Professional Documents
Culture Documents
SEMPER
19TH CENTURY
TOA-2
ARCHITECT NO.12
6TH SEM
BY: NIDHI JOSHI.
INTRODUCTION:
BORN:
DIED:
NATIONALITY
OCCUPATION
professor.
:German.
:Architect , Art Critic, Architectural historian and
He was among the principal practitioners of the NeoRenaissance style inGermanyand Austria.
He was the most influential and prolific German theorist on
architecture in the nineteenth century.
He developed ideas about technology, architecture and art
history.
WORKS : AS AN ARCHITECT
Dresden
Hoftheater or Opera house 1838-1841 (destroyed by fire in 1869) rebuilt as
Neues Hoftheater (Semper opera) 1871-1878 destroyed in 1945, reconstructed in
1985 .
Villa Rosa 1839-46 (destroyed in the Second World War)
Semper Synagogue 1839-1840 (destroyed on November 9, 1938 -Kristallnacht)
Oppenheim-Palace 1845-1848
Semper Gallery(Dresden Gemldegalerie) 1847-1855
Zrich
City Hall 1858 (only concept for competition; not built)
Polytechnical School, (ETH Zurich) 1858-1864
Observatory - 1861-1864
Winterthur
City Hall 1865-1869
Vienna
Municipal Theater (Burgtheater) 1873 - 1888
Museum of Art History (Kunsthistorisches Museum) (18721881, finished 1889)
Natural History Museum (Naturhistorisches Museum) (18721881, finished 1891)
WORKS : AS AN AUTHOR
2.
1852- Wissenschaft, Industrie und Kunst-Science, Industry and Art .Talks about the necessity of
inventions and the advancement of arts and sciences
3. Der Stil in den technischen und tektonischen Knsten oder Praktische sthetik,
Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts, Or, Practical Aesthetics which was published in two
volumes in 1861 and 1863
FYI
Historiographyis the study of the
methodology ofhistoriansin developing history
as an academic discipline, and by extension is
any body of historical work on a particular
subject. The historiography of a specific topic
covers how historians have studied that topic
using particular sources, techniques, and
theoretical approaches. Scholars discuss
historiography by topic such as the "
Historiography of the United Kingdom", the "
Historiography of Canada", "
Historiography of the British Empire", etc and
different approaches and genres, such as
political historyandsocial history. Beginning in
the nineteenth century, with the ascent of
academic history, there developed a body of
historiographic literature. The extent to which
historians are influenced by their own groups
and loyalties such asto their nation state is
a debated question.
TheFrench Revolution of 1830, also known
as theJuly Revolution,Second French
RevolutionorTrois Glorieusesin French, saw the
overthrow of KingCharles X, the French
Bourbonmonarch, and the ascent of his
cousinLouis-Philippe, Duke of Orlans, who
himself, after 18 precarious years on the throne,
would in turn be overthrown in 1848. It marked
the shift from oneconstitutional monarchy,
theBourbon Restoration, to another, theJuly
Greece
AcropolisinAthens
FYI
FYI :
. Archaeology, orarcheology,is the
study ofhumanactivity through the
recovery andanalysis ofmaterial culture.
. Thearchaeological recordconsists
ofartifacts,architecture,biofacts or
ecofacts, andcultural landscapes.
Archaeology can be considered both
asocial scienceand a branch of
thehumanities.
. Polychromeis the "'practice of
decorating architectural elements,
sculpture, etc., in a variety of colors.
Trajans column
DRESDEN PERIOD-1834-1849
1. He began to receive architectural commissions at this time, the first of which was Villa
Donner, Altona, near Hamburg.
2. On September 30, 1834 Semper obtained a post as Professor of Architecture at
theKniglichen Akademie der bildenden Knste(today called the Hochschule or Dresden
Academy of Fine Arts) in Dresden thanks largely to the efforts and support of his former teacher
Franz Christian Gau and swore an oath of allegiance to the King (formerly Elector) of
Saxony,Anthony Clement.
3. In the Akademie, he instituted a program in architectural history.
4. Assigned to reform the architectural school, Semper recommended the integration of
practical and theoretical work and replacing the course structure with an atelier-style
experience, what is today the modern architectural school arrangement.
5. The flourishing growth of Dresden during this period provided the young architect with
considerable creative opportunities.
6. Semper's1838 design for the Dresden Hoftheater--promoted by Karl Friedrich Schinkel-demonstrated Semper's theoretic belief of integrating a building into the environment. His first
building for the Dresden Hoftheater burnt down, and the second, today called the Semperoper,
(Semper opera) was built in 1841. The Hoftheater itself was completed in 1841, becoming
Sempers masterpiece.
7. In 1838-40 a synagogue was built in Dresden to Semper's design, it was ever afterward called
theSemper Synagogueand is noted for itsMoorish Revivalinterior style. The Synagogue's
exterior was built in romanesque style so as not to call attention to itself.
DRESDEN PERIOD-1834-1849
8. Certain civic structures remain today, such as the Elbe-facinggalleryof
theZwinger Palace complex.
9. Other buildings also remain indelibly attached to his name, such as the Maternity
Hospital, the Synagogue (destroyed during the Third Reich), the Oppenheim
Palace, and theVilla Rosabuilt for the bankerMartin Wilhelm Oppenheim. This
last construction stands as a prototype of German villa architecture
10. On September 1, 1835 Semper married Bertha Thimmig. The marriage ultimately
produced six children.
11. A convinced Republican, Semper took a leading role, along with his friendRichard
Wagner, in theMay 1849 uprisingwhich swept over the city .
12. He was a member of the Civic Guard (Kommunalgarde) and helped to erect
barricades in the streets.
13. When the rebellion collapsed, Semper was considered a leading agitator for
democratic change and a ringleader against government authority and he was
forced to flee the city.
14. He was destined never to return to the city that would, ironically, become most
associated with his architectural (and political) legacy.
15. The Saxon government maintained a warrant for his arrest until 1863.
DRESDEN HOFTHEATER
1.
When the Semper-designed Hoftheater burnt down in 1869, KingJohn, on the
urging of the citizenry, commissioned Semper to build a new one. Semper produced
the plans, but left the actual construction to his son, Manfred.
2.
"What must I have done in 48, that one persecutes me forever? One single
barricade did I construct - it held, because it was practical, and as it was practical, it
was beautiful", wrote Semper in dismay.
Semper Synagogue
Semperoper
SEMPER SYNAGOGUE
1. The Synagogue's exterior was built in romanesque style so as not to call attention
to itself.
2. The interior design included not only the Moorish inspired wall decorations, but
furnishings: specifically, a silver lamp of eternal light, which caught Richard
Wagner and his wife Cosima's fancy. They gave a great deal of effort to have a
copy of this lamp.
3. It was destroyed by the Nazis in 1938. He also designed the Dresden museum.
As the principal judge for thecompetition held to select a design for the new building,
Semper deemed the submitted entries unsatisfactory and, ultimately, designed the
building himself.
3. Proudly situated (where fortified walls once stood), visible from all sides on a terrace
overlooking the core ofZurich, the new school became a symbol of a new epoch.
4. The building (18531864), which despite frequent remodeling continues to evoke
Semper's concept, was initially required to accommodate not only the new school
(known today as theETH Zurich), but the existingUniversity of Zurich, as well.
5. In 1855 Semper became a professor of architecture at the new school and the success
of many of his students who attained success and renown served to ensure his legacy.
6. The Swiss architectEmil Schmidwas one such student.
7. With his income as a professor, Semper was able to reunite his family, bringing them
to Zurich from Saxony.
8. The City Hall inWinterthuris among other buildings designed by Semper in
Switzerland.
9. Semper providedBavaria'sKing Ludwig IIwith a conceptual design for a theatre
dedicated to the work ofRichard Wagnerto be built in Munich.
10.The project, developed from 1864 to 1866, was never realized, although Wagner
'borrowed' many of its features for his own later theatre atBayreuth.
POLYTECHNIKUM IN 1865
4. Rather than settle with the kind of spatial typologies that had grown out of the late eighteenthcentury primitivism of the Abb Laugier and Quatremre de Quincy or even the later
structural typologies such as Viollet -le- Ducs geometrical geology of mountains,
cathedrals and crystal forms Semper was determined to go further back into the mists of prehistory if necessary, in his search for the ultimate forming principles in architecture.
5. Inspired by his early visits to the Jardin des Plantes in Paris and the influential work of its curator
and codifier, Georges Cuvier, Semper had decided to attempt a similarly evolutionary classification
of architectural form in terms of functional and material characteristics.
6. Working from the familiar Vitruvian myth of the origin of building in the communal effort of
protecting the newly-discovered fire, Semper then proceeded to analyse the components of the
archetypal primitive hut.
7. In his writings, Semper talks of the theoretical primitive hut and the observable
equivalent; the Caribbean hut.
8. Theorists considered these to be important because they are the beginnings of
architecture. Everything that came after derived from these huts.
9. Hermann Wolfgang, in his 1984 book Gottfried Semper: In Search of Architecture,
writes, In another lecture and later in Der Stil, he [Semper] returned once more to
the Caribbean hut in which all elements of ancient architecture appear in their most
original and unadulterated form: the hearth as center, the mound surrounded by a
framework of poles as terrace, the roof carried by columns and mats as space
enclosure or wall.(p169)
10. The prevailing notion of the day was that the Greek temples looked the way they did
because they were versions of the primitive hut, made in marble. However, Semper
disagreed with this oversimplified view.
11. According to a well-known thesis, going back to a passage in Vitruvius and often
repeated by writers on the classical theory of architecture, the archetypal wooden
hut had been the direct model of the Greek stone temple. Semper rejected this
thesis.
12. In one of his first lectures in Dresden, he declared that The question whether the
human races... lived first in caves and from there derived the motifs of their later
buildings or whether they built leaf-covered huts and tents was a futile controversy
and that he was not going to discuss at all because these different means of
protection could at the most have had an influence on the construction for the later
Semper, stating that the hearth was the first element created:
The first sign of settlement and rest after the hunt, the battle, and wandering in
the desert is today, as when the first men lost paradise, the setting up of the
fireplace and the lighting of the reviving, warming, and food preparing flame.
Around the hearth the first groups formed: around the hearth the first groups
assembled; around it the first alliances formed; around it the first rude religious
concepts were put into the customs of a cult. Throughout all phases of society the
hearth formed that sacred focus around which took order and shape. It is the first
and most important, the moral element of architecture. Around it were grouped the
other three elements: the roof, the enclosure, and the mound. The protecting
negations or defenders of the hearths flame against three hostile elements of
nature.
. Enclosures (walls) were said to have their origins inweaving. Just as fences and pens were
woven sticks, the most basic form of a spatial divider still seen in use in parts of the world
today is the fabric screen.
. Only when additional functional requirements are placed on the enclosure (such as
structural weight-bearing needs) does the materiality of the wall change to
something beyond fabric.
. The mat and its use in primitive huts interchangeably as floors, walls, and draped over
frames was considered byGottfried Semper to be the origins of architecture.
UNDERSTANDING ENCLOSURES:
1. The enclosure, expressed in light, woven material terms, offers the hearth
protection from various environmental factors.
2. Protection of the hearth. There is no need to prove in detail that the protection of
the hearth against the rigors of the weather as well as against attacks by wild
animals and hostile men was the primary reason for setting apart some space
from the surrounding world.(p199)
3. The author is claiming that, once people began to gather and create a
hearth, the impulse to surround and protect the hearth was formed.
EIFFEL TOWER
STONE OBELISK
Clay
Wood
Textile
Stone
Technique
Ceramics
Carpentry
Weaving
Masonry
Basic Elements
Hearth
Roof
Enclosure
Substructure
DER STIL
1. Der Stil in den technischen und tektonischen Knsten oder Praktische sthetik Style in
the Technical and Tectonic Arts or Practical Aesthetics is a work of Gottfried
Semper, which was published in two volumes in 1861 and 1863.
2. Based upon research during his time in Paris and his experience with the Great
Exhibition, the book theorized that the progress in architecture--or any discipline-meant emulating (imitating) natural science.
3. Der Stil discusses extensively the use of materials within arts, crafts, and architecture.
4. It reviews the details involved in the tectonic arts.
5.
Using an taxonomical approach akin to the naturalist Baron George Cuvier (17691832), Semper set out to determine the "laws" of all architecture by examining
eleven modes of building, beginning with domestic.
DER STIL
9. In summary, Semper's thesis is that practical artistic and architectural forms
can be understood by looking at the raw materials used: textiles for binding and
covering (walls), ceramics for molding and strengthening in an adequate form (the
hearth), tectonics and carpentry for scaffolding and thatching (roofs and furniture),
and stereotomy, masonry and so on for structural strength (pillars, support).
10. Each of these classes of materials follows its own natural laws and the
elements or ornaments made from them of necessity take specific forms.
Themes derived from one class can of course be transposed to other
materials, just as materials are not limited to their natural usages. Weaving for
example can be used to make baskets, serving a function that is more naturally
ceramic. Only metal, which is by nature malleable, strong, flexible and rigid, can
serve all functions, albeit in a less typical way.
11. In Der Stil, the type-process of the woven wall is carried to its ultimate analytical
conclusion, with the further distinction that the knot is actually the fundamental
building-block of human production. As the basic unit of energy within the tectonic
process, the knot in Sempers thinking offers a striking anticipation of the atomic
model of matter. It is also for Semper an early metaphor for the structure of the
cosmos itself: The knot is perhaps the oldest technical symbol and, as I have shown,
the expression for the earliest cosmogonic ideas that arose among nations.
12.Style than, is the harmonious and internally logical application of the whole
range of materials and their derived forms, brought together under the internal
pressure of the material and the external pressures of the cultural, historical and
personal context of its creation.
is the set of geometrical knowledge and techniques of drawing and cutting the blocks of stone
13.and
Semper
intended
write structures
a book (wall,
in three
the first
two dealing
with the
their assembly
intoto
complex
vault, volumes:
arch, etc.) related
to architectural
construction.
STEREOTOMY
DER STIL
14. As an architectural historian and architect, Semper brought Renaissance architecture into
serious appreciation.
15. Previous art historians, such as Franz Kugler in his Handbuch der Kunstgeschichte, disdainfully
mentioned the period as an architectural style.
16. By the 1860s, Jacob Burckhardt had brought the period into historic vogue.
17. Semper advocated the concept that "form is determined by materials," derived from the
partially-completed volumes of Der Stil.
18. However, Semper also asserted that social, economic and climatic conditions as
essential to style, driven by the free will of creative humans.
19. Since these were to have been addressed in the third, never-written volume, Semper was
criticized for subscribing to a purely materialistic approach.
20. The mathematical analogy in his discussion of style was exaggerated in the English version of
his book (edited by his son).
21. By considering the history of architecture in terms of the history of tectonic processes
developing from a series of primeval, archetypal generative impulses Semper was
attempting to re-establish the principles of aesthetic authority in architecture that were being
steadily eroded in the post enlightenment climate of historicism and rapid industrialization.
22. Alois Reigl attacked Semper's "deterministic core" in 1901 . His theoretical influence included
Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911) (who praised Semper as the successor to Goethe for his
exploration of the "inner structure of art") and the work of Heinrich Wlfflin , (who quoted
Semper liberally in his dissertation). Wagner remembered Semper as an iconoclast who
brought arguments (and occasionally fisticuffs) to any social gathering with his "peculiar habit
of contradicting everyone flatly."
SEMPERS THEORY
1. The collected theories of Gottfried Semper provide deep insights to the art and craft of
building. However the ways in which he formulated his theories varied and this can give rise
to difficulties when trying to read them as a piece.
2. For instance, when analysing the materials and crafts of building (designated by him as
the Four Elements), he is penetrating and straightforward; when dealing with his theory of
Stoff-Wechsel (PR: wek-sel) (literally changing material) he introduces a symbolic
mode of description; and when expounding his theory of Bekleidung (dressing or
cladding) he takes off into flights of fancy. This means that one has to pay close
attention to the minutia of the strands of his arguments in order to weave them all together.
3. Gottfried Semper was a teacher of architecture and of industrial craft, a well travelled
historian, a designer, a theorist, and an architect who built major projects. This rounded
experience informed his long-term interest in the properties of materials, in the
methods and tools used in working each one, and in the appropriateness of the
purposes to which each material could be put; it also informed his other abiding
interest in the origins and symbolism of early architecture.
4. The main thrust of his work was to develop a theory of style (or practical aesthetics). The
title of his great work Der Stil -Style in the Technical and Tectonic Artsmakes this evident.
SEMPERS THEORY
4. Although Semper did not spell out a specific definition of style in this book he did define it
variously at different stages of his life. One particular definition given by Semper in a
lecture of 1869, namely the correspondence of an artwork with its history of
origin, comprising all the conditions and circumstances of its creation'. In order to
fill out the implications and meaning of this statement, one has to refer to an earlier
lecture in which Semper presented three aspects of any definition of style:
I.
The internal this concerns the material from which a work is made and its method
of production;
II.
The external this reflects the local, temporal, national and personal forces
acting upon the work; and
III.
The ideal this aspect relates to the artistic interpretation of the idea; the idea
was, for Semper, a precondition of form.
5. The internal and external forces play their vital role in the genesis of an artwork
but both give precedence to the ideal.
SEMPERS THEORY
6. This definition can be understood from a comparison Semper
made in Der Stil between Ancient Egyptian and Greek ceramic
forms.He chose the situla and the hydria.
7. If one considers these two artefacts under his three aspects:
I.
II.
SEMPERS THEORY
10. It was to nature and to ancient artefacts that Semper looked when formulating this and other
ideas. where man adorns, all he does more or less consciously is to make the law of
nature evident in the object he adorns.
11. In setting out his general principles, he also physically identified artefacts and buildings with
living beings who, along with all nature, are subject to the pull of gravity. The force of gravity
seems to be vital to the structuring of his four collective concepts which he called
Authorities.
12. These concepts were posited to show how the diversity found in nature can be ordered into
unity and are:
a) Symmetry this refers not just to form, but to dynamic principles of growth and
development, and concerns the placing of parts around a vertical axis, e.g. how the human
body is arranged to the left and right of a spine.
b) Proportion this is the ratio of elements in their positioning between earth and sky.
Relating the human analogy to architecture, the base of a building would correspond to the feet
and the dominant element with the torso; other parts are in proportion to these and to the whole.
c)
Direction in the case of man and animals it is actual bodily movement. For a building it is
the potential of movement towards it or through it.
d) Fitness of Content for this Semper cites the example of a crowning pediment on a Greek
temple which derives its form from the first three concepts but falls under this fourth category
because of its reflection of, and receptivity to, the approaching procession of worshippers. It could
be epitomised by the way outstretched arms welcome a loved one.
13. These Authorities represented for Semper the essential response to nature when dealing
with the overall organisation of artefacts and buildings.
SEMPERS THEORY
14. When breaking this organisation down into its constituent parts, he saw there were two
sides to any such analysis;
(i) their making, which process includes the materials used and the methods and
tools employed.
(ii) the use to which they were put, which use may be actual or symbolic.
15. Starting with item (i), he classified raw materials into four categories according to
their particular qualities.Those which are:
a) flexible, tough, and highly resistant to tearing.
b) soft and mouldable, which, after working are able to be hardened and stay in shape.
c) rod-shaped, elastic, and strong in tension.
d) unyielding, dense, and strong in compression; use in construction being by
manageable pieces in regular courses.
16. The individual natures of the materials described under these four categories gave rise
to four crafts in the working of them. These crafts, while respecting the qualities of
the particular material with which they are concerned, transform it into useful form. He
numbered these four crafts to correspond to the numbers of the four materials as
follows:
a) textile - enclosure
b) ceramic (or metal forging and casting)-hearth
c) framework (carpentry)-roof
d) masonry-mound
17. Semper collectively called these the Four Elements of Building, and he recognised
some flexibility in the categories.
SEMPERS THEORY
18. Moving to item (ii) and the use to which the constituents are put, his interest in the origins
of building comes to the fore. He believed that it was weaving and the tying of knots
which formed the basis of the earliest of artefactsand that perhaps after observing such
things as the construction of nests, primitive man wove branches and vines into protective
covers and screens.
19. He also believed that the hearth (a ceramic artefact) had a primeval role in the
development of human settlements and culture.
20. He saw the screen as serving to contain the group gathered around the hearth and
thereby forming a habitat (enclosure).
21. Further developments were the framework which roofed it and the mound to protect
it from flooding (the mound developed later into a masonry platform).
22. As a result of these primitive efforts man was no longer at the mercy of the forces of nature
but had created his own microcosm.
SEMPERS THEORY
23.On the basis of these beliefs, he challenged the view, held by the Abb Laugier, that the primitive
hut was the original model for the development of architectural monuments.
24. His own view was that mans skill in making artefacts provided the prior models from which he
developed the construction of the first buildings.
25.Further, and importantly, when ornaments were hung on and fixed to these buildings, and
thus became static, monumentality occurred.
26.It is at this point in his explanations that Semper shifts into a symbolic mode by the introduction
of his theory of Stoff-Wechsel which was a concept he borrowed from contemporary biologists
who were developing ideas of metabolism.
27.He used this word to explain the transformation which can occur when the construction of an
artefact in one material, (perhaps perishable such as wood), is subsequently transposed into
another medium, (perhaps something more permanent such as stone).
28.This transformation, as well as bringing monumentality, can endow the resultant artefact with a
symbolic significance by virtue of the fact that its form carries with it a vestigial content of
an earlier culture.
29.Semper illustrates this by showing a Greek stone capital deriving from a basket form.For him it is
more than a copy, the imitation in the different material brings along cultural baggage of former
times. The theory of Stoff-Wechsel is thus an amplification and enrichment of Sempers
definition of style where he speaks of an artefact having correspondence with the
circumstances of its creation.
SEMPERS THEORY
30. During his time in London (when
he was a political exile) Semper
was commissioned to design
stands for the 1851 Crystal
Palace Exhibition. This brought
him into contact with an exhibit
containing a Caribbean Hut.
31. He observed that the material
forms of this hut corresponded
to his Four Elements, and further
that these Elements were
discretely identifiable.
32. He noted that the woven screen,
which divided the dwelling and
enclosed the ceramic hearth was
distinct from the bamboo
framework, which in turn was
distinct from the masonry base.
33. This observation confirmed for
him his theory of the Four
Elements.
CARIBBEAN HUT
SEMPERS THEORY
34. In taking his theories further Semper engages in a yet another manner of thinking about building.
35. The tectonic property of the screen in the Caribbean Hut is synonymous with his textile
Element.
36. His view of the primacy of weaving drew him to a conclusion that the polychromatic painting of
Greek temples derived from the dyed and woven wall hangings common in earlier buildings.
37. Replacement of these hangings by coloured render, he argued, transformed the actual surfaces
resulting in the monumentality of the temples. From this claim he developed his Bekleidungs
theory, in which he seems to endow the surface of the screen with a life of its own.
38. This theory of cladding is, in essence, a theory of ornament and can be seen as a
contradiction of his theories of tectonics, since Semper himself referred to it as an annihilation of
reality.
39. Whereas in his description of the Caribbean hut Semper pointed out that the screen which defines
the space enclosure is discrete from the structure, in the Bekleidungs theory he takes this idea of
space definition further. His claim is that even where load bearing masonry itself is inscribed or
decorated with ornament, the actual ornamentation is still to be read as symbolically separate.
SEMPERS THEORY
40.As precedence he cited Assyrian wall-carving which, again he claimed, derived from
earlier textile hangings.
41.This Semper called a Verhuellung (veiling) of the structure which allowed, for him,
the genuine space of architecture to be revealed: Solid walls are but the internal
and unseen scaffolding of the true and legitimate representatives of division.
42.He did add, in mitigation of the rather devastating effect this remark has on those parts
of his work dealing with tectonics, that, only after proper treatment of material
can material be forgotten.
SEMPERS THEORY
43. The Bekleidungs theory led him to reject both cast-iron construction and
the gothic style as a way forward for modern architecture.
44. This was because their emphasis was on the expression of structure rather
than cladding.
45. He personally embraced mainly a neo-renaissance style in his built work and
his buildings such as the Hoftheatre and the Art Gallery in Dresden and the Art
Gallery and Museum in Vienna do not reflect in any obvious way those parts of
his theory such as the Four Elements.
46. Just because his theories are closely concerned with the circumstances of
the origins of the elements and surfaces of architecture, there is no
reason that evidence of this ought to be read directly from his buildings.
47. It is consonant with his views that his architecture should derive via the
sensibilities of Renaissance artists, as, in turn, their work reflects their forebears,
and so on. These, after all, comprise some of the circumstances of their creation.
His ideas, however, did find more direct expression in the work of other
architects. Arguably the two most tangible areas of influence are
a)
where Sempers emphasis on the separation of the Four Elements can be seen
in the clarity of distinction between structure and infill widely found in the
modern movement, and
b) the way in which the development of the curtain wall in Chicago can be traced
from his Bekleidungs theory.
SEMPERS THEORY
48. The idea of veiling or masking is also to be found in Sempers interest in the theatre and in
his studies of ancient Greek dress and drama. He saw theatricality in the relationship between
architecture and its users; a relationship equivalent to that between a performer and a spectator.
49. One can glean this from his theatre plans: in his obsession with the manipulation of the
proscenium between stage and audience, in the controlled acoustics, and in the galleries for
promenading.
50. Indeed, the development of the theory of Gesamptkunstwerk by Wagner appears to have been
influenced by such ideas from Semper.