“Philosophy,” the early German Romantic writer Novalis remarked, “is homesickness”: the desire to be at home everywhere in the world. If that’s right, then surely philosophers should also want to be architects—or at any rate, to build houses for themselves. And yet, as far as I know, no great philosopher has ever successfully made the transition from the armchair to the drafting table. In fact, the only one who even attempted anything remotely like it was Ludwig Wittgenstein, who in the middle of the 1920s helped supervise the construction of a modernist townhouse in Vienna for his sister Margrethe. Technically, the architect on the project was Paul Engelmann, a friend of Wittgenstein’s who had been a student of the This story is from Kinfolk Issue Forty-Eight Buy Now Related Stories Arts & Culture Issue 47 Draw the Line A short history of linear architecture. Arts & Culture Issue 47 Peer Review Hadani Ditmars on the disappearing legacy of Rifat Chadirji, Iraq’s most influential architect. Arts & Culture Issue 47 CULT ROOMS In north Lebanon, two architects are rebuilding a corner of Oscar Niemeyer’s international fair. Arts & Culture Issue 43 Amia Srinivasan Amia Srinivasan on the philosophy of sex. Arts & Culture Issue 43 Stone Cold A history of spite architecture. Arts & Culture Issue 40 Olalekan Jeyifous On fantastical architecture and sci-fi Brooklyn.
Arts & Culture Issue 47 Peer Review Hadani Ditmars on the disappearing legacy of Rifat Chadirji, Iraq’s most influential architect.
Arts & Culture Issue 47 CULT ROOMS In north Lebanon, two architects are rebuilding a corner of Oscar Niemeyer’s international fair.
