Jakob Friedrich Peipers (1805-1878

A work without architecture – an architect without a work?

Those who deal with Friedrich Jakob Peipers (1805-1878) will encounter the works of an author who often signed with “Peipers, architect“. But however the Œuvre associated with this name today does not contain any built architecture. Was Peipers an architect without work? Thematically, most of the drawings and watercolours presented here bear witness to the trips to Italy, most of which were undertaken at the end of his studies, and which provided generations of Northern European artists with impressive experiences. They were as obligatory for architects and writers as they were for visual artists. Although Peipers, unlike the painters in the sketches, was unable to draw any direct profit for his actual profession, these are not merely just finger exercises. Rather, they betray an artistic intention that reminiscent of painterly works. Even after Peipers had settled in his main occupation, he travelled again and again to Italy, but also to his homely Rhineland and other regions of Germany, as our drawings and watercolours show. Peipers left an important trace in the history of architecture through his collaboration at the first Stock exchange building in Frankfurt Frankfurter Börse on the Paulsplatz, of which only the sculptures set up on today's Börsenplatz are preserved: Friedrich Jakob Peipers, and not his cousin Friedrich Eugen Peipers (1805-1885), drawing teacher at the Städel, as often claimed, carried out the construction from 1840 to 1844 according to the plans of August Stüler. This is already secured by the memorandum deposited at the foundation stone. But the "Architectural Album" published by the scholars of Schinkel in Berlin proves a major role of the Frankfurt architect. With the exception of a panel on the colour scheme of the exchange hall, all of the illustrations are designated as designs of Stüler and Peipers. The competition entry, which was unanimously nominated in 1839 from 34 designs, including Rudolf Burnitz and Maximilian Hessemer from Frankfurt, was submitted by Stüler alone. However, the competitors failed because of the difficult shape of the site and the requirements for the heterogeneous use of the building. The fact that Stüler was able to present a plan with optimum functionality and space utilisation on site in Berlin makes the early involvement of a local architect in the design process more than likely.

In view of the fact that a self-contained architectural work by Peipers is no longer tangible, neither in preserved buildings nor in traditional designs, we must nevertheless ask how far he practiced his profession. His application for naturalisation of 1835 is at best a hint of the construction of private residential buildings in Frankfurt. However, a letter from 1843, in which he thanked Thomas Leverton Donaldson (1795-1885) for his admission to the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), forms the authoritative proof: „[…] Allow me to confess to you, Monsieur, how astonished I was when your letter reached me and that I cannot understand until now how I could attract the attention of your Institute; because if someone considers my possibilities as a civil and common architect, who has built nothing else than private homes so far, I am forced to admit that I could hardly contribute to the progress of our beautiful art yet[…].“. At that time, the management of the Börsenbau demanded so much attention that he complained: “My daily duties have absorbed so much of my time that I have hardly managed to complete only the most necessary work of the various executions that I have supervised.“ In the period that followed, the urban development will have provided Peipers with sufficient orders for rental houses and villas, especially since a number of anonymous buildings in Frankfurt's monument topography may well be considered as Peipers‘ unrecognised Œuvre, but he was no longer involved in public projects.

From analysis of landscape to the tectonic of images

Three sheets, which were made not far from Karlsruhe in the Vosges and a view of the Rhônetal near Lyon, bear witness to journeys that Peipers made during his studies with Weinbrenner or already on the way to Franz Christian Gau to Paris in 1825. To the neo-classical architecture based on rationality and the universal principles of geometry, the motifs captured in the Vosges form a romantic counter-programme. Here we encounter an interest in the morphology of rock formations and their analysis, understood as the dissolution and uncovering of an underlying principle.

Peipers studied rock and rock formations especially during his almost year-round stay in Italy in 1834 on places of yearning like Amalfi and Sorrento, as well as on the islands of Capri and Ischia. Peipers visited these places as well as countless other artists from Rococo to Classical Modernism and travellers on the “Grand Tour“ already since the Renaissance. In a sheet such as that view of the gorge of Sorrento, the small-scale condensation in the centre of the drawing captivates the eye in such a way that the remaining free of large image areas on the flanks of the valley section has a focussing effect without being noticed as being missing; rather, it contributes to liveliness. When the co-creativity of the viewing process, emphasized by psychoanalytical art theories, is complemented here by dark or brightly contrasting elements, this finds its best expression in representations by other artists. A drawing by Jakob Philipp Hackert, conceived from the same point of view and filled with gallant figures, shows the “sequel“ as a shaded slope on the left and glistening bright rocks and trees on the right, while a painting of Heinrich Reinhold further enhances the effect of depth through a stairway leading down from the foreground into the gorge.