Vesper No. 7 | Sky | Fall-Winter 2022
Ettore Rocca
Timaeus
Keywords
Plato,
philosophy of architecture, philosophy of nature, harmony, space
Plato’s
Timaeus is not only one of the fundamental Western texts on the philosophy
of nature. It must also be considered the first and fundamental text of
Western philosophy of architecture: it tells of how a divine architect,
the demiurge, designed the cosmos. The composition of the universe is a model
for every human architectural composition.
This is the
first teaching, which still holds true today, that the Timaeus offers
us: every philosophy of nature, as a philosophy of the
construction of nature, is a philosophy of architecture. Conversely, every
philosophy of architecture, as a philosophy of constructing that which is
consigned to nature right from the start, is a philosophy of nature.
What is
surprising, however, is that the Timaeus contains not one but two
philosophies of nature, and consequently two philosophies of architecture. We
may define the first philosophy of nature/architecture a philosophy
of the heaven, and the second
a philosophy of that which is before the
heaven: space.
contacts
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