December 2003 - Nr. 13
Dresden celebrates Semper’s 200th birthday
TWIG - The city of Dresden pulled out all the stops for the 200th birthday celebration of German architect Gottfried Semper this year. The city’s greatest Baroque architect is known for his ornate buildings and for designing the opera house in Dresden’s city center that bears his name.
Several cities continue to bestow honour on Germany’s greatest Baroque architect in the 200th anniversary year of his birth, but no city holds as deep an appreciation for Semper than Dresden, where he began his life’s work at the age of 31. Since February, Semper-related events have taken over the city.
The "Semper Days" extended into all areas of cultural life and included three exhibitions, two research colloquiums, concerts, book presentations, school plays, a Semper festival, and even special stamps and coins created in honour of the architect’s birthday.
As one of the most influential architects of the early 19th century, Semper championed a functional approach to architecture in line with the changes of the Industrial Revolution.
But Semper was also the antithesis of what would become the most prominent architecture style just a hundred years later. Just as Berlin’s greatest architect and Semper contemporary Karl Friedrich Schinkel warned against "purely radical abstraction" in building construction, Semper was concerned about the escape of ostentation into the private sphere, saying that "the bigger and fuller public life promises to become, the more private need shrinks correspondingly."
Semper designed the Dresden’s court theatre – today known as the Semper Opera – the construction of which began in 1838.
Rulers of the city that today pays homage to its favourite architect did not always embrace Semper. He and his cohort Richard Wagner were banned from stepping on Saxony’s soil for years after their involvement in the May Revolt in the city in 1949.
Twenty years later, the first Semper Opera burned down. In what city Mayor Ingolf Rossberg has called the first real initiative of Dresden’s citizens, the city’s people protested and called him back in 1871 to join the rebuilding efforts months after reconstruction had begun.
Over a century later, Dresden has called him back again in
full force. On November 29, the celebrations concluded with a celebration on
the architect’s 200th birthday.
Republished with permission from "The Week in Germany"
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