Material Theories: Locating Artefacts and People in Gottfried Semper's Writings

227 Pages·2022·22.419 MB·English

by  Elena Chestnova

Material Theories
Material Theories takes a radically new approach to well-established thinking
on nineteenth-century architecture and design by investigating Gottfried
Semper’s classic ideas about dressing, metamorphosis of material, and
cultural development, culminating in his two-volume publication Style.
This book demonstrates how Semper’s theories crystallised among his
encounters with material things of the late 1840s and early 1850s. It examines
several discursive frameworks and phenomena which shaped the attitude to
artefacts in Europe in the mid-nineteenth century, and which were specifically
pertinent to Semper’s evolution: archaeology and antiquarianism, the domestic
interior, print media, collections, and the embodied relationship between the
designer and their work. For the first time, this book examines the construction
of a design theory not only as an intellectual endeavour but also as a process of
confrontation with material things. It employs recent approaches to material
culture, in particular Thing Theory, in order to show that Semper’s artefact
references constituted his ideas, rather than simply giving impetus to them.
It will be an important investigation for academics and researchers
interested in interior design history, as well as scholars of material culture
and history of design theory.
Elena Chestnova is a researcher at the Institute for History and Theory of
Art and Architecture of the Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio,
Switzerland. She has completed her PhD dissertation in Mendrisio after
studying architecture at the University of Cambridge and the ETH Zurich.
Routledge Research in Interior Design
The Routledge Research in Interior Design series provides the reader with the
latest scholarship in the field of interiors. The series publishes research from
across the globe and covers areas as diverse as the history and theory of inter-
iors, evidence-based case studies, technology, digital interior design, materials,
details, monographs of interior designers, and much more. By making these
studies available to the worldwide academic community, the series aims to
promote quality interior design research.
Titles in the Series
Architectures of Display
Department Stores and Modern Retail
Edited by Anca I Lasc, Patricia Lara-Betancourt, Margaret Maile-Petty
Designed to Sell
The Evolution of Modern Merchandising and Display
By Alessandra Wood
Material Theories
Locating Artefacts and People in Gottfried Semper’s Writings
By Elena Chestnova
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/
architecture/series/RRINTD
Material Theories
Locating Artefacts and People in
Gottfried Semper’s Writings
Elena Chestnova
Cover image: Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth
II 2021. Joseph Nash (1809-78), The Great Exhibition: Turkey No. 2
dated 1852
First published 2022
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2022 Elena Chestnova
The right of Elena Chestnova to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or
other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
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system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-0-367-47391-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-27644-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-03529-9 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003035299
Typeset in Times New Roman
by MPS Limited, Dehradun
To Ogi.

Contents
List of Figures ix
Acknowledgements xiv
Introduction 1
Biographical background 6
Outline of the book 9
1 Analysis and experience: Artefacts in archaeology and cultural
history 16
Archaeological hermeneutics and Karl Otfried Müller 17
Cultural history and Arnold Heeren 23
2 Artefacts and reconstructions of the past 33
Assyria in text 36
Semper’s reconstructions 45
Manners and customs 47
Object lessons 53
3 Domestic space and the theory of decorative things 65
Origins of architecture in domestic space 67
Assyrian palaces and sensual luxury 70
Homology between the house and the city 73
Symbolic capacity of the domestic interior 76
Textile origin of the wall 79
4 Interiors and the education of taste 92
Education of taste 93
Taste and the interior 96
Collections and interiors 103
viii Contents
Catalogue of metalwork 108
5 Commodity and the Great Exhibition 122
Semper at the Crystal Palace 123
Global culture and material flows 130
Babylonian confusion 133
The Kunstformenlehre manuscript 137
The whole and the parts 150
6 Artefacts and bodies 157
Ceramics as national fossils 158
Animated appendages 162
Decorations of the body 169
Epilogue 181
Bibliography 191
Index 208
Figures
0.1 Gottfried Semper, views of hydrias, probably intended for
use as lecture illustrations, body colour on paper, ca.
1850–1855. gta Archives / ETH Zurich, Semper fonds
20_prov_a18W_XI and 20_0163_127A 2
0.2 Gottfried Semper, view of the situla probably intended as
lecture illustration, body colour on paper, ca. 1850–1855. gta
Archives / ETH Zurich, Semper fonds 20_0163_126A 2
1.1 Gottfried Semper, reconstruction of the Acropolis in Athens,
1833, watercolour on paper. gta Archives / ETH Zurich,
Semper fonds 20-0215-2 17
2.1 Carved gypsum wall panel relief with a court scene showing
king Ashurnasirpal II seated with a bowl of wine in his hand.
865–860 BCE, excavated late-1840s. © The Trustees of the
British Museum 34
2.2 Semper’s sketches of the excavations at Khorsabad, after
publications of Paul Emile Botta, in the margin of a
lecture manuscript that turned into the first draft of future
Style. gta Archives / ETH Zurich, Semper fonds 20-MS-35 35
2.3 ‘Façade N’ tracing by Semper after Botta, Monumentde
Ninive, pencil on trace, ca. 1848. Gridlines over the drawing
suggest that it served as a basis for an enlargement, probably
in order to be used as a lecture illustration. gta Archives /
ETH Zurich, Semper fonds 20-7-2-8 37
2.4 Design for the house of Semper’s brother in Hamburg,
published in the Allgemeine Bauzeitung in 1848. gta
Archives / ETH Zurich, Semper fonds 20-071-1A 38
2.5 Assyrian human-headed bull sketched by Semper in the
Louvre, 1849–1850, pencil on paper. gta Archives / ETH
Zurich, Semper fonds 20-7-1-2 40
2.6 Relief of the figure with lion after Botta, Monument de
Ninive, pencil on trace mounted on paper, ca. 1848. gta
Archives / ETH Zurich, Semper fonds 20-7-2-9 41