Review: In Semper style

Reviewed Work(s): Gottfried Semper: In Search of Architecture by Wolfgang Herrmann

Review by: John McKean
Source: AA Files , Autumn 1985, No. 10 (Autumn 1985), pp. 108-110
Published by: Architectural Association School of Architecture

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/29543484

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relationships. Taliesin have released two interesting 'Come on, Semper!' shouts Richard Wagner,
and hitherto little-known plans, projects for the depicted in Tony Palmer's romantic Technicolor, as
Cooper house (1887) showing Wright's involvement the two comrades man Dresden's revolutionary bar?
in diagonal composition and his knowledge of ricades in 1849. But, despite their being expertly
Viollet-le-Duc's butterfly plan, and for the US designed by the same Gottfried Semper, the bar?
Embassy in Tokyo (1914), confirming Wright's ricades cannot prevent the rout, after six days, of this
underlying neo-classical tendencies. The book will popular uprising. Wagner and Semper flee their sep?
attract student and general readership. arate ways, strange, lonely and uneasy characters. As
These two new Wright titles happily avoid the Wagner was to say in his memoirs, 'an obvious deep
tendency, elsewhere rampant in current architectural and serious interest combined to unite us, and at the
writing, of building impenetrable and wilfully same time totally isolate us from the rest of society'.
obscure theoretical constructions upon the slightest As one of the handful of really important
and most general observation of actual buildings. By nineteenth-century architectural theorists alongside,
contrast with criticism in the field of literature, little say, Viollet-Le-Duc and Ruskin, there stands the dif?
reference is made to the detailed text It is to be hoped ficult, always slightly out of focus figure of Gottfried
that, should the Archives become accessible, future Semper. Having read this new book, I still feel that
any portrait has to be pieced together from the
studies of Wright can use the allied tools of anthro?
faceted clues, which certainly don't fit to make an
pology and cultural history to demonstrate the value
of his work in approaching today's architectural unambiguous image. Between the lines of Herr?
hiatus. mann's text (for he'd never let the academic mask
John Sergeant drop far enough to hint at such a judgement), Semper
appears deeply alienated, with a well developed per?
secution complex.
In Semper style In 1857 an old friend, having met Semper in
Switzerland, wrote home: he is 'through and
Gottfried Semper: In Search of Architecture through peevish [vergamelt], with his hatred of the
by Wolfgang Herrmann world and mankind always on his tongue ? but
MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1985 always perspicacious'. Neither this thumbnail sketch
320 pages, ?41.95,0-262-08144-x nor the remark by Wagner, each illuminating facets
of Semper's character, actually appears in Herr?
mann's dry tome; I have them from footnotes to
almost the only other writing on Semper in English,
short essays respectively by Joseph Rykwert and
Nikolaus Pevsner.1
But Semper's work is as difficult as his personality
to get into focus. No translator and publisher has
ever managed to conquer his incomplete master?
piece, Der Stil, for the English language ? or indeed
almost any other of his writings. I would bet that for
every thousand in the English-speaking world who
know the name and have an inkling of his ideas (and
there are not that many anyway), only a handful
have looked at the two completed volumes of Der
Stil, and only one has read them. And what has that
reader made of this convoluted, contradictory, ram?
bling story which never seems to reach the point? Of
a book that the battle-hardened Germanic academic
Pevsner calls 'long, incomplete and far from lucid',
wherein, as Herrmann now adds, 'in addition he
often left the meaning intentionally vague'?
Yet Der Stil remains potent. Rykwert can draw
fascinating ideas from it, and argued recently that 'the
enormous intellectual effort which the creation of
Semper's great work involved has not been fully
appreciated', and that 'Semper's great insight [is]
invaluable and urgent'. So we need to judge it for
ourselves, in English. Sadly, Bernard Maybeck's pro?
posed translation of Der Stil, though announced in
1891, never appeared. Apart from some dusty manu?
scripts in the Victoria and Albert Museum, about the
only Semper in English until now, astonishingly, has
been a translation by another fine and idiosyncratic
American designer, J. W. Root, of Semper's 'Uber
Baustyle', published in Inland Architect (vols xiv
and xv, 1889-90) as 'Development of Architectural
1871. Styles'.
Portrait of Gottfried Semper, by William Unger,
(Kupfersttchkabinett, Dresden/ What, then, about his buildings? We know his
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Dresden Opera, now spick and span again, and have
a vague image perhaps of a stodgy museum or of the
Eidgen?ssische Technische Hochschule at Zurich;
but he was surely not a designer of the first rank?
While Rykwert dismisses 'his flaccid belief in the
continuity of the Renaissance as a movement and
style', and talks of his 'slack and undistinguished...
architecture practice', Pevsner calls him 'the greatest
Central-European representative of the neo?
Renaissance'. And now Herrmann's monograph
shows barely any interest in the architectural practice
of a man whom Pevsner called 'the most important
German architect of his time'.2 So there is a Semper
for all seasons of critic.
What really was his importance? Semper's ideas
have assumed almost talismanic value in the world of
Anglo-Saxon architectural ideas as the most import?
ant figure we know nothing about, and thus a secret
weapon of the initiated, Germanic theorist ? his key
role hinted at in lectures and essays, or quoted in the
context of fin-de-siecle Vienna, where that other
Wagner also took a keen interest in Der Stil? At last
we have an English language monograph, Gottfried
Semper: In Search of Architecture and, inevitably,
much is expected of it. Having read the book, I must
conclude with sad exasperation that Semper con?
tinues to evade our grasp. He seems also to evade
Herrmann's grasp. Perhaps both his life and his ideas
evaded Semper's own grasp. Semper obscurus, semper
idem}
The first problem is one of sheer stamina. Wolf?
gang Herrmann has jumped, has slumped rather,
into exactly the trap set for one writing about a dif?
ficult, even boring author: he mimics the master's
worst faults. His book is lumpish, incoherent and
misshapen; while Semper's problem with a super?
abundance of source material is typical of his era,
Herrmann mimics this too.
On his opening page, Herrmann apologizes:
'Semper affects, in Pevsner's words, "a literary style
which can be horrible".' This is a useful warning
for what is to come. But it warns in another way as
well, for what Pevsner actually wrote was 'terrible',
not 'horrible'. For all Herrmann's myopic concern
with myriad manuscripts and papers and trans?
lations, a simple misquotation like this sends an ever
so slight shudder through our confidence in his
structures.
The first section offers dollops of biographical data,
some immense detail, some yawning gaps, and no
obvious structure. It is a biographical sketch which
starts with Semper already head of the architecture
school at Dresden, but it discusses neither his build?
ings nor his teaching, and has left Dresden for good
within a few pages; it ends amidst the sticky ifs and
buts of his inability to produce his theoretical master?
piece. The second, much shorter, part begins to look
at the content of Semper's writings, based on Herr?
mann's intimate knowledge of the archive of Semper
manuscripts in Zurich. He concentrates much more
on the unpublished works than those Semper com?
pleted and got printed. This of course would have
been a bonus, had he been writing in a language in
which Semper's published works could be read.
Rather like Der Stil itself, therefore, this book is in
two parts, waiting for a third to make sense of it all.
But the parallel happily fails when we see that a third
10
and most useful section is added as an appendix.
Longer than the book's second section, it offers
translations of five previously unpublished Semper
manuscripts, which are the texts Herrmann has most
used in his earlier discussion of Semper's aesthetic
theory in part two. Their value seems dispropor?
tionate, I suspect, because we have no access to Der
Stil; but there remain many fascinating suggestions
therein.
To explain why the book takes the form it does, we
must turn to its most tersely informative page, the
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data.
We find that it 'consists of material originally pub?
lished in Gottfried Semper im Exil (1978), pages 9-124,
and in Gottfried Semper: Theoretischer Nachlassan der
ETH Z?rich, Katalog und Kommentare (1981), pages
12-68,180-190,196-204, 217-249', and that only very
brief introductions to each part have been newly
written to cement the package into one.
To return to the very beginning, the dust jacket
shows (without caption) a perspective of Semper's
design for a synagogue in Paris. This project is not
illustrated inside the book, where its context alone is
briefly mentioned (pp. 21-2). In black text on deep
purple, the front flap offers a fount of similarly mis?
leading information. We learn of Der Stils influence
on Berlage, Otto Wagner, Bruno Taut, Gropius and
others, as well as on Sullivan and Maybeck across the
Atlantic. We learn that 'Gottfried Semper was the
most admired German architect after Schinkel'; that
'his buildings... were outstanding examples of their
kind'; that he 'was arguably the nineteeth century's
most important theoretician', who has remained un?
translated because of 'his subtlety' and 'difficult
German'. We learn that Der Stil has been 'a basic
source of ideas for architects' and 'had a profound
impact'. None of these names, from Berlage to Sul?
livan, touches the book again; Semper's work as an
architect is not considered at all, and nothing inside
would let one suspect that 'Gottfried Semper was the
most admired architect in Germany'.
To say that 'the subtlety of his [Semper's]
thought. . . [has] kept... his contribution from
being assessed until now' makes assumptions which
the book does not fulfil, and the comment that
'Herrmann analyzes... in particular his major work,
Der Stily is really misleading. David Watkin recom?
mends the book (on the dust jacket) as 'a profound
and scholarly work'. Certainly the first part shows a
very careful, even fanatical, burrowing in archives
and thumbing over of mounds of primary sources; a
wealth of intriguing detail, but nothing profound,
nothing scholarly. Only in the shorter second part
do some ideas begin to be teased out, but the two
parts still do not make a coherent book.
So we have to take on trust the comment that
'among the previously unpublished manuscripts that
conclude the book is material essential to a clear
understanding of the ideas developed in Der Stil.' We
can't argue, as Herrmann has revealed so little of Der
Stil itself. Without at least setting out Semper's
magnum opus as a text with some structure and mean?
ing (rather than just as part of a troubled life) ? and
even Rykwert's essay is more helpful here ? it is
crazy to present this kind of gloss on an unavailable
text. It would have been much more useful for MIT
Press to have asked Herrmann to produce an edition
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A pagefrom the original manuscript of 'Der Stil.
(Semper Archive, Zurich).
of Der Sfr7, as introduction, annotation and notes to
which he could have used most of this text of his
own. That would have been a real service, as well as
valuing Herrmann's scholarship more profoundly.
In a very different way this volume is, as David
Watkin says on the flyleaf, 'essential reading for all
interested in the development of architectural think?
ing in the modern world.' Yes, but as a source of
wonder at the person of Semper, and at his culture, at
the obsessional, voracious and taxonomic psyche of
that moment, and its place in the vortex of mid
nineteenth-century ideas.
This book is not a biography. While Herrmann
seems unsure of what kind of book he is trying to
write, it is clearly not his interest to make imaginative
use of the fascinating biography of character which
stares out of the archives at him.
Two examples of Semper's pathological indecision
are worth recounting. After his exile from Dresden
he longed to leave Europe, and planned to go to the
United States and start a school of architecture. Not
just a vague udea ? he worked it out, finally telling
everyone he was leaving. Having sent his luggage on
ahead to New York, on 18 September 1850 he boards
the ship at Le Havre to leave in the morning for the
New World. That evening, however, he receives a
letter forwarded from a certain Dr Braun (whom he
doesn't know) in Rome. Braun can offer him work
in Europe, and suggests a meeting in Paris in a few
days' time. Semper gets off the boat. Braun writes
again: 'Sorry, I've had to go to Scotland for a funeral,
what about meeting in London?' Semper replies:
'No, for I must now sail for New York on the 29th.'
On the 28th, Semper arrives in London ? where he
stays for years.
A classic case of indecisive, blocked behaviour
vacillating between two poles. An almost identical
pattern, years later, is also documented. Still in Lon?
don, and having finally landed an adequate post (he'd
turned down the offer to assist Paxton, had ? as
10 109
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always ? been accident-prone with projects, and was
convinced British architects were against him), he
was invited to be professor of architecture in Zurich.
Semper, always having complained about lack of
recognition in London, was flattered. But when
interviewed and actually offered the post, he hesi?
tated as usual. Finally, when Semper was being
pressed to accept, Prince Albert asked Cole if Semper
could be commissioned to design a museum complex
for South Kensington. Semper settled down in
London to this task, but the designs were rejected by
the Board of Trade, and thereafter he finally left for
Zurich. ('Here ends the tale of Semper's exile', says
Herrmann, which seems a rather myopic comment,
and not just because Switzerland is a land of exiles.) A
year later Semper is petitioning Cole to get back his
job in London, moaning, 'I shall for ever be excluded
in monotonous Zurich'. Cole, enthusiastic, arranges
that building commissions in South Kensington shall
go with the teaching commitments. Semper says yes;
but when given three months to decide, he wavers ?
he is (in his own words this time) 'again in the same
agonizing uncertainty'. Finally he says yes. T shall
probably leave Switzerland quite soon', he writes to
his brother on i November 1857, m another letter
that week complains that the Swiss are demeaning
and humiliating him at ETH Zurich. At the very last
minute, Semper changes his mind, and stays in
Zurich for the rest of his career.
There is the material for a fascinating study there,
surely! The parallel history of Semper's great theor?
etical work, which Herrmann outlines in some
detail, is worth outlining briefly here. At the age of 31,
Semper was commissioned to write a Theory of Build?
ing Types. The publisher had great faith and kept en?
couraging him, but for five years he did not even
start. After the 1849 Dresden uprising he abandoned
his family and career, leading a rootless, self-pitying
existence, unable to find work despite much assist?
ance, and constantly preoccupied by his lack of
success, in Paris, Ghent, Greece, the Near East,
Switzerland, anywhere ? until he got on the boat for
America.
Semper's publisher caught up with him in Paris
and continued to encourage his production of the
promised book. As a carrot he agreed, on Semper's
request, also to publish Semper's 'thoughts on art and
politics' ? which must naturally have been a pre?
occupation of the moment. But this never appeared
either. Slowly the Building Types was begun. Semper
seemed to hate writing, calling it an 'obligation' and
bemoaning its 'tying me to Europe'. Yet he wrote
this at a time when he hadn't touched it for months.
The publisher, at his wits' end but still sending his
depressed and blocked author money and encourage?
ment, wrote: 'only, for God's sake, a beginning first,
then your courage and enthusiam will revive!'
Gradually the project took off; it was renamed
Comparative Building Theory, and Semper sent 380
pages to the publisher. But only fragments of the
book, however bulky, were ever completed ? the
first twelve of a projected sixty or seventy sections.
Three of the five manuscript fragments which Herr?
mann offers are from this work. The first clarifies
(and classifies) thoughts on current architectural
design ? he designates contemporary designers as
'historians', 'aestheticians', or 'materialists'. The
second sets out his theory of the basic elements of Again, early in 1870, he said it was finished and only
Notes
architecture: the hearth, roof, mound and enclosure. needed a final revision.
A third begins to elaborate his best known idea, that When the publisher received nothing of the prom? 1. Joseph Rykwert, 'Semper and the Conception of
of the primacy of the woven fabric origin of the wall ised manuscript, he forced a new contract, with a cut? Style', in The Necessity ofArtifice (1982): translation of
over the structural frame, and all the ideas of decor?
off date; it too came and went. He threatened legal part of footnote 48, p. 139; Nikolaus Pevsner, 'Semper',
ation and style which come from that. action, to no avail. He suggested a collaborator, and chapter in Some Architectural Writers of the Nineteenth
His publisher remained amazingly long-suffering Semper replied promptly that he 'seriously had it in Century (1972): Eduart Derrient quoted in footnote 3a,
all through the years in London, and Semper kept mind to undertake the work*. Throughout 1872 there p. 253.
reassuring him. For example, in 1855, only two weeks were urgent requests for delivery and promises in 2. Nikolaus Pevsner, A History of Building Types (1976),
after taking up his professorship in Zurich, he writes reply. The publisher could put off the public no p. 84.
a letter saying that the new post will bring him 'the longer with vague promises: his new catalogue would 3. See, for example, Wilfried Wang, 'Modernism and
peace and leisure that alone will enable' him to get have to refer to Semper's inability to produce. Now Truth: Wagner and Loos', AIII Times, no. 5, spring 1985.
the book together. The publisher, bowing to the in? Semper's abject self-abasement repeated his cry of
evitable, agrees to the idea of bringing it out in instal? twenty-five years earlier. Then, to the first publisher,
ments. He then receives the large opening chunk ? he'd written: 'Shall I try to say anything in my
four hundred pages of text and a hundred drawings defence? I would come off badly over it'. Now it was:
made directly on wooden blocks, all in a wooden box 'Any attempt to justify myself would be in vain
? and arranges to visit Semper in Zurich to discuss ... I alone am to be blamed in this matter'. He also
publication. Meanwhile, Semper is offering it behind claimed to be working hard on it.
his back to another publisher, from whom he We next see Semper, as a pretext for extracting
demands an agreement by telegram to their deal just himself from volume three, deciding to sue the pub?
as the faithful original publisher is about to appear. lisher for changes made in the first two volumes. The
He plays off one against the other, almost as if following year, in 1873, having been asked to permit
unaware of what is driving him. The new man, in a reprinting of volumes one and two, he agrees only
ignorance of the old friend who has not only sup? on the condition that he be released from producing
ported Semper for years but of course has this draft volume three. Now in his seventies, he argues that
manuscript, agrees to a higher payment. Semper then the first two volumes are complete in themselves.
vacillates, declaring that he didn't intend to suggest Finally, after messy legal proceedings from all sides,
that it was a contract, and turns back to his old friend, the publisher releases his rights to the third volume
sending to greet his arrival in Switzerland a note and waives damages for its undelivered manuscript.
blustering that he's been offered more, and calling for The first two volumes are reprinted, and Semper can
either his manuscript back or more money to match die. The publisher immediately begins searching for
the new offer. His long-suffering friend, shocked and this almost complete third volume; each of Semper's
hurt, has had enough. He turns for home before they two sons, also convinced it exists, concludes that the
even meet, keeping the wooden box and its contents. manuscript must be in his brother's half of the estate.
Semper clearly hoped that the old friend would But, of course, Semper has not written it.
return the manuscript and that he could 'start again' Parallel to and linked with the content, this tale is
with a clean slate (no background of guilt and delays) fascinating, for it is this content, alongside Gottfried
and with a new publisher. His whining was in turn Semper's personality, which surely could tell us as
pathetic, offensive and threatening. There followed much about why the volume was not, perhaps could
two years of legal battles, and even the suggestion not have been, completed. Was he aware that it was
that he should compromise by writing a book for an impossible task? But Herrmann neither develops
each publisher simultaneously, a chapter for one, any depth or insight into the biography nor links it
then one for the other. But Semper only had one to the context of his work in any way. The theories
book in him, however much it kept changing and are hardly mentioned throughout the story; we keep
growing throughout the years. The original title being told that things are 'fascinating', that 'much is
could no longer be used, as there was still the pre? new and of interest today', just as we were told his
tence that he could continue that book for the first buildings were 'masterly'. We are never given the
publisher. The magnum opus began to take shape data, far less an interpretation of them to let these
under Semper's new title: Practical Aesthetics. Finally, adjectives go beyond just teasing us. Yet there is fas?
in 1859, the first of two volumes appeared under the cinating theoretical material. Rykwert's essay and
publisher's title of Style. But as work on volume two parts of Herrmann's second section make sugges?
progressed it became clear that a discussion of the tions, and the manuscripts Herrmann offers raise
present situation in architecture ? which would hold even more.
the key to the whole?would have to be relegated to Finally, it is monstrous, and ironic, that a volume
a third volume. so weighed down with the awful details of publishing
It was never written. The pattern of stalling was costs, travails and difficulties (for Der Stil) should be
repeated with the new publisher, as Semper kept so small, so unattractive, so crudely stuck together
squirming to avoid facing the central issue. Volume without even the overlaps ironed out, so poorly illus?
two was lengthened, but finally finished in 1861. Now trated, and should sell for ?42.
to the main thing! But the nerve was not there. Fif? The Semper manuscripts are fascinating. We must
teen more years of promises, excuses and publishers' thank Wolfgang Herrmann for rescuing them and
entreaties produced nothing. Semper claimed to have translating them for us. Can he possibly be encour?
finished it in 1864 (in a letter in terms almost identical aged now to take heart and tackle Der Stil itself? It
to the one written fifteen years earlier to the first would be an undertaking of great and timely value.
publisher). He claimed that the manuscript was
JohnMcKean
destroyed in Dresden, then that he'd burned it.

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