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27/4/2012

Constructing Community

Swiss Architecture Museum, Basel

‘In many respects being very strange as a whole, the effect, however, in some ways is unquestionably good, even exceptionally beautiful,’ reported a reviewer in a Swiss building magazine in 1917 after having climbed up the hill outside of Dornach. Initially called the Johannes Building the architectonic masterpiece of the anthroposophical movement, the First Goetheanum, had been emerging at this location since 1913. Never completely finished the double-cupola wood structure was destroyed by arson on New Year’s Eve in 1922.

The building of the First Goetheanum occurrs mainly during World War I, whose consequences were felt even by neutral Switzerland. Historically it is a threshold period —full of social, cultural and political upheavals. Since 1800 art has been taking the place of religion promising a sense of meaning in a world that had become increasingly demystified by the positivism and materialism of the 19th century. Phantasmagorias of new, unprecedented architecture pervade the various Lebensreform circles appearing around 1900, however, in Dornach the imaginary utopia becomes reality. Oscillating between Art Nouveau and Expressionism the formal vocabulary of the First Goetheanum baffled contemporaries and even today still precludes any attempt to be unequivocally categorized.

The significance of the First Goetheanum in architecture history, which in the meantime is undisputed, is only one aspect that the exhibition at S AM aims to cover. The multiple ways that the programmatic title ‘Constructing Community’ can be read is intentional: suggesting a building that has been created by a community and at the same time the building up of a community itself, i.e., its sense of identity. As well, it’s also about communal building, as the First Goetheanum was not built by Rudolf Steiner alone and also not only by trained craftspeople but also by as many as 200 volunteers— members of the anthroposophical movement, who worked tirelessly at the building site as wood carvers, painters, glass engravers or draftsperson. While this was one way to sink costs ultimately such pragmatic reasoning was not the crucial factor. Rather the purpose was imbedded in the idealistic concept of an undertaking that was to be completed through the productive efforts of many. Especially remarkable about this aim is that professional occupational training only played a minor role. At the same time the work of laypersons was considered as the antithesis of a professionalism that was considered to be soulless—an idea of the time that can be traced, e.g., from the appreciation of dilettantism within the English Reform Movement to the interest in children’s drawings or artworks of ‘primitive’ peoples and beyond to the aleatoric experiments of the Surrealists, all of which addressed the underlying question as to how creative energy is to be released independent of social conditioning.

The exhibition begins with a photograph of the ruins after the fire in 1922 and ends with the design sketches of the project that had been initially conceived beginning in 1911–and then ultimately failed—in Munich and afterwards in 1913 was transferred to Dornach. No longer planned at the centre of the city but rather at the edge of a village there was a change in gestalt. The exhibition intentionally presents the chronology in reverse: a building that no longer exists is portrayed at the beginning; one, that doesn’t exist yet at the end. Travelling backwards everything has its ‘right’ place in the succession: first the plans, then the workers, followed by the mediatisation through photography, the building process and finally the end of the building.

In this exhibition photography assumes a central role: it enables insights into the building process, affords a reconstruction of the building. The trained metal worker Max Benzinger documented the events with his camera, as did the St. Gallen photographer and anthroposophist Otto Rietmann. The so-to-say ‘canonical’ photo series, however, originated from the studio of Heydebrand-Osthoff. The images were included in a monograph of the building ‘Der Baugedanke des Goetheanum’ that was initially published in 1932.

Only presented ten years after the building itself no longer existed and also being of amateurish quality, ultimately Heydebrand-Osthoff’s photos do not simulate the substantiality of the building, but rather underscore the fact that photography cannot approximate reality. In particular they prove that what Rudolf Steiner intended as the main experience of the building itself is no longer possible. The fact that the physical reality of the First Goetheanum no longer exists makes the basic problem of architecture exhibitions —which typically use auxiliary means to represent buildings located outside of museums—even more strongly evident in this exhibition. Only fragments, such as photos, plans, studies, relics, written testimonies, remain. Putting these together to form one multilayered image is the goal of this exhibition. Archives—the source of our materials—are reservoirs of knowledge, which themselves have to be updated. As Michel Foucault proclaimed with respect to using archives: ‘In our time history is that which transforms documents into monuments.‘ ‘Constructing Community. The First Goetheanum in Photos and Documents’ provides a possibility for this.

Supporting programme

Exhibition Tours
Thursdays, 6:00–7:00 PM at S AM 3 May, 7 June, 28 June, 12 July 2012

Wednesday, 9 May 2012, 6:30 PM
‘Sculptural Forms, Curved Planes, Swinging Lines: The Dornach Anthroposophical Colony’. Architecture Tour with Jolanthe Kugler of the Settlement on the Hill of the Goetheanum

Sunday, 20 May 2012, 11:00 AM
Book presentation of the novel ‘Aufzeichnungen eines Sonderlings’ by A. Belyj (1880–1934) Reading by H.-Dieter Jendreyko Cooperation of S AM Swiss Architecture Museum with Verlag am Goetheanum and the Philosophicum Location: Philosophicum, St. Johanns-Vorstadt 19–21, 4056 Basel

Thursday, 31 May 2012, 6:00 PM
Tour: ‘Architecture out of the Archive. Tour through the Basel- Stadt State Archive with Presentation of Selected Sources’ with Daniel Hagmann Location: Basel-Stadt State Archive, Martinsgasse 2, 4051 Basel

Thursday, 21 June 2012, 7:00 PM
S AM Talk with Launching of archithese Issue at Basel-Stadt State Archive. ‘Documents, Monuments? Cultural Memory and its Sites’ Issue 3’2012 of the architecture journal archi- these will be released. In cooperation with the Basel- Stadt State Archive the launching of the issue will take place in the ambiance of the State Archive. The Basel-Stadt State Archive, Rudolf Steiner Archive and the Archive at the Goetheanum are the most important lenders of materials for the current exhibition.
Participants: Esther Baur (State Archivist, Basel-Stadt State Ar- chive), Walter Kugler (Rudolf Steiner Archive, Dornach), Hu- bertus Adam (S AM Artistic Director) Location: Basel-Stadt State Archive, Martinsgasse 2, 4051 Basel The archithese issue accompanying the current S AM exhibi- tion will be available as of the beginning of June 2012 at S AM for CHF 28.
Order online at: info@sam-basel.org or www.archithese.ch

Saturday,28July2012,8:00–6:00PM
Bus tour to visit the Goetheanum architectural model in Malsch (built in 1908/09) and other related highlights in Karlsruhe from this period, e.g., Garden City in Rüppurr by F. Ostendorf, 1912; Dammerstock Settlement by W. Gropius, 1912; schools by H. Billing, K. Moser and M. Laeuger, circa 1905)

The exhibition is supported by:
Basel Stadt, Präsidialdepartement Abteilung Kultur; Freie Gemeinschaftsbank; André und Rosalie Hoffmann; GGG Gesellschaft für das Gute und Gemeinnützige; Karl Bubenhofer AG; sia Schweizerischer Ingenieur- und Architektenverein; swissarchitects; Theater Basel; trans magazin; Zumtobel Licht AG

Image: © Staatsarchiv Basel-Stadt, BSL 1023 1-4-1. Foto: Atelier von Heydebrand-Osthoff

Please contact us for images, interviews and further information:
press@sam-basel.org; Tel: +41 (0)61 261 1413; Fax: +41 (0)61 261 1428

Opening: April 28th 2012, 7 pm

S AM Swiss Architecture Museum
Steinenberg 7 , P.O. Box 911, CH-4001 Basel
opening hours: tue / wed / fri  11-18h, thu 11-20.30h, sat / sun 11-17h
special hours easter 2012:
fr 06.04.2012 closed
sun 07.04.2012, 11-17 h
sat 08.04.2012, 11-17 h
mon 09.04.2012, 11-17 h
art basel 2012:
mon 11.06.2012, 10-20 h
tue 12.06.2012, 10-20 h
wed 13.06.2012, 10-22 h
thu 14.06.2012, 10-20 h
fri 15.06.2012, 10-20 h
sun 16.06.2012, 10-20 h
sat 17.06.2012, 10-20 h
mon 18.06.2012, closed
admission:
chf 10.- / 6.-

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