Book on Nietzsche and Architecture Honored

Newswise — Markus Breitschmid's book, "Der bauende Geist. Friedrich Nietzsche und die Architektur," or "The Building Spirit. Friedrich Nietzsche and Architecture," has been selected by the Institute of Philosophy in Karlsruhe-Germany as one of 14 seminal texts along with books by Aristotle, Heidegger, and Kepler written on the problem of architectural space.

In his book, Breitschmid, assistant professor of the history of architecture and design at Virginia Tech, inaugurated a reinterpretation of the noted German philosopher Nietzsche, namely that creative thought, and "building thought" in particular, fundamentally determines the world of Nietzsche. The book is recognized for the study of the modernist transformation of space in the architectural thinking of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The other books selected by the Institute of Philosophy were: Leone Battista Alberti, "De Statue;" Aristotle, "The Categories;" Aristotle, "Metaphysics;" Aristotle, "Physics;" Rudolf Arnheim, "The Dynamics of Architectural Form;" Le Corbusier, "The City of Tomorrow;" Jacques Derrida, "Chora;" Martin Heidegger, "Building, Dwelling, Thinking;" Martin Heidegger, "The Origin of the Work of Art;" Johannes Kepler, "Harmonices Mundi;" Jean-Francois Lyotard, "The Inhumane " Reflections on Time;" Plato, "Timaios;" Vitruvius, "Ten Books of Architecture."

Breitschmid, of Lucerne, Switzerland, and now of Blacksburg, joined the faculty of Virginia Tech's School of Architecture and Design in 2004. He received his architectural education in Switzerland and the United States and took his Ph.D. from the Technische Universität Berlin in Germany. Previously, Breitschmid taught at Cornell University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the Catholic University of America. His scholarship encompasses what is commonly known as German Modernism and focuses on the aesthetic mentality of Modernism.

Breitschmid's book was published in 2001 in Lucerne by the publisher Quart Verlag.