Karl Friedrich Schinkel

"Erst erfreuen, dann belehren."

"Ironically, the belief that the new age was essentially different from the past led to the emotional need to find "roots" in the past, to find some continuity with man's great achievements of the past. The unprecedented nature of so many of the architectural tasks and the altered conditions for their realization inevitably produced originality at the level of planning and construction; but as the Romantic architect and, indeed, sensible men realized, man is an emotional creature who needs to be reassured by the familiar and the intelligible. It is a measure of Schinkel's genius that he could provide such functional solutions to particular problems, clothe them in intelligible and expressive forms, incorporate them so felicitously into their environment, and make it all seem so natural and inevitable."

"Schinkel had asserted that architecture should be the expression of an idea, and, that insofar as it represented a transcendence of the intellectual over purely material considerations, the Gothic style was the best example of an architectural expression of ideas. Yet, as it happened over the next several generations Gothic was capable of expressing a variety of ideas, often contradictory. It could, for example, express the ultimate victory of spirit over matter, an architectural system "organically" related to nature, or the most logical and efficient use of masonry. It was both the visible expression of the Germanic soul and an ideal vehicle for Catholic worship. If similar forms could express such a variety of ideas, was it also possible that a variety of forms could express similar ideas? That meaning was not intrinsic in the forms but rather attached to them by tacit agreement and confirmed by the specific context? Although it is true that the Gothic Monument to the Wars of Liberation was in a "national" style while the Museum dedicated to universal cultural history was in a timeless "international" style, there is also the particular location of each building to consider: a suburban hilltop for the former and the center of the city with its monumental classical buildings for the latter. Schinkel approached each particular problem on its own terms, and this freedom from a self-consistent but doctrinaire method contributed to his success as a practicing architect even if it makes it difficult to reconstruct his "theory of architecture.""

"Schinkel was not arbitrary in his use of historical modes but rather eclectic in the best sense of the word. He could search the past for its conspicuous successes using them both freely and discursively as the basis for a contemporary architecture."

"Schinkel's aesthetic was not a crudely materialistic "truth to material" affair… but rather an attempt to inform iron and other industrial materials with an appropriate beauty through the direct collaboration of the artist in the manufacturing process."

"I hope I may be allowed to remark that recent inventions and improvements enabling works of art to be duplicated faithfully, easily, and safely may properly be used to give industry a direction in which beauty is as important as utility. I cannot, as many do, regret the mechanical process that turns the artist's attention increasingly towards the intellectual element in the production of a work of art; something that no machinery can replace. Anything that a machine can imitate and duplicate perfectly is no longer in the realm of art. But as a work of art can be mechanically duplicated both faithfully and with ease, and this distributed to all classes of society, if the knowledge of that work need no longer be acquired solely in museums or in those private collections to which access is difficult, then we may hope that here and there one of the seeds thus broadcast will take root and eventually bear fruit."

"Indifference to the fine arts comes close to barbarism."

"Das Nützliche und Nothwendige, so gut es an sich ist, wird widrig wenn es ohne Anstand und Würde auftritt, und zu diesen hilft ihm blos die Schönheit, welche eben deßhalb ebenso wesentlich wird und immer gleichzeitig mit jenem Berücksichtigung verdient."

"„Eine Skizze wirkt oft so viel mehr und höher als die Ausführung, weil in letztere vieles aufgenommen wird, was man füglich entbehren könnte, in der Skizze hingegen nur das Notwendige, die Phantasie Anregende.“"

"„Mode kann jeder unvernünftige Einfall werden; wo Mode vorherrscht, ist es immer ein Zeichen von Mangel an Freiheitsbildung, ist immer ein Verderben der Nationen, ein Mittel zu leerem Luxus. Dagegen ist wahre Kunst, sowie wahre Wissenschaft, notwendige Bedingung des vernunftgemäßen Menschenlebens. Denn es fragt sich, worin sich der Mensch wahrhaft vom Tier unterscheidet?“"

"„Es gibt auch eine Rückwirkung der schönen Kunst auf die Moral; die Freiheit der Empfindung überhaupt, durch bestimmte Bilder dargestellt im Felde des rein Schönen, schließt alles Egoistische aus; das Bestreben des Künstlers ist, das alle einen Genuß am Höchsten mitempfinden sollen.“"

"„Die Kunst selbst ist Religion.“"

"„Die Kunst ist das Werkzeug der Ewigkeit der Ideen.“"

"„Sehr bald gerieth ich in den Fehler der rein radicalen Abstraction”, schreibt Schinkel 1835 über einige seiner frühen Entwürfe, „ich entwickelte die ganze Composition für ein bestimmtes Werk der Baukunst aus seinem nächsten trivialen Zweck allein und aus der Konstruction. In diesem Falle entstand etwas Trockenes, Starres, das der Freiheit ermangelte und zwei wesentliche Elemente; das Historische und das Poetische, ganz ausschloss … ich musste abwägen, wie weit das rationelle Prinzip wirksam seyn müsse, um den Trivialbegriff des Gegenstandes festzuhalten, und wie weit andererseits jenen höheren Einwirkungen von geschichtlichen und artistischen, poetischen Zwecken der Eintritt dabei gestattet werden dürfte, um das Werk zur Kunst zu erheben.“ - 1835. (Karl Friedrich Schinkel: Das Architektonische Lehrbuch. Herausgegeben von Goerd Peschken. Berlin 1979, S. 150)"

"„Die Baukunst fordert vor allem Ruhe.“"

"„Die Architektur ist die Fortsetzung der Natur in ihrer konstruktiven Tätigkeit.“"