Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Von deutscher Baukunst [On German Architecture]

Kamaal Haque (Dickinson College)
Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Tweet Report an Error

In 1770, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe saw the Strasbourg Cathedral for the first time. He was overwhelmed and forced to confront his ideas on architecture, ideas learned from his Leipzig art teacher Adam Friedrich Oeser, but also from reading both French and German aesthetic theory. Confronted by what he saw as the brilliant totality of the cathedral’s architecture, Goethe later, in 1771 and 1772, wrote an essay seeking to clarify his thoughts on the Strasbourg Cathedral in particular and Gothic architecture in general. This essay, published at the end of 1772 (with the year 1773 on the title page), has come to be regarded as one of Goethe’s most important texts on architecture.

Von deutscher Baukunst

941 words

Citation: Haque, Kamaal. "Von deutscher Baukunst". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 June 2008 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=21844, accessed 28 March 2024.]

21844 Von deutscher Baukunst 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.