Mari Hvattum’s Style and Solitude was one of five books launched at the event A New Agenda for Gottfried Semper at the Collegium Helveticum in Zurich, 17 March 2023.

Three roundtables presented new approaches to Semper and celebrated recent publications on his thinking and practice. “Semper’s Life and Times” addressed how new biographical and theoretical insights might throw new light on Historicist architectural culture. “Semper and Material Culture” discussed the mid-nineteenth century’s interest in material his­tory, while “Editing Semper” was devoted to the new digital edition of Semper’s Der Stil.

The event was organized by Sonja Hildebrand (USI Mendrisio), Mari Hvattum (AHO Oslo), and Philip Ursprung (ETH Zurich), and hosted by Collegium Helveticum (Semper-Roundtables-A3).

Respondents included Caroline van Eck from the University of Cambridge, Murray Fraser from UCL London, Henrik Karge from the University of Dresden, as well as Maarten Delbeke, Philip Ursprung, and Adam Caruso from ETH Zurich.

 

 

The Books:

Elena Chestnova, Material Theories: Locating Artefacts and People in Gottfried Semper’s Writings, London: Routledge 2022

Michael Gnehm, Sonja Hildebrand, Dieter Weidmann (eds.), Gottfried Semper, London Writings 1850–1855, Zurich: gta Verlag 2021, doi: 10.3929/ethz-b-000512309

Michael Gnehm, Sonja Hildebrand (eds.), Architectural History and the Globalization of Knowledge: Gottfried Semper in London, Mendrisio: Mendrisio Academy Press und Zürich: gta Verlag 2021, doi: 10.3929/ethz-b-000501065

Sonja Hildebrand, Gottfried Semper: Architekt und Revolutionär, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 2020

Mari Hvattum, Style and Solitude. The History of an Architectural Problem, Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press, 2023