Timaeus

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.