Gottfried Semper

Gottfried Semper , born with Hamburg the November 28th 1803 and died in Rome the May 15th 1879, is a Architecte and German professor of architecture .

He undertook many voyages. He used with parsimony the historical forms of construction and worked on the model of the harmonious proportions of the Italian architecture of the Renaissance.

He publishes Der Stil in 1860. For Semper, the Art is initially a technique applied to a material for the achievement of a function. It is in addition the first studied the Primitive art as such, in particular while considering the case of a village Maori and a ceremonial hut Carib . It is an evolutionary prospect which it develops by the means of a compared history of the styles, without to be reduced to a research origins of the artistic representation. According to him, each style is not the witness of a cultural evolution ( “one does not find childhood in the styles” ), but rather synthesizes techniques subjected to the evolution and certain mental forms that any representation supposes. Semper wants to associate the technical sides and constructive with the aspect artisitic, trying to make art and the technique indissociable. He considers moreover the “ornament” or the preparing as necessary because the form must appear like a meaning symbol and an autonomous human creation. It thus underlines two aspects of the architectural form which are the constructive form and the form symbolic system, which are for him indissociable and must be expressed through the frontage.

The opposition between Hegel and Semper will delimit a whole space of thought at the 19th century.

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