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Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts; Or, Practical Aesthetics B By Gottfried Semper. Translated by Harry Francis Mallgrave and Michael Robinson. Getty Publications, 2004. 984pp. £48
No one has done more to resurrect Gottfried Semperthan Harry Mallgrave. Picking up where the aged Wolfgang Herrmann left off, he first translated key texts, then produced a biography and, with support from the Getty Foundation and assistance from Michael Robinson, has now completed a translation of Semper's vast, but never completed, magnum opus, Der Stil.
That this is a major intellectual achievement is unquestionable, but it also ushers in new possibilities for understanding the titan of 19th-century architectural thought, who broke new ground in practice, teaching and theory.Through Semper we can see, more clearly than through any other single individual, the dilemmas and challenges facing 19th-century architecture.