Gottfried Semper. The Ideal Museum. Practical Art in Metals and Hard Materials. Vienna, Schlebrügge.Editor, 2007

Translation by Francesco Mazzaferro
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Gottfried Semper
The Ideal Museum. Practical Art in Metals and Hard Materials

Vienna, Schlebrügge.Editor, 2007

Gottfried Semper (1803-1879)
Source: https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bild:Gottfried-semper.jpg&oldid=7486847

A desperate man

When Gottfried Semper wrote "Practical Art in Metals and Hard Materials" between April and August 1852, he was a desperate man. He lived in exile in London, was 46 years old, and needed to sustain wife and six children in Dresden. There, Semper had worked for long time and successfully (he had designed, among others, the Dresden Opera House, universally known as Semperoper), but he had taken an active part in one of the last events of the revolutionary period in 1849, namely the Republican revolt which broke out just in May 1849. So much so, that he had designed the barricades in opposition to the troops of the Duke of Saxony and had fought together with other famous figures of German culture, as - for example - Richard Wagner.

The involvement in the uprising cost him the exile. After a brief period in France, Semper fled to England with the prospect of designing a cemetery (sic), which soon proved illusory; he seriously thought to cross the ocean and to try his fortune in America. His great chance was the first Universal Exhibition, the one held in 1851 at the Crystal Palace. Semper agreed to take charge of the layout of the areas dedicated to Canada, Turkey, Sweden and Denmark, but above all he made acquaintance with Henry Cole, the director of the "Great Exhibition". Soon after, Cole was appointed director of the National School of Design. As early as 1837, in fact, a school of design existed in Britain, but it proved to be of a particularly low level, so that, under the impulse of the Universal Exhibition, the government decided to revise programs and teaching, merging it with the Department of Practical Art.

It is needless to say that, once he knew the assignment was given to Cole, Semper hoped to be assigned a contract as a lecturer. And, without any doubt, the task which Cole assigned him in April of 1851, i.e. to write a work dedicated to the history of the production of metal products, was aiming at helping Cole to support Semper’s candidacy. In fact, the English society was particularly suspicious of German influences, especially after Prince Albert of Saxony had married Queen Victoria. Moreover, Albert actually belonged to the same dynasty that has exiled Semper: an intricate situation, to say the least. Semper worked tirelessly, and completed the task in just three months. The appreciation resulting from it allowed him to be assigned a teaching contract in the framework of the working of metals, in September of the same year.

From then on, things improved significantly. Semper moved to Zurich in 1855, where he taught in the local Polytechnic, but also became the reference architect of the Habsburg dynasty for the urban interventions on the Ringstrasse in Vienna. He designed (without being able to implement it, due to strong ideological resistance that opposed the project) the Kaiserforum, i.e. the palace where the Habsburgs would have had to transfer their residence [1]; moreover, according to his projects were built (in full neo-Renaissance style), the national museum of art history and natural sciences, i.e. the current Kunsthistorisches and Naturhistorisches Museum.

The First Opera House around 1850
Source: Wikimedia Commons from  D. Syndram, Die Rückkehr des Dresdner Schlosses, edition Sächsische Zeitung, 2006, S. 88

A never published manuscript

Yet, the manuscript compiled by Semper in 1852 (drafted in English with some mistakes, since Gottfried was writing in a language that he did not entirely command) was never published. We mentioned briefly the steps of Semper’s career until his Viennese triumphs because, in reality, there is a far from trivial relationship between the London experience and the years in the Austrian capital. The original manuscript was delivered to Cole, but something happened which impeded the finalization of the publication. Only three years later, for example, the writing ended in the hands of John Charles Robinson for the necessary language editing. Robinson wrote all his annotations in the middle column of every page that the author had deliberately left empty. These annotations did not spare criticism on Semper, not so much on the merits, but mainly on his lack of orderliness in the bibliographic citations. Robinson’s notes should have been followed by the corrections by Semper. Precisely in 1855, however, the German architect moved to Zurich. Likely for this reason, the whole endeavour was interrupted.

It should also be said that - perhaps in order to prepare his corrections also from Switzerland - Semper had requested and obtained that a copy of the manuscript be made (judging by the systematic inaccuracy of all Italian names, the copyist must not have had much familiarity with our language).

In the wake of the experience of the Great Exhibition, the South Kensington Museum (later the Victoria and Albert Museum), the first museum dedicated to the applied arts, opened in London in 1857. The English experience was of particular interest for Rudolf Eitelberger von Edelberg, professor of History of Art at the University of Vienna, who was, in fact, the founder of the "Vienna School" [2]. In 1863, Eitelberger proposed the creation of a museum that would have an educational finality and allow, through the study of ancient artifacts, improving the production level of applied arts in the Empire. It was the Imperial and Royal Austrian Museum for Art and Industry (k.k. Österreichischen Museums für Kunst und Industrie), which was opened the following year. In 1867, the architect Joseph Zitek, correspondent of the Viennese museum in Prague learned of the copy of the manuscript during a visit to Zurich, where Semper taught, and understood that the latter would not mind donating it to the Austrian institution. Zitek informed Eitelberger, who did not lose any moment to write to Gottfried, in order to make sure to receive the writing. There are however several things that are not clear. First of all, why did Semper offer to donate the treatise? Perhaps, because he thought that the new Austrian museum was really the perfect choice to preserve his work, or because he wanted to ingratiate himself with the Viennese establishment in view of the choice of the architects for the buildings of the Ringstrasse? Neither we know whether Eitelberger knew that the manuscript contained a "manifesto" on the organization of the ideal museum that, in fact, seemed to fit like a glove around his ideas.

The fact is that the copy of Semper’s original manuscript - which is the subject of this transcript - is now kept at the library of the MAK (the current name of the museum founded by Eitelberger) with signature BI 1909. It is classified in a file that has been given the bilingual title of Ideales Museum für Metallotechnik ausgearbeitet zu London im Jahre 1852 von Gottfried Semper/Ideal Museum for Metal Arts, devised in London in the year 1852 by Gottfried Semper. The original title of the work is instead: “Practical Art in Metals and hard Materials, its Technology, History and Styles”. Meanwhile, the original copy of the Treaty, namely the one written by Semper in 1852, was also retrieved. It is preserved (as it was logical to assume) at the National Art Library of the Victoria and Albert Museum, with signature 86.FF.64.

Semperoper at night
Source: Wikimedia Commons: Photo Sebastian Terfloth 

For a history of museums

Semper’s manuscript consists of a first section entitled "On Collections, Their History and Estates", which really is Semper’s manifesto concerning museology, as claimed in the introductory page by Peter Noever. The remainder (we are talking about almost 200 pages) might look like an arid list of objects, artifacts, collections that lend themselves to be part of an "ideal museum" or otherwise would need to be taken into consideration, if it were decided to create an art institute dedicated to illustrate metallurgy products to the public. In fact, points of particular interest exist, as we will see.

The Kaiserforum project by Gottfried Semper around 1870
Source: Wikimedia Commons

The whole discussion is informed, moreover, by a deep knowledge of the subject, which must have been the single biggest stumbling block that Semper found himself having to overcome. Pages 273- 281, containing the bibliography of the work (there is no index, but just reading the manuscript we realize that it would have been particularly difficult to produce it) display the wealth of materials that the German architect had to collate in a very short time, if we consider the fact that the preparation of the work occupied the months from April to August 1852.

I think it is worth noting (I do not think that the fact has been underlined) that the section on the ideal museum includes a history of collecting and museums, which is very innovative for that time. According to an anthropological interpretation, which Semper had proposed only a year before in 'The four elements of architecture. A contribution to compared architecture' (Die vier Elemente der Baukunst. Ein Beitrag zur vergleichenden Baukunde, 1851) collecting was born before society had found its architectural foundation and an art of monumental dimension, because "valuable things appeared better secured against robbery, when deposited near the Tombs of Chiefs […]; protected by public veneration and respect for the dead” (p. 46). Mind you, if it is read today with modern eyes, the history of collecting (especially metal objects) appears inspired by a misplaced historical determinism with a strong inspiration based on religious prejudices. For example, in order to argue that valuables were collected in churches and monasteries in the early middle ages, Semper writes about barbarians: "They had, like the ancestors of the Greeks great veneration for the dead; and this religious feeling explains the Ascendency [sic] which the Roman Catholic Church, with its Worship of the Saints and Adorations of sacred relics, succeeded in so early obtaining over the minds of those barbarian Nations” (p. 49). But one principle is clear: the separation between the Wunderkammer in 1500 [4] and the idea of ​​museum which was contemporary to him. That modern idea is traced back to the birth of academies (where, as such, he clearly meant those public institutions which were funded by governments, starting, obviously, with the French Academy in 1648): “The Commencement of this new Era in Museology was the period of the first Establishment of Academies of Art”. The museum is considered as a support for art teaching: “The new Consideration of Utility for Instruction became more and more prevalent in the question of Museology, and the consequence of this was a total change in the Composition and Management of Collections. It was the problem of this time to bring into the confused Masses of Collected Materials or objects of Art, some Order and System. The leading principle which governed this attempt […] Corresponded to the general Critical direction which Science had taken in the past Century. Order and Conspicuity were obtained by Separation, Classification and Nomenclature" (p. 53-54). For his time, it is an analysis of a rare clarity.

Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, (after the projects of architects Carl von Hasenauer and Gottfried Semper)
Source: Wikimedia Commons. Foto Andrew Bossi

Vienna, Naturhistorisches Museum (after the projects of architects Carl von Hasenauer and Gottfried Semper
Source: Wikimedia Commons. Foto Gryffindor

The organization of the Ideal Museum

The direct consequence of the distinction between old and new collections is that Semper’s Ideal Museum has functions of public education. Hence, the question arises of how to organize it. In absolute terms, this aspect is independent from the type of museum. Semper is speaking here with reference to the collections of metallurgical products, but it's just obvious that, in reality, the situation is much more general. And here we need to examine the aesthetic idea of ​​art and architecture that permeates all theoretical works of Semper, from the (already mentioned) Four Elements until the Style in the techniques and tectonic arts of 1860-1863 (Der Stil in den technischen und tektonischen Künsten). Semper analyses forms on the basis of the functions that the buildings had to play originally for people. These functions are essentially four: heating (the hearth), protection from the enemy (the fence) and from bad weather from the sky (the roof) or from floods (the raising of the ground). All is developed from these "primitive" functions, which exist before architecture: the division between rooms, for example, before being ensured by masonry work is realized through the textile art, and therefore has a craft origin, linked to the art of upholsterers. In addressing the duties arising from primordial needs, to the same ideal museum Semper also applies the same four-fold partition that one year before he had explained in the Four elements: 1) production of textiles; 2) production of ceramics; 3) woodwork; 4) realization of brickworks. “Most of the productions of Art and Industry wear a Mixed Character, and are related to more than one of the above given four families [note of the editor: it goes without saying that the thing also applies to the works in metal]. They must be placed and arranged together in the Collection so as to form the intermediate Members between the extremities or limits of the Collection, which are formed by the objects representing the pure fundamental motives" (p. 57). Each section of a museum should therefore be dedicated to fabrics, carpentry, masonry and ceramic arts, with areas of smooth transition and mutual exchange in the corners.

The Renaissance

There is an element that we are mentioning here and that also applies to the introductory section dedicated to the ideal museum, but above all to the pages dedicated to the review of objects and materials. When Semper lists the materials, he almost always applies a chronological examination of Greek and Roman products, of medieval objects (and often he refers to the "Gothic") and renaissance works. Baroque art does not exist. But it is precisely the use of the term "Renaissance" that we want to emphasize here, in conjunction with the history of art aesthetics in the nineteenth-century. We all know that, traditionally, the inventor of the word "Renaissance" is considered to be Jacob Burckhardt, who focuses on the concept in the Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. The book, however, is of 1860 (while Semper’s manuscript is of 1852). In fact - a little like on the story of the invention of oil painting by the van Eyck - the literature on it is boundless. In fact, the primogeniture in the use of the term "Renaissance" is attributed to the Frenchman Jules Michelet; we are in 1841. The use he made of this term was however not be counterbalanced by an appropriate development of the concept. The French supremacy immediately caused the susceptibility of the British, so much so that the Oxford English Dictionary mentions the use of the term in 1837 and in 1838 [5]. And we can certainly not overlook that Semper wrote in England.

That said, the fact that appears clear is that Gottfried uses the term "Renaissance" in a totally modern and coherent way (for his time). This matter should not be overlooked, and - inevitably - fits well with the stylistic considerations on the work of the architect, which was considered the real champion of Neo-Renaissance to the detriment of the Gothic revival on the one hand and Baroque nostalgia of the another one. In Semper’s manuscript, Renaissance already has full citizenship rights and is ready to experience the enormous fortune that it will know during the second half of the nineteenth century.

NOTES

[1] See in this blog Francesco Mazzaferro, How to Keep the Austro-Hungarian Empire Together: the Disputes on the National Style(s) and the Role of Albert Ilg.

[2] On Rudolf Eitelberger von Edelberg see in this blog Francesco Mazzaferro, How to Keep the Austro-Hungarian Empire Together... quoted; Andreas Dobslaw, Die Wiener »Quellenschriften« und ihr Herausgeber Rudolf Eitelberger von Edelberg, and Alexander Auf der Heyde, For the "Future of Art in Italy": Pietro Selvatico and the Aesthetics Applied to the Drawing Arts in the XIX Century.

[3] Today, the descendant of that museum is called Museum Angewandte Kunst or just MAK. The book we are reviewing was published by the Viennese publishing house Schlebrügge, but is part of the series MAK Studies and has been made possible thanks to funding of the museum. Incidentally, it won the award for the best Austrian art book in 2007 and really deserved it.

[4] The information provided on the major collections in 1500 is very complete. For example, he refers to the Treaty "on the art of arranging collections" written by Samuel Quiccheberg in 1565.

[5] See the "Renaissance" of Wikipedia.en (note 13).