The Beautiful Necessity, Seven Essays on Theosophy and Architecture

More and more science is coming to recognize, what theosophy affirms, that the spiral vortex... both in its time and its space aspects is the universal archetype...
-from "Changeless Change"

First published in 1910 and updated in 1922-this is a reproduction of that second edition-this is architect and theosophist Claude Bragdon's exploration of art as an "expression of the cosmic life." And what a glorious exploration is it. The essay titles hint at the lyricism of Bragdon's prose:

· "The Art of Architecture"
· "Unity and Polarity"
· "Changeless Change"
· "The Bodily Temple"
· "Latent Geometry"
· "The Arithmetic of Beauty"
· "Frozen Music"

Accompanied by lovely and informative line drawings, these essays constitute a master class in the philosophy of art, beauty, science, and the intersection of all three.

Other works by Bragdon available from Cosimo Classics: More Lives Than One, Architecture and Democracy, Episodes from An Unwritten History, and A Primer of Higher Space (The Fourth Dimension).

American architect, stage designer, and writer CLAUDE FAYETTE BRAGDON (1866-1946) helped found the Rochester Architectural Club, in the city where he made his greatest mark as a building designer with structures including Rochester Central Station, Rochester Institute of Technology, and the First Universalist Church; he also designed Peterborough Bridge in Ontario. In later life, Bragdon worked on Broadway as scenic designer for 1930s productions of Cyrano de Bergerac and Hamlet, among others.