Sedlmayr’s Borromini

Abstract

: Hans Sedlmayr exhibited his new theory and methodology of Strukturforschung in his monograph on Francesco Borromini, Die Architektur Borrominis (1930). The book has hardly been read and most attention is placed on its controversial ‘schizothymic’ reading of Borromini’s personality. This study contextualizes the whole book within the larger project of the New Vienna School and clarifies its intent. Noting Sedlmayr’s movement from structure to chains of influence, the architectural historians arrival on personality is clarified as begged by the idiosyncrasies of Borromini’s forms. Sedlmayr rounded out this complete analysis of the architect into a too-neat and abbreviated interpretive package, yet a fresh reading shows its distance from quick characterizations normally found in Anglo-American texts.

Keywords

• Hans Sedlmayr
• Francesco Borromini
• Vienna School of Art History
• gestalt psychology
• Ernst Kretschmer