The Goetheanum, located in Dornach

Dornach

Dornach is a municipality in the district of Dorneck in the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland.-History:Dornach is first mentioned in 1223 as de Tornacho. In 1307 it was mentioned as zu Dornach...

 (near Basel

Basel

Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...

), Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

, is the world center for the anthroposophical

Anthroposophy

Anthroposophy, a philosophy founded by Rudolf Steiner, postulates the existence of an objective, intellectually comprehensible spiritual world accessible to direct experience through inner development...

 movement. Named after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...

, the center includes two performance halls (1500 seats), gallery and lecture spaces, a library, a bookstore, and administrative spaces for the Anthroposophical Society

Anthroposophical Society

The General Anthroposophical Society is an organization dedicated to supporting the community of those interested in the form of spiritual philosophy known as anthroposophy. The society was initiated during 1913 by members of the Theosophical Society in Germany, including Rudolf Steiner who was at...

; neighboring buildings house the Society's research and educational facilities. Conferences focusing on themes of general interest occur several times a year. Specialist conferences for teachers, farmers, doctors, therapists, and other professions are held regularly, as well.

The Goetheanum is open for visitors seven days a week and offers tours several times daily.

First Goetheanum

The First Goetheanum, a timber and concrete structure designed by Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect, and esotericist. He gained initial recognition as a literary critic and cultural philosopher...

, was one of seventeen buildings Steiner designed and supervised between 1908 and 1925. It was intended as a Gesamtkunstwerk

Gesamtkunstwerk

A Gesamtkunstwerk is a work of art that makes use of all or many art forms or strives to do so...

(the synthesis of diverse artistic media and sensory effects), infused with spiritual significance. Begun in 1913 to house the annual summer theater events of the Anthroposophical Society

Anthroposophical Society

The General Anthroposophical Society is an organization dedicated to supporting the community of those interested in the form of spiritual philosophy known as anthroposophy. The society was initiated during 1913 by members of the Theosophical Society in Germany, including Rudolf Steiner who was at...

, it rapidly became the center of a small colony of spiritual seekers located in Dornach and based around Steiner. Numerous visual artists contributed to the building: architects created the unusual double-dome wooden structure over a curving concrete base, stained glass windows added color into the space, painters decorated the ceiling with motifs depicting the whole of human evolution, and sculptors carved huge column bases, capitals, and architraves with images of metamorphoses,.
Already during the construction, musicians, actors and movement artists began performing a wide variety of pieces in a neighboring workshop. When the Goetheanum hall was completed, in 1919, these performances moved onto the stage located under the Goetheanum's smaller cupola. The auditorium was located under the larger cupola.

This building was destroyed by arson on New Year's Eve, December 31, 1922–January 1, 1923.

Second Goetheanum

In the course of 1923, Steiner designed a building to replace the original. This building, now known as the Second Goetheanum, was wholly built of cast concrete

Concrete

Concrete is a composite construction material, composed of cement and other cementitious materials such as fly ash and slag cement, aggregate , water and chemical admixtures.The word concrete comes from the Latin word...

. Begun in 1924, the building was not completed until 1928, after the architect's death. It represents a pioneering use of visible concrete in architecture and has been granted protected status as a Swiss national monument. Art critic Michael Brennan has called the building a "true masterpiece of 20th-century expressionist architecture".

The present Goetheanum houses a 1000-seat auditorium, now the center of an active artistic community incorporating performances of its in-house theater and eurythmy

Eurythmy

Eurythmy is an expressive movement art originated by Rudolf Steiner in conjunction with Marie von Sivers in the early 20th century. Primarily a performance art, it is also used in education — especially in Waldorf schools - and as a movement therapy....

 troupes as well as visiting performers from around the world. Full remodelings of the central auditorium took place in the mid-1950s and again in the late 1990s. The stained glass windows in the present building stem from Steiner's time; the painted ceiling and sculptural columns are contemporary replications or reinterpretations of those in the First Goetheanum.

In a dedicated gallery, the building also houses a nine-meter high wooden sculpture, The Representative of Humanity, by Edith Maryon

Edith Maryon

Edith Louisa Maryon was an English sculptor. Along with Ita Wegman, she belonged to the innermost circle of founders of anthroposophy and those around Rudolf Steiner.-Life:...

 and Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect, and esotericist. He gained initial recognition as a literary critic and cultural philosopher...

.

Architectural principles

Steiner's architecture is characterized by a liberation from traditional architectural constraints, especially through the departure from the right-angle as a basis for the building plan. For the first Goetheanum he achieved this in wood by employing boat builders to construct its rounded forms; for the second Goetheanum by using concrete to achieve sculptural shapes on an architectural scale. The use of concrete to achieve organically expressive forms was an innovation for the times; in both buildings, Steiner sought to create forms that were spiritually expressive.

Steiner designed approximately 12-13 other built structures, principally residences in and around Dornach.

Modern architects who have visited and praised the Goetheanum's architecture include Henry van de Velde

Henry van de Velde

Henry Clemens Van de Velde was a Belgian Flemish painter, architect and interior designer. Together with Victor Horta and Paul Hankar he could be considered one of the main founders and representatives of Art Nouveau in Belgium...

, Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...

, Hans Scharoun

Hans Scharoun

Bernhard Hans Henry Scharoun was a German architect best known for designing the Berlin Philharmonic concert hall and the in Löbau, Saxony. He was an important exponent of Organic architecture....

 and Frank Gehry

Frank Gehry

Frank Owen Gehry, is a Canadian American Pritzker Prize-winning architect based in Los Angeles, California.His buildings, including his private residence, have become tourist attractions...

.

External links

• Official Goetheanum website
• Goetheanum 3D VRML Models by Horst Kiechle
• The First Goetheanum at the Great buildings online website
• Architecture Section at the Rudolf Steiner Archive, An Online Library
• Ákos Moravánszky, "The Rudolf Steiner Goetheanum: An architecture report from Dornach", Domus, February 2011