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Hans Wilhelm Auer (26 April 1847 – 30 August 1906) was a Swiss-Austrian

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

best known for his design of the Swiss '' Bundeshaus'' (1894–1902) in

Bern Bern (), or Berne (), ; ; ; . is the ''de facto'' Capital city, capital of Switzerland, referred to as the "federal city".; ; ; . According to the Swiss constitution, the Swiss Confederation intentionally has no "capital", but Bern has gov ...

. Auer was born in Wädenswil. A pupil first of

Gottfried Semper Gottfried Semper (; 29 November 1803 – 15 May 1879) was a German architect, art critic, and professor of architecture who designed and built the Semper Opera House in Dresden between 1838 and 1841. In 1849 he took part in the May Uprising in ...

at the

ETH Zurich ETH Zurich (; ) is a public university in Zurich, Switzerland. Founded in 1854 with the stated mission to educate engineers and scientists, the university focuses primarily on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. ETH Zurich ran ...

and then staff assistant for

Theophil Hansen Baron Theophil Edvard von Hansen (; original Danish name: Theophilus Hansen, ; 13 July 1813 – 17 February 1891) was a Danish architect who later became an Austrian citizen. He became particularly well known for his buildings and structures in ...

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

, Auer established his own office in 1887 and enjoyed a rich and varied career as a practicing architect, educator, and theorist. He died at

Konstanz Konstanz ( , , , ), traditionally known as Constance in English, is a college town, university city with approximately 83,000 inhabitants located at the western end of Lake Constance in the Baden-Württemberg state of south Germany. The city ho ...

. Like his near-contemporary Constantin Lipsius, Auer was an eloquent advocate for architectural realism, a sophisticated theoretical stance that became increasingly significant in the 1880s on the continent. Architectural Realists sought to renew contemporary architecture through thoughtful reconsideration of the symbolic properties of the classical language of architectural expression; this "realistic" reconsideration required a new level of archaeological accuracy in the understanding of the emergence and evolution of specific forms. Auer's brilliant historical discussion of the

triglyph Triglyph is an architectural term for the vertically channeled tablets of the Doric frieze in classical architecture, so called because of the angular channels in them. The rectangular recessed spaces between the triglyphs on a Doric frieze are ...

(1880) comprised the basis for his own reflections on improving the existing state of contemporary architecture. Architectural realism enabled Auer's generation to disengage from slavish imitation of historical forms and hastened the emergence of more subtle perspectives on stylistic innovation. Auer's unique contribution as an architectural theorist was to expand the notion of architectural space as a significant aspect of style and evolution (1883), an accomplishment that is usually consigned to the art historian

August Schmarsow August Schmarsow (26 May 1853, Schildfeld – 19 January 1936) was a German art historian. Biography He was born in Schildfeld (now part of Vellahn), Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and was educated in Zurich, Strassburg and Bonn. He became docent ...

(1893). What we now regard as "high modernist" architectural theory was achieved by the ''next'' generation (largely born during the final quarter of the 19th century), although many of its conceptual foundations were grasped by the Architectural Realists of the 1880s.

References

English

* Berry, J. Duncan.
Hans Auer and the Morality of Architectural Space
, in: Deborah J. Johnson and David Ogawa (eds.) ''Seeing and Beyond. A Essays on Eighteenth- to Twenty-First-Century Art in Honor of Kermit S. Champa'' (Berlin/New York, 2005), pp. 149–184. * Mallgrave, Harry F.
Gottfried Semper. Architect of the Nineteenth Century
' (New Haven, 1996). * Mallgrave, Harry F.
Modern Architectural Theory: A Historical Survey, 1673–1968
' (Cambridge, 2005). * Schwarzer, Mitchell. ''German Architectural Theory and the Search for Modern Identity'' (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 80–81, 192-94.

German

* ''Architektonische Rundschau'' V (1889): pl. 80 + plans. * Auer, Hans Wilhelm. “Die Bedeutung der Triglyphen. Ein Beitrag zur Frage über den Zusammenhang ægyptischer mit dorischer Baukunst,” ''Zeitschrift für bildenden Künste'' 15 (1880): 279-283, 322-325, 354-360. * Auer, Franz (sic).“Der Einfluß der Construction auf die Entwicklung der Baustyle,” ''Zeitschrift des österreichischen Ingenieur- und Architektenvereins'' 33, no. 1 (1881), 8-18. * Auer, Hans Wilhelm. “Die Entwickelung des Raumes in der Baukunst,” ''Allgemeine Bauzeitung'' 48 (1883), 65-68, 73-74 + pls. 51-52. * Auer, Hans Wilhelm. “Moderne Stylfragen,” ''Allgemeine Bauzeitung'' 50 (1885): 19-21, 25-27. * Auer, Hans Wilhelm. “Die Quaderbossierung der italienischen Renaissance,” ''Zeitschrift des österreichischen Ingenieur- und Architekten-Vereins'' 39 (1887), 179-186 + Pls. XXXIII-XXXV. * * Auer, Hans Wilhelm. “Börsengebäude” in: Joseph Durm et al. (eds.), ''Handbuch der Architektur'', IV. Theil, 2. Halbband, 2. Heft: ''Gebäude für die Zwecke des Wohnens, des Handels und Verkehrs'' (Stuttgart, 1902), 247-302. * Birkner, Othmar. “Hans Wilhelm Auer,” ''Sauer Allgemeines Künstler-Lexikon. Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker'' (Munich/Leipzig, 1992), V: 612. * Brun, Carl. "Hans Auer," in: idem., ''Schweizerisches Künstler-Lexikon'' (Frauenfeld, 1905) I: 61f. * Dehio, ''Wien: II. bis IX. und XX. Bezirk'' (Vienna, 1993), p. 274. * Innerhofer, Franz. "Hans Wilhelm Auer," in: Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker (eds.), ''Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart'' (Leipzig, 1908) II: 243. * Kisa, A. “Die Bauten Hans Auer's,” ''Allgemeine Kunst-Chronik'' 11, no. 19 (1887), pp. 493–494. * Lucae, Richard. “Über die Macht des Raumes in der Baukunst,“ ''Zeitschrift für Bauwesen'' 19 (1869), pp. 294–306. * Müller, Andreas. ''Der verbitterte Bundeshausarchitekt. Die vertrackte Geschichte des Parlamentsgebäudes und seines Erbauers Hans Wilhelm Auer, 1847-1906'' (Zurich, 2002). * Schmarsow, August. ''Das Wesen der architektonischen Schöpfung'' (Leipzig, 1894). * Schnaase, Karl. ''Niederländische Briefe'' (Stuttgart/Tübingen, 1834). {{DEFAULTSORT:Auer, Hans 1847 births 1906 deaths People from Wädenswil 19th-century Austrian people 19th-century Swiss architects Austrian architects Swiss architects Austrian people of Swiss descent