GOTTFRIED SEMPER IN LONDON 1850-55

Workshop
Istituto di storia e teoria dell’arte e dell’architettura ISA
Accademia di architettura, Palazzo Canavée, Università della Svizzera italiana

In the years following the European revolutions of 1848, art, architecture and science were undergoing a radical shift comparable to that which affected politics and society. London was at the centre of this transformation. During the period of his exile, the German architect Gottfried Semper (1803-1879) kept in step with the times as an observer composing various critical essays on the Great Exhibition of 1851, and as a practitioner creating architectures of display and teaching at the Department of Practical Art (formerly the London School of Design). The papers focus on Semper‘s integration into the London design scene and his deliberations on the global development of architectural culture. They are part of the SNSF research project "Architecture and the Globalization of Knowledge in the 19th Century. Gottfried Semper and the Discipline of Architectural History" (Sonja Hildebrand, ISA, Accademia di architettura, USI, Mendrisio, and Philip Ursprung, Institute gta, D-ARCH, ETH Zurich). The project includes a critical edition of lesser-known texts by Semper of that time.

Program

Wednesday, 26 February 2014

14:30 (Palazzo Canavée C3.88)
Sonja Hildebrand (Mendrisio) and Philip Ursprung (Zurich)
- Introduction

15:00
Dieter Weidmann (Mendrisio/Zurich)
- Through the Stable Door to Prince Albert? On Semper's London Connections

15:30
Claudio Leoni (Zurich/London)
- Art, Production, and Market Conditions: Gottfried Semper's Historical Perspective on Commodities

Coffee break

16:30 (Palazzo Canavée C3.89)
Elena Chestnova (Mendrisio/Zurich)
- "Ornamental Design Is … a Kind of Practical Science": Ornamental Theories
at the London School of Design and the Department of Practical Art

17:00
Michael Gnehm (Mendrisio/Zurich)
- Artificial Evolution: Editing Gottfried Semper

Guest
Spyros Papapetros (Princeton University School of Architecture)

ISA LECTURE

19:30 (Palazzo Canavée C3.89)
Spyros Papapetros (Princeton University School of Architecture)
- You Build What You Throw! Ballistics, Politics, and Parabolic Forms in Semper's Treatise on Ancient Projectiles


Istituto di storia e teoria dell'arte e dell'architettura ISA
Accademia di architettura
Università della Svizzera italiana
Palazzo Canavée
Largo Bernasconi 2
CH-6850 Mendrisio
www.arc.usi.ch
Info: Paola Pina Blouin: paola.pinablouinusi.ch