A Comparative Study On Semper’s Formal Principles In Three Texts

The most influential book of Semper is Der Stil. It establishes Semper’s position in the circle of architectural theory. However, many controversies about Semper’s theories also arise from this book.The most frequently disputed issue is the relations between Semper’s theories and architectural features of different periods of time.This study takes "formal principles" as the theme that could cover a great many controversies and compares the theme in three texts (Preliminary Remarks on Polychrome, the Four Elements, Style). By putting Semper’s theories into more profound background, we can get a relatively comprehensive and accurate understanding of those theories and make fair judgments on controversies.After analyzing the relations between Semper’s theories and contemporary formal principles, we can categorize formal principle into structural shape principle, non-structural shape principle and surface attribute principle, which are discussed respectively in Chapter Two, Chapter Three and Chapter Four. In the three chapters, firstly, the author discusses Semper’s formal principles and related issues, and then analyzes their relations in order to reveal the connection among Semper’s three books. In Chapter Five, the author takes formal principle as a whole, and conducts a deep analysis, which leads to discussions on Semper’s formal principles on a higher level in Chapter Six.This study reveals the interconnection among Semper’s three books, by demonstrating relations between Semper’s theories and general architectural thoughts in different periods of time. Three main conclusions can be drawn. First, Preliminary Remarks on Polychrome is closely related to the other two books in terms of target, stand and way of argumentation of formal principle. Moreover, in this book, Semper initially established the relations between textile and enclosure, and the relations between ancient Greek culture and African-European culture. Second, the so-called "idiosyncrasies" of Semper’s architectural theories actually originate from the "common features" of different subjects. Lastly, Semper’s "avant-garde" architectural theories arise from his keen search for true history and regression to traditional science.In the end, further discussion is conducted on the relations between Semper’s architectural theories in different periods of time, which proves that it is crucial to study texts themselves. The dissertation contains253,000(231,000for the main body), and165illustrations.