The Nietzsche Archive in Weimar. Building the Architecture for the Perceptive

Ole W. Fischer

 
Biography
Ole W. Fischer (*1974) teaches theory of architecture at ETH Zurich since 2002. He studied architecture at the Bauhaus University Weimar and ETH. In his PhD he analyzed the artistic and theoretic work of Henry van de Velde dedicated to Friedrich Nietzsche as an example of philosophical informed design (2002-08). In 2005 he was fellow researcher at the GSD Harvard, in 2004 and 2005 fellow researcher at the Foundation Weimar Classics. In 2008 he will be fellow in resident at Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart and in fall 2008 he will co-curate the series of symposia "Explorations – Research Design" as part of the Swiss Pavilion of Biennale di Venezia with Reto Geiser. Ole W. Fischer published internationally to questions of contemporary architectural theory (Werk; JSAH; Thresholds; Archplus; Umeni; GAM). 
  

Abstract
Reading Friedrich Nietzsche's work was the starting point for Henry van de Velde in his artistic work in the 1880s. His change-over to the applied arts and architecture in the 1890s and subsequent appointment to the Court of Weimar in 1901 coincided with a substantial series of works dedicated to Nietzsche, which van de Velde continued in Holland during the period between the wars and which were one of his most important works until the memoirs written in post-war Switzerland. The focus of my research is the correlation of radical philosophy, aesthetic thought and artistic production. By confronting the aesthetic concepts of Friedrich Nietzsche with the artistic and theoretic work of Henry van de Velde my recherché exemplifies the process of acquiring philosophic concepts and positions to produce meaning and significance in art, design and architecture as a strategy of the avant-gardes of the 20th century.
The focus of this conference paper is put on the translational process from philosophical text to abstract image design, as a special case of an analogous space. The analysis and interpretation of a historic point of a crisis of language and traditional art in early modernity, where the distrust against language, moral and convention was put forward by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and was answered by his reader Henry van de Velde with the artistic concept of "transcription ornementale", which opened the field for formal experimentation of an abstract as well as a philosophical informed design process. A cross reading of van de Velde's own writings with the philosophic notions from Nietzsche on art and architecture and the interpretation of one of van de Veldes mayor works dedicated to Nietzsche – the Nietzsche Archive in Weimar (1902-03) – give an exemplification of the concept of programmatic architecture, adapted by van de Velde from late-romantic music theory of Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner.