I’ve been familiar with the Goetheanum since I was a teenager and yet it was only last month that I managed to visit it. Even if you think you know a building, being there can change your preconceptions. As one of the architectural world’s most extraordinary structures, could the Goetheanum possibly live up to the photos I’d seen?
For context, I’ll start with the text for my radio piece about it, broadcast back in 2017. (You can listen here.)
‘It’s difficult to pin down Rudolf Steiner. His name is known for the Steiner schools that exist today in over 60 countries, including Australia, that support individuality, diversity and inclusion. And then there’s the bio-dynamic farming method he devised, where crops are grown according to the cycle of the moon, and use a type of homeopathy rather than conventional fertilisers. And if you go to the Swiss town of Dornach, just outside Basel, then you’ll find Steiner’s work as architect, because it’s here that he built his headquarters, although he had no formal training.
Steiner was born in Austria in 1861 and became a scholar of the work of German philosopher Goethe who proposed that happiness is achieved through self-knowledge. Steiner combined Goethe’s ideas with the esoteric teachings of Theosophy, and in 1912 set up his own Anthroposophy movement, which leaned towards Germanic mysticism, seeking to incorporate the spiritual in all aspects of life, from education and art to medical care and agriculture.
He called his new HQ the Goetheanum. It was a fairy-tale wooden building with heavy domes covered with shingles that housed meeting rooms and an auditorium for lectures. It was to be a building that expressed the human spirit and the desire for growth. Other buildings surrounded it, including a thermal plant with a tall chimney that rises upward like a strange tree, and various organic-shaped structures used for workshops and houses.
But in 1922, the main building was destroyed by arson. Steiner rebuilt on the same site, this time using reinforced concrete, and it remains one of the world’s most bizarre looking buildings, especially as using reinforced concrete to such an extent was virtually unheard of at this time. It’s a huge, heaving nugget of a building that’s been described as the opposite of a cave, bursting outward from within the earth. Like its predecessor, it houses a large auditorium and various offices, but its greater monumentality reflected Steiner’s stronger certainty in his beliefs. It retained the organic look with convex walls and heaving buttresses and the whole thing looks carved or sculpted. Inside, the walls are painted in colourful natural paints and stained glass windows symbolise cosmic development. A vivid mural across the ceiling of the auditorium depicts the various stages of human evolution. Everything was to represent the human spirit and the building has been gradually added to and refined.
Steiner died three years before its completion in 1928, but his theories live on. The building has influenced architects as diverse as Le Corbusier, in the organic form of his chapel at Ronchamp, and Frank Gehry, in the hulking shape of the Guggenheim at Bilbao. Goethe famously described architecture as being frozen music. At the Goetheanum, it’s certainly a monumental tune.’
On our first evening there we walked up from our hotel after dinner and the various buildings of the Steiner commune were lit by the last light of the day. It was all quietly spectacular and I couldn’t wait for the following morning.
I wasn’t disappointed. Although the Goetheanum itself is the star, there are others designed by Steiner. I was charmed by the angular electricity substation close to the old coffee house, now an organic foodstore (where we bought the most divine strawberries, dark and intensely flavoured).
And there were the jaunty Eurythmic houses, built to house students, as comical as doll’s houses.
The thermal plant with its chimney like leaping flames, or a tree of life, is breathtaking. And so, too, is the shingle-clad Glass House next to it, so reminiscent of the original Goetheanum building.
The air was filled with the sound of insects, mainly bees. It was lovely to walk in the grounds, which included orchards, an extensive kitchen garden and one with plants grown for their dye. The sense of tranquillity lulled me into an almost meditative state.
There are buildings scattered everywhere across the hillside, many built in a similar style with heavy roofs and facetted surfaces. But wherever you walk, you are rarely out of sight of the huge main building. It‘s a looming presence with an all-seeing central window like a Cyclops eye.
Its concrete bulk is remarkable, the material chosen because it offered design possibilities that timber couldn’t, as well as being more fire resistant. Seen in the bigger landscape, it seems to echo the stone of castles on neighbouring hillsides.
We were free to move within the building, browsing in the large bookshop filled with every book ever written by or on Steiner as well as umpteen others on creativity and human nature. The biggest pleasure, though, was in ascending the various staircases that move upwards with Escher-like energy.
The auditorium itself is only open for an hour or so each day so we dallied over a wholesome lunch in the cafeteria. It was worth the wait. I took a photo but was swiftly admonished: no photos are allowed.
It’s a sacred space, I suppose, and it was actually a relief to just enjoy the space instead of constantly thinking of the next shot. The ceiling is covered with a giant mural depicting the creation of the earth, based on sketches by Steiner, and ghostly stained glass windows line its sides, depicting the passage of the soul. It felt like the engine of the mothership.
I find these sorts of projects quite moving. It’s important to understand the context and imagine how it would have been perceived a hundred years ago. I was awed by it now so it’s interesting to imagine how it must first have looked, sitting above the river in conservative Switzerland. Given it’s the centre of Steiner’s Anthroposophy movement, I couldn’t help thinking of university campuses and even Sai Baba’s sprawling ashram buildings in Puttaparthi in India. There’s a similar vibe. All provide an environment designed to support those who are studying and need space to reflect and develop. At Dornach, I felt nourished by the place and its buildings, the use of natural paints, the quiet spaces to sit.
That these buildings don’t look like anything else was uplifting. As were the smiles of those working there. Individuality was key to this commune. How that feeling was translated into bricks and mortar and concrete remains one of the great delights of discovering new places. It’s also a reminder that however much we think we know about architecture, there is always so much more to learn and experience.
What building exceeded your expectations?
