Manufacturing

Middle Ages
Entangled History of Medievalism in
Nineteenth-Century Europe

Edited by
Patrick J. Geary and Gábor Klaniczay

LEIDEN • BOSTON
2013

© 2013 Koninklijke Brill NV ISBN 978-90-04-24486-3

 CONTENTS

List of Figures  ................................................................................................... ix

Acknowledgements  ........................................................................................ xiii

Introduction  ..................................................................................................... 1

PART ONE
MEDIEVALISM IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY HISTORIOGRAPHY

National Origin Narratives in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy  ..... 13

Walter Pohl

The Uses and Abuses of the Barbarian Invasions in the Nineteenth

and Twentieth Centuries  ......................................................................... 51
Ian N. Wood

Oehlenschlaeger and Ibsen: National Revival in Drama and

History in Denmark and Norway c. 1800–1860  ................................. 71
Sverre Bagge

Romantic Historiography as a Sociology of Liberty:

Joachim Lelewel and His Contemporaries ......................................... 89
Maciej Janowski

PART TWO
MEDIEVALISM IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY ARCHITECTURE

The Roots of Medievalism in North-West Europe:

National Romanticism, Architecture, Literature .............................. 111
David M. Wilson

Medieval and Neo-Medieval Buildings in Scandinavia  ....................... 139

Anders Andrén

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Restoration as an Expression of Art History in Nineteenth-Century

Hungary  ........................................................................................................ 159
Ernő Marosi

Digging Out the Past to Build Up the Future:

Romanian Architecture in the Balkan Context 1859–1906  ........... 189
Carmen Popescu

Ottoman Gothic: Evocations of the Medieval Past in Late

Ottoman Architecture  .............................................................................. 217
Ahmet Ersoy

Medievalism and Modernity: Architectural Appropriations of the

Middle Ages in Germany (1890–1920)  ................................................. 239
Michael Werner

PART THREE
MEDIEVALISM IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY PHILOLOGY

A Cross-Country Foxhunt: Claiming Reynard for the National

Literatures of Nineteenth-Century Europe  ........................................ 259
Joep Leerssen

Restoration from Notre-Dame de Paris to Gaston Paris ..................... 279

R. Howard Bloch

The Czech Linguistic Turn: Origins of Modern Czech Philology

1780–1880  ...................................................................................................... 299
Pavlína Rychterová

PART FOUR
MEDIEVALISM AND ITS ALTERNATIVES IN
NATIONAL DISCOURSES

‘Medieval’ Identities in Italy: National, Regional, Local ...................... 319

Tommaso di Carpegna Falconieri

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Between Slavs and Old Bulgars: ‘Ancestors’, ‘Race’ and Identity in

Late Nineteenth-Century Bulgaria ........................................................ 347
Stefan Detchev

With Brotherly Love: The Czech Beginnings of Medieval

Archaeology in Bulgaria and Ukraine .................................................. 377
Florin Curta

The Study of the Archaeological Finds of the Tenth-Century

Carpathian Basin as National Archaeology:
Early Nineteenth-Century Views ........................................................... 397
Péter Langó

Notes on Contributors  ................................................................................... 419

Index of Proper Names  ................................................................................. 425

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 MEDIEVALISM AND MODERNITY: ARCHITECTURAL
APPROPRIATIONS OF THE MIDDLE AGES IN GERMANY (1890–1920)*

Michael Werner

The present article questions practices of medievalism and representa-

tions of the Middle Ages. In order to understand these practices and rep-
resentations, we have to take into account, on the one hand, a general
narrative of the construction of Middle Ages during the long nineteenth
century and, on the other, the final breakdown of classical medievalism
and its impact on the cultural evolution of the first decades of the twen-
tieth century. Because our primary interest is the relationship between
medievalism and modernity, it makes sense to concentrate on this lat-
ter period. Of course, during the whole nineteenth century, medievalism
was linked to political, social and cultural changes that took place within
the process of modernization. The completions of the Cologne cathedral,
the long-term enterprise of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, and the
restoration of the château de Pierrefonds were powerful symbols of the
ideology of progress which dominated the century in Europe. In a certain
sense, medievalism and the idea of modernity were often closely linked.
Many advocates of medievalism attempted to bring medieval order and
forms into the present. They took inspiration from the Middle Ages to
shape their here and now. But since the 1890s, the relation between rep-
resentations of the medieval past and modernity began to change pro-
foundly. History, framing the views of the century, shaped the knowledge
and modified the self-understanding of European societies, and was
increasingly forced to confront the crisis of historicism. The acceleration
of uncontrolled urban development resulting from the industrial boom
created strong social tensions and undermined the ideology of progress.
In the field of literature, arts and architecture, these evolutions prepared
the field for avant-garde movements.
The passage from affirmative historicism to modernity implied a devel-
opment requiring a period of time and took different forms. It was neither

* I am very grateful for the discussions and precious comments of the focus group mem-
bers who shared the common work at the Collegium Budapest during the first months of
2009.

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a sudden transformation nor a linear process, but rather a complex evo-

lution, including backward steps and numerous intertwining entangle-
ments. As I will argue, this mutation can be observed in several spheres
of social and cultural life. In the following remarks I will concentrate on
architecture and on the ideas of “building,” but similar phenomena might
be observed in applied arts (furniture, interior design) or in popular lit-
erature. However, as we will see, architecture offers special evidence to
illustrate the argument I am trying to defend.

Let us begin with a preliminary remark on our understanding of histori-

cism. What we call historicism (Historismus) is a movement which started
in Europe at the end of the eighteenth century. It was related, as stated
by Koselleck, to the historical experience of the French Revolution, which
radically questioned the foreseeability of history.1 From then on, past, pres-
ent and future were separated. Without commenting here further on the
methodological implications for the historiography (in particular source
criticism, necessity for not assessing the past in light of the present),
I would like to define historicism, for the purposes of my presentation,
in the term of Otto-Gerhard Oexle, as a movement of Historisierung (his-
torization) encompassing all areas of humanities, arts and sciences.2 This
overlapping definition includes all disciplines. However, in art history and
the history of architecture the term historicism describes, more specifically,
the use of historical styles (classical, Gothic, Romanesque, renaissance,
baroque) by artists and architects of the nineteenth century. It assumes
that these styles can be recognized by their basic features and can be trans-
ferred by imitation into the present. Normally one distinguishes between a
romantic stage and a positivistic or “serious” or “scholarly” stage of histori-
cism. The first reputedly appeals to the imagination, through the mind of
the past, and might be conjured into the present as a kind of enchantment.
It proceeds by a sort of Totalisierung of the traits and features it searches to
discover in the past. Among the possible pasts it prefers the Middle Ages
because it postulates their continuous development into the present time.
The Middle Ages are considered as the origin and the cradle of its own

1  Reinhard Koselleck, Vergangene Zukunft. Zur Semantik historischer Zeiten (Frankfurt

a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1979).
2 Otto-Gerhard Oexle, Krise des Historismus—Krise der Wirklichkeit. Wissenschaft, Kunst
und Literatur 1880–1932 (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 2007).

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identity. In addition romantic historicism sees in the Middle Ages the har-
monious unity of a religiously formed community and its advocates were
interested in the popular traditions inherited from the Middle Ages and
sought to use these traditions to shape their own ways of life.
The positivistic or scholarly Historismus, by contrast, attempted to infer
“pure elements” of the past form vocabulary in an art-historically correct
way. It criticized the “Subjektivismus” of romantic historicism, and tried to
find a teachable and objectively correct style derived from form details.
But as we will see, even if it concentrated on details, the positivistic his-
toricism did not proceed (and work out) without representing the totality,
which encompasses and summarizes all individual details.
At this step, a basic tension important for our subject becomes vis-
ible: that between Totalisierung and eclecticism. As normally understood,
eclecticism means combining and mixing heterogeneous elements in
opposition to the idea of a totalized and unified representation of the
past. What I will attempt to show is, on the contrary, that eclecticism is
not an ahistorical and arbitrary handling of the past, but a radicalization
in the appropriation of the past by the present. In this sense, eclecticism
is a special version of totalizing proceedings, which could explain the shift
from historicism to modernity and to avant-garde.

II

For our purpose, which is to question the relationship between histori-

cism and modernity, we have to highlight four main features:
First, historicism involves the feeling of the complete availability of the
past. In this respect, historicism is close to eclecticism. The progress of
history provides full accessibility to the past and allows situating one’s
own position in the present. This means, among other things, that the
knowledge of the past provides a control of the present. It makes avail-
able adequate solutions to the problems faced by the participants of the
present time.
Second, there is, however, a basic tension between historical know-
ledge and contemporaneity: on the one hand, history, especially antiquar-
ian history, turns away from the present moment. The historical school
argued that the historian has to cut himself off from the present and to
plunge into the past in order to find out “wie es eigentlich gewesen ist”
(Ranke). On the other hand, historicism assumes that the more one knows
about the past, the more one will be able to be an authentic citizen of the
present, a member of contemporary society. In so far as the Middle Ages
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were considered as the cradle of the European nation-states, medievalist

historicism raised the question of historical continuity and discontinuity.
Third, the national framing of medievalism during the nineteenth cen-
tury entailed a supplementary tension: that between the particularity
of the nation and the (presumed) universality of the Middle Ages. Each
nation attempted to establish its own medieval past, which was, at the
same time, considered as a common European legacy. So we see com-
peting national visions of universality, national appropriations of a past
considered as a fundamentally universalistic period of human history.
This paradoxical link will be important for the bridge into avant-garde
modernity.
Fourth, and this concerns especially Gothic medievalism, is the idea that
the medieval world, in contrast to classical Antiquity, represents a unified
system merging religion, political order, arts, sciences and daily life. This view
of the Middle Ages, whose roots go back to romantic writers and artists,3
dominated the whole century. Even more, it increased toward the century’s
end, enhanced by the emergence of Geistesgeschichte. For art history, and
particularly for the history of architecture, the Gothic world was better able
to embody the powerful spirit of a historical age. According to Karl Scheff-
ler, one of the authors who popularized the vision of Geistesgeschichte,4 the
spirit of the Gothic world was a strong integrating principle, likely to heal
the illnesses of the fragmented and disordered present time. The stress of
spirituality denationalized, up to a certain degree, late German medieval-
ism, even if Scheffler continued to claim the Nordic character of the Gothic.
In the beginning of the twentieth century a new structural scheme of values
emerged opposing spirituality to materialism, abstraction to realism, and
mysticism to rational empiricism and positivism. For the establishment of
these different pairings of values, which imply a critical view of what was
seen as the prevailing tendencies of the nineteenth century, the reference
to the Gothic universe played a crucial role.

III

The spiritualistic turn of late medievalism was not only a problem of shift-
ing ideas: it also involved changes related to the formal architectural lan-
guage. David Wilson’s contribution to this volume highlights several main

3 Novalis was one of the most ardent defenders of this vision.

4 Karl Scheffler published his Geist der Gotik in 1917 (Leipzig: Insel).

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characteristics of neo-Gothic architecture in Europe.5 Referring to his per-

ceptive analysis, I would just like to add that the late neo-Gothic build-
ings, especially in Germany, were characterized by a certain tendency
to abstraction and simplification, abandoning rich ornamentation, and
emphasizing the main formal principles, the leading structural elements.6
The drift toward modern style would be much more evident in “Gothic”
iron-framed skyscrapers such as the Woolworth Building in New York,
immediately baptized the “Cathedral of Commerce,” or as the “Cathedral
of Learning” at the University of Pittsburgh’s campus. But those very late
examples of Gothic revival go obviously beyond a strong neo-Gothic lan-
guage of forms and open up new configurations of eclecticism.
Furthermore, in respect to the theory of forms, we must stress the
impact of Wilhelm Worringer’s theoretical framework elaborated in the
first decade of the twentieth century. His two major books, Abstraction and
Empathy (1907)7 and Form Problems of the Gothic (1911)8 deeply inspired
the intellectuals and the artists of his time. Defining the Gothic style as
a dematerialization of realistic classical art and architecture, Worringer
celebrated the “Gothic impulse” to create stylized art, no longer imitat-
ing reality but concentrating on spiritual values. Referring to Riegl, who
asserted that mimesis is not an inherent feature in artistic production, he
argued that stylized art like Gothic does not reveal a cultural aptitude to
create realistic representations, but rather a psychological need to repre-
sent objects in a spiritual manner. Furthermore, he stressed the dialectical
relationship between abstraction and empathy. Riegl had claimed that the
aesthetic effect was due to the Stimmung, the atmosphere created by the
consciousness of the Alterswert of the monument, which means the value
originated by the historical distance between the object’s production and
its present observation. Thus the aesthetic effect implies an active rela-
tionship between the Kunstwollen (will to art) of a historical age and its
appropriation by the spectator who later faces the artifact generated by
former times.9 Worringer, going a step further, argued that the Stimmung

5 See David Wilson, “The Roots of Medievalism in North-West Europe: National Roman-
ticism, Architecture, Literature”, in this volume, at pp. 111–138.
6 This is also the case for the late neoromanesque churches.
7 Wilhelm Worringer, Abstraktion und Einfühlung. Ein Beitrag zur Stilpsycholo-
gie (München: Piper, 1907). This book is the published version of Worringer’s doctoral
dissertation.
8 Wilhelm Worringer, Formprobleme der Gotik (München: Piper, 1911).
9 Alois Riegl, Der moderne Denkmalkultus. Sein Wesen und seine Entstehung (Wien/
Leipzig: Braumüller, 1901). On Riegl, see Céline Trautmann-Waller, “Alois Riegl (1858–1905),”

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is engendered by an act of abstraction, where both memory and rational

thinking intervene. And it is precisely this act of abstraction which opens
the door to empathy in the psychology of the spectator. Worringer’s the-
ory was fundamental not only for art historians, but also for expressionist
artists and modernist architects.
However, Worringer still made a fundamental distinction between
Gothic architecture and the modern iron-based technique of building.
The first was, according to him, a strong constructive effort carried out
against the stone material, representing the victory of the spirit over inert
matter, whereas the second developed its architectural forms in accor-
dance with the properties of steel and iron. Gothic is a “will to form” of
the material, while steel constructions are simply expressions of the pos-
sibilities of a new material.10 It was Karl Scheffler who, in his Spirit of
the Gothic, took the plunge, strongly assimilating the new architecture
and what he called the “Gothic mind.” The new Gothicism, he argued,
expressed itself by the modern industrial buildings, the accentuation of
the vertical and of “naked forms,” embodying the tendency to economic
globalization (der Zug zum Weltwirtschaftlichen) characteristic of the new
era: “The engineer-like feature of the new architecture is Gothic. The most
revolutionaries are always also the most Gothic (. . .). In the gigantic fabric
halls, in the commercial buildings and skyscrapers, in the industrial con-
structions, railway stations and bridges, in the crude forms of the func-
tional structures the pathos of suffering is at work, it is blowing the Gothic
spirit.”11 These emotional declarations, written during the First World War
mark a radicalization of the totalizing impetus of medievalist historicism.
It addressed the turning point when historicism merged into clearly mod-
ern and avant-garde architectural projects. To illustrate this transforma-
tion, I would briefly present three examples.

IV

The first example that shows the link between Gothics and modernists is
the central role of glass, and related to this, of light. Light broken by col-
ored glass was, as we know, one of the themes of impressionist artists, and
also of neo-Gothics, who see in the interplay of lighting effects a symbol of

in Michel Espagne and Bénédicte Savoy (eds.), Dictionnaire des historiens d›art allemands
(Paris: CNRS Editions, 2010), 217–28.
10 Worringer, Formprobleme der Gotik, 72 ff.
11  Scheffler, Der Geist der Gotik, 109 ff.

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the mystical union of sky and earth, of god and nature. For the modernists,
it was a central point. Among many others, Bruno Taut’s Glass Pavilion at
the 1914 Werkbund-Exhibition in Cologne offers a tremendously persua-
sive example.12 On the one hand, it was financed by the Association of
the German glass industry. The glass makers aimed to demonstrate the
possibilities of different types of glass (colored glasses, glass bricks, etc.)
for new architectural purposes. The structure, a multi-faceted polygon,
was made of concrete and glass bricks, the cupola had a complex design
of rhombic faces covered with colored glass projecting a kaleidoscope of
colors recalling and multiplying the effects of Gothic rosettes. Between the
lower and upper levels two staircases framed a cascading waterfall with
underwater lighting. The pavilion was a masterpiece of advanced indus-
trial techniques. On the other hand, the light effects aimed at triggering
emotions and at provoking the feeling of a spiritual utopia. The mystical
dimension of the construction was emphasized by several inscriptions
on the frieze due to the poet Paul Scheerbarth, who the same year pub-
lished his Glasarchitektur (architecture of glass) dedicated to Taut. Among
these verses one could read that “colored glass destroys hatred,” “without
a glass palace, life is a burden,” and “the light aims to cross the whole
universe and is coming to life within the crystal.” In an early drawing of
the pavilion, Taut himself noted that the project had to be conceived in
the spirit of a Gothic cathedral.13 More precisely, he wrote on the top of
another drawing of the project: “The Gothic cathedral is the prelude to the
architecture of glass.”14 This means that the new architecture was founded
upon the Gothic Cathedral, but intended to go far beyond. Combining
organic forms, verticality, geometry of nature, capture of dynamics and
forces coming from the universe, the new architecture aimed at dissolving
spatial limitations while dealing with spatial geometry and spatial compo-
nents. The fundamental element is the play of lights (Fig. 1 and Fig. 2).
My second example occurred five years later, in April 1919. Between the
two dates took place the First World War, the collapse of the European
system of states, of the first stages of European imperialism, and the end
of a certain idea of European civilization. The great War generated an
apocalyptic vision of European culture now rejected by the masses at a

12 See Angelika Thiekötter, et al., Kristallisationen, Splitterungen. Bruno Tauts Glashaus

(Basel/Berlin/Boston: Birkhäuser, 1993). The pavilion was destroyed after the exhibition
ended.
13 Richard Weston, Plans, Sections and Elevations: Key Buildings of the Twentieth Century
(London: Laurence King Publishing, 2004), 40.
14 Thiekötter, Kristallisationen, Splitterungen, 67.

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Fig. 1. Bruno Taut, Glass Pavilion (Cologne, 1914).

Fig. 2. Bruno Taut, Glass Pavilion, ground floor.

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level never before seen and a cynical contempt for individual values. The
shock caused by the war deeply affected Europeans’ self-understanding.
The world seemed broken. The creation of the Bauhaus in 1919 was one
of the solutions suggested by German artists and intellectuals to face the
new situation. The task was to invent the building of a new world. This
task Gropius, the director of the Bauhaus, could not imagine other than
under an architectural project. In his manifesto, which announced the
opening of the new institution, he argued:
The ultimate aim of all visual arts is the complete building! To embellish
buildings was once the noblest function of the fine arts; they were the indis-
pensable components of great architecture. Today the arts exist in isolation,
from which they can be rescued only through the conscious, cooperative
effort of all craftsmen. Architects, painters, and sculptors must recognize
anew and learn to grasp the composite character of a building both as an
entity and in its separate parts. Only then will their work be imbued with
the architectonic spirit which it has lost as “salon art.”
The old schools of art were unable to produce this unity; how could they,
since art cannot be taught. They must be merged once more with the work-
shop. The mere drawing and painting world of the pattern designer and the
applied artist must become a world that builds again. When young people
who take a joy in artistic creation once more begin their life’s work by learn-
ing a trade, then the unproductive “artist” will no longer be condemned to
deficient artistry, for their skill will now be preserved for the crafts, in which
they will be able to achieve excellence.
Architects, sculptors, painters, we all must return to the crafts! For art is
not a “profession.” There is no essential difference between the artist and
the craftsman. The artist is an exalted craftsman. In rare moments of inspi-
ration, transcending the consciousness of his will, the grace of heaven may
cause his work to blossom into art. But proficiency in a craft is essential to
every artist. Therein lies the prime source of creative imagination.
Let us then create a new guild of craftsmen without the class distinctions
that raise an arrogant barrier between craftsman and artist! Together let
us desire, conceive, and create the new structure of the future, which will
embrace architecture and sculpture and painting in one unity and which
will one day rise toward heaven from the hands of a million workers like
the crystal symbol of a new faith.15
This new philosophy of building was accompanied by Lyonel Feininger’s
woodcut of a cathedral on the cover of the manifesto: beams of light con-
verge upon the cathedral’s three spires, representing the three arts of paint-
ing, architecture (in the center) and sculpture. (Fig. 3) Two main elements

15 One of the originals of the manifesto is held by the Bauhaus-Archiv, Berlin.

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Fig. 3. Lionel Feininger, Cover of the Bauhaus-Manifesto (1919).

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here are particularly important: The first is the symbolism of the cathedral
as an allegory of a total work of art and an emblematic figure of social and
spiritual unity. Taut had already used the drawing of a Gothic cathedral
spire to illustrate his book The City Crown.16 Especially in the disorder
and apocalyptic atmosphere following the War, the totalizing symbolism
of the Cathedral promised salvation by the creative act performed by the
community of artists and craftsmen under the direction of the architect
(Baumeister). The second, on a more technical level, was the great unity
of artists and craftsmen. This issue refers back to discussions held before
the war, especially within the Werkbund (and, at that time, related to the
British arts and crafts movement). But what was, in the 1900s, a debate on
industrial standardization and individual craftsmanship, now led back to
the world of the construction of cathedrals. The well-organized building
site where masters, companions and journeymen worked together harmo-
niously, constituted the model. The cathedral workshop (Dombauhütte),
where the pieces were shaped, appears as the idealized place of common
work. The religion of art no longer exists, but the concrete craft and work-
manship combine manual and intellectual activity. Thus the cathedral is
not only a symbolic representation of a unified world, but also a place for
the coordinated practices of creation. Of course, the totalizing metaphor
of the cathedral would be progressively abandoned by the Bauhaus, when
it challenged, in the middle of the twenties, the themes of “new objectiv-
ity.” But in the beginning, it fixed a “passage oblige,” a forced passage.
The third example returns to Bruno Taut. In autumn 1919, Taut formed
an association called Gläserne Kette (chain of glass) gathering 13 avant-
garde architects, among them Walter Gropius, Wassili and Hans Luck-
hardt, Max Taut, Hans Scharoun, Hermann Finsterlin and Hans Hansen.17
The idea was, in a period characterized by unemployment, to form a
chain of correspondences by exchanging letters, drawings, watercolors,
visual representations and, more generally, ideas. The members of the
chain adopted pen-names, Taut, for instance, choose Glas and Gropius
Maß (measure). Between November 1919 and December 1920, 84 letters
with attached documents were exchanged by the architects. They often
used programmatic formulas and wrote in a somewhat expressionist style.
One of the pieces sent by Taut was the drawing of a scenic play called
“Der Weltbaumeister. Architektur-Schauspiel für symphonische Musik”

16 Bruno Taut, Die Stadtkrone (Jena: Diederichs, 1919).

17 On the Gläserne Kette, see Maria Stavrinaki, La chaîne de verre. Une correspondance
expressionniste (Paris: Editions de la Villette, 2009).

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(The architect [literally: building master] of the world. Architectural play

for symphonic music) (Fig. 4).
The manuscript, published in 1920,18 mixes colored carbon drawings
with a few texts, scenic instructions and indications for the music to be
played. The play is a Miniaturmodell of a Gesamtkunstwerk mingling pic-
tures, music, colored lightings, but without spoken words. 28 drawings
corresponding to 28 scenes punctuate the action in a cinematographic
sequence. It relates the story of the construction, destruction and rebuild-
ing of the world. The world built in the first part of the play is shaped by
gothic forms. It represents a gothic cosmos (Fig. 5). This world then col-
lapses, falling in ruins and disappearing into the universe. The building
of the new world, in part two, arises from the encounter of two stars, one
of them the cathedral star, approaching the earth, dancing and swirling,
and then vanishing in the universal space. It has initiated the process of
rebuilding. Huts and houses grow out of the green organic soil (Fig. 6).
On the top of the hill rises THE HOUSE, a luminous crystal house similar
to the 1914 Glass Pavilion, reflecting and filtering the light of the stars and
showing the mystical union of “Architecture, night, universe” (legend to
drawing 27). Even more: Looking back to the cupola of the pavilion, we
observe that the top center gathers the crystal cathedral star symbolizing,
by the plays of lines and lights, the merging of the inside and the outside,
of the cosmos and the new construction (Fig. 7).
Two elements should be noted for our argument. First, the leading
constructive principle of the ancient world, Gothic building, has broken
down, especially through the impact of the Great War. And second, the
inspiration for the building of the new world will return, thanks to the
cathedral star, which embodies the idea of a totalizing construction based
on harmony and common faith. It is a transposition of the “spirit of the
Gothic” into a new situation, a re-creation due to the Weltbaumeister,
the architect of the world. Of course, the formal principles of the new
building would combine several components: Gothic abstraction, geo-
metry based on mathematics, and lines inspired by the idea of organic
growth of both cosmic and artificial principles, due to the architects’ inter-
ventions, who grasped the lights. Gothic style is no longer there, but the
new forms would be permeated by the unifying breath of what had been
considered the Gothic idea.

18 (Essen: Folkwang Verlag). The text of the play is reproduced in Thiekötter, Kristallisa-
tionen, 65 ff., the pictures of scenes 1 to 13 and 21 in Stavrinaki, La chaîne de verre, 225–32.

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Fig. 4. Bruno Taut, Der Weltbaumeister (1919), cover.

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Fig. 5. Bruno Taut, Der Weltbaumeister (1919), scenes 7 and 9.

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Fig. 6. Bruno Taut, Der Weltbaumeister (1919), scenes 20 and 21 (the cathedral star
encountering the earth).
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254 michael werner

Fig. 7. Bruno Taut, Glass Pavilion, top of the cupola with the crystal representing
the cathedral star.

© 2013 Koninklijke Brill NV ISBN 978-90-04-24486-3

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Insofar as it deals with a totalizing view of cultural production and social

life, late medievalism proved to be the missing link between historicism
and modernity. The modern utopia was deeply affected by the representa-
tion of the Middle Ages seen as a world where human beings and the uni-
verse were in harmony. However, the moderns had no longer any need to
come back to the historic conceptions of eclecticism. They went beyond
the medieval forms in order to find the elements of a new architectural
language. But they zealously retained the universalistic heritage of the
Middle Ages, the fundamental condition for imagining and conceiving
the task of the present, especially in the German case.

© 2013 Koninklijke Brill NV ISBN 978-90-04-24486-3