Book excerpt: Literary Nonfiction. Translated from the German by James J. Conway. Where do we feel at home? What do our cities look like? How do we see? In 1908, architect and theorist August Endell set out to answer these deceptively simple questions. In THE BEAUTY OF THE METROPOLIS he views the oft-maligned urban environment, acknowledging its shortcomings while also finding in it an aesthetic enrichment to rival any romanticised landscape. This forward-thinking essay raises the workaday city to rapturous heights, with flights of prose aspiring to the quality of music. Endell advocates a complete engagement with the here and now, drawing numerous examples from his own home, Berlin. From the clamour of Potsdamer Platz to quiet outlying districts, the author discovers visual pleasure in the rapidly expanding German capital where detractors found little more than squalor. Along the way Endell reconsiders the peculiarly German concept of heimat, incompletely translated as "homeland." THE BEAUTY OF THE METROPOLIS is joined here by articles Endell wrote for a progressive journal in 1905 covering subjects as diverse as modern art and the passing of the seasons. Endnotes and an afterword provide further insight into Endell's visionary texts.