The Inner Nature of Man and Life Between Death and Rebirth II

GA 153 — 14 April 1914, Vienna

III. About the Johannesbau (the First Goetheanum) in Dornach

Before I come to the lecture itself today, I would like to address a few words to you, which are only intended to say that this year, unfortunately, unlike in previous years, we will not be holding the events that would otherwise have taken place in Munich in the middle of summer, because the next such event is to take place in the Johannesbau and this building is taking a little longer than originally thought. It is to be hoped that in the last two months of this year we shall have made sufficient progress for the Johannesbau to be opened with appropriate ceremonies.

This construction project is, of course, giving us more work than one would usually imagine, and you will therefore understand that personal meetings have had to be canceled for a certain period of time.

For our dear Austrian friends, it has certainly not been easy in many respects to come to terms with the idea that the Johannesbau is so far away. However, although I am not in a position to discuss it further, because there is not enough time, the fact is that karma led us to build the Johannesbau where it is being built; and that will be good.

We must realize that we see this building as a kind of central place and symbol of our spiritual movement. What is far for one person is near for another; there was no way around that from the outset. But it is to be hoped that our Austrian friends will also find ways and means to experience this emblem of our anthroposophical movement as their own, I would like to say explicitly, by being personally present at the appropriate event of the Johannesbau. In reality, it is not only a symbol because of what it will become as a monumental building, but it is, in a sense, a symbol because, if it really comes about, it can only come about through the great willingness to make sacrifices on the part of some of our friends, who have really shown the utmost willingness to make sacrifices in order to complete the difficult and, above all, costly construction, as it is now to be.

What is to be created should actually express in every respect what our spiritual movement will be. And the whole architectural style must correspond to this. Everything that flows into the building must be such that it does not enter in a symbolic or allegorical way, but must flow into this building in a truly artistic way. Above all, it was necessary to build a structure that is an embodiment of the spiritual essence to which we are devoted in all its forms. The different periods and cultures of human development also had their own corresponding buildings. The building to be erected in Dornach should show in all its forms, from which it is composed and with which it is to form a shell for our spiritual work, through the way this shell opens outwards and inwards and closes and joins together, that something is expressed in its forms that has never before been conceived in architecture for such a building.

Just as the Greek temple stands as a dwelling for the god within, just as the Gothic cathedral stands to form a whole together with the community gathered within, so our building should be designed in such a way that the forms directly, I would say in a spiritual, intellectual relationship, shape the building so that it is spiritually transparent. That means that when you are inside the building, you will have the feeling, through the architecture and through that which passes from the architecture into the sculpture, that these walls are not like other architectural walls that have existed up to now, closed, merely enclosing, but that they are at the same time the communicators that open up spiritual life into infinite spiritual expanses. These are walls that simultaneously transcend themselves through their forms, that at the same time are not present in their physical form. The aim is for everyone who is inside and gradually gets used to these forms, not allegorically and symbolically, but in a living sensation, to have something like a view of the world we are talking about, simply by experiencing the form.

Of course, this is something completely new in architecture, something unusual; and it takes time and work, and as it is already in our time – forgive the harsh expression – it also needs and has needed: money! And in this matter the willingness to make sacrifices on the part of some of our friends was so accommodating that we can say: this willingness to make sacrifices is, in a certain respect, a symbol of the way in which our spiritual movement has penetrated the understanding of souls.

I only wished to mention this, so that you may take this structure to your hearts, and feel it as a central point of our movement, so that you may think of yourselves as united with it, and may grant it your personal presence, as much as will be possible in the future, after the opening.