The French novelist and philosopher Albert Camus was a terrifically good-looking guy whom women fell for helplessly—the Don Draper of existentialism. This may seem a trivial thing to harp on, except that it is almost always the first thing that comes up when people who knew Camus talk about what he was like. When Elizabeth […]
Modern architecture is the school of design that prevailed since the turn of the 20th century till World War II. The horrendous war altered the kind of buildings needed in the post-war era. People needed practicality and functionality more than ever to rebuild—from scratch—the entire cities that were demolished at the time. The dominant Beaux-Arts […]
“The body provides something for the spirit to look after and use.” “The void horrifies: so we are all immortal,” Simone de Beauvoir scoffed at the religious escapism of immortality in explaining why she is an atheist, adding: “Faith allows an evasion of those difficulties which the atheist confronts honestly.” But there exists a certain orientation of spirit that […]