ABSTRACT
The following chapter presumes that one of the perennial tasks of architecture has been to assist humans in structuring their understanding of the world and their place in it. It begins with a discussion of the human homeless condition, as expressed through religious, philosophical, and literary traditions. Homelessness is termed as an ontological estrangement from a world, in the words of the American poet Wallace Stevens, “that is not our own and, much more, not ourselves.” Congruent with Stevens’ assertion that from this condition “the poem springs,” the roles of architecture in general and the domestic specifically are presented as fundamental ways to explicate the world and ameliorate our homeless condition. Home is argued to be a complex and ephemeral word—typically charged with multifarious and often deeply personal meanings—but essentially the locus for our human, corporal life while providing the setting to transcend it. The essay’s subject may appear to be voluminous, but many historical, anthropological and socio-political aspects are, of necessity in a piece of this length, omitted, and the subject further narrowed by its focus on the assigned and assumed ontological roles of home. Lastly, even though home depends on materially defining space for the quotidian activities it encloses, the conclusion suggests that its most compelling and significant aspects may be largely immaterial in nature. Home not only serves to shelter the body but also to house the soul.
