Khorein Book Series
Architecture, Freedom, and Life
Author(s)/Editors Paul Guyer Publisher Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade Published 2025 ISBN 978-86-82324-98-0 Pages 213 Edition Khōrein
In this volume Paul Guyer collects six of his seminal essays on philosophy and architecture, including a previously unpublished essay on Kant and Mies, and analyzing views about architecture in other philosophers and writers, including Laugier, Schopenhauer, Ruskin, and Susanne Langer. Guyer describes the gradual broadening of the Vitruvian conception of architectural value, and argues for a pluralism of values in architecture as he argued for pluralism in aesthetics in general in his monumental History of Modern Aesthetics (2014). Among his many other books are Reason and Experience in Mendelssohn and Kant (2020), Kant’s Impact on Moral Philosophy (2024), and, of special relevance to readers of this volume, A Philosopher Looks at Architecture (2021). Emeritus Professor of humanities and philosophy at Brown University, Guyer is a Member of the American Philosophical Society, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and winner of the 2024 International Kant Prize.
Link: https://ifdt.bg.ac.rs/book/architecture-freedom-and-life/?lang=en
The Invention of Modern Design: The Early Years of the German Werkbund
Author(s)/Editors Patrik Schumacher Publisher Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade Published 2026 ISBN 978-86-6190-028-0 Pages 182 Edition Khōrein
The book revisits the formative moment when modern design emerged within the social and economic dynamics of early twentieth-century monopoly capitalism. Originally developed as a PhD thesis in the 1990s and now published in English for the first time, the book offers a socio-economic and political analysis of the German Werkbund and the strategic ideas that shaped modern design culture. Drawing on the analytical framework of Marx’s historical materialism, it examines how design functioned within industrial production, ideology, and the broader economic process. Rather than presenting modern design as a gradual stylistic evolution, the book argues that it was actively “invented” through deliberate, theory-driven interventions by a small group of influential protagonists. This work provides both an insightful contribution to architectural history and an early glimpse into ideas that would later reappear in the author’s subsequent writings.
Link: https://ifdt.bg.ac.rs/book/the-invention-of-modern-design-the-early-years-of-the-german-werkbund/?lang=en