Semper's sensitive recognition of the social and symbolic significance of architecture made the shortcomings of contemporary architectural discourse and practice all the more obvious to him. “Notwithstanding our many technical advances, we remain far behind them (our ancestors) in formal beauty, and even in the feeling for the suitable and the appropriate”, he wrote, a complaint frequently repeated throughout his work. Yet, the state of decay in the arts was not merely the fault of the artists. Semper saw the ‘Babel-like confusion’ confronting him at the Great Exhibition of 1851 as “nothing more than the clear manifestation of certain anomalies within existing social conditions, whose causes and effects up to now could not be seen by the world so generally and so distinctly.” Semper conceived the question of style not simply as an aesthetic problem, but also as a political, ethical, and philosophical issue with critical implications for contemporary society.

The second step of Semper's theoretical project was intended to address this critical state of affairs. He alleged that to counter the contemporary crisis, it was necessary to systematise architectural design into a “logical method of inventing”. Opposed to the “characterless schematism and thoughtless caprice” of the architecture of his day, Semper's method was to teach how to “make artistic use of our social needs as factors in the style of our architecture in the same way as has been done in the past.” This procedure would contribute towards