of modern neoclassicism

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 i

I
L

4 ' .~ -? ?.."~~. - , ~ ?

'U~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~?:m.

Fig. 4. Friedrich Weinbrenner, Perspective Construction

Book 2, plate 36.

ciples for contemporary practice.

and as the dialectical counterpart to a They can only be
descriptio
mediaeval architecture. Post-classical architecture is understood as active historical forces within their
developmental context. Vaulting, the principle
analyzed according to the same rational principles
characteristic of mediaeval architecture, is not to be
previously applied to antique architecture, but
Hibsch considers the two styles as fundamentally
understood by reference to its perfected Gothic form
opposed structural systems. 'Style', indeed, alone;
for its logical principle reveals itself only by sur-
Hiibsch means simply an organically-developedveying
and the entire development. The progress of the
vault is the new theme of In Welchem Style Sollen Wir
complete structural system. There are thus only two
styles: trabeated and arcuated. These have each
Bauen? In Hiibsch's historical description the Gothic
known a single organic moment, i.e. Greek andsystem unfolds and the reader bears witness to the
Gothic, in which every element of the structure was
gradual genesis of a new style of architecture:
in perfect and inextricable accord with the form and
function of the whole. The opposition of GreekTheandsecond original style arose out of the debris of Roman
architecture; that is the Romanesque, which in exploiting
Gothic was, of course, traditional in French archi-
technical progress, but discarding outdated forms,
tectural theory, Gothic having been appreciateddeveloped
as a in accordance with new requirements.
structurally rational system even when its forms were
condemned as utter barbarisms. Even Weinbrenner The struggle between trabeation and arcuation in
saw Gothic as a structurally perfected style, but Roman
con- architecture, between Greek logic and a new
sidered it a closed historical chapter, uninstructivestructural
for form, had its synthetic fulfilment in the
modern architects. It was the Romantic appreciation Romanesque "in which all elements are formed
of German mediaeval architecture, especially organically
the from the vault, which was finally brought
emotive hymns to mediaeval monuments by Goetheto fruition in mediaeval architecture".
and Schlegel, which had initially inspired Hiibsch.
Romanesque vaulted architecture responded to new
needs, both social and constructional. It provided the
But he did not argue for a mediaeval style on associa-
tional or sentimental bases. Rather, Hiibsch's vast halls required by Christian worship and solved
method was analytical and derived from his philo- that need with a structural system based on the small
sophical background and historiographical viewpoint. stones available in Germany where marble is scarce.
Its historical origins were in Byzantine architecture
All styles are to be judged by common criteria; but the
lessons of style are not to be abstracted from history where
as the dome had been perfected and where
Hirt had sought to do in making them essential prin-architecture remained experimentally vital in contrast

THE OXFORD ARTJOURNAL - 5:2 1983 9

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 ,., _.. .
sketch contemporary needs and means. The form of
the new achitecture will thereby become evident. He
argues that historical "representation of the various
successive vaulting styles has of necessity indicated so
precisely those principles which must give form to the
new style that we cannot easily err". Hiibsch pro-
ceeds to outline the requirements of the modern
period: large spaces and consequent broad roof
spans, generously sized windows and entrances, and
so on. In short, he creates a conceptual "scaffold"
to describe the new architecture functionally without
specifying style or formal appearance. He is thus
able to conclude his analysis with a brisk, almost
breath-taking, ergo:

r % ,.
Everyone will immediately recognise that the new style has
* ..
- sC the most in common with the Rundbogenstil, indeed that in
essence it is the Rundbogenstil, as this would have become if
it could have developed totally free of all disadvantageous
^'' -^ -r:.. ~ .. reminiscences of antique architecture. This similarity
derives from the nature of the thing and is not the result of
authority or individual preferences... [In the Romanesque]
~c~.--,1-^
,/~ '
there is never a rule which only works for several cases or is
not by nature generally valid, which can be postulated as a
sweeping principle. Thus the art theory derived here bears
.;. ) A1 L
*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~:'w'.,. '; . ,,, S'
? X no relationship to those parlour theories which only touch
base with reality in a few points and which abstract rules
without testing them and then elevate them to general laws.

But Hibsch protests too vigorously. He is, of

course, at pains to make the prescription of a parti-
cular period as an analytical model seem integral with
his description of the rational generation of archi-
tectural form. Aesthetic preference has, indeed, inter-
Fig. 5. Heinrich Hiibsch, The
vened and Hiibsch is forced into embarrassing con-
tecture from temple to house, f
tortions to explain why the earlier Romanesque rather
tecture, plate 4, Heidelberg, 18
than the perfected Gothic should serve as the point of
to the departure for a modern vaulted style.
"impoverished His first
basili
Empire". recourse is to a 'Pre-Raphaelite'
Thus, Hiibsch's argument with direct
tracing the appeal
vault'sto his Nazarene sympathisers:
develop
Byzantine, and even Rom
order to see how
The Romanesque stands in a
relationstructu
[to the Gothic] like a
a new style.pre-Raphaelite
Functional and
picture to a post-Raphaelite; in the first the
the formative
faulty drawinginfluence
is bothersome, but in the latter, where this of
technical aspect hardly leaves anything
progress are to desire, one
theseeks in vain an
Hiibsch's for the sobering simplicity of the
history. first.
Aesthe
sophistry. The architect as a
mentioned. In Hiibsch's constructivist account of As early as 1823, Friedrich Schlegel, in revising his
architectural history buildings are accorded a degree
1803 Briefe auf einer Reise (Letters from a Journey),
of historical necessity and inevitability independent
based of
on his trip along the Rhine with the Boisserees,
particular agents (i.e., architects), which parallels
considered Romanesque to be more revealing of the
contemporary historicist theories of history. The
nature of mediaeval architecture than its more cele-
Greek and mediaeval are the final results of historicalbrated later phase, the Gothic. Indeed his text is one
processes larger than any given architect or historicalof the earliest in German to distinguish between the
moment. As two opposed structural principles whichtwo styles. Hiibsch viewed the Romanesque as an
nonetheless are historically related, they are analyti-especially flexible style, based on a consistent set of
cally comparable and form the strains from which aconstructional principles but composed or orna-
modern development might be synthesized. mented with a great diversity to suit different regions,
Having analyzed the determinist inevitability of materials, and even, a principle that Hiibsch was loth
Greek and mediaeval architecture as responses toto acknowledge, tastes. It provided that "strong
needs and materials and as an experimental questobjective skeleton... which the artist can bring to life
for the perfection of a structural system, Hiibsch has
through his own individuality."
now only to characterise the modern age, that is, to The need for a single style which can respond pro-

10 THE OXFORD ARTJOURNAL - 5:2 1983

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gressively to "the most varied tasks" is thus best was soon forgotten, and if the experimental Rund-
historically, but one, unlike the perfected Gothic, bogenstil was later obscured by the archaeological and
which would be, Hiibsch felt, capable of future devel- nationalistic Romanesque, especially in Hiibsch's
opment in contemporary hands. At the vital moment native Rhineland, Hiibsch's challenge had an endur-
of structural realisation, Romanesque was capable of ing effect on German architectural theory. Rejecting
further expansion and experimentation. Within the the idealism of neoclassical aesthetics, Hiibsch united
synthesising skeleton one could reconstitute the the tectonic understanding of Winckelmann, Hirt,
history of Gothic with reference to the principles of the and Weinbrenner with the material determinism of
antique, thus realising a modern synthesis of the two Rondelet and the rationalised aesthetic view point of
essential historical styles. Different arch forms, he Durand. Like those French theorists and like his con-
suggests, might be incorporated, such as pointed temporaries and mentors in Heidelberg, Hiibsch
arches, thereby revising the Gothic development, or refused all received truths. His most important contri-
segmental arches, the solution Hiibsch preferred in bution, the consequences of which he could not have
his own architecture as a formal synthesis of trabea- predicted, was to develop an architectural theory
tion and arcuation (e.g. Trinkhalle, Baden-Baden, based not on a privileged moment in history, but on
1837-40). Hiibsch even suggested that catenary all of history seen as a continous development.
arches might be introduced, a suggestion already Historicism, the common denominator of most
made by Wilhelm Tappe but not fully developed until nineteenth-century architectural theories, was the
the turn-of-the-century in the highly personal experi-
product of a new analytical understanding of history
ments of Antonio Gaudi in Barcelona. But Hiibsch itself, fostered by the development of art history as a
was not, as later Viollet-le-Duc, interested only in an
scientific discipline and the formulation of an Hege-
architecture of active forces in discrete members, lian
but philosophy of history. Hiibsch's compelling ques-
in developing a mural architecture which did not relytion - "In what style should we build?" - would
on a relief representation of trabeated or arcuated plague a century acutely concerned with defining its
systems. It is this interest which made his theory own
of relation to the past. While every conceivable ans-
wer was proffered, the standpoint of inquiry was
the Rundbogestil so attractive in a period requiring
architectural works on unprecedented urban and fundamentally altered. History, once understood as a
industrial scale and in a country where brick was the process, could be controlled, manipulated, and, in the
dominant, but still largely disdained, constructional words of contemporary writers, "developed". It
material: could, then, be the generator of the new, the distinctly
contemporary. A historical model could be criticised,
As truth should be the highest law in all art, one should notelaborated, and synthesised with other models seen as
obscure with sham construction the empty walls which arisestructurally compatible. The synthetic historicism of
out of a programme. One should emulate the ancient Henri Labrouste or Leon Vaudoyer in France, the
Greek and Romanesque styles in which the beauty andGothic Rationalism of Viollet-le-Duc's circle, the
opulence of walls is not sought in manifold projections, but
structural ethics of Pugin and his High Victorian suc-
rather in a careful and permanent construction and a pure
cessors in England, or even the German belief in the
working of the surfaces...
development of the native Gothic in G.G.Unge-
witter's theories, were all theoretical responses to the
Greek, Romanesque, and by extension, contem- fundamental questions of historicity and contempor-
porary architecture could be paralleled, not as aneity. If Hiibsch, like Durand, had opened Pan-
embodiments of formal characteristics, but as com- dora's box by subjugating all history to the same pro-
parable rational reponses to constructional laws andcess of analysis, he had also reunited the present with
social requirements. Emulation, not imitation, wasthe past. As a moment in a larger sequence of events,
the doctrine of the relativist historical philosophy.the present was structurally integral with the past. If
Hiibsch's formulation of the synthetic Rundbogenstil modern architecture was to be uniquely expressive of
was intentionally vague and open-ended. He offeredthe 'contemporary', its principles were still those of all
no formal description, only a methodological frame- rational design. Architecture, Hiibsch claimed, can
work. The architectural style of modern Germanybe reintegrated with the whole of society as a mass
would be as individual and as regionally-inflected asexpression rather than an elite prerogative:
the original Romanesque or the Greek. Like Ronde-
let, whose compendium, L'Art de Batir (1802-1803)Buildings will no longer have a conventional historical
remained the most cogent defence of material deter-
character, so that before feeling can be expressed, archaeo-
minism, Hiibsch's theory is ultimately independent oflogical instruction must be provided. They will, on the
any style. Not surprisingly it engendered no consis- contrary, have a truthful, natural character, whereby the
tent interpretation either in architectural theory or general public has the same feeling as the informed artist.
practice, not even among Hiibsch's pupils in Baden.
Hiibsch himself turned increasingly to an analysis of Repeatedly nineteenth-century architects would
Early Christian architecture as the most fruitful syn-seek to restore architecture to its throne as the prime
thesis of classical and Christian architecture, bothexpression of an entire society, as they considered it to
formally and symbolically. If his rationalist theoryhave been in Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Hiibsch
THE OXFORD ARTJOURNAL - 5:2 1983 11
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realised that architecture belongs not to an elite but to
the very mass of society which defines its programmes.
The answer to the question of style was increasingly
"the contemporary style", but its definition could
come only from historical reflection and reconsidera-
tion. Hiibsch was but one, albeit a very early, nine-
ponses to Hiibsch's text but circumscribes his importance by
treating him exclusively as the exponent of Rundbogenstil. The best
general discussion of Hiibsch's theory and biography is Joachim
G6ricke's Die Kirchenbauten des Architekten Heinrich Hiibsch, Karls-
ruhe, 1974, based on the author's thesis. The standard biography
remains Arthur Valdenaire, Heinrich Hiibsch. Eine Studie zur
Baukunst der Romantik, Karlsruhe, 1926.

teenth-century theorist who understood the present's For Hiibsch's intellectual development: Arnaldo Momigliano,
'Freidrich Creuzer and Greek Historiography', Journal of the War-
dialectical relationship with the past. It was not a
burg and Courtauld Institutes, 9, 1946, pages 152-163. Kurt Karl
question of freeing oneself from history, a course that Eberlein, 'Johann Freidrich Bohmer und die Kunstwissenschaft
would have been as disjunctive as imitating a mythical der Nazarener', in Festchrift fir Adolph Goldschmidt, Leipzig, 1923,
past. Architecture, like history itself, was a societal pages 126-138. On Historicism in general see especially Maurice
Mandelbaum, History, Man & Reason, Baltimore, 1971, and H.
process of change and accommodation. In positing a
Levin, Die Heidelberger Romantik, (Thesis), Munich, 1922. The best
non-imitative, structurally rational response, Hiibsch treatment of Weinbrenner remains Valdenaire's monograph,
sought rather to ground architecture firmly in the Friedrich Weinbrenner, Karlsruhe, 1919. Also Friedrich Weinbrenner,
historical process, to map out the means whereby the 1766-1826, catalogue of an exhibition, Karlsruhe Staatliche
architect could act appropriately. Architecture, Kunsthalle, 1977 (an abridged version was held in London at
the Architectural Association in June 1982 with a catalogue, intro-
Hiibsch concluded, like all human activity, "is princi-
duction by Barry Bergdoll). A complete bibliography of Hirt's
pally an historical art, however, not the archaeological publications is given in Ferdinand Denk, Das Kunstschine und
art many would like to make it". The wooden and Charakteristische von Winckelmann bis Freidrich Schlegel, Munich, 1925.
stone temples of antiquity were henceforth to be docu- Hirt's relationship to Goethe is mentioned in Goethe's Italienische
ments in the architectural classroom, not shrines in an Reise (Italian Journey, pp. 422-423 of Penguin edition) and in
historical museum or even the museum itself. their correspondence: G. Harnack (ed.) 'Zur Nachgeschicthe der
italienische Reise. Goethes Briefwechsel mit Freunden und Kunst-
genossen in Italien 1788-1790', in Schriften der Goethe-Gesellschaft, 5,
1890, and L. Geiger, 'Acht Briefe F.A. Wolffs, sieben Brief A.
Bibliographic Note Hirts, Vier Briefe Goethes an Hirt', Goethe Jahrbuch, 15, 1894,
Heinrich Hiibsch's principal writings are: Uber Griechische Archi-54-94.
tectur, Heidelberg, 1822; In Welchem Style Sollen Wir Bauen? (Beant- Hirt's earlier disputes with the antiquarians Steiglitz and Rode
wortet), Karlsruhe, 1828; Bau Werke, Karlsruhe, 2 volumes,
are to be found in David Gilly's Sammlung Niitzlicher Aufsdtze und
Nachrichten die Baukunst Betreffend, Berlin, 1797-1800.
1838-1853, Die Architektur und Ihr Verhaltnis zur heutigen Malerei und
Skulptur, Stuttgart, 1847, which is a much more complete and Hiibsch's letter to Georg Moller is reproduced in H.G. Sper-
lich and M. Fr6hlich, GeorgMoller, Darmstadt, 1959, p.32.
mature formulation of the argument of 1828 with a survey history
of architecture deeply influenced by Hegelian thought. Finally, Durand's influence in Germany has yet to be studied ade-
his Die Altchristliche Kirchen nach den Baudenkmalen... Karlsruhe,quately. His textbook was published in Karlsruhe in 1831 as Abriss
1862-1863, presents the Early Christian churches of Rome which der Vorlesungen iiber Baukunst. The most recent discussion of
Durand's theories is Werner Szambien, 'Durand and the conti-
were increasingly Hiibsch's historical ideal after his conversion to
Roman Catholicism. nuity of tradition' in R. Middleton, (ed.) The Beaux-Arts and Nine-
Hiibsch's theoretic position is best treated by Dagmar Wask6nig teenth-century French Architecture, London, 1982, pp.18-33. J.B.
in his 'Konstruktion eines zeitgemassen Stils zur Beginn der Traite theorique et pratique de l'art de bdtir was first pub-
Rondelet's
Industrialiserung in Deutschland', in Monika Steinhauserlishedand in 1802-3. It is discussed in R. Middleton and D. Watkin,
Michael Brix, Geschichte allein ist Zeitgemass, Lahn-Giessen,
Neoclassical and Nineteenth-Century Architecture, New York, 1980. On
1978, pages 93-105, which seeks to place Hiibsch's position Laugier
in its see Wolfgang Hermann, Laugier and Eighteenth-Century
social context of the rising bourgeoisie. Klaus D6hmer, in "In Theory, London, 1962. For Schinkel's critique of Hirt see
French
Welchem Style Sollen Wir Bauen": Architekturtheorie zwischen Klassizis-
Goerd Peschken, Das Architektonische Lehrbuch (Schinkel Lebens-
mus und Jugendstil, Munich, 1976, summarizes the critical res- Munich and Berlin, 1979, pp. 28-30.
werk),

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