Gottfried Semper and the problem of historicism

Author(s)

    • Hvattum, Mari

Bibliographic Information

Gottfried Semper and the problem of historicism

Mari Hvattum

Cambridge University Press, 2004

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Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. 249-267) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Using key texts by the German architect and theorist Gottfried Semper, Mari Hvattum offers a reinterpretation of historicism, which is here viewed both as a philosophical outlook and as an architectural problem. Hvattum focuses on Semper's two major concerns: an understanding of the ontological significance of art and architecture, and the rendering of art and architecture as the objects of scientific investigation and prediction. Hvattum investigates the background and implications of these conflicting concerns. By examining the historicist fusion of Romanticism and Positivism, the book seeks to understand the nature as well as the limits of the modern dream of a 'method of inventing'. More than an intellectual biography, Gottfried Semper and the Problem of Historicism explores historicism and its implications for modern architectural discourse and practice.

Table of Contents

  • Part I. Towards a Poetics of Architecture: 1. The cult of origins
  • 2. The doctrine of imitation
  • 3. Semper and the poetic of architecture
  • Part II. Practical Aesthetics: 4. Semper and practical aesthetics
  • 5. The comparative method
  • 6. Towards a method of inventing
  • Part III. The Aporias of Historicism: 7. Semper and the 'Style of Our Time'
  • 8. History and historicism
  • 9. Between poetics and practical aesthetics.

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