Review

Reviewed Work(s): Gottfried Semper, 1803-1879. Architektur und Wissenschaft by

Gottfried Semper
Review by: Oya Atalay Franck
Source: Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians , Mar., 2005, Vol. 64, No. 1
(Mar., 2005), pp. 100-102
Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Society of Architectural
Historians

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25068126

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Exhibitions
Gottfried Semper, 1803-1879.
Architektur und Wissenschaft
Architekturmuseum der TU M?nchen
at the Pinakothek der Moderne,
Munich
4 June-31 August 2003
Museum f?r Gestaltung, Zurich
1 November 2003-25 January 2004
Together with Karl Friedrich Schinkel,
Gottfried Semper (1803-1879) was the
most important German architect of the
nineteenth century. A native of Ham
burg, Semper first studied mathematics,
archaeology, history, and applied
hydraulics in G?ttingen, then architec
ture in Munich and Paris. After the cus
tomary years of study in Italy and
Greece, where he spent considerable
effort investigating the use of poly
chromy in ancient monuments (an
intensively discussed topic at that time),
in 1834 Semper received a call to come
to the Akademie der bildenden K?nste
in Dresden. Forced to leave that city
again in 1849 because of his political
activities in the context of the bourgeois
revolution, Semper traveled through
various European cities before being
appointed professor of architecture at
the newly founded Eidgen?ssisch Tech
nische Hochschule (ETH) in Zurich in
1855, a post he held until 1871. In the
approximately twenty years before his
death in Rome at the age of seventy-five,
Semper received important commissions
for projects in Dresden, Munich,
Vienna, and many other European cities.
Today, Semper's fame is based as
much if not more on his writings as an
architectural historian and theoretician as
on his building activities. His encompass
ing theories on architecture and culture
100
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were without parallel in the German lan
guage and laid the foundations for the
influential German and Austrian archi
tectural theoreticians of the late nine
teenth and early twentieth century,
especially August Schmarsow, and for
architects such as Hendrik Petrus
Berlage, Adolf Loos, Joze Plecnik, and
Otto Wagner. Semper's ideas about style,
"material transformation" (Stoffwech
seltheorie), and the "theory of dressing"
(Bekleidungstheorie), which he developed
during his years in exile in Paris and Lon
don, are of relevance and interest even for
contemporary architects.
Until recently, however, Semper's
reception outside German-speaking
Europe was limited because his architec
tural production was restricted almost
exclusively to Austria, Germany, and
Switzerland. Also, his most important
theoretical works were never, or only
with considerable delay, translated into
other languages, such as English or
French. (For the reception of Semper in
the English-speaking realm, the transla
tions and comments of Harry Francis
Mallgrave and of Wolfgang Herrmann
have been of great importance. The
most recent addition to the catalogue of
Semper's texts in English is a translation
of "Der Stil" by Mallgrave and Michael
Robinson [Los Angeles, 2004]). Even in
Central Europe there were considerable
gaps in the research on Semper. The
most complete overview so far on his
built oeuvre, for example?the provi
sional catalogue by Claus Zoege von
Manteuffel?was published in 1952.
Indeed, in the twentieth century, the
interest in Semper diminished consider
ably before gaining momentum again
toward the end of the century with a
major exhibition in Dresden in 1979 and
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several monographs, including the criti
cal catalogue of the zeichnerische Nachlass
(drawings stored in the archives of the
ETH Zurich), published by Birkh?user
and the Institut f?r Geschichte und The
orie der Architektur (gta institute) in
1974. The earlier lack of interest cer
tainly had to do with the fact that, unlike
the theoretician, the architect Semper
had never been considered a forefather
of the modern movement.
The prospect of the two-hundredth
anniversary of Semper's birth in 2003,
however, provided the Architekturmu
seum der TU M?nchen and the gta insti
tute at the ETH in 2000 with the
occasion to start a collaborative study
project on Semper. Its goal was to review
the latest state of research on the archi
tect and to deliver to the public an objec
tive and accurate image. One outcome of
this enterprise is the impressively
detailed and luxuriously illustrated publi
cation Gottfried Semper, 1803-1891.
Architektur und Wissenschaft, edited by
Winfried Nerdinger and Werner Oechs
lin. This volume contains fifteen essays
by Semper scholars on various aspects
and phases of his work, as well as an
extensive and purportedly complete cat
alogue of Semper's buildings and proj
ects. The research also resulted in an
exhibition held in the summer of 2003 at
the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich
and, with considerable alterations and
additions, in the winter of 2003-4 at the
Museum f?r Gestaltung in Zurich. One
of the differences between the two exhi
bitions was the result of the Zurich cura
tors' slightly divergent views with regard
to Semper's theoretical work. As the pri
mary goal of the show was to visualize
Semper's thought processes, modifica
tions were unavoidable.
 the spatial experience of the exhibition
and to the theoretical implications of this
particular project. The ship was a refer
ence not to the monumental but to the
utilitarian Semper, who with its design
had made a curious and picturesque con
tribution to the architecture of the city.
Furthermore, the laundry ship gave an
"architectural" face to some of Semper's
most radical?and most modern?con
cepts, such as the "theory of dressing"
and the polychromy of buildings. In fact,
the rich coloring of the laundry ship ties
back to an earlier work of Semper, the
decoration of one of the halls of the so
called Japanisches Palais in Dresden,
which was designed in a Pompeian style.
In other aspects, too, particularly
the choice of materials, the laundry ship
occupies a peculiar and singular position
Installation view of Semper exhibition, Museum f?r Gestaltung, Zurich. Photograph courtesy
in the oeuvre of Semper, who stated that

of Burkhalter + Sumi Architects; Heinrich Helfenstein, photographer

architecture was governed by four pri
mary materials: clay, wood, cloth, and
stone. Each was connected to a specific
technique, which in turn had a corre
The Zurich presentation, curated by On entering the gallery at the sponding architectural element. Thus,
Oechslin and Sonja Hildebrand and Museum f?r Gestaltung (part of the clay was linked with ceramics and the
designed by Burkhalter + Sumi Archi Kunstgewerbeschule complex, which is hearth. Wood and its technique (in Sem
tects of Zurich, was outstanding in many itself a key work of Swiss modernism of per's vocabulary, "tectonics")?carpen
respects, not only because of its selection the 1930s), the visitor entered Semper's try?were related to the roof of a
of drawings, models, and objects, but also cosmos. A large, rectangular space was building. Cloth and weaving referred to
for its overall concept and organization. subdivided by large panels, painted in the enclosure of a building. Stone,
The exhibition's layout was simple and luminous red and blue, that served as finally, by means of masonry (in Sem
straightforward. The center of the rec backdrops to the exquisite displays. As a per's term, "stereotomy") provided for
tangular gallery was dedicated to Sem special effect, the theoretical section at the substructure of a building.
per's theoretical work, which was the core of the exhibition was embedded Semper did not consider metal a
explored through texts and illustrations, in a space within a space. This was basi primary material. He was highly suspi
including his publications as well as cally an abstracted reconstruction on a cious of the visible application of iron in
copies of books by others that are known 1:1 scale of the Treichler laundry ship, a monumental architecture, tolerating it
to have formed part of his library. Besides design that holds a unique position in only in technical-utilitarian buildings
explaining the key concepts of Semper's Semper's oeuvre. This project from the such as the halls covering the platforms
theory, the purpose of this display was to early 1860s, commissioned by (and of railroad stations. The use of T-shaped
give an idea of the frame of mind of the named after) a local entrepreneur, was iron beams for the structural skeleton
theoretician, against which the architect's
basically a small floating factory docked and of sheet metal for the outer skin of
designs were viewed. The four sides of "permanently" on the shores of the Lim the laundry ship conforms with this
the space were devoted to important mat River where it enters the city from notion, as the ship's purpose was utili
projects from the main phases of Sem Lake Zurich. On the lower level of the tarian rather than monumental.
per's professional career?Dresden, his ship were the areas where the laundry As mentioned above, with the
exile in Paris and London, Zurich, and was washed, while those for drying and Treichler laundry ship Semper was also
Vienna. The primary focus in these sec ironing were on the upper level. able to illustrate the principles of ancient
tions was on his main building endeav The decision to reconstruct the polychromy, painting the sheet-metal
ors?theaters, city halls, churches and Treichler laundry ship as a receptacle for walls of the superstructure according to
synagogues, and museums?with a sec Semper's theoretical work was particu Pompeian wall painting. He found this
ondary focus on his urban projects. larly apt and clever, both in relation to style particularly well suited to this proj

EXHIBITIONS 101

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Installation view of Semper exhibition, Museum f?r Gestaltung, Zurich. Photograph courtesy
of Burkhalter + Sumi Architects; Heinrich Helfenstein, photographer
ect, because it combined a lightweight
architecture with constructions in wood,
iron, and bronze.
To contemporary architects, such
issues are perhaps of greater interest
than the very profound and certainly
accurate, but rather hermetic, historical
analysis of Semper's architectural devel
opment presented in the exhibition.
This was possibly the show's biggest
shortcoming: the lack of references
regarding the importance of Semper's
work for today. It was not an oversight,
but the deliberate intention of the cura
tors not to focus on the relevance of
Semper's oeuvre?architectural and the
oretical?as an impulse for protomodern
and modern architecture, nor on the rel
evance of his ideas for current architec
tural tendencies. These issues had been
discussed in various contexts, including
two symposia held in Bad Muskau, Ger
many, in 2001, and in Zurich and Ein
siedeln, Switzerland, in 2002, and in
panel discussions accompanying the
exhibition. The curators also tried to
avoid "simple explanations" and "gener
alized recipes" that would provide a pop
102 JSAH / 64:1, MARCH 2005
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always seemed to be detached from each
other for him, leading almost separate
lives. Semper's buildings hardly ever
lived up to the inherent radicality of
some of his key concepts, such as the
notion of the differentiation between
load-bearing and spatial separation,
which can be found in his analyses on the
origin of the wall, or his idea that form is
more persistent than material. The exhi
bition in Zurich was equally unable to
reconcile these two seemingly disparate
aspects of Semper's thinking. Neverthe
less, the show clearly demonstrated
Semper's significance and the richness of
his oeuvre as an architect and theoreti
cian, presenting and analyzing his archi
tectural, urbanistic, and conceptual work
with great precision and obvious admi
ration.
OYA ATALAY FRANCK
ETH, Zurich
Publication related to the exhibition:
Winfried Nerdinger and Werner Oechslin, eds.,
Gottfried Semper, 1803-1879. Architektur und Wis
sensch?ft, Munich: Prestel; Zurich: gta, 2003, 520
ular, quick, but superficial understand pp., 300 color and 240 h/w illus. 75, ISBN 3-7913
ing of Semper, presenting instead a care 2885-9
fully differentiated historical analysis of
his architectural and theoretical work.
Still, the fact that the exhibition had
such a decidedly inward and historio Ladislav Sutnar: Design in Action
graphical focus was in some ways regret Riding Hall of the Prague Castle
table since Semper's architectural 20 June-9 November 2003
style?a rather heavy historicism quite
contrary, for example, to the reduced Museum f?r Gestaltung, Zurich
classicism of his peers Schinkel 6 March-2 May 2004
(1781-1841) and Leo von Klenze
(1784-1864)?seems to conceal rather Neues Museum, Staatliches
than illustrate his theoretical and con Museum f?r Kunst und Design in
ceptual ideas. It is in these ideas, how N?rnberg
ever, that architects practicing today 9 July-19 September 2004
might find highly interesting points of
reference for their own efforts. In this After a first attempt, starting in the
respect, the Zurich Semper exhibition 1960s, to historicize the modern move
was more by historians for historians and ment of the early twentieth century,
less for current practitioners. there were several efforts to broaden this
Semper was an extraordinary figure record by finding lost or forgotten pio
in the history of Central European neers of modernism. The retrospective
architecture, not only because of his devoted to the avant-garde designer
architectural production and his life as Ladislav Sutnar?the version under
an inexhaustible migrant, but also for his review here was held at the Museum f?r
vast and influential theoretical work. Gestaltung, Zurich, in the spring of
Architecture and theory, however, 2004?successfully filled in a piece miss
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