Hipótesis indirectas

subsequently given to Klenze (Munich, 1816-30); Watkin and Mellinghoff, p. 143.

17 Only one German language architectural publication, Allgemeines Magazine fu r die biirgerliche Baunkunst,

published 1789-96 in Weimar, preceded Gilly’s. Not specifically directed toward architects and builders, it contained book reviews, extracts, and translations, and was directed toward appreciation o f architecture rather than providing technical information. Neumeyer, pp. 57.

Despite the inclusion o f some technical material in Gilly’s publication, Schwarzer claimed that periodicals o f the period “lacked a comprehensive approach to architecture” that reflected their genesis in aristocratic and bourgeois dilettantism. He also claimed that specialized architectural journalism did not develop in Germany until the nineteenth-century when new programmatic, technical, intellectual, and social concerns impacted practitioners, and new methods o f printing and distribution enhanced the ability o f publications to address such concerns. He particularly cited Allgemeine Bauzeitung mit Abbildungen fu r Architekten, Ingenieurs, Dekorateurs, Bauprofessionisten, Oekonomen, Bauunternehmer und alle, die an den Fortschritten und Leistungen der neuesten Zeit in der Baukunst und den dahin einschlagenden FdchernAntheil nehmen, founded in Vienna in 1836 by architect Christian Freidrich Ludwig von Forster (1797-1863) and published weekly 1836-38, monthly 1839-95, and quarterly 1896-1918, as the most important example o f the new Central European architectural publications. Geographically- and organizationally-oriented periodicals such as

Zeitschiftfur praktische Baukunst (Leipzig, 1841 -65), Deutsche Bauzeitung (Berlin, 1868-1942), Centralblatt der Bauverwaltung (Berlin, 1881-1944), and D ieA rchitekt (Vienna, 1895-1922) emulated its comprehensive coverage o f technical, aesthetic, and political topics. Mitchell Schwarzer, German Architectural Theory and the Search f o r M odem Identity (Cambridge, UK and N ew York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 29-30.

The Rise o f a “German ” Architecture

This view of the beginnings o f a distinctive German architecture that was deeply rooted in eighteenth-century French practice is held by many historians, but subsequent developments were complex and cannot be understood without taking into account the birth o f a unified German state, the political ties between the new state and the rest o f Europe, and relationships between German architects and their other European counterparts. Micahel Lewis emphasized this complexity when he referred to the 1790s as

a decisive decade for German architecture. One cannot speak o f a German architecture before that time in the same sense that one speaks o f a characteristic French or English form o f that art. In part, this was the consequence o f Germany’s political division into a multitude o f sovereign states. While notable architects worked in Berlin, Munich, Stuttgart, Kassell, and other cities, none o f these possessed the national cultural primacy o f London or Paris. Until the founding of the Berlin Bauakademie in 1799, there was no truly national architectural school, and a comprehensive architectural education could only be had abroad or in the office o f one of the French emigre architects occasionally summoned to German cities. What distinction German architecture had at this time was the result of regional vernacular patrimony, not the product of an indigenous intellectual or professional tradition.18

Watkin and Mellinghoff expressed a similar view and documented its manifestation in a confluence o f personalities, projects, and buildings.19 In their view, this Franco-Prussian school, its members all German and bom between 1733 and 1772 and of which Schinkel was said to be the heir, were united

18 Michael J. Lewis, “The Birth o f a German Academic Tradition” in Friedrich Weinbrenner, p. 35.

19 Watkin and M ellinghoff included Johann Gottfried Schadow (1764-1850), sculptor, draftsman, printmaker, and theorist, in David Gilly’s circle. Schadow’s work combined a restrained and somewhat sentimental version o f neoclassicism and a strong and detailed realism. He advocated the close study o f nature and is considered the first exponent o f the nineteenth-century Berlin sculptural tradition. Bom in Berlin, he traveled to Rome in 1785 and was appointed director o f sculptural works at the Ministry o f Architecture the year after he returned in 1787. He subsequently became head o f the court sculpture workshop, beating Canova for the post, and in 1788-89, produced several reliefs for the new royal chambers in the Berlin Residenz designed by Erdmannsdorff and Langhans. The sculptural ornamentation for Langhans’ Brandenburg Gate inBerlin(1791) is among the best known o f his designs. Schadow became the secretary o f the Berlin Akademie der Kunste in 1787, and was its director from 1815 until he died. He simultaneously directed the Akademie der bildenden Kunste and the Bauakademie from 1816 to 1824. Gotz Eckardt, “Johann Gottfried Schadow” in Grove

by a positive response to Ledoux and service to Friedrich Wilhelm II’s attempt to make Berlin a cultural center dominated by German artists.20 However, the situation changed dramatically, as French influence began to decline after the rediscovery o f Greek architecture and the subsequent dismissal o f Roman arid Renaissance modes o f design by the avant-garde in Rome and, eventually, Berlin. These changes allowed German architects to become increasingly self-reliant and less obligated to French influence because they could obtain information from English publications and visits to Greek archeological sites in southern Italy and Sicily for themselves.21 The results o f these transformations in taste and practice were especially apparent in the career of David Gilly’s son, Friedrich.22 Although his fame is associated with less than ten years of productive work and his few built designs were modest, he was an extremely important member of this group. His sudden death in Karlsbad in 1800 from a pulmonary disorder prematurely ended a career o f great significance and potential and made him an unwitting avatar for ideas and causes that were largely anachronistic and irrelevant to the time in which he lived.23

Dictionary o f Art, vol. 28, pp. 42-25; Ulrich Pfammatter, The Making o f the M odem Architect and Engineer,

Madeline Ferretti-Theilig, trans. (Basel, Boston, Berlin: Birkhauser, 2000), p. 224. 20 Watkin and Mellinghoff, pp. 59, 61-64.

21 Lewis, “The Birth o f a German Academic Tradition,” pp. 35-36. For example, while Le Roy’s Les m ines des plu s beaux monuments de la Grece; Ouvrage divise en deux parties, ou I ’on considere, dans la premiere, ces monuments du cote de I ’histoire, et dans la seconde, du cote de Tarchitecture (Paris: H. L. Guerin & L. F. Delatourl758) was perhaps the first serious attempt to accurately document classical Greek architecture, James Stuart and Nicholas Revett’ s The Antiquities o f Athens (London: J. Haberkom, 1762) was considered by many to be a superior effort.

22 Many o f Gilly’s original drawings were destroyed during World War II. A catalog o f this material appears in the Appendix to Alste Oncken, Friedrich Gilly, 1772-1800 (Berlin: Gebr. MannVerlag, 1981), reprint o f first ed. (Berlin: Deutscher Verein fur Kunstwissenschaft, 1935).

23 Hitchcock had little interest in him; Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Architecture: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, UK and N ew York: Penguin Books, 1977), p. 42. However, Pevsner wrote that with Gilly and Soane, “... we are close to a new style o f the new century,” although several pages later he added, “Even with regard to Soane and Gilly, we have to be careful not to over-estimate their originality and ‘modernity’.” Nikolaus Pevsner, An Outline o f European Architecture, sixth ed. (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, UK: Penguin Books, 1963), pp. 375,377. Within the German-speaking world, notions o f Gilly’s ever-changing posthumous significance ranged from that o f Schinkel’s source to the personification o f politically-suspect neoclassicism; Neumeyer, pp. 10-21.

Fredrich Gilly

When he arrived in Berlin with his father, Freidrich Gilly began studies at the Akademie der bildenden Kunste where his teachers included the architects Langhans and Erdmannsdorff as well as the artists Schadow, Rode,24 and Chodowiecki.25 After working for Langhans, Gilly was appointed a Kondukteur (Supplementary Inspector) in the Konigliche Baubehorde (Royal Building Corps) in 1790.26 He received his first private commission in 1792 and began to teach architectural drawing in his father’s school the next year. Watkin and Mellinghoff stated that Gilly was influenced at this time by his reading o f Goethe and Winckelmann, and that his association with playwright Johan Ludwig Tieck (1773-1853) and poet Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder (1773-98), both in their early twenties, contributed to his self-perception as “ ...a romantic artist in lonely pursuit o f eternal truths.”27

Gilly first came to public attention with a group o f ten pen and pencil and wash drawings o f the ruins of a late thirteenth-century castle, Schloss Marienburg that was located near Danzig and built by the Prussian Knights of the Teutonic Order.28 He inspected the site in 1794 during an official tour of

24 Christian Bernhard Rhode (1725-97) was a painter, draftsman, and etcher who studied in Paris, Rome, and Venice. He became a member o f the Akademie der bildenden Kunste in 1756, Director in 1783, and an exhibitor 1786-97. His depictions o f Enlightenment themes as depicted in scenes o f ancient and recent history constitute his most significant work.

25 Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki (1726-1801) was a self-taught painter, draftsman, and engraver who initially specialized in miniatures. He became a member o f the Berlin Kunstakademie in 1764 and began painting for the court. He concentrated on illustration after 1768, became director o f the Kunstakademie in 1797, and never left Berlin except for trips to Danzig and Dresden. Although he illustrated Werther, Goethe seems to have considered him no more than technically adept. Irene Haberland, “Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki” in Grove Dictionary o f Art, vol. 7, pp. 183-84; Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “Ancient versus Modem,” translation o f “Antik und Modem” in Uber Kunst und Altertum, vol. 2 (1818) in Essays on A rt and Literature, John Geary, ed., Ellen von Nardoff and Ernst H. vonNardoff, trans., (N ew York: Suhrkamp Publishers, 1986), p. 91. 26 Neumeyer, p. 5.

27 Watkin and Mellinghoff, p. 66.

28 He also included a technical drawing o f a millrace built by the Knights o f the Teutonic Order intended to