While selecting wines for an event, I encountered a familiar name: Rudolf Steiner. The vintner proudly attributed his vineyard’s vitality to Steiner’s organic farming theories, which had inspired him to craft wines deeply expressive of their terroir.

Yet Steiner was no agronomist; he was a philosopher, educator, and architect, known for his “Anthroposophy” – a mystical philosophy of self-realisation through imagination, intuition, and inspiration. This movement influenced many, including artists like Mondrian and Kandinsky.

In the early 20th century, Steiner’s ideas took form in architecture with the Goetheanum, a visionary structure he built in Dornach, Switzerland. This early Goetheanum, a building of swirling forms and symbolic design, was tragically lost to fire on New Year’s Eve, only to be reimagined by Steiner as a larger, organic concrete structure. Though he passed away before its completion, his influence reached architects like Wright, Gehry, and Hans Scharoun. Even Le Corbusier’s later work bears subtle echoes of the Goetheanum’s dynamic concrete.

The building, nearly a century old, feels astonishingly fresh. Rainbow-hued stairs and serene blue spaces create a sense of timelessness, a blend of vitality and peace. Remembering this, I added a Weissburgunder to the wine list in Steiner’s honour, giving it a fitting name—"蔚思," or "Oceanic Thought."