Hannes Mayer

A House for Friedrich Schelling, Germany 2010

Friedrich Schelling (1775 -1854), born in Leonberg Southern Germany, grew up in an environment of Prostestantism and mysticism. He studied theology in Tübingen together with Hegel and Hölderlin and is considered as one of the main philosophers of Idealism. Later and in response to Leibniz he developed a concept, which made him the protagonist of what is called Naturphilosophie, a strand of philosophy, which considers Nature in its totality and combines spirit and nature in one system. This theory became a major driver for Romanticism in the 19th century. The movement had great influence on the organic tendencies, which are taken on by Rudolf Steiner in his concept of Anthroposophy.

It is this ‘organic’ and overarching spiritual thinking that forms the starting point of the project of A House for Friedrich Schelling.

Hannes Mayer is a German architect based in Zurich. He studied at the Universities of Technology in Cottbus, Eindhoven and the Bartlett School of Architecture UCL where he graduated with a Diploma degree in 2007 and Masters degree in 2008. In 2007 he founded M-A-O/architecture and optimism in London. He is also one of the principal editors of archithese, an international architecture magazine based in Zurich.