Goetheanum by Rudolph Steiner | Architecture Enthusiast |

Spiritually expressive, liberal and primordially emotive, the Goetheanum is the architectural embodiment of its creator’s ‘anthroposophical’ philosophy — a human oriented spiritual movement that reflects on the deep questions of humanity, and our basic artistic needs. The brainchild of Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect, economist and esotericist Rudolf Steiner, both the Goetheanum and anthroposophy are firmly rooted in the foundation of German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s theory of natural life cycles and studies in biology — a principle that inspired the Goetheanum’s namesake. Situated in the mountainous region of Dornach, Switzerland, Steiner’s ‘first’ Goetheanum was completed in 1919 and comprised primarily of sculpted wood — but only a few years later, remarkably it burned down. The ‘second’ Goetheanum, publicly assessable to this day, was conceived by the architect as an illustration of ‘a new style of architecture’, at once organic and functional. It was realized in 1928, just a