Socrates' Ancestor (McEwen - paperback)

Author: Indra Kagis McEwen

ISBN: 9780262631488

Binding: Paperback

Section: History

Subtitle: An Essay on Architectural Beginnings

Socrates' Ancestor is a rich and poetic exploration of architectural beginnings and the dawn of Western philosophy in preclassical Greece. Architecture precedes philosophy, McEwen argues, and it was here, in the archaic Greek polis, that Western architecture became the cradle of Western thought. McEwen's appreciation of the early Greek understanding of the indissolubility of craft and community yields new insight into such issues as orthogonal planning and the appearance of the encompassing colonnade—the ptera or "wings"—that made Greek temples Greek. Who was Socrates' ancestor? Socrates claims it was Daedalus, the mythical first architect.