Toward a New Theory of Architecture: The First Goetheanum in Pictures

Rudolf Steiner gave thousands of lectures in his lifetime, always without notes, and, with very few exceptions, with nothing more than chalk and a blackboard if he chose to accompany his speech with some kind of visual illustration. A notable exception is the presentation that constitutes the main part of this book. Given in June 1921, in nearby Bern, eighteen months before its tragic destruction by fire, this lecture and slide show (consisting of 100 slides) is both the closest thing we have to a guided tour of the original Goetheanum by its architect and a profound statement of artistic purpose. Scarcely a soul now remains on Earth who can have seen the startlingly original first Goetheanum building, who can have known its overwhelming beauty, who can have experienced what Rudolf Steiner called the living language of its forms. So it remains to this book to try t least to suggest what the building must have been to those who were there in the few years the building stood. In addition to the lecture and slide show that comprise the main content of this volume, the introduction by John Kettle serves to place Steiner's artistic contribution to architecture in the context of early twentieth-century Expressionism and Organicism. Frederick Amrine's meticulously researched Bibliographic Essay highlights the most important secondary literature concerned with Steiner's architecture and provides a sound starting point for further study.