ABSTRACT
This prologue presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book. The book is a scholarly study that aims to contribute to knowledge regarding the complex, charged, and deeply human domestic environment, and perhaps inform how it might more effectively fulfill people's needs. It includes a broad range of topics, sources, and examples, but problematize the domestic in selective and specific ways. In this context, house and home have performed numerous cultural and ontological roles: shelter, symbol, ritual space, and social construct; taken numerous forms: primordial dwelling, house of god, house tomb, modernist exemplar, and cultural icon; and have been assiduously represented in scripture, literature, art, and philosophy. House and home are examined and presented to illustrate the perennial role and capacity of architecture to articulate the human condition, position it more meaningfully in the world, and assist in the collective homecoming.
