Romanticism | EPFL Graph Search

Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) is an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. In most parts of Europe, it was at its peak from approximately 1800 to 1850. Romanticism was characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as glorification of the past and nature, preferring the medieval to the classical. Romanticism was partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, and the prevailing ideology of the Age of Enlightenment, especially the scientific rationalization of Nature. It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature; it also had a major impact on historiography, education, chess, social sciences, and the natural sciences. It had a significant and complex effect on politics: Romantic thinking influenced conservatism, liberalism, radicalism, and nationalism. The movement emphasized intense emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience. I

Shadows of the South. Venetian fragments from Ragnar Östberg’s travelogue

Chiara Monterumisi

After centuries of popularity, late 19th century educational travel began to change and lose something of the 18th century aristocratic Grand Tour. The South remained the focus of interest, the cradle of that culture from which Europe’s own had grown. Swedish master Ragnar Östberg (1866-1945) expresses this change in his entire architectural idiom. As a leading exponent of the National Romanticism movement, he sees this new way of ‘contemplating’ as the personal formation of a spiritual family. The title sums up the two contrasting cultural and geographical realities, South and North, and the attempt by architects of the day to create a national art form. Travelling fed Östberg’s imagination, supplied him with pages of sketches and notes on that Mediterranean culture which would later cool in northern waters and waft like a shade or aura along the Stockholm streets. The paper sets out on another voyage, one of discovery among a Venetian repertoire of references explicit, yet subtly concealed. Our focus will be on specific instances of Östberg’s artworks - the Stockholm City Hall as well as its unbuilt nearby part Commission Building and villa Geber- and their connection with urban design for the Queen of Lake Mälar. Stockholm has often been called “the Venice of the North”; but it is not till now that this description has become a fact. Historically, the expression had obvious roots in the topography of the two cities. Besides tracing the origins of the definition, the paper probes to overtake those mythic descriptions conveying only surface analogies. The different-scale projects presented here finally clarify the parallel with the lagoon city par excellence. In these public and domestic buildings Östberg manages to capture and condense disparate fragments of Venice. During the animate debate on designing the new Stockholm the review Arkitektur carried articles by promising pupils - E.G. Asplund and C. Johansson- in which Venice was mentioned as a model, so the master was clearly not a lone voice. Floating down the Canal Grande, the paper explores those architectural topoi that inspired Östberg: Ponte di Rialto and Piazza San Marco, Fabbriche nuove and Procuratie nuove, the Palazzo Ducale and Venetian palaces. The visual interplay between City Hall-Commission Building and Riddarholmen island in Stockholm’s historical heart is none other than the relation between the island of San Giorgio and the San Marco complex. The analyzed projects can be seen such as significant exempla of his designing process: from the imagination passive studies and selects references to that imagination active capable to assemble and combine inputs. Östberg claims our attention not just because he would strive to wean Swedish architecture away from the chameleon appearance that marks so many fin de siècle experiments, but also because he was able to express a personal idiom embodying a markedly Swedish character. These Venetian fragments reveal how Östberg’s Stockholm resembled that renovatio urbis under Doge Gritti.

2013

Southern echoes in a Swedish Wanderer. The urban complex Stockholm Town hall-Committee building of Ragnar Östberg (1909-1940)

Chiara Monterumisi

Towards the end of the 19th century travels were still marking a rite de passage in the education and self- development of architects’ idiom, especially for Norden countries. Albeit manifesting significant German influences, their condition of a seemingly separate province on the margins of Europe, where their topoi remind us of a reality utterly in contrast to the Mediterranean culture, made that experience of knowledge more inspiring for them. As a matter of fact, the South would remain the focus of their interest, even though new itineraries and ways of contemplation changed the previous approach spread by the aristocratic Grand Tour. The importance of travels lays also in two reasons strictly intertwined: on the one hand, the narrow teaching method in Swedish universities at that time based on rigid principles deduced from the French Beaux-arts, and, on the other hand, the emerging problems of the ensuing projects by some architects beginning to adorn the streets of Stockholm, that so far have resembled a “mimetically inspiration from various foreign countries” (Östberg, 1901). But, how did the South affected the Swedish architectural panorama? On a severe winter day of March 1896 the architect of the Stockholm Town hall, at the time being thirty years old and and some years after completing his studies as well, set out his stipendieresan in order to get a directly understanding of those works of art and landscapes far from Swedish ones. Thus, the presentation would examine how the Swedish master approach to the Southern journey went beyond the references of the antiquity as we previously mentioned, nevertheless it was partially in debt to the Romantic aesthetically mind-set which does not consider nature, art and architecture as a mere example to be copied. Thanks to travelling Östberg discovered the allure of the variety, that means seeking the “genius of the locus”. Each new architecture seen along the itinerary was capable of providing stimulating inputs, which he manages to assemble in a personal and proper expression of the National Romantic identity. The example of the urban complex (1901-1940) of the Town hall (Stadshuset), including its nearby never- to-be realized part, the Commission building (Nämndhuset) placed in the archipelago of Stockholm, is here analysed through some its explicit, or yet concealed, travelling fragments.

2016

Ragnar Östberg. Genius loci e memorie urbane Stockholms Stadshuset - Nämndhuset e villa Geber (ENG) Ragnar Östberg. Genius loci and urban memories Stockholms Stadshuset-Nämndhuset and villa Geber

Chiara Monterumisi

The research aims to investigate one of the controversial chapters in architecture, far from the linear evolution of the internationally nascent "Neues Bauen", that is Swedish National Romanticism through the experience of the leading exponent, Ragnar Östberg (1866-1945). This study is not simply a revision to the overseas reception of the movement, but rather from a comparative analysis between two case-studies to deduce those elements that make architecture an urban fact in which the community can identify. The archipelago of Stockholm and its process of "renovatio urbis" at the turn of the twentieth century were the backdrop for two projects. Moreover, it is fair to say that many fellow of National Romanticism considered the locus of desire, Sweden, was simultaneously vast (“native land”) and intimate (“home”). In the specific case of the dissertation the two projects embrace two dimensions of living: the urban framework of the municipal centre and the domestic framework of the partially isolated villa. Therefore, the purpose of the research is to embark on a voyage of discovery approaching two instances of Östberg’s artwork through a twofold critical interpretation: "genius loci" and "urban memories". The chapters attempt to demonstrate how the two projects inevitably oscillate between seeking the spirit of the place and harking back to urban forms of tradition. The investigation leads us to penetrate Östberg’s repertoire of urban memories, as amassed from travel and study, and trace analogies of composition with other architectures in Swedish and even more European traditions. The two analyzed buildings are placed on opposite sides of developing Stockholm: the first on the outermost portion of the Kungsholmen peninsula and the second along the banks of the Djurgård canal. Although, they are clearly different-scale projects, they also reveal a partially similar approach to composition. The Stockholm City Hall, including its nearby never-to-be realized part, the Commission Building, and villa Geber can be seen as significant examples of Östberg’s design process: how from the "imagination passive" studies and selects references to "imagination active" As a matter of fact, he manages to assemble and combine all his inputs in a personal idiom embodying a markedly Swedish character.

Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna - Italy2015

Shadows of the South. Venetian fragments from Ragnar Östberg’s travelogue

Chiara Monterumisi

2013

Southern echoes in a Swedish Wanderer. The urban complex Stockholm Town hall-Committee building of Ragnar Östberg (1909-1940)

Chiara Monterumisi

2016

Ragnar Östberg. Genius loci e memorie urbane Stockholms Stadshuset - Nämndhuset e villa Geber (ENG) Ragnar Östberg. Genius loci and urban memories Stockholms Stadshuset-Nämndhuset and villa Geber

Chiara Monterumisi

Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna - Italy2015