The Textile as Structural Framework: Gottfried Semper's Bekleidungsprinzip and the Case of Vienna 1900

Abstract

Gottfried Semper, the nineteenth-century German architect and art historian, influenced a generation of Central European followers at the turn of the twentieth century with his notion of the textile origins of building. His theories were particularly resonant in Vienna, where the movement to reform the applied arts centered on textiles in a variety of ways. Textiles were at the heart of Austria-Hungary's imperial legacy in the form of richly embroidered court costumes and ecclesiastical vestments as well as in the traditional needlework produced throughout the diverse Habsburg lands. Modern architects and designers were motivated not only to design cloth and clothing, but to express characteristics of the textile in their buildings and interior designs as well. While architects such as Otto Wagner in Vienna and Ödön Lechner in Budapest “dressed” their buildings in decorative textile-like façades, younger modernists, including Josef Hoffmann and Adolf Loos, interpreted Semper's ideas more broadly, understanding their application to the design of interior spaces in innovative ways. This paper posits a new methodological approach to the study of Viennese art and design during this period—one that uses the textile, as it was understood by Semper, as a structure, or theoretical framework, for sifting through the modern movement's many puzzling contradictions, seen for example in the opposing views of Hoffmann and Loos.