Stoffwechsel in the Anthropocene

The German term Stoffwechsel —literally meaning “change of matter” and translated into English as “metabolism”—describes the exchange process between a living organism and its environment. The term became the keystone of Gottfried Semper’s architectural theory in the nineteenth century, articulated in his two-volume work, Der Stil in den technischen und tektonischen Künsten oder Praktische Aesthetik (Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts; or, Practical Aesthetics). For Semper, Stoffwechsel represented a phenomenon well known in the history of architecture and design since antiquity: the transfer of forms originally tied to the processing of a specific material to other materials. Today, Stoffwechsel in architecture encompasses the extraction, transport, processing, storage, and use of materials in construction, as well as the “afterlife” of these materials—their re-use, return to nature, or post-demolition disposal at the end of a building’s lifecycle. The term also carries economic, ecological, and urbanistic connotations. Contemporary discussions on energy and material transitions in architecture can be understood as metabolic challenges of the twenty-first century, an age marked by the radical human transformation of Earth’s ecological systems—from the oceans to the climate—commonly referred to as the Anthropocene. However, within current disciplinary debates, Stoffwechsel is often limited to the pragmatic considerations of material economy and efficiency. This article argues for reconsidering Semper’s perspective, highlighting the cultural significance of material transformation.