The Second Goetheanum

Nationalzeitung (Basel), Vol. 82, No. 513

By Dr. Rudolf Steiner.

The rebuilding of the Goetheanum has been much discussed in the press and has aroused the interest of the widest circles. We are now in a position to publish a picture of the future building. At the same time, we have asked Dr. Rudolf Steiner to comment on the idea on which the building is based.

The reconstruction of the Goetheanum presented no easy task for the design of the building idea. A complete reorientation was necessary because the old building was mainly made of wood, while the new one is to be built entirely of concrete. However, the design of the building should not contradict the nature of anthroposophy, which the building is intended to foster. It seeks to draw from spiritual sources, from which spiritual knowledge flows for the powers of perception, but from which art forms and style also flow for the sentient imagination. It strives for the very primal forces of perception, but also for those of artistic creation and stylistic expression. It would be grotesque if someone were to build her workplace who, out of some artistic sentiment, were to invent the building idea with only external feelings for the essence of anthroposophy. This workplace can only be built by someone who experiences every detail of the form artistically out of the essence of spiritual insight, just as he recognizes every word spoken out of the same insight in anthroposophy.

The softness of the wood made it possible to create a spatial design that emulated nature's own creative process in organic forms. The organism as a whole makes a form necessary, for example for the smallest structure - a earlobe - that could not be otherwise. To merge with artistic experience in this organic creation of nature could lead to the development of an “organic architectural style”, in contrast to one based on mere statics or dynamics, if the natural was elevated by the creative imagination into the spiritual. For example, in the old Goetheanum there was a hall that visitors entered before coming to the large auditorium. The wooden forms allowed a design to be created that showed exactly that the space was ready to receive those entering from outside. What was achieved through the organic integration into the overall building then extended over this special design. But this also provided the design on the outside. It revealed in an artistic way what had been designed and structured in the building for the purposes of anthroposophical work.

Concrete does not lend itself to such a formation of the building idea in the same way as wood does. This is the reason why the design of the model took almost a full year to complete. - You work the spatial form into the wood; you create the form by deepening a main surface. Concrete, on the other hand, is a material from which the form has to be carved by raising the main surface in the way that is needed to define the necessary space. This also applies to the formation of the outward-facing forms. Surfaces, lines and angles, etc. are to be kept in such a way that what is designed and structured inside pushes its way into the outer forms and thus reveals itself.

Furthermore, this second Goetheanum needs to make more economical use of space than the first. The interior of the first was really just one room designed to provide an artistic setting for lectures and performances alike. But now there will be two floors: a lower floor with work and lecture rooms and a rehearsal stage, and an upper floor with an auditorium and a stage, which can also be used as a lecture room.

This internal structure had to be followed by the artistic design of the lines and surfaces on the outside. Look at the shape of the roof – which is not a dome this time. If you feel your way through the forms, you will find how the task of artistically integrating the roof into the forms on one side is attempted, corresponding to the ascending auditorium, while on the other side it is conceived as enclosing the stage area with its storerooms, etc. With an artistically unbiased view, one might perhaps discover how the necessities of the design of the floor plan have influenced the design of the building idea, right up to the daring shaping of the west front.

The building will stand on a ramp. This will make it possible to walk around the building on a surface raised above ground level. The portals will be reached by large staircases leading from ground level to the ramp. The cloakroom and other ancillary rooms will be located under the ramp.

The creator of the building idea is convinced that this concrete structure will correspond particularly well to the forms of the hill group on which the Goetheanum is located. When he designed the wooden building, he was not yet as familiar with these natural forms as he is now, after looking back on a decade in which he has come to know and love them. Color chart II
Chart drawing by Rudolf Steiner for the lecture on January 1, 1924

(Alterations will still be made to the rear part of the building in accordance with the wishes of the Dornach community and the Solothurn government; these are not yet included here.)