Gottfried Semper and the Problem of Historicism

Hvattum, Mari

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511497711

Cited by 44 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…He distinguished between two schools of thought in the eclectic architecture at the time: the typological eclecticism which was prevalent in the public building architecture, and is based on a view that a certain type of building must be expressed using the language of one appropriate historical style; and the syn-aleksandar kadijević thesizing eclecticism, characteristic of both public and privately-owned buildings, where the elements of di erent styles are present in equal measure (Mignot 1994: 100-101 (Babić 1960: 8). On his teaching, research, designing, and theoretical activities, see: Babić 1960: 8-10;Dobrović 1965: 95-102;Herrman 1984;Mallgrave 1996;Kru 1997;229-233;Šerman 2000;Prelovšek 2002;Damljanović 2002;Hvattum 2004 1964;Гвозденовић 1975;Maksić 1992;Bogunović 2005: 499-513. ] e Plan of Belgrade from 1886 (published by Svetozar Lj.…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The house of Marko Stojanović (1885): The first independent work of architect Konstantin Jovanović in Belgrade

Kadijević¹

2020

Nasleđe

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The first independent work of the Viennese architect Konstantin A. Jovanović (1849-1923) in Belgrade, the house of solicitor Marko Stojanović at 53-55 Knez Mihailova Street, built in 1885, signifies the Europeanising surge of the secular architecture in the Kingdom of Serbia, which conclusively suppressed the Oriental architectural practices. Jovanović's father Anastas helped him develop friendship alongside the business relationship with the patron of the house. This allowed Jovanović to construct a notable privately-owned building in the city thoroughfare, thus recommending himself to the favour of wealthy investors. Often linked in historiography to Jovanović's cult of the Italian Renaissance, Stojanović's house also contains elements of Mannerism and Baroque, harmoniously combined into an eclectic whole. Adapted to the Belgrade setting as a two-storey structure built at the top of the Sava River Slope, the house is a direct interpolation of the Viennese eclectic experiences.

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Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The house of Marko Stojanović (1885): The first independent work of architect Konstantin Jovanović in Belgrade

Kadijević¹

2020

Nasleđe

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“…The artist, then, was to transform contemporary society from a critical to an organic epoch in the Saint-Simonian sense, bringing about a metamorphosis of the mass into a Volk, a civilisation into Culture (Bryant 2004: 158-59). Semper picked up several of these ideas, and although the Semperian Gesamtkunstwerk does not overlap with Wagner's in all respect, they both conceived the Gesamtkunstwerk as the sublimating agent that would bring together art, society, and Zeitgeist in one great, redeeming gesture (Hvattum 2004). Semper's prophetic statement sums up the argument: For everything will only remain an eerie phantasmagoria until our national life develops into a harmonious work of art, analogous but richer than Greek art in its short golden age.…”

Section: Sublimating Style: the Gesamtkunstwerkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Crisis and Correspondence: Style in the Nineteenth Century

Hvattum

2013

Architectural Histories

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In his manifesto 'Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft'(1850), Richard Wagner characterised the nineteenth century as a time of crisis. Echoing Saint-Simon, he defined this crisis as a discrepancy between the spirit of the age and the actual, historical conditions. Evoking some of the most potent concepts of modern thinking—Zeitgeist, genius, and the Gesamtkunstwerk—Wagner outlined an aesthetic theory by which the artwork (including architecture) simultaneously reflects and shapes its context, serving both as a mirror of its age and an agent of change. Wagner’s seemingly paradoxical notion of art provides an apt introduction to historicist thinking. Obsessed with the idea of correspondence (or the lack of it) between art and its times, nineteenth-century thinkers such as Heinrich Hübsch, Carl Bötticher and Gottfried Semper all responded to the perceived crisis. While Hübsch and Bötticher sought to alleviate the crisis by redefining this correspondence for a modern world, Semper presented a far more radical alternative. Not only did he see the current crisis as inevitable; he welcomed it as a necessary dissolution of an old order, out of which a new architecture could emerge. He thus anticipated modernists, such as Sigfried Giedion, for whom historicism was a necessary melt-down; an apocalypse, preparing for the advent of modernism. In this essay, I propose that crisis and style are intrinsically linked in modern thinking. To look closely at this coupling may throw new light not only on historicism but also on the noticeable unease with which the notion of style is treated in contemporary architectural history

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“…The concepts and theories through which spatial pattern was theorised include order, hierarchy, organisation, system, scale, proportion, symmetry, balance, complexity, beauty, unity, function, decorum, representation, symbol, joint, nature, expression, imagination and creativity. 15 The theories on patterns are wide and concern of different disciplines. In his search for the Origin of Art and Architecture, Gottfried Semper in his discourse on Dressing and Textile, sees the patterning as structural generative from the process of joining parts togetherthe knot: In time, the motif of the knot was developed further in the more co mplex techniques of the braid, the wreath, the seam, and the weave; all constituting primordial symbols of ordering., symbolising -the primordial chain of being‖.…”

Section: Architecture + Textile = Architextilementioning

confidence: 99%

Performative Energies and Cultures: Ornament and (as) Structure

Shyqeriu

2012

2012 UBT International Conference

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Recently a great concern and interest has risen on ornament, which pushes us to render back its genesis, its worse times and its new frontiers. This paper will be presented through a methodology which employs historical, theoretical and cultural implications of ornament in Architecture, as well as the present interest and developments on it, in the scope of advances in design and emerging technologies. A key figure in this discourse is the 19 th century German architect Gottfried Semper. His interest in ornament, textile and tectonics through searching the origins of Art and Architecture, provides us with crucial facts for the new frontiers of ornament in relation to structure. The theoretical background that Semper laid will be used to scrutinize the elaboratio n and the importance of textile and patterning in the articulation of Architecture as cultural performance. Following this line, an interesting theoretical and aesthetic approach will be set in the cultural meaning and use of patterning and ornament in the Islamic Architecture and its potentials for new frontiersornament becoming autogenic. The new biological paradigm on advanced design, sees building components as systems that act upon each other, where; material, structure, form, function and surfac e articulation / ornamentation are interconnected, similar to natural / biological systems with high performative energies. This paradigm provides new insights on ornament as structure itself, ornament as outcome of form, function and materialisation, far away from a mere superficial decoration. Further, natural/ biological systems grow highly hierarchical and optimized structures by using brittle and cheap materials, where the patterning of this structure serves their overall energetic performance. Finally, this paper scrutinizes that the role of cutting-edge computational and production technologies is extremely evident in the materialisation of patterned and ornamented aesthetics and in the increased effectiveness of transfers of patterns from nature and biology into engineering and architecture. As a result, the significant emphasis on the structuring logic of tectonic is resulting in a ‗new structuralism' in design, which, in turn emphasizes the role of performative cultures and energies of structuring architecture.

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Gottfried Semper and the Problem of Historicism

Cited by 44 publications

References 45 publications

The house of Marko Stojanović (1885): The first independent work of architect Konstantin Jovanović in Belgrade

The house of Marko Stojanović (1885): The first independent work of architect Konstantin Jovanović in Belgrade

Crisis and Correspondence: Style in the Nineteenth Century

Performative Energies and Cultures: Ornament and (as) Structure

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