When Heinrich Hübsch published In What Style Should We Build? in 1828, German Neoclassicismlike its counterpart in Francewas in rapid descent, thereby opening the question of what would follow. Could architects continue to draw from the classical wellspring? Could these aesthetic principles be augmented by those of the Romanesque or Gothic periods? Could an entirely new and
nonhistorical architecture be forged?
Hübsch's provocative argument, which insisted that the technical progress and changed living habits of the nineteenth century had once and for all rendered Neoclassical principles antiquated, touched off a lively, two-decade debate among
architects, historians, and critics. This controversy led to a new nineteenth-century style and set the stage for the foundation of Modernism in the last decades of the century.
Of particular import is Carl Bötticher's incisive analysis of the theoretical landscapewritten in 1846in which he proffered for the first time the possibility of a new style based solely upon the structural and spatial
innovations of iron construction. The broad outlines and meaning of this debate are delineated by Wolfgang Herrmann in his excellent introduction.
Wolfgang Herrmann received his doctorate from the University of Leipzig in 1924. His books include The Theory of Claude Perrault and Gottfried Semper: In Search of Architecture.
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In What Style Should We Build? (Hardcover): $35.00
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