Lucius Burckhardt
Lucius Burckhardt (1925-2003) was a sociologist, economist, theorist of architecture and design and the founder of strollology (Spaziergangswissenschaft).
Born in Davos in 1925, PhD in Basel, was, as of 1955, scientific assistant at the Social Research Center of Münster University in Dortmund. After a guest lectureship at Ulm School of Design in 1959, he undertook several teaching assignments from 1961 to 1973 and later on guest lectureships in sociology at Architecture Department of ETH Zurich. From 1962 to 1973, he simultaneously worked as editor-in-chief of the journal Werk. From 1976 to 1983, Burckhardt was First President of German Werkbund, as of 1973, professor of socio-economics of urban systems at Gesamthochschule Kassel. He was corresponding member of German Academy for Urban and Regional Spatial Planning, Chevalier dans l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres, member of the Foundation Committee of Saar University of Visual Arts from 1987 to 1989, and founding dean of the Design Faculty at the Bauhaus University in Weimar, from 1992 to 1994. In 1994, his work was awarded with the Hessian Culture Prize for outstanding achievements in the realms of science, ecology, and aesthetics, the 1995 Federal Prize for Design Promoters, and the Swiss Design Prize 2001. In 2003, Burckhardt died in Basel. Annemarie Burckhardt, married to Lucius and working with him since 1955, died on 15 July 2012. (Source).
Strollology
Aesthetic aspects of the environment have never before concerned people to the extent they do today. Never before were so many committees caught up in permit procedures; never before were such powerful organizations at work to protect the environment; the landscape, monuments, and a sense of local identity; never has it been so difficult to erect a new building in a historical location, or on a landscape that still bears traces of earlier gardens or agriculture. Yet despite all these safeguards, procedures and rejected construction proposals, complaints about the "ugly-fication" of the environment and the destruction of the landscape are growing louder by the day. My science, which is called strollology, attempts to analyze this phenomenon. Strollology examines the sequences in which a person perceives his surroundings. ... In the old world, the intact world, any context explored strollologically served as an explanatory complement to the actual object of a visit. ... the way was as important as the goal. ... We are .. the first generation of people for whom the aesthetic experience does not occur automatically. Instead, the place itself must explain its aesthetic intent. When we create a park, the park can no longer rely on the fact that we proceed from the town and through a gate to a green space and hence know we are visiting the park. Rather, the park must now substantiate by means of its interior design the extent to which it contrasts with its surroundings. So, without us even taking a single step, it must give us the strollological explanation: "You have come from the city to the park." The same holds true also for architecture.
(Burckhardt, "Strollological Observations on Perception of the Environment and the Tasks Facing Our Generation" [1996], 2012, 239-47)
Publications
(in German unless noted)
Books
- with Markus Kutter, Wir selber bauen unsere Stadt. Ein Hinweis auf die Möglichkeiten staatlicher Baupolitik, Basel: F. Handschin, 1953.
- with Max Frisch and Markus Kutter, Achtung: die Schweiz, Basel: F. Handschin, 1955.
- with Max Frisch and Markus Kutter, Die neue Stadt, Basel: F. Handschin, 1956.
- Reise ins Risorgimento, Cologne and Berlin, 1959.
- with Walter Förderer, Bauen ein Prozess, Teufen, 1968.
- with Annemarie Burckhardt and Diego Peverelli, Moderne Architektur in der Schweiz seit 1900, Winterthur, 1969.
- Der Werkbund in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz, Stuttgart, 1978.
- trans. into Italian, French, and English.
- editor, with Michael Andritzky and Ot Hoffmann, Für eine andere Architektur, Frankfurt/Main, 1981.
- Die Kinder fressen ihre Revolution, ed. Bazon Brock, Cologne: DuMont, 1985.
- Le design au-delà du visible, Paris, 1991. (French)
- Design = unsichtbar, ed. Hans Höger, Ostfildern, 1995.
- Wer plant die Planung? Architektur, Politik und Mensch, eds. Jesko Fezer and Martin Schmitz, Berlin: Martin Schmitz, 2004.
- Warum ist Landschaft schön? Die Spaziergangswissenschaft, eds. Markus Ritter and Martin Schmitz, Berlin: Martin Schmitz, 2006.
- Design ist unsichtbar. Entwurf, Gesellschaft und Pädagogik, eds. Silvan Blumenthal and Martin Schmitz, Berlin: Martin Schmitz, 2012.
- Writings: Rethinking Man-made Environments, Vienna and New York: Springer, 2012. (English) Review: Förster.
- Der kleinstmögliche Eingriff, eds. Markus Ritter and Martin Schmitz, Berlin: Martin Schmitz, 2013.
- Why is Landscape Beautiful? The Science of Strollology, Basel: Birkhäuser, 2015, 320 pp. [1] [2] (English)
Essays and interviews on strollology
- "What Do Explorers Discover?" [1987], in Burckhardt, Why is Landscape Beautiful?, 2015, pp 267-270. (English)
- "Mountaineering on Sylt. In Conversation with Nikolaus Wyss" [1989], in Burckhardt, Why is Landscape Beautiful?, 2015, pp 271-281. (English)
- "A Matter of Looking and Recognizing. In Conversation with Thomas Fuchs" [1993], in Burckhardt, Why is Landscape Beautiful?, 2015, pp 282-287. (English)
- "The Science of Strollology" [1995], in Burckhardt, Why is Landscape Beautiful?, 2015, pp 231-266. (English)
- "Strollological Observations on Perception of the Environment and the Tasks Facing Our Generation" [1996], in Burckhardt, Writings: Rethinking Man-made Environments, 2012, pp 239-248; repr. in Burckhardt, Why is Landscape Beautiful?, 2015, pp 225-230. (English)
- "Strollology—A New Science" [1998], in Burckhardt, Why is Landscape Beautiful?, 2015, pp 288-294. (English)
- "On Movement and Vantage Points—the Strollologist's Experience" [1999], in Burckhardt, Writings: Rethinking Man-made Environments, 2012, pp 264-279; repr. in Burckhardt, Why is Landscape Beautiful?, 2015, pp 295ff. (English)
Bibliography
Literature
- Silvan Blumenthal, Das Lehrcanapé. Lucius Burckhardt und das Architektenbild an der ETH Zürich 1970–1973, Standpunkte Dokumente 2, Basel, 2010.
- Ueli Mäder, Raum und Macht. Die Stadt zwischen Vision und Wirklichkeit. Leben und Wirken von Lucius und Annemarie Burckhardt, Zürich: Rotpunktverlag, 2014, 304 pp. [3]
