Hans Wilhelm Auer was a Swiss-Austrian

Austrians

Austrians are a nation and ethnic group, consisting of the population of the Republic of Austria and its historical predecessor states who share a common Austrian culture and Austrian descent....

 architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

 best known for his design of the Swiss Bundeshaus

Bundeshaus

The Federal Palace is the name of the building in Bern in which the Swiss Federal Assembly and the Federal Council are housed.The building was designed by the architect Hans Auer and its inauguration took place on 1 April 1902...

(1894–1902) in Bern.

Auer was born in Wädenswil

Wädenswil

-References:...

. A pupil first of Gottfried Semper

Gottfried Semper

Gottfried Semper was a German architect, art critic, and professor of architecture, who designed and built the Semper Opera House in Dresden between 1838 and 1841. In 1849 he took part in the May Uprising in Dresden and was put on the government's wanted list. Semper fled first to Zürich and later...

 at the ETH Zurich

ETH Zurich

The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich or ETH Zürich is an engineering, science, technology, mathematics and management university in the City of Zurich, Switzerland....

 and then staff assistant for Theophil Hansen in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, Auer established his own office in 1887 and enjoyed a rich and varied career as a practicing architect, educator, and theorist. He died at Konstanz

Konstanz

Konstanz is a university city with approximately 80,000 inhabitants located at the western end of Lake Constance in the south-west corner of Germany, bordering Switzerland. The city houses the University of Konstanz.-Location:...

.

Like his near-contemporary Constantin Lipsius

Constantin Lipsius

Johannes Wilhelm Constantin Lipsius was a German architect and architectural theorist, best known for his controversial design of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts and Exhibition Building on the Brühl Terrace in Dresden, today known as the Lipsius-Bau.After attending Gymnasium, Lipsius initially...

, Auer was an eloquent advocate for architectural realism, a sophisticated theoretical stance that became increasingly significant in the 1880s on the continent. Architectural Realists sought to renew contemporary architecture through thoughtful reconsideration of the symbolic properties of the classical language of architectural expression; this "realistic" reconsideration required a new level of archaeological accuracy in the understanding of the emergence and evolution of specific forms. Auer's brilliant historical discussion of the triglyph

Triglyph

Triglyph is an architectural term for the vertically channeled tablets of the Doric frieze, so called because of the angular channels in them, two perfect and one divided, the two chamfered angles or hemiglyphs being reckoned as one. The square recessed spaces between the triglyphs on a Doric...

 (1880) comprised the basis for his own reflections on improving the existing state of contemporary architecture. Architectural realism enabled Auer's generation to disengage from slavish imitation of historical forms and hastened the emergence of more subtle perspectives on stylistic innovation. Auer's unique contribution as an architectural theorist was to expand the notion of architectural space as a significant aspect of style and evolution (1883), an accomplishment that is usually consigned to the art historian August Schmarsow

August Schmarsow

August Schmarsow was a German art historian. He was born at Schildfeld , Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and was educated in Zürich, Strassburg and Bonn. He became docent of the history of art at Göttingen in 1881, professor there in 1882, at Breslau in 1886, and went to Florence in 1892, and thence to...

 (1893).

What we now regard as "high modernist" architectural theory was achieved by the next generation (largely born during the final quarter of the nineteenth century), although many of its conceptual foundations were grasped by the Architectural Realists of the 1880s.

English

• Berry, J. Duncan. "Hans Auer and the Morality of Architectural Space", in: Deborah J. Johnson and David Ogawa (eds.) Seeing and Beyond. A Essays on Eighteenth- to Twenty-First-Century Art in Honor of Kermit S. Champa (Berlin/New York, 2005), pp. 149–184. ISBN 0820470848

• Mallgrave, Harry F. Gottfried Semper. Architect of the Nineteenth Century (New Haven, 1996). ISBN 0300066244

• Mallgrave, Harry F. Modern Architectural Theory: A Historical Survey, 1673–1968 (Cambridge, 2005). ISBN 0521793068

• Schwarzer, Mitchell
  Mitchell Schwarzer
  Mitchell Schwarzer is an architectural historian who writes on the urban and suburban built environment with attention to issues of mobility, perceptual psychology, media, consumerism, and memory. He is Professor of Architectural History and Chair of the Department of Visual Studies at California...
  
  . German Architectural Theory and the Search for Modern Identity (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 80–81, 192-94. ISBN 0521481503

German

• Architektonische Rundschau V (1889): pl. 80 + plans.

• Auer, Hans Wilhelm. “Die Bedeutung der Triglyphen. Ein Beitrag zur Frage über den Zusammenhang ægyptischer mit dorischer Baukunst,” Zeitschrift für bildenden Künste 15 (1880): 279-283, 322-325, 354-360.

• Auer, Franz (sic).“Der Einfluß der Construction auf die Entwicklung der Baustyle,” Zeitschrift des österreichischen Ingenieur- und Architektenvereins 33, no. 1 (1881), 8-18.

• Auer, Hans Wilhelm. “Die Entwickelung des Raumes in der Baukunst,” Allgemeine Bauzeitung 48 (1883), 65-68, 73-74 + pls. 51-52.

• Auer, Hans Wilhelm. “Moderne Stylfragen,” Allgemeine Bauzeitung 50 (1885): 19-21, 25-27.

• Auer, Hans Wilhelm. “Die Quaderbossierung der italienischen Renaissance,” Zeitschrift des österreichischen Ingenieur- und Architekten-Vereins 39 (1887), 179-186 + Pls. XXXIII-XXXV.

• Auer, Hans Wilhelm. “Der Tempel der Vesta und das Haus der Vestalinnen am Forum Romanum,” Denkschriften der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-Historische Classe 36 (Vienna, 1888), 209-228 + 8 pls.

• Auer, Hans Wilhelm. “Börsengebäude” in: Joseph Durm et al. (eds.), Handbuch der Architektur, IV. Theil, 2. Halbband, 2. Heft: Gebäude für die Zwecke des Wohnens, des Handels und Verkehrs (Stuttgart, 1902), 247-302.

• Birkner, Othmar. “Hans Wilhelm Auer,” Sauer Allgemeines Künstler-Lexikon. Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker (Munich/Leipzig, 1992), V: 612.

• Brun, Carl. "Hans Auer," in: idem., Schweizerisches Künstler-Lexikon (Frauenfeld, 1905) I: 61f.

• Dehio, Wien: II. bis IX. und XX. Bezirk (Vienna, 1993), p. 274. ISBN 978-3850283939

• Innerhofer, Franz. "Hans Wilhelm Auer" in: Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart (Leipzig, 1908) II: 243.

• Kisa, A. “Die Bauten Hans Auer's,” Allgemeine Kunst-Chronik 11, no. 19 (1887), pp. 493–494.

• Lucae, Richard. “Über die Macht des Raumes in der Baukunst,“ Zeitschrift für Bauwesen 19 (1869), pp. 294–306.

• Müller, Andreas
  Andreas Müller
  Andreas Müller is a former German footballer, who played mainly as a defensive midfielder.-Football career:...
  
  . Der verbitterte Bundeshausarchitekt. Die vertrackte Geschichte des Parlamentsgebäudes und seines Erbauers Hans Wilhelm Auer, 1847-1906 (Zurich, 2002). ISBN 978-3280028223

• Schmarsow, August
  August Schmarsow
  August Schmarsow was a German art historian. He was born at Schildfeld , Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and was educated in Zürich, Strassburg and Bonn. He became docent of the history of art at Göttingen in 1881, professor there in 1882, at Breslau in 1886, and went to Florence in 1892, and thence to...
  
  . Das Wesen der architektonischen Schöpfung (Leipzig, 1894).

• Schnaase, Karl
  Karl Schnaase
  Karl Schnaase was a distinguished German art historian and jurist. He was one of the founders of modern art history, and the author of one of the first surveys of the history of art.- Life :...
  
  . Niederländische Briefe (Stuttgart/Tübingen, 1834).