抄録
This paper is the second part of the thesis "A Study on the Historicism of the 19th Century", and consists of following four sections. 1. The Formation of Semper's "Theory of Cladding" and the Other Two Theories ("Comparative Building Theory" and "Four Elements of Architecture"), 2. Semper's "Primitive Hut(Urhtitte)", 3. Semper's Position on Industrial Art(Kunstindustrie), 4. Durand, Paxton, and Semper. Gottfried Semper( 1803-79) was perhaps the most important architect of his day in Germany. Semper the architect is closely related to Semper the historian and theoretician. In buildings of many prominent architects, who used various historical styles, he found the eclecticism which was brought out by their superficial understanding of J. -N. -L. Durand's writings. Semper's reaction against the purely pictorial approach to style led him to investigate the principles of style and ornament. All his life he believed that architecture should have its appropriate style and ornament. Semper began with a Durandesque comparative study. In his book "The Four Elements of Architecture" (Brunswick 1851), he precisely formulated the four elements of "primitive hut", namely hearth as the spiritual center of the whole, enclosure, roof, and earthwork. Searching for the basic elements (Urelemente) is a new direction in his theory of architecture. Semper was not interested in M. -A. Laugier's skeletal primitive hut. He proposed an image of the earliest architecture clad in ornament. In this stage he had already conceived the first idea of his "theory of cladding", too. But Semper gave manifold meanings to each of four basic elements in order to write his all-embracing architectural history. Among the four elements the word "enclosure" has the most ambiguous shape, while it plays the most important role in his "theory of cladding". Semper worked for many weeks in the Crystal Palace, charged with the arrangement of four stands (Canada, Turkey, Sweden, and Denmark). He was well acquainted with the London Great Exhibition of 1851 and its main hall. Doubtlessly influenced by the impressions of the Great Exhibition and the discussions with Sir Henry Cole (1808-82) and his group, the idealist Semper transformed to be a pragmatist. He found his theoretical basis in the "lower" genres that in his times was called industrial art (Kunstindustrie). He no longer sought explanation from "above", that is, derived from the monumental architecture. He now gave up his all-embracing architectural history. In his "theory of cladding", he came to deal with architectural language emerging from crafts. Later Semper was appointed to the Federal University of Technology in Zurich. He may have imagined his "Polytechnic" (1858-64) in terms similar to the Crystal Palace, but he dressed this important and "permanent" edifice with ornaments, in order to let the beholder recognize the status and social role of the building, not the merely structural principles.
