Secesija : jevrejski (ne)ukus?

Abstract

Kroz čitavu istoriju, arhitektura je prevazilazila prostu materijalno-funkcionalističku ravan i dobijala značenja van dosega strukturalno-tektonske stvarnosti. Dok je arhitektura često otelotvoravala metafizičko, naglašene identitete, i predstavljala imago mundi, čovekovo samopoimanje i poimanje sveta, neizvesno je koliko je mogla da izrazi religijske ili etničke identitete tokom 19. i 20. veka. Uistinu, i dalje je pitanje koliko se arhitektonsko delo može okarakterisati kao "jevrejsko". Ipak, oko 1900. godine, kako u Beču tako i u Budimpešti su takve odrednice bile vodeći argumenti podjednako u antisemitskim i filosemitskim krugovima, što opravdava nastojanje da se analizira ono što se naziva "jevrejstvo" u arhitekturi.

This paper features the impact of Jewish patrons, artists and critics on art nouveau architecture in some Habsburg lands. It collects period Philo- and anti-Semitic press on the supposed Jewishness of Viennese and Hungarian Sezession/Szecesszio, which serve as starting points for the scrutiny of stylistic features, political messages that may be related to Judaic sources, Jewish historic experience and the attitude of emancipated Jews of fin de siecle Vienna and Budapest. It finds some formal roots of Secession in 19th-century oriental style synagogues, particularly the ones created by Ludwig Forster and Otto Wagner: flattened facade surface, the use of colour ceramics and the idea of Semperian cladding (Bekleidungstheorie). The paper analyses the writings of Adolf Loos, his view of the decoration in Sezession as a modern Caftan and modernism as the emancipation of Jews (and Gentiles too) from the “historic caftan”: decoration. In the conclusion, the paper sums up the impact of Judaic thought on post-Secession and early 20th-century modernism in Central Europe.