The Baroque Effect

This dissertation explores the rich interplay between architecture and art historical research that emerged in Germany in the final decades of the nineteenth century through the rediscovery of the Baroque. The close connection during these years between the establishment of the Baroque as an independent architectural style within the young field of Kunstwissenschaft, the burgeoning interest in Baroque space and the mechanics of perception in psychological aesthetics, and the appearance of the Baroque in many of the most important architectural projects of the late nineteenth century made the style a flashpoint for far-reaching debates concerning the roles of art history and architecture in a period marked by profound transformations. Focusing on the reception of the Baroque in Berlin, this dissertation examines the important role of the style in attempts by architects to reexamine their discipline in the context of historicism, the unprecedented growth of the metropolis, and the complex and often conflicting array of regional and national conceptions of identity that accompanied the political development of the German Empire. Through a series of case studies documenting the remarkable interplay of art history and architectural practice in Berlin from the mid-1880's to the turn of the twentieth century, the dissertation traces the emergence of the "NeuBarock" ("New Baroque").