Goetheanum by Rudolph Steiner | Architecture Enthusiast | 

Spiritually expressive, liberal and primordially emotive, the Goetheanum is the architectural embodiment of its creator’s ‘anthroposophical’ philosophy - a human oriented spiritual movement that reflects on the deep questions of humanity, and our basic artistic needs. The brainchild of Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect, economist and esotericist Rudolf Steiner, both the Goetheanum and anthroposophy are firmly rooted in the foundation of German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s theory of natural life cycles and studies in biology - a principle that inspired the Goetheanum’s namesake.
Situated in the mountainous region of Dornach, Switzerland, Steiner’s ‘first’ Goetheanum was completed in 1919 and comprised primarily of sculpted wood - but only a few years later, remarkably it burned down. The ‘second’ Goetheanum, publicly assessable to this day, was conceived by the architect as an illustration of ‘a new style of architecture’, at once organic and functional. It was realized in 1928, just after Steiner’s death.
The first Goetheanum was a dramatic exercise in expression, with unusual forms carved from wood by boat builders, colored-glass windows, and double-domed rooftop. Pioneering new techniques and styles, Steiner sought to express the union of spirit and matter through architecture. After the building was destroyed by arson, it was widely considered a huge architectural loss.
Steiner designed the second Goetheanum, a building to replace the original, wholly of cast concrete. it represents a pioneering use of visible concrete in architecture, particularly in its achievement of sculptural shapes on an architectural scale. a large-glazed opening connects the interior with the rocky terrain that forms its backdrop.
Once inside, the experience of navigating the interior spaces can be described as moving within a giant sculpture. organically expressive forms - an innovation for the time - embodied Steiner’s expressionist movement, revolutionary ideas, and enthusiasm for anthroposophy. no less important is the color of the space, which mirrors the shades of the sun and the earth, functioning as a visual Introduction to the metaphysical ideas of Steiner’s anthroposophy. filtered through engraved colored-glass windows, light bounces off watercolor murals in the sequence of green, blue, violet and pink.
‘That dreadful calamity was just the occasion to bring to light what fantastic notions there are in the world linked with all that this Goetheanum in Dornach intended to do and all that was done in it,’ Steiner said in a lecture soon after the fire.
Giving birth to a generation of architectural ideas to come, the Goetheanum drew the visit and praise of creative legends including Henry van de Velde, Frank Lloyd Wright, Hans Scharoun, and Frank Gehry. Today, the Goetheanum is the headquarters for the school of spiritual science and the general anthroposophical society. the school of spiritual science remains active worldwide in the research, development, teaching, and practical implementation of its findings. public events and workshops are hosted inside its 1,000-seat auditorium, and range from lectures, to international conferences, and performances that give expression to anthroposophy.
The transformation between the wooden construction of the first Goetheanum and the concrete structure of the second one represents a significant shift. The suppleness of the wood, its fibrous, "grown" character, lent itself well to the idea of an organic architecture. While working in wood, observed Steiner, one creates space by subtracting a cavity.
Concrete, on the other hand, is a material which generates convex forms by adding to the surface. This was a new interpretation of the identity of concrete, generally used at the time to build tectonic frames, comparable to timber construction. Steiner, however, rejected this model, even when he had to replace a wooden construction. What Steiner called the "spirit" manifests itself in metabolic processes: the heavy concrete body of the Goetheanum, itself an imprint, works as a kind of a mould, enveloping the memory of its burnt-down predecessor, absorbing the observer's attention.
Steiner spoke of Umstülpung, eversion, turning inside out a form-defining process which he identified as a cosmic principle: making a cavity out of mass, putting spirit and matter in a dialectical relationship. The "animate forms" of contemporary computer-generated architecture might appear as a further move on a metabolic chain. But in reality, the new superficiality of computer-generated forms lacks the most important dimension of Steiner's work, the drama of the struggle with gravity, with the resulting architectural object constituting an objection against the ongoing process of immaterialisation.
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Goetheanum by Rudolph Steiner | Architecture Enthusiast |
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