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Philosophy Architecture Nas nuvens também crescem raízes / Even in clouds

roots are born 2021

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page left intentionally blank
 In memory of

Gonçalo Pereira Ribeiro Telles

Título: Nas nuvens também crescem raízes / Even in clouds roots are born
Edição / Publisher: Ordem dos Arquitectos – Seccão Regional Norte
Coordenação / Editor: Constantino Pereira Martins
Capa: Imagem da fotografia de Rodrigo Tavarela Peixoto
Title: Chaos hydro-generator
Dimensions: 105 x 131 cm
Inkjet print
2013

ISBN: 978-989-54638-7-9
© dos autores das respectivas comunicações
 Dedicatória

Ao Arquitecto Peter Zumthor.

Ao meu filho Guilherme,

luz dos meus dias.
AGRADECIMENTOS
AKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Foremost, I would like to thank Architect Eduardo Queiroga for all the work we have done together
to build the symposium that risks the possibility to bridge Architecture and Philosophy, many times
against all odds.

To thank and underline the crucial role that the Ordem dos Arquitectos played in making possible
the existence of this book, and in particular its Director Conceição Melo.

My gratitude to Rodrigo Tavarela Peixoto for his generosity in sharing one of his beautifull
photographs, and Nuno Maia Vilela for his unwavering friendship.

Last but not the least, this book would not have been possible without the financial support of the
FCT Foundation regarding my study and time.

Caldas da Rainha, October of 2021

Non erit vobis in Deum non erit vobis in gratia Dei

ÍNDICE
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Prefácio_1
Foreword

I.
PALAVRA
WORD

Diogo Ferrer, Universidade de Coimbra / Centro de Estudos Clássicos e Humanísticos – CECH

1. A Linguagem da Arquitetura no Idealismo Alemão_10

Resumo

Esta comunicação destaca alguns aspectos do pensamento de F. J. W. Schelling e G. W. F. Hegel

acerca da arquitetura, mostrando que estes autores, transformando a base kantiana de que partem,
pela primeira vez tornaram a arquitetura inseparável do pensamento filosófico. A arquitetura passa a
ser considerada parte de um sistema da razão humana e das relações desta com a sensibilidade, a
natureza, a história e o conhecimento em geral. Schelling define a arquitetura através de uma
abordagem tópica, ou seja, do estabelecimento do lugar sistemático que cada arte, e a arquitetura em
particular, ocupam no mundo humano. Este lugar é definido em função de três eixos: ideal e real;
ação e conhecimento; particular e universal. A arquitetura é, para Schelling, uma linguagem
significativa, que referencia e exprime sistematicamente a relação entre a natureza e a consciência
humana.
Na continuidade de vários aspectos da sistematização filosófica de Schelling, Hegel desenvolve uma
teoria da arquitetura que combina a história da arte com um sistema das condições de representação
da consciência humana por si e para si mesma. Na história da arte, Hegel estuda esta tese nas etapas
da arquitetura simbólica, clássica e romântica, mostrando que é possível ler em cada pormenor dos
diferentes estilos arquitetónicos históricos, uma semântica da consciência de si, individual e coletiva.
Procura-se assim mostrar que apesar das grandes diferenças entre os dois autores apresentados, foi a
filosofia idealista que tornou pela primeira vez possível pensar a arquitetura, nos seus pormenores
artísticos, históricos e contextuais, como uma linguagem, expressiva e referencial.
The Language of Architecture in German Idealism

Abstract

This paper highlights some issues of F. J. W. Schelling and G. W. F. Hegel’s thought about architecture.
It shows that these authors, transforming the Kantian base from which they start, for the first time
made architecture inseparable from philosophical thought. Architecture can henceforth be seen as
part of a system of human reason, and of its relations with sensibility, nature, history and knowledge
in general. Schelling defines architecture by a topical approach, i.e., by establishing the systematic
place that each art, and architecture in particular, occupy in the human world. This place is defined
according to three axes: ideal and real; action and knowledge; particular and universal. Architecture
is a meaningful language, which systematically refers to and expresses nature and human
consciousness to itself.
In agreement with some aspects of Schelling’s philosophical systematization, Hegel develops a theory
of architecture in which history of art is combined with a system of conditions for the representation
of human consciousness by itself and for itself. In the history of art, Hegel studies this thesis through
the stages of symbolic, classical and romantic architecture, showing that it is possible to read in every
detail of the different historical architectural styles a semantics of self-consciousness, both individual
and collective.
The paper tries to show that despite the great differences between the two authors, it was the idealism
that allowed for the first time to think of architecture, in all its artistic, historical and contextual details,
as an expressive and referential language.

Daniel Pacheco, Universidade Nova de Lisboa

2. Knowledge, Self-Cultivation, and Naturalism: Nietzsche and Architecture in the Middle
Works (1878-1882)_23

Abstract

This chapter explores Nietzsche’s thoughts on architecture in his “middle period” (1878-1882). I
show that Nietzsche has a number of striking insights into architecture that merit being taken seriously
and claim that these contribute to our understanding of a number of his philosophical undertakings in
these works, including the passion for knowledge (D: §429), self-cultivation (GS: §335) and his
naturalism. Nietzsche calls for an architecture for the search of knowledge (GS §280) which
encompasses a naturalistic retranslation of our knowledge and values. His goal is to supply us with
both a symbolic naturalism that will replace the otherworldly discourse of churches and a practical
environment for studying the natural origins and history of our values.

Marco Damonte, Università degli Studi di Genova

3. Wittgenstein’s House and Architecture as a Gesture_41

Abstract

In the studies on Wittgenstein, the house he designed and planned in Kundmanngasse for his sister
Margaret between 1926 and 1928, is usually considered an exemplification of his philosophical
thought. The aim of this paper is to reverse this approach, appreciating Wittgenstein’s experience as
an architect as one of the decisive stages of his philosophical development. In the first two paragraphs,
I will show that Kundmanngasse House cannot be understood only as a representation of the
philosophy of the Tractatus, nor only as an anticipation of Philosophical Investigations, even if it is
possible to discover in it some Tractarian elements and some intuitions developed after his return to
Cambridge. Paying attention to Wittgenstein’s biographical data and to the cultural context of his
work as an architect, I will suggest the relevance of Schopenhauer’s reflections about architecture in
order to appreciate the Margarete Stonborough-Wittgenstein's House as a gesture. Following this clue,
I will conclude that an architectural gesture is not only a representation of a thought, but a revelation
of the will.

Angelos Sofocleous, University of York

4. Scruton’s aesthetics and functionalism: The distinction between ‘function as it is’ and
‘function as it appears’_70

Abstract

In this essay, I deal with Roger Scruton’s (1979) claim that “Aesthetic experience [for functionalism]
is nothing more than an experience of function - not function as it is, but function as it appears” (p.
38). In particular, I suggest that ‘function as it is’ (i.e. experienced function) must also be taken into
consideration when defining a work of architecture, additionally to ‘function as it appears’ (i.e.
perceived function). Through promoting the importance of experience through ‘function as it is’, I
challenge the notion of a work of architecture as a ‘decorated shed’, and I argue that a work of
architecture is more than a functional building with an added aesthetic component. Moreover, I argue
that there are aspects of a building which ‘function as it appears’ cannot reveal; namely, potential
function – a function which has not yet been actualized but which is inherently tied to ‘function as it
is’ and is present in the building’s structure. In addition, I challenge Scruton’s support of the claim
that architecture is “inescapably public” (Graham, 2012, p. 166) and I argue that Scruton ignores the
interior of a work of architecture, thereby dismissing ‘function as it is’. In contrast to the exterior of
a work of architecture, which is only made for the people, I argue that the interior is made by the
people too through their usage of a building – something the architect cannot predict nor determine.
By examining the definition of a work of architecture as a functional structure which is aesthetically
pleasing, I argue that ‘function as it is’ needs to be included in the definition in order to emphasize an
important aesthetic aspect through which a work of architecture can attain aesthetic perfection.

5. Joaquim Braga, Universidade de Coimbra

O tempo das ruínas no espaço da arquitectura segundo Denis Diderot_82

Abstract

Três pontos de reflexão enformam esta análise sobre a concepção estética das ruínas em Denis Diderot:
1) As ruínas introduzem, na arte arquitectónica, uma dimensão temporal que é, originariamente,
esbatida pelo predomínio estético da espacialidade; 2) Diderot pensa os efeitos estéticos das ruínas
por meio da figuração pictórica, ou seja, também o medium da pintura, marcado pela dimensão
espacial, é capaz de adquirir uma pregnância temporal. O objecto da representação – neste caso, as
ruínas – gera uma tensão estética no medium da representação – o da superfície de inscrição pictural;
3) Com isso, mostra Diderot, uma vez mais, a sugestividade partilhada entre as várias modalidades
artísticas, expressa, em grande parte, com as possíveis formas de articulação do espaço com o tempo,
ou, nos seus termos, do “instante” com a “sucessão”.
II.
IMAGEM
IMAGE

Susana Viegas, Ifilnova/Universidade Nova de Lisboa

6. Cinema, the City, and Manoel de Oliveira’s Logic of Sensation_89

Abstract

Although it is an emerging research field, the philosophy of film has a long tradition of investigating
the complex relationship between painting and film, with a special focus on films about painting: on
how the two art forms encounter each other from a spatial and temporal perspective. In addition, the
field has long explored the ways in which films represent the modern city. From the beginning, film
has been associated with the representation of the modern city and of other art forms. Focusing on O
Pintor e a Cidade/The Artist and the City (1956) by Manoel de Oliveira (1908–2015), and grounded
in Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy of film, the following touches on both of these themes. The Artist and
the City is a short documentary on António Cruz (1907–1983)—a watercolorist known for his
landscapes of Porto—the subject of which is not only the painter’s life and work but also the city
itself, as its title suggests. As the following will show, the film offers a twofold representation of the
city: that provided by Manoel de Oliveira, and that provided by the subject of the documentary,
António Cruz.

Paulo Alexandre e Castro, IEF-Universidade de Coimbra

7. Sobre Eco Houses e outras arquitecturas do pensamento_101

Resumo

Pretende-se com esta comunicação explorar o conceito de casas ecológicas, nomeadamente através
da obra artística e filosófica de Hundertwasser. As suas obras e os seus manifestos reflectem uma
preocupação ecológica que o artista tinha com o ambiente e com o homem, propondo diversas
soluções (que hoje se denominam como sustentáveis) não só para a habitação como para o planeta.
No entanto, poucas tem sido as suas aplicações na realidade o que nos leva a pensar que na
arquitectura do pensamento, outros valores imperaram. É neste quadro de reflexão crítica que a
comunicação se fará.

Vítor Alves, Architect

8. Singularities of the mirror_112

Abstract

Beatriz Colomina, in her essay “Architectureproduction” (1988), argues, based on Lacan’s

text “The mirror stage” (1949), that Le Corbusier’s turning point and the constitution of his
“architectural self” was only possible through printed media. Grounded on this hypothesis, it is
argued that the publication is a mirror where, under ideal conditions, any architect can build his
“architectural self”.
Lacan's “Mirror Stage” as to do with the formation of the “I”, analysing the individual’s
relationship with his own body through his identification with an image that is at the origin of his
“Ideal-I”. The sensation of a fragmented body experienced by the child who sees himself in the
mirror for the first time, is counteracted by the perception of the image of unity and coherence in
the mirror image that amazes him, but which he is already able to recognize as his own. What
configures the “I”, in this event, even though is the image of oneself reflected in the mirror, is
always something that comes from outside, through the presence of an “other”. In the case of
architects, this “other” is an image of themselves reflected in the publication’s pages.
The existence of the mirror encourages the child to make a series of (new) gestures, to
interact with them, to understand the effects of these movements on the specular image and on the
reflected environment. Similarly, in the case of publications, it is their existence that calls for the
production of new “movements”, the creation of new discourses, while the production of new
knowledge justifies the existence of the publication itself. In the paper space, new ideas are tested,
translated into texts, images or projects, and their effects exposed on the reflected environment:
either on the authors (child’s reflected image), or on people and things around them (reality that the
mirror duplicates).
This process, however, does not distinguish published from unpublished architects. As they
share the same type of “body”, meaning, recognizable common features between them, the
identification with what is published is not only possible, but enhanced. Given the number of
publications, it is likely that the identification with the printed image results from multiple objects
and authors, which can lead to the creation of a new “body” or a multiplicity of “selves” in the same
“body”: hybrid bodies as the result of crossings of several published architects.
III.
PAISAGEM
LANDSCAPE

Susana Ventura, Center for Studies in Architecture and Urbanism, Faculty of Architecture of the
University of Porto, CEAU-FAUP
9. The becoming-poetry of the icy-cold landscape through architecture_120

Abstract

Departing from a landscape located in the cold and icy lands, we analyse the different relations between
this landscape and the Steilneset Memorial, designed by Peter Zumthor. Simultaneously, we look for the
architectonic devices that allow unveiling how the work composes a sensation of silence.
Central to our argument is the link established by Deleuze & Guattari between territory, matters of
expression and the composition of sensations. We argue that the latter depends on the metamorphosis of
the landscape’s natural characteristics, but also of artificial and cultural traces, rituals, and other
elements that enter in the plane of composition, resulted from a critical and sensible understanding of
the movements, vectors, and points of energy present.
In the end, this example allows us to contribute to the definition of the philosophical, architectural and
artistic concept of “Poetic Landscape,” borrowing the name from an unrealised project also by Peter
Zumthor.

Anna Pontes, University of Lisbon

10. The concept of ruins in the work of Alexandre Herculano and Almeida Garrett_133

Abstract

The appreciation of the national heritage throughout the nineteenth century in Portugal presented
the ruins as a recurrent issue, often with criticism by intellectuals – mainly influenced by studies
abroad, the European culture, and the Romantic movement. The protection of national monuments
was recorded in the works of Alexandre Herculano (1810-1877) and Almeida Garrett (1799-1854)
with the denunciation, both intellectual and political, of the degradation and abandonment verified
in the national buildings. The term “ruins”, in these authors’ writings, was frequently used to
condemn the monuments’ damaged conditions – which, in their opinion, was due to the destructive
consequences of revolutions, neglect, transformations and poor repairs or restorations. In this study,
we seek to investigate the concept of ruins developed in Herculano’s and Garrett’s publications and
contextualize it with the Portuguese political changes experienced in the nineteenth century.

Inês Vieira Rodrigues, Center for Studies in Architecture and Urbanism, Faculty of Architecture of
the University of Porto, CEAU-FAUP
11. Ocean – From mythical space to urban territory_143

In 1968, the view of the Earth from the Apollo 8 mission changed our perception of ourselves.
However, the finitude of the massive object in which we live had already been apprehended since a
"first globalization" or a "liquid revolution", the terms traced from Peter Sloterdijk’s (2008) theory
when referring to maritime “discoveries”. Indeed, the ocean appears on the oldest maps, since
Ptolemy, nonetheless a significant part remains unknown over the course of the twenty-first century.
On the other hand, the atmospheric element has been studied and represented in the conditions of
the human relationship with the environment, although practically ignored until the nineteenth
century. Sloterdijk (2008) characterized the contemporary era as being faithful to its terrain-
conservative feature, which, it is claimed in this text, has a clear expression in a major part of the
theories and forms of regulation. Therefore, fantasies about the Ocean Sea should give way to new
policies and representations. In the area of architecture, urbanism and geographic analysis, the
conception and study of the ocean as a territory – in particular as an urban territory and more
precisely, as argued here, as a maritory – depends on a complexity of contributions and knowledge,
namely Philosophy. The design of the liquid environment, that is, the search to make it readable
and, consequently, to claim it as an integral part of a territorial constitution is, from this point of
view, one of the greatest contemporary challenges.
Leonardo Oliveira, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul – UFRGS
12. Espectros da modernidade no cemitério Campo da Esperança (Brasília-DF_152

No livro Spectres de Marx, publicado pela primeira vez em 1993, o filósofo Jacques Derrida
aprofunda a questão espectral e trata das temáticas da herança, memória e justiça. Os espectros (le
revenants), incorporações paradoxais que não pertencem ao presente, frequentam o pensamento
humano desde tempos remotos e estão sempre por retornar a fim de obsediar os vivos. Para o
filósofo, o que importa são as condições em que se dá esse retorno. Tendo como alicerce teórico o
pensamento derridiano, este estudo introduz a questão espectral para analisar a arquitetura do
Campo da Esperança, o primeiro cemitério construído em Brasília-DF, símbolo consagrado da
arquitetura e do urbanismo modernos no Brasil. Esse cemitério será operado como um “texto
arquitetônico” passível de ser desconstruído e o enfoque será dado nos espectros negativos herdados
da modernidade – capitalismo, higienismo e individualização –, que se pressupõe terem interferido
nos processos tradicionais das práticas e dos rituais funerários. Sem observar, portanto, o indivíduo
contemporâneo é observado por esses espectros e se julga necessário os identificar e examinar não
para desconjurá-los, mas, talvez, para viver junto (vivre ensemble) com eles.
IV.
MONTAGEM
MONTAGE

13. Constantinos V. Proimos, Hellenic Open University / Technical University of Athens, School of
Architecture
Architecture as Theory of Communicative Design_189

Abstract

Folded architecture does not lead to a finished formal entity but rather to a flexible assemblage of
elements, evolving in time, through upgradeability and repair, exactly like computer software, to
meet the people’s changing needs and desires. Folded architecture is marked by flexibility because
of its adaptation to complexity, namely to the unforeseeable array of events, constantly emerging in
contemporary societies and the uncertainty of future situations. Thus architecture seems like a
practice of bricolage, the term Claude Levi-Strauss coined to describe one of the typical traits of
mythical thought in his seminal La pensée sauvage. The concept of folded architecture as it is made
responsive to human needs and desires is essentially communicative. I shall attempt to pinpoint two
important stations and precedents for the genealogy of such communicative folded architecture: on
the one hand, the view that Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour forwarded in
Learning from Las Vegas that architecture is essentially communication of meaning through the
inherent characteristics of form. On the other hand, Le Corbusier’s notion of an architecture that
may avoid revolution by communicating and understanding people’s needs via formal adaptation.

14. Carlo Deregibus, Politecnico di Torino, Department of Architecture and Design (DAD)
Designing toward the future. The project as a tactical tool_200

Abstract

The main problem about the future is, quite obviously, that we do not know it: we cannot decide it,
nor we can invent it. However, we continuously try to plan it. This planning activity is an obvious
practical need, since any action requires some management: but in architecture, the project is both
the creative phase and a document, or rather, a series of documents that constitutes a contract
between the client and the contractor. So, on the one hand, the project explores the future; on the
other, it tries to fix it, defining and deciding its expected qualities. Thus, in systems theory terms,
more than the future-of-the-present, the project sets a future-of-the-present, which means that the
project also originates the conditions for its failure – because the future will undoubtedly be
different and unexpected. Either due to accidents and anomalies or to main events, the project will
have to change, adapt to new conditions, and answer questions that were unthinkable at the time of
its completion. We could even say that the design is, somehow, ontologically false, as it tries to
model the future: it is, indeed, nothing more than a model of the expectations toward the desired
future. Therefore, utopias are impossible to realise not because of their revolutionary nature but
because they describe futures: they imagine a future without considering that they are already
changing it, just due to their imagining.
Therefore, we could accept this downfall as an ontological flaw of an activity we need (as they say:
“plans are useless, but planning is indispensable”). Or, we could overcome the standardised way of
intending the project and develop its tactical and strategic power. Using the project as a tactical tool
means taking into account the radical contingency of the process, exploiting its potential. That is,
the most promising directions that continuously emerge, whatever they may be. This propensity of
the situation cannot be imposed nor modelled, but, at the same time, we can influence it with the
project by evolving it all through the process. In other words, such design continuously
sets inceptions of potential in the process, possibly developing in a plan, instead of trying to define
the plan from its very beginning.
Time is a crucial factor in this idea of the project. On the one hand, the project must adapt itself to
the ever-changing contingency while, at the same time, influencing it. On the other, this attitude
may inspire a new way of intending and shaping utopias, coherently with the concept of “minimalist
utopias”. Instead of picturing an ontologically false future, tactical design exploits any occasion for
orienting its specific contingency toward that future, shaping it all along the process. This
autopoietic character highlights its tactical dimensions, as it must continuously be carried on in
what we can call a “formative” way.
15. David Álvarez, University of Vigo
Civilizing sheds: Autopoiesis and the cosmopolitical assemblage of the city_216

Abstract

By “civilizing sheds” I refer to the particular kind of agency that buildings may have when
embedded in the urban fabric. They presuppose a metropolitan existence of globally networked,
complex and open systems on which they depend, and therefore, their civilizing agency consist on
sustaining the urban fabric on which they rely. This is therefore an explicitly political conception of
architecture and architectural practice.
This chapter explores the contrasts between the political philosophies behind two design
conceptions, on the one hand, the Autopoiesis of Architecture inspired by Luhmann´s social theory
and developed by Patrik Schumacher’s Parametricism and on the other hand, the Cosmopolitical
Design based on Assemblage Theory (Latour, Deleuze) as formulated by Zahera-Polo. It concludes
that Parametric Urbanism is a limited frame to make sense of the concrete political challenges of
our global metropolitan condition and its forms of domination, while Cosmopolitical Design
promises local assemblages of actors that open ways for civilizing our urban life.

16. Thomas Froy, University of Antwerp

Dwelling Today: eruv, sukkah, Heidegger, Levinas and Derrida_240

Abstract

No longer can we think of dwelling in merely negative terms. In the work of contemporary political
theorists, such as Giorgio Agamben and Judith Butler, there is a disavowal of constructions of
dwelling which privilege rootedness and origins. We may dwell in exile or placelessness, in
different places and no place in particular; if this is the case, it does not, however, compel us to
think of our dwellings negatively. In Emmanuel Levinas’ and Jacques Derrida’s thinking on
dwelling places, I find a complex thinking on the notion of threshold which remains in step with the
negative theorisations provided by Agamben and Butler, insofar as there is a distance taking from
the privilege of rootedness and origins; beyond this, however, there is also an examination of the
importance of dwelling with others, and of providing for others.
FOREWORD
PREFÁCIO

0. Preâmbulo

A origem deste livro teve como ponto de partida o Simpósio FILARCH 2020, que radicou como
base no Porto, cidade portuguesa por excelência dos Arquitectos, e esteve assim focado na relação
entre Filosofia e Arquitetura, mas também aberto ao campo de reflexão nas diferentes áreas do
conhecimento. O FILARCH 2020 proporcionou a oportunidade de pensar livremente num ambiente
académico aberto, e construiu um horizonte rico para reflexões em diversos campos de estudo. Para
estabelecer um diálogo transdisciplinar, com contribuições de todo o espectro do conhecimento
académico, contou-se com mais de três dezenas de oradores, que infelizmente não estarão todos
transcritos aqui neste volume mas que estão disponíveis em versão audio-visual no website da
Ordem dos Arquitectos – Seccção Regional Norte.
Na pulsão megalómana originária tentou-se abraçar tudo na ânsia de nada perder. Mas o tempo,
mestre tirano, não permite veleidades impuras ao academismo. Ainda assim foram abertos os
espaços para pensar a relação da Arquitectura, Estética e Arte (passando pelo cinema ao desenho e à
fotografia), utopia e o futuro, ecologia e cidades sustentáveis, imagem (imaginário, imaginação),
Arquitectura e formas políticas, virtualidade e experimentação, paisagem e natureza, Olho-Mão-
Coração (Arquitectura Japonesa), Filosofia (filósofos e a cidade, de Kant a Heidegger e
Wittgenstein), projectos e processos, Arquitectura formal e informal, ruínas, afecção (singularidade,
sensibilidade, emoção), etc. Juntaram-se a nós pensadores e arquitectos de todo o mundo, e
sentimos a falta pandémica dos nossos oradores principais Maria Filomena Molder e Ursula Wieser
Benedetti, a quem prestamos aqui homenagem e agradecimento pessoal. Gostaria de terminar esta
pequena introdução com um redobrado sublinhado de agradecimento ao Arquitecto Eduardo
Queiroga que co-organizou o simpósio e com o qual se mantém um trabalho de fundação para um
espaço de pensamento livre fora dos muros da universidade e da prática quotidiana do atelier e da
obra.

1
1. Passado

Olhas para trás

e por entre as ruínas felizes
e perdidas da infância
vês rostos, gestos
restos e nevoeiro
na beleza cruel e verdade brutal,
de que tudo acaba
de que tudo um dia acabará.
As ruínas,
lembrete à arrogância dos homens
sobre o tempo e as coisas,
esse exercício físico de humildade.
A ruína
é o que sobra,
a pequena vitória sobre a morte.

2
A mão que desenha a linha entrega-se com o mesmo impulso que a mão que escreve a pauta de
música. Na sua nudez mais radical, o mesmo gesto radica na sua máxima simplicidade: uma visão-
audição, uma folha branca, uma caneta ou lápis. A raiz virtual de um processo invisível. Por esse
mesmo motivo o fascínio que sentimos pela beleza única dos cadernos de apontamentos, os blocos
de notas, os pequenos papéis, os rabiscos e as primeiras tentativas que algo faz para nascer. Há algo
primitivo neste processo que se dá antes de pensar e depois já dentro do pensamento. Se na relação
entre teoria e prática, temos a História como palco do grande gesto arquitetónico e patrimonial,
testemunha da linha que se desenha no espaço e no tempo, temos também na Estética a disputa do
lugar da Arquitectura entre as outras artes, exibindo a sua natureza ambivalente entre o belo e a
função utilitária. Entre a impossibilidade e a criatividade, a hibridez da Arquitectura teve que
construir o seu lugar desde o pequeno espaço ao grande lugar majestático. Uma arte que expande e
comprime ao mesmo tempo, desde o tempo de pensar o edifício, ao espaço em geral, do lugar à
mesa, da tinta à janela, do jardim ao foyer do aeroporto, até à contradição da pressão do presente, do
desenvolvimento rápido, da economia, dos construtores, dos apartamentos, ou das políticas
públicas.
Apesar de tudo o que foi exposto acima, a Filosofia da Arquitetura como um campo autónomo
ainda está no seu início. Nesse sentido, apresenta-se como um desafio, tanto para filósofos quanto
para arquitectos, de se reunir para pensar sobre arquitectura em toda a sua complexidade ou
simplicidade. Esta liberdade que une mão e cérebro, coração e mente, para unir praxis e pensamento
através da criatividade e abertura. Abriremos aqui o espaço de leitura para lembrar esse elo
esquecido e perdido entre essas duas formas para apresentar o estado da arte nesta área. Nas nuvens
também crescem raízes pretende constituir-se como um livro que mostra esses horizontes de
reflexão e desafio face a uma área tão ténue e frágil com a Filosofia da Arquitectura. E se
geralmente a Arquitetura é interpretada como uma arte do espaço, faremos aqui uma tentativa de
recuperação como arte do tempo, e restaurar um olhar melancólico que radica na não-rendição à
tecnicidade funcional, ao postal ilustrado da revista, ou ao ultra-rigor dos puristas.
Há algo primitivo que permanece no gesto arquitectónico. Na luta contra o tempo, no rasgar do
espaço, Sísifo comemora um gesto antigo, similar ao da arquitectura, entre esforço e
desaparecimento, habitação e morte. O que é essa melancolia? Tal como Chico Buarque nos
recorda:

3
 Amou daquela vez como se fosse a última
Beijou sua mulher como se fosse a última
E cada filho seu como se fosse o único
E atravessou a rua com seu passo tímido

Subiu a construção como se fosse máquina

Ergueu no patamar quatro paredes sólidas
Tijolo com tijolo num desenho mágico
Seus olhos embotados de cimento e lágrima (...)

Contemplação da ruína e melancolia, observação do presente e nascimento prematuro do fim já

pressentido. O que é essa melancolia? Um pressentimento, uma suspeita, uma desconfiança, um
desengano, um não poder voltar atrás, um saber demais sem nada saber. Matéria e decomposição: a
suspensão do olhar. Deixar rasto. A Arquitetura é uma arte primitiva. Incrivelmente pertence a um
conjunto restrito de gestos primários como o comer, vestir, proteger, atacar, procriar. Das poucas
artes e técnicas a partir das quais conseguimos voltar a uma posição original de sobrevivência tal
como o caçar, o deambular na caminhada procurando comida e água, a pintura, mesmo antes de se
contar histórias, a grande mãe de todas as palavras na luta contra o silêncio. Parece incrível que o
espaço vital da casa, defesa-alimentação-sono, pareça tão delimitado no contraste com a hostilidade
natural que nos cercava, e que nos cerca ainda. Uma arqueologia da essência da arquitectura é algo
demasiado bruto e longínquo para o gosto actual, demasiado próximo do cheiro, parente
desaparecido e longe da vista, uma tentativa inútil de encontrar os vestígios que ainda não
habitavam ao som das máquinas. Nesses restos do passado, que ainda vemos vivos os espelhos mais
cruéis, podem ainda ser pistas para um olhar melancólico como método. Ultrapassado. Até ver.

4
2. Presente

A arquitectura radica hoje na encruzilhada entre construções e relações. Parecendo que as emoções
e as afecções serão todo o palco de batalha do Séc. XXI, a arquitectura como arte das relações terá
um lugar privilegiado no desenho e desenvolvimento histórico e social. A solidão como o grande
marco do Séc. XXI está hoje a olho nu. A erosão do presente, a ruína do presente, é sempre mais
visível para uns do que para outros. Um sinal, para lá do psíquico, social ou histórico, que radica no
resultado de um processo ainda em marcha. Enclausurados na ironia totalitária da categoria estético-
política de contemporâneo, na procura vaidosa de uma aparência progressista, não deixa de ser
lamentavelmente cómico assistir-se à construção lenta e vitoriosa da ditadura do politicamente
correcto. Longe de primitivismos ou futurismos, o actual vive do instante, agrilhoado às tendências
e incapaz de enfrentar a radicalidade e profundidade dos problemas em mãos. Como se,
maquilhando o problema, ou elegendo determinados problemas como centrais, se anulassem os
demais. A publicidade, verdadeiro mestre da actualidade, percebeu no design e no marketing, mas

5
também em muitas outras áreas insuspeitas, aliados implacáveis para o regime das visibilidades de
superfície, na instauração do princípio da moda como hegemónico e global. O alfaiate é hoje,
paradoxalmente, a grande figura do pensamento. Tendo já sido debatido o regime das imagens à
exaustão, e estando hoje a realidade política e social quase totalmente alheia e sobranceira a todas
os sábios avisos que surgem de todos os quadrantes académicos, só nos resta esperar que tudo
desabe e se desmorone lentamente. Surge então uma necessidade de desenvolver uma arte da
paciência. Uma arte compassiva e lenta do olhar. Fechados no presente.
A ruína é simultânea e silenciosa, mas abre espaço para o retorno da comunidade, no recentramento
das relações e emoções contra o grande inimigo: a solidão. Colocando no palco central a relação
entre pensamentos e sentimentos, a força desse futuro próximo obrigará a arquitectura a repensar o
movimento entre a razão e a afecção, enfrentando o isolamento de frente. Na emoção da música das
linhas arquitectónicas, os edifícios emanam vibrações. Talvez possa ainda nascer uma teoria
arquitectónica das cordas.
Na encruzilhada do presente, onde se sobrepõe já a cidade real e a cidade virtual, a complexidade
instala-se e exige que um esforço ético, uma responsabilidade que estará cada vez mais em jogo,
na expectativa optimista de que às tecnologias da solidão sucederão as tecnologias do cuidado.

Existem palavras
que amamos com mais força
que outras:
Metamorfose, vida
medo, poesia,
filho, sol,
beleza, mar,
infintito, deus,
silêncio, mãe,
pai, mulher,
amor, amizade.
Escolhe uma palavra
e ama-a.

6
3. Futuro

Construção e ligação. A arquitectura como arte das ligações, como mediadora e fio de ligação das
diferentes artes, pode instituir-se como uma âncora incontornável, uma base, uma raiz.
Uma Filosofia da cidade é hoje mais do que ver na cidade um corpo, é ver já o seu futuro como
espaço de relação, de interligação, interconexão, assumindo a complexidade como desafio à
simplicidade, e não como simples motor para a hiper-complexidade. A arquitectura como arte das
relações, paradoxo da simultaneidade de fixidez-determinação e abertura-possibilidade, pode
constituir-se como um aliado da saúde e da luz. A sombra utópica que desafia o edificado é sempre
como acolher a rigidez e a mudança ao mesmo tempo, essa construção impossível de ser ao mesmo
tempo isto e aquilo que amanhã se desejasse. Uma matéria ainda por nascer. A genialidade será ,
como sempre, a chave desse jogo impossível. Quem terá essa estatura de estar à altura do desafio da
regra e da quebra, da construção e desenho de uma nova regra? Que nome terá? O jogo entre o

7
gosto, sensibilidade e individualidade na busca do novo, empurra a arquitectura para o exercício
renovado entre o abstracto e o concreto, caso a caso, paradoxo de singularidade e colectivo. A
autoria pode estar ao abrigo desse jogo, ou aberta ao desígnio da funcionalidade. Talvez hoje mais
que nunca a arquitectura se possa aproximar da inutilidade da arte, assumindo o seu sentido próprio
nessa ambivalência e maldição da imanência e transcendência funcional, num diálogo infinito.
Diálogo do arquitecto consigo mesmo (monólogo da procura da beleza e da singularidade) ou com
o cliente (espaço de afirmação e cedência na procura da solução elegante e excelente; projecção-
visualização-solução), mas sempre e fundamentalmente com o espaço e o tempo, juiz final de tudo
e todos. Tendo a imaginação como faculdade regente, diluem-se e fundem-se os sonhos, as utopias,
as visões, as possibilidades, as coexistências e compossibilidades. As sombras e a luz que se
misturam na religação com o passado, presente, ou com as futuras ruínas, do que já morreu e do que
está por nascer, tudo e todas presas num limbo orgiástico de pura força e criação, de máxima
potência, origem e fim. Nesse magma vital, olhamos a neblina do futuro à procura de uma cara
familiar. Esperemos que alguém abra a porta.

A paisagem
espera-te
independente
imune
e indiferente
aos teus sucessos e fracassos.
O horizonte
nivela todos os homens
Como um velho
que já viu tudo na vida.
Sem surpresas
tudo se torna igual
ao chegar o silêncio da noite.

8
 I.
PALAVRA
WORD

9
1. Diogo FERRER1
A Linguagem da Arquitetura no Idealismo Alemão

1. Sobre a definição da arquitetura por Kant

Do mesmo modo como transformaram muitas outras áreas da filosofia, os pensadores do

chamado idealismo alemão alteraram por inteiro o pensamento filosófico acerca da arquitetura.
Com destaque para Schelling e Hegel, encontramos nesse período histórico-filosófico teorias
filosóficas da arte em geral, e da arquitetura em particular, em que a arquitetura é ligada de maneira
fundamental aos conceitos filosóficos, e passa a ser dotada de significados, constituindo, por isso,
um sistema conceptual e uma linguagem significativa. A arquitetura torna-se, por assim dizer, um
transcendental da consciência humana.
Embora critiquem fortemente a estética kantiana, Schelling e Hegel recebem,
transformando-os, diversos aspetos fundamentais da estética de Kant. Alguns destes aspectos são a
compreensão do juízo de gosto, ou da experiência do belo como uma função essencial,
indispensável à definição da razão humana; a função intermediária da imaginação artística, entre a
sensibilidade e o entendimento; o caráter desinteressado do belo; a noção de finalidade sem fim; o
belo como expressão da ideia.
Procurarei mostrar hoje, em primeiro lugar, como Schelling, especialmente a partir do
Sistema do Idealismo Transcendental de 1800,2 transforma a estética kantiana, que está centrada na
compreensão do modo como o espectador recebe e é tocado pelo objeto estético, numa filosofia da
arte. Em seguida, será estudado como a estética da arquitetura de Schelling atribui à arquitetura um
significado conceptual, epistemológico e metafísico. Na sua Filosofia da Arte, curso proferido em
Würzburg em 1802-1803,3 Schelling inaugura assim a compreensão filosófica da arquitetura. Por
fim, uma breve referência à filosofia da arquitetura de Hegel permitirá defender a tese de que o
conjunto de transformações conceptuais levadas a cabo por estes filósofos permitiu, pela primeira
vez, a compreensão da ligação fundamental da arquitetura à filosofia, a compreensão da arquitetura

1Professor na Universidade de Coimbra, Departamento de Filosofia, Comunicação e Informação. Centro de Estudos

Clássicos e Humanísticos - CECH. Orcid 0000-0001-8209-7691. dferrer@fl.uc.pt
2F. W. J. Schelling, System des transzendentalen Idealismus (ed. H. D. Brandt & P. Müller, Hamburg: Felix Meiner,
1992). O System des transzendentalen Idealismus será citado segundo esta edição, seguido da paginação da edição
Schelling, Sämtliche Werke, ed. K. F. A. Schelling, Stuttgart-Augsburg, Cotta: 1856-1861 [=SW], vol. I/3.
3F. W. J. Schelling, Philosophie der Kunst (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1966) (SW I/5, 353-736).
Consulte-se a valiosa tradução em português: F. W. J. Schelling, Filosofia da Arte (tradução, introdução e notas de
Márcio Suzuki, São Paulo, EDUSP: 2010).

10
como uma parte essencial da razão humana, como uma estrutura conceptual e como uma
linguagem, dotada de um significado e expressão específicos.
Na fase inicial da filosofia do idealismo alemão – filosofia que podemos situar desde a
Crítica da Razão Pura de Kant, em 1781, até à morte de Schelling, em 1854, – o valor estético é
identificado com o belo, entendido como um predicado do juízo de gosto. O problema então é
compreender o que este predicado significa, o que ele designa e qual o seu referente. Este predicado
designa uma propriedade que não é objetiva como o conjunto de propriedades que cabem aos
objetos da experiência, ou seja, o peso, a dimensão, a função, a estrutura, o material, ou quaisquer
outros que se queiram acrescentar, mas refere-se a um estado do sujeito relativamente a uma
experiência determinada. No entanto, para o tema que aqui nos interessa diretamente, na sua Crítica
do Juízo que, em 1790, inaugura a estética contemporânea, Kant pouco diz sobre a arquitetura.
Limita-se a escrever que se trata da “arte de expor, para um fim arbitrário, mas também de modo
simultaneamente estético-teleológico, conceitos de coisas que só são possíveis pela arte, e cuja
forma não tem como fundamento de determinação a natureza, mas esse fim arbitrário.”4
A terminologia kantiana, que pode ser pouco elucidativa à leitura imediata, explica que a
arquitetura é, antes de mais, uma exposição de conceitos. Por outro lado, se é uma arte, não tem,
como as outras, o seu fundamento de determinação na natureza, ou seja, não se trata de uma
imitação de objetos da natureza – segundo a tradicional definição da arte – mas é um objeto prático,
subordinado a um fim. A arquitetura não imita, mas serve instrumentalmente as necessidades e os
fins humanos. Assim, o conceito da arquitetura, que se inclui nas obras “que só são possíveis pela
arte”, ou seja, de objetos construídos, é definido duplamente. É definido a partir da sua função, o
seu “fim arbitrário”, mas isto não põe em causa, por outro lado, que a arquitetura expõe esses fins
de modo “estético-teleológico”, ou seja, segundo uma teleologia estética, que não está submetida à
necessidade e à utilidade.
A lacónica definição de Kant toca no problema da finalidade, ou do que chamaríamos mais
recentemente a função, problema essencial para a sua definição de arte e, ainda mais, para a
compreensão de que tipo de arte é a arquitetura. Kant não aprofunda as consequências da sua
definição da arquitetura, mas coloca um problema que se poderia apresentar e desenvolver como
uma verdadeira antinomia da razão arquitetónica. Traduzindo o problema como uma antinomia da
arquitetura, na tese afirma-se que a arquitetura não é uma arte, porque tem de servir a fins – o
princípio da função e do programa. Na antítese, afirma-se que a arquitetura é uma arte, porque não
pode ser avaliada somente a partir do conceito dos fins a que se subordina, mas é necessariamente
objeto de um juízo de gosto, e obedece, por isso, a um princípio estético. Não posso ver, pisar,

4“Kunst, Begriffe von Dingen, die nur durch Kunst möglich sind, und deren Form nicht die Natur, sondern einen
willkürlichen Zweck zum Bestimmungsgrunde hat, zu dieser Absicht, doch auch zugleich ästhetisch-zweckmäßig
darzustellen” (Kant, AA V, 322).

11
entrar, percorrer e utilizar um edifício sem integrar as suas partes e pormenores na unidade de uma
“finalidade sem fim”, expressão utilizada por Kant como uma das partes integrantes da definição da
apreciação estética. Ao lado, mas também além da finalidade determinada para que o edifício serve,
exerço o que Kant chama “livre jogo de faculdades” que envolve entendimento e sensibilidade
numa unidade de sentido que não está previamente determinada, e experiencio um prazer ou
desprazer ‘livres’. Este é um prazer que vai muito além do meramente agradável ou desagradável à
minha apreciação e interesses subjetivos, mas um prazer que reivindica universalidade. E pode
reivindicar universalidade porque o organismo afetado pela impressão do objeto não é o organismo
físico corporal ou animal da observadora, mas o seu organismo racional, as suas faculdades
cognoscitivas, a sua sensibilidade e inteligência que são envolvidas assim num livre jogo de
faculdades. Em resumo, a experiência da arquitetura inclui enunciar juízos de gosto e reivindica,
por isso, uma apreciação estética, sensível e intelectual. O edifício não é agradável ou desagradável
ao organismo, mas belo ou não segundo a razão e a sensibilidade.
A antinomia referida, entre os fins úteis, por um lado, e ausência de fins determinados, por
outro, aflora na definição de Kant, mas nenhuma solução é proposta, dizendo-se apenas que a
arquitetura tem de ser simultaneamente os dois, bela e útil. O leitor dos autores diretamente
influenciados por Kant, familiarizado com uma perspectiva comparativista e de desenvolvimento
dos conceitos, não estranhará se se disser que também na arquitetura – assim como em quase todos
os outros temas filosóficos importantes – esses autores dedicaram-se a resolver antinomias
suscitadas pelo pensamento de Kant. Schelling e Hegel trataram de diversos outros temas a
propósito da arquitetura, mas uma trave-mestra da sua filosofia da arquitetura é a resolução desta
antinomia fundamental.
A principal razão para a profunda transformação que o idealismo alemão trouxe ao
pensamento estético em geral e, em particular, à filosofia da arquitetura, foi a concepção do objeto e
do método da filosofia que tinham recebido de Kant. A crítica kantiana à metafísica retirou do
centro da atenção filosófica a substância e outros objetos metafísicos. E mesmo quando, como em
Schelling, uma metafísica objetivista parece recuperar os seus direitos, o objeto e o método são
definidos de outro modo. Se quisermos uma definição o mais simples possível, podemos dizer que
se tratou de substituir o estudo de objetos suprassensíveis que era levado a cabo com métodos de
tipo lógico, por um estudo da atividade da razão que permite conhecer ou “sintetizar” os objetos da
experiência, com valor cognoscitivo universal. Ou, dito de outro modo, trata-se da busca das
condições de possibilidade desse conhecimento ou produção. Essencialmente, substitui-se o estudo
de objetos, causas e princípios suprassensíveis, pelo estudo de atos constitutivos dos padrões da
experiência objetiva. A questão dos conceitos, entendidos como atos da razão, e da produção de
significado assume então o primeiro plano.

12
 2. A arte como esquema da síntese entre real e ideal

No Sistema do Idealismo Transcendental, publicado em 1800, apenas dez anos após a

Crítica do Juízo, Schelling descreve o saber humano, juntamente com os seus objetos, como
divididos em reais e ideais. E, supondo que a razão é uma só, é legítimo pressupor um objeto
simultaneamente real e ideal, prévio a essa divisão, que deve corresponder ao que denomina o
absoluto, absoluta identidade ou absoluta indiferença. Esta absoluta identidade é o objeto de uma
intuição intelectual, que nos provê, igualmente, de acesso às ideias. Estas são modos particulares de
unificação do ideal e do real, ou seja, são expressões do absoluto, como por exemplo as ideias de
verdade, de bem e de belo. Sendo, como se disse, a razão uma atividade, e todo o conhecimento
verdadeiro, fundado na identidade absoluta do real e do ideal, Schelling entende que a nossa
consciência consiste numa divisão entre atividade real e atividade ideal, divisão de que o
conhecimento é o cancelamento relativo. A atividade ideal é a atividade que engloba toda a
atividade conscientemente realizada pelo espírito, ao passo que a atividade real é definida como
uma atividade inconsciente, que corresponde ao comportamento objetivo da natureza, uma
atividade que não depende da reflexão do sujeito.
O conhecimento verdadeiro em geral, e o filosófico em particular, consiste na exposição das
ideias, onde real e ideal não são diferentes, e cada objeto conhecido é um modo limitado de
exposição dessa identidade. Esse conhecimento acontece do modo mais completo, segundo o
Sistema do Idealismo Transcendental, no objeto artístico, que exibe à consciência esse momento
prévio à diferença. A arte é, assim, o conhecimento ou a ciência mais completa, de tal modo que “a
arte é o modelo da ciência, e onde a arte está, a ciência deve ainda lá chegar.”5
A consciência só pode emergir na sua distinção em relação a um inconsciente. Por isso, o
“inesperado encontro”6 do consciente com o inconsciente que constitui a arte, encontro onde a
identidade absoluta se expõe, cindida, à consciência, não pode ser, por definição, feito de modo
plenamente consciente. A consciência só apreende o resultado desse “encontro”, mas não pode
surpreender o momento da sua produção, por definição anterior à consciência. Não há consciência,
o que significa tão-pouco reflexão ou controlo conceptual sobre esse momento, razão por que “o
artista, por mais intenções que tenha, no que toca àquilo que é propriamente objetivo na sua
produção, encontra-se sob o influxo de um poder que o separa de todos os homens e o obriga a
enunciar ou a expor coisas que ele próprio não abarca inteiramente, e cujo sentido é infinito.” 7 O

5“die Kunst sei das Vorbild der Wissenschaft, und wo die Kunst sei, soll die Wissenschaft erst hinkommen” (Sistema do
Idealismo Transcendental 294/468).
6Sistema do Idealismo Transcendental 295/270.
7“scheint der Künstler, so absichtsvoll er ist, doch in Ansehung dessen, was das eigentliche Objektive in seiner
Hervorbringung ist, unter der Einwirkung einer Macht zu stehen, die ihn vor allen Menschen absondert, und ihm Dinge

13
artista resolve, numa intuição intelectual, a contradição entre consciente e inconsciente, que é, diz-
nos Schelling, a contradição onde se funda a existência humana, e expõe esta resolução na obra de
génio.
Na Filosofia da Arte,8 os princípios da filosofia romântica da arte apresentada no Sistema do
Idealismo do ano anterior aparecem expostos com alguns matizes importantes e, principalmente,
muito mais pormenorizados num sistema das formas artísticas, onde a arquitetura assume um lugar
importante.
Lê-se na Filosofia da Arte, que a “linguagem é a mais perfeita obra de arte”. 9 A
compreensão da arte como um fluxo de passagem da atividade inconsciente para a atividade
consciente, permite equiparar a linguagem à arte, que realiza uma função similar. Trata-se,
conforme a célebre definição da linguagem de Humboldt poucos anos depois, de produzir uma
infinidade de significados com meios finitos.10 A fonte do significado é também a origem da
criatividade que escapa à atividade consciente e a regras conceptuais, dando conta do carácter
inesperado da criação artística.
Deve observar-se, entretanto, já no tratamento dado à questão levantada no Sistema do
Idealismo Transcendental, e no próprio título da Filosofia da Arte, uma importante inovação
relativamente à Crítica do Juízo de Kant. A estética e o problema do juízo de gosto foram
substituídos em Schelling pela obra de arte, e o aspecto subjetivo do juízo em Kant está substituído
pela plena objetividade da exposição da unidade do consciente e do inconsciente numa obra. O
problema desloca-se do jogo das faculdades que operam no juízo de gosto do sujeito da experiência
artística para o ato criativo deste, ato que está materializado e só existe na obra. O papel do
observador desaparece quase inteiramente da consideração, na medida em que a arte é
essencialmente obra, que exprime um conhecimento da absoluta identidade entre inconsciente e
consciente, real e ideal, ação e conhecimento ou também, nos termos do autor, entre objeto
particular e possibilidade infinita.
Para explicar o significado ontológico e epistemológico da arte, Schelling situa-a então no
complexo das relações entre real e ideal. A arte começa por ser inserida num grande esquema
analógico do que chama “potências” do absoluto, segundo o seguinte quadro.
Absoluta indiferença

Real: Ideal:
real-real: Matéria ideal-ideal: Conhecimento
real-ideal: Luz ideal-real: Ação
Indiferença real: Organismo Indiferença ideal: Arte

auszusprechen oder darzustellen zwingt, die er selbst nicht vollständig durchsieht, und deren Sinn unendlich ist”
(Sistema do Idealismo Transcendental 288/460).
8Ver nota 3 supra.
9Filosofia da Arte SW, V, 358.
10W. von Humboldt, Schiften zur Sprachphilosophie, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 477.

14
 Segundo o esquema, a indiferença absoluta divide-se em real e ideal, o que produz a
consciência humana. O ato de exposição a esta de um conteúdo exige a exposição como tal, onde o
como designa o próprio ato de mostrar-se. Assim, o real que aparece à consciência como real é a
matéria, dotada de gravidade, ou peso, que o organismo supera, superação que competirá à
arquitetura expor. O real que aparece como ideal, é a luz, ou seja, um real já sem peso e cujo
elemento material está superado. A indiferença entre matéria e luz é o organismo. A compreensão
do organismo como indiferença entre luz e matéria, ou gravidade, pode surpreender, mas deriva da
ideia de que a luz é pura atividade e o peso a inércia e imobilidade materiais, próprias de um ser
sem atividade espontânea. O organismo, assim, participa de ambas, luz e gravidade, no sentido em
que a matéria orgânica está atravessada por um princípio de idealidade, de automovimento e de
teleologia. “A essência do organismo é a luz conectada com a gravidade. O organismo é
inteiramente forma e inteiramente matéria, inteiramente atividade e inteiramente ser. A mesma luz
que, na natureza universal, é a atividade intuitiva do universo, está no organismo casada com a
matéria.”11
Do lado ideal, encontramos uma posição da idealidade como ideal, que corresponde ao
conhecimento; uma manifestação do ideal no real e como real, que é a ação; e uma indiferença de
saber e ação, que é a arte. A arte é um saber que se dá inteiramente como ação, e uma ação que é
puro conhecimento. Schelling pretende refutar assim a tese kantiana de que os predicados que
designam o valor estético não têm valor cognoscitivo, porque não designam propriedades objetivas.
Pelo contrário, segundo Schelling, visto que a arte expõe objetivamente uma unidade entre real e
ideal, ela é conhecimento e ação simultaneamente, indiferenciados. Assim, “a indiferença do ideal e
do real como indiferença expõe-se no mundo ideal através da arte. Porque a arte não é em si nem
um mero agir, nem um mero saber, mas um agir inteiramente atravessado pela ciência ou,
inversamente, um saber que inteiramente se tornou ação.”12

11“Das Wesen des Organismus ist: Licht mit Schwere verbunden. Der Organismus ist ganz Form und ganz Stoff, ganz
Thätigkeit und ganz Seyn. Dasselbige Licht, welches in der allgemeinen Natur die anschauende Thätigkeit des
Universums ist, ist im Organismus dem Stoffe vermählt” (SW 5, 515). Para a relação da luz e da visão com a
desrealização e a idealização de uma pespectiva biologicamente informada v. H. Jonas, The Phenomenon of Life:
Toward a Philosophy of Biology (Evanston: Northwestern University Pressy 1966, 146-147). Para a noção do
organismo como inteiramente forma, Jonas, op. cit., 80. 93. A compreensão da luz como forma é um topos tradicional.
V. por exemplo: “Julgo que a primeira foma corpórea, que chamam «corporeidade» é a luz. […] A luz não é uma forma
que derive da corporeidade, mas é a própria corporeidade.” (R. Grosseteste, Tratado da Luz, tradução de Mário
Santiago de Carvalho e Maria da Conceição Camps. Porto: Afrontamento, 2012, 57). Não menos tradicional é a sua
conexão direta com o belo e a arte: “A beleza tem o modo de ser da luz. Isto não quer dizer somente que sem luz não
pode aparecer nada de belo, que sem ela nada pode ser belo. Quer dizer também que a beleza do belo aparece nele
enquanto [als] luz, como brilho. A beleza manifesta-se a si mesma.” (H. G. Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode.
Gesamemelte Werke I. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1990, 486).
12“Die Indifferenz des Idealen und Realen als Indifferenz stellt sich in der idealen Welt durch die Kunst dar. Denn die
Kunst ist an sich weder ein bloßes Handeln noch ein bloßes Wissen, sondern sie ist ein ganz von Wissenschaft
durchdrungenes Handeln, oder umgekehrt ein ganz zum Handeln gewordenes Wissen, d.h. sie ist Indifferenz beider.”
(Filosofia da Arte, 380-381)

15
 A arte é a indiferença ou unidade mais completa no mundo ideal, que inclui também
conhecimento e ação. E porque o esquema em que o ideal e o real se dividem e expõem
reciprocamente se comporta de modo fractal, na arte, que é essa indiferença, vamos encontrar uma
reaplicação das potências sobre cada elemento do esquema. Através desta reaplicação chegaremos
finalmente à arquitetura, a qual é também ela um modo de expor numa unidade saber e ação, luz e
matéria, real e ideal. Atingida a arte, como indiferença já refletida de real e ideal, a mesma é
novamente dividida numa potência de exposição real e noutra ideal. A potência ideal corresponde à
literatura, onde a arte se move exclusivamente no meio espiritual e ideal da linguagem. Já a sua
potência real corresponde às artes onde a linguagem está dotada de um corpo físico: as artes
plásticas e a música. Assim, retomando em sucessivas reflexões o final do esquema anterior,
Schelling prossegue a repetição fractal do entrelaçamento entre realidade e idealidade:

Absoluta indiferença de conhecimento e ação: Arte

Real: Artes plásticas Ideal: Literatura

real-real: Música ideal-ideal: Lírica
real-ideal: Pintura ideal-real: Epopeia
Indiferença real: Plástica Indiferença ideal: Tragédia

Ignorando os ramos que não dizem respeito à arquitetura, dentro da potência real da unidade entre
conhecimento e ação, temos uma primeira potência, determinada pelo real-real (ou o real exposto
qua real), a matéria, que corresponde à música, uma segunda, determinada pela idealidade real da
luz, a pintura, e uma terceira, dominada pela unidade ou indiferença entre matéria e luz, o que
corresponde, como vimos, a um organismo, que significa a plástica. E prosseguindo então na
divisão encontramos dentro da plástica como indiferença real de música e pintura:
Arquitetura (música plástica)
Baixo relevo (pintura plástica)
Escultura (plástica integral, plástica enquanto plástica)

A última forma artística, a plástica, está assim dividida novamente numa potência de predominância
real, a arquitetura, uma segunda de predominância ideal, o baixo-relevo, e uma terceira, onde
domina a indiferença entre as duas, que será a plástica propriamente dita, a escultura. Nesta última,
o motivo da sua maior integração e completação da representação real do absoluto é a unidade
integral da materialidade sobre si mesma, através do domínio do espaço. A escultura é um todo
retirado do meio espacial exterior a ela, permitindo, por isso, a passagem lógica a uma arte
puramente ideal situada apenas no tempo, as artes da palavra.
Resulta do esquema, finalmente, que a arquitetura vai repetir, numa potência superior, ao
nível plástico, a potência inicial, ainda inorgânica, da arte, nomeadamente, a música. Nesta

16
potência, “podemos agora estabelecer o significado mais elevado do ritmo, da harmonia e da
melodia. Estes são as formas primeiras e mais puras do movimento no universo e, intuídas de modo
real, são a maneira das coisas materiais serem semelhantes às ideias.” 13 Schelling aparentemente, e
não Goethe ou Schopenhauer como por vezes se supõe, será o inventor da definição da arquitetura
como música congelada. “A forma artística inorgânica ou a música na plástica é a arquitetura” 14 e,
por isso, ela é “música no espaço,” “música concreta” e “música solidificada.” 15 A arquitetura
repete, por conseguinte, as estruturas musicais essenciais, a saber, o ritmo, interpretado como as
distâncias que medeiam entre os elementos arquitetónicos, a harmonia como a proporção entre os
diferentes volumes, e a melodia, que é a ligação entre o ritmo e a harmonia ou modulação, e que
Schelling encontra representada principalmente na ordem coríntia. Nesta, melhor se encontraria
presente a ligação entre “o reto e o curvo, do liso com o arqueado, do simples com o adornado.” 16
Em geral, o mesmo domínio que a música exerce sobre o tempo, através do ritmo, a arquitetura
exerce sobre o espaço.17 A arquitetura é então a “música sentida com os olhos”. 18 Ambas são artes
não referenciais, dominadas pelo real e onde a idealidade está integrada, no sentido de dominada, no
real. Pintura, escultura, baixo relevo ou toda a literatura são artes representativas e, por isso, dotadas
de organicidade. Música e arquitetura, por sua vez, vivem somente do seu domínio rítmico,
proporcional e harmónico do tempo ou do espaço, sendo por isso determinadas pelo real enquanto
real, estando a idealidade reduzida a elementos principalmente quantitativos. Mas, como se verá, ao
passo que a música é plenamente inorgânica, a arquitetura é o organismo como inorgânico, o
organismo que retorna ao inorgânico ou que coloca a sua marca no inorgânico. Este retorno do
organismo que se apresenta como inorgânico traduz-se, entre os viventes, nas produções do
inorgânico pelo organismo. Na origem da arquitetura estão pois produtos naturais da teleologia dos
organismos, como sejam cascas, ninhos, proteções, cabanas ou troncos que servirão de suportes.

3. A arquitetura segundo Schelling

3.1. Sobre a antinomia de forma e função

Retornando à resolução da antinomia kantiana, leia-se a argumentação com que Schelling a

resolve, integrando a arquitetura entre as belas-artes: “Toda a beleza é em geral a indiferença da
13“Wir können jetzt erst die höchste Bedeutung von Rhythmus, Harmonie und Melodie festsetzen. Sie sind die ersten
und reinsten Formen der Bewegung im Universum und, real angeschaut, die Art der materiellen Dinge den Ideen gleich
zu seyn.” (Filosofia da Arte, 381)
14“Die anorgische Kunstform oder die Musik in der Plastik ist die Architektur.” (Filosofia da Arte, 572)
15Filosofia da Arte, 576, 577. Também: “Daß Architektur = Musik, folgt vorerst nur aus dem gemeinsamen Begriff des
Anorgischen. Denn die Musik ist allgemein die anorgische Kunstform.” (Filosofia da Arte, 574)
16Filosofia da Arte, 598.
17Filosofia da Arte, 590.
18“ein schönes Gebäude in der That nichts anderes als eine mit dem Auge empfundene Musik” (Filosofia da Arte, 595).

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essência e da forma. – A exposição do absoluto num particular.” – A essência aqui designa o
absoluto, que se manifesta sob diferentes formas, as quais são os modos limitados ou determinados
em que a indiferença absoluta aparece. “Ora, o particular, a forma, é precisamente a referência à
necessidade [à utilidade]. Mas se a arte coloca nesta forma a expressão da essência absoluta, então
olha-se para esta indiferença própria da forma e da essência, e de modo nenhum para a forma por si,
e caduca inteiramente a relação particular ou a referência particular desta forma à utilidade e à
necessidade, dado que ela é unicamente intuída na sua identidade com a essência.” 19 A arquitetura
integra pois a forma com a essência, traduzindo esta identidade ou indiferença como uma obra bela.
Aliás, como Schelling dirá um pouco mais abaixo, e noutro texto posterior, a perfeição da forma
significa a anulação e ultrapassagem da forma. “Só pela perfeição da forma, pode a forma ser
anulada.”20 Ou seja, a necessidade da função e o valor estético não são opostos ou exclusivos, mas
resolvem-se numa indiferença. Ou, noutros termos, a função completada corresponde ao belo
arquitetónico, do mesmo modo como o belo, ou o valor estético é eminentemente funcional. Claro
está que esta solução só pode funcionar na medida em que a arte não é um objeto de agrado
contingente e subjetivo, mas entendida como expressão de uma essência e unidade de opostos
objetivos, como sejam, a função e a ‘forma’, ou o valor estético (sendo que aqui “forma” é utilizado
no sentido oposto à terminologia de Schelling, para quem o que chamamos hoje normalmente
função é a forma, o lado útil, e o que chamamos forma é a essência, o lado estético).
No entanto, esta unificação entre a função, que é a forma técnica de responder à necessidade,
e a essência, que é a indiferença ou unidade que dela pode fazer uma obra de arte, não ocorre de
modo simples. Schelling observa que se a simples “expressão de um conceito de fim [i.e., o útil] se
pudesse tornar numa obra bela,”21 outras artes orientadas por conceitos de fins, como a alfaiataria,
poderiam ser belas-artes. Se a arquitetura deve, ou pode ser uma arte bela, a identidade da obra com
o conceito de fim não pode ser exterior, subjetiva, pertença de intenções do artista ou do gosto do
observador, mas tem de pertencer de modo inerente à obra. 22 A relação de indiferença que unifica a
forma e a função (no vocabulário atual), ou a essência e a forma (na terminologia de Schelling), não
pode ser expressa na teleologia própria de um artefacto qualquer, e tão-pouco o poderia ser num
artefacto para habitar. Num artefacto, o conceito é meramente exterior, permanece subjetivo,
pertença de um sujeito que o usa. O que pode fazer da arquitetura uma bela-arte é “uma verdadeira

19“Alle Schönheit ist überhaupt Indifferenz des Wesens und der Form. – Darstellung des Absoluten in einem Besondern
–. Das Besondere, die Form ist nun eben die Beziehung auf Bedürfniß. Allein wenn nun die Kunst in diese Form den
Ausdruck des absoluten Wesens legt, so wird nur auf diese Indifferenz der Form und des Wesens selbst, keineswegs auf
die Form für sich gesehen, und das besondere Verhältniß oder die besondere Beziehung dieser Form auf Nutzen und
Bedürfniß fällt gänzlich hinweg, da sie überhaupt nur in der Identität mit dem Wesen angeschaut wird.” ( Filosofia da
Arte, 575)
20SW I/VII, 305.
21Filosofia da Arte, 578.
22Daí a limitação do entendimento da arte a partir de uma teoria das “atmosferas”, segundo Gernot Böhme. Cf. G.
Böhme, Atmosphäre: Essays zur neuen Ästhetik (Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 1995).

18
fusão com o conceito,”23 nomeadamente com o conceito de fim. E Schelling observa que certamente
foi esta exigência que esteve na origem da arquitetura como bela arte. Mas a antinomia da
arquitetura mantém-se, e está apenas reescrita como a contradição de que, por um lado, a arquitetura
se tem de libertar da teleologia própria ao utensílio se pretender ser arte, mas, por outro, não o pode
fazer sem deixar de ser arquitetura, da qual o uso é parte inevitável.
Esta aparente contradição só pode ser resolvida, diz-nos o autor, na condição de que a
arquitetura se liberte e ganhe “independência de si própria.” 24 “A arquitetura só se pode tornar bela
ao se tornar também independente de si própria, como que a potência e livre imitação de si
mesma.”25 O conceito de uma imitação de si própria, como uma auto-mimese merece uma
explicação. O objeto da mimese não é algo de exterior à obra, mas é a própria função intrínseca, e a
tese de Schelling é que a arquitetura só pode transformar a função em forma, ou a forma útil em
essência, ao expor reflexivamente a função. Na auto-imitação, o conceito de fim é mantido
explícito, trazido expressiva e tematicamente para a própria obra. Ele é então traduzido numa forma
artística que se torna tanto mais independente do fim útil quanto mais o representa. Os exemplos
privilegiados no contexto da prática arquitetónica tradicional seriam as colunas do templo clássico,
que representam visivelmente as árvores de um bosque e os suportes de uma obra em madeira,
assim como nos motivos vegetalistas de coberturas primitivas que Schelling pretende encontrar –
não sem alguma razão – no gótico e na arquitetura hindú. E, principalmente, a evidente auto-
representação e teatralização enfática da estrutura técnica na ordem arquitetónica ocidental mais
antiga, a ordem dórica. O processo é essencialmente reflexivo, ou seja, a ordem natural da
necessidade e da utilidade encontra-se exposta reflexivamente como elemento formal. E é nesta
reflexão que a arquitetura expõe à consciência a sua estrutura material e recebe um sentido
espiritual, tornando-se arte bela. O material e funcional, a luta contra o peso, é representada e como
tal, criado um sujeito representante e idealizador, que surge exibido objetivamente na própria obra.
Só assim é possível a unidade de real e ideal, o que irá remeter, como se verá em seguida,
inevitavelmente ao organismo e à vida.
Poderíamos talvez encontrar na arquitetura moderna o retorno à conceção original da
arquitetura, em que justamente se trata de sublinhar o conceito funcional da utilidade, de modo a
reconstruir o belo arquitetónico nas suas fontes primeiras, de auto-imitação reflexiva das suas
próprias condições utilitárias. O modernismo, segundo esta concepção Schellinguiana, deve ser
entendido com um retorno à origem da ideia arquitetónica.

23Filosofia da Arte, 578.

24“so wird sie schön nur, indem sie zugleich von sich selbst unabhängig, gleichsam die Potenz und die freie
Nachahmung von sich selbst wird” (Filosofia da Arte, 578).
25“so wird sie schön nur, indem sie zugleich von sich selbst unabhängig, gleichsam die Potenz und die freie
Nachahmung von sich selbst wird” (Filosofia da Arte, 578).

19
 3.2. O organismo arquitetónico

A libertação da finalidade exterior de si mesma, pela sua representação e objetivação

miméticas é o que permitirá superar a forma útil – e também, acrescente-se, o formalismo inútil –
trazendo para o interior da própria obra funcional a sua referência ao belo, através do frisar
reflexivo da utilidade e da estrutura construtivas, o que corresponde a uma teleologia interior. Esta é
a teleologia própria dos organismos, dirigida para a auto-constituição e manutenção de si. E por isso
os organismos não são construídos com vista a um fim ideal exterior, como acontece com os
artefactos. Na solução da antinomia da arquitetura, somos conduzidos então à teleologia interna do
organismo. A teleologia imanente está realizada e é visível no organismo, mas na arquitetura, como
vimos, é exposto como inorgânico. Por isso, a arquitetura prefigura e indicia, no seu ritmo,
proporção e modulação internas, o orgânico no inorgânico.
Porque liga então a utilidade com a libertação de toda a utilidade, libertação que é própria da
arte, a arquitetura é uma arte essencialmente orgânica. Dentro do esquema conceptual das potências
de expressão da identidade absoluta, – indiferença entre particular e universal, entre ideal e real,
entre consciente e inconsciente, entre ação e conhecimento – a arquitetura é o momento inorgânico
do organismo, ou uma organicidade exposta como inorgânica. A arquitetura é explicada então como
uma potência de exposição, ou retorno do orgânico ao inorgânico, onde o ser humano, dotado tanto
de corpo orgânico quanto da consciência da divisão entre real e ideal, se expõe no e como
inorgânico. A arquitetura desempenha a função de um corpo humano inorgânico. Isto está declarado
aliás na arquitetura como uma alegorização do orgânico no inorgânico, conforme os exemplos já
referidos. Segundo Schelling, esta referência da razão ao inorgânico só pode ocorrer através do
organismo, que é o corpo próprio [Leib] da razão.26 Este retorno significa então a alegorização de
ideias orgânicas, e do próprio corpo a partir da obra inorgânica. Schelling concebe assim a
arquitetura como uma linguagem representativa do orgânico no inorgânico, interpretando-a
sobretudo a partir dos motivos primeiros vegetalistas, como se viu, mas depois também animalistas
que encontra nas diferentes formas arquitetónicas. A arquitetura então, só pode ser arte bela pela
integração da organicidade na própria obra. Apenas nesta integração ela pode exprimir a sua
autonomia como obra e, por conseguinte, expressar o absoluto como identidade do real e do ideal,
da natureza e da consciência humana, ou seja, exprimir verdade, conhecimento e auto-
conhecimento. Ora, a teleologia imanente é real somente no organismo. Em consequência, “a
arquitetura como arte bela tem o organismo como a essência do inorgânico, e por isso deve expor as
formas orgânicas como preformadas no inorgânico,”27 o que pode ser lido em diferentes pormenores
das ordens arquitetónicas tradicionais, onde aparece tanto a referida auto-imitação dos elementos
26Cf. Filosofia da Arte, 577.
27“die organischen Formen als präformirt im Anorgischen darstellt.” (Filosofia da Arte, 580)

20
construtivos, quanto os motivos orgânicos ou até mesmo ideais, como no templo dórico, onde o
edifício tem o frontão como uma “testa do edifício”, que é o lugar preferencial “das ornamentações
com baixos relevos, onde a fronte, por assim dizer, significa exteriormente o pensamento.”28
A arquitetura exprime, por conseguinte, na matéria inorgânica, a totalidade orgânica que a
habita. Ela resolve, por conseguinte, não só o problema da proteção e abrigo do ser humano, como
também faz ver e experienciar a integridade deste na sua totalidade natural e consciente de si.
Assim, segundo Schelling, no plano epistemológico, a arquitetura é uma expressão artística, o que
significa, a identidade entre ação real e conhecimento ideal. Esta identidade é realizada pela
exposição da matéria inorgânica como orgânica – o que permite compreender muito das formas
aparentemente supérfluas das ordens arquitetónicas tradicionais. E, do mesmo modo, como vimos, a
automimese dramatizada dos fins úteis e da estrutura construtiva, eleva-os até ao nível da
representação consciente, onde passam a desempenhar a função de um fundamento que se mantém
sempre presente na obra arquitetónica, mas presente sob a forma do que é deixado para trás,
assimilado e ultrapassado. Os elementos úteis são, assim, integrados numa unidade espiritual que
resolve – como sempre resolveu, desde que existe a arquitetura, – a antinomia arquitetónica que
começámos por encontrar enunciada na Crítica do Juízo de Kant.

4. Conclusão: sobre a arquitetura segundo Hegel

Como conclusão, e a título de simples indicação do desenvolvimento da filosofia da

arquitetura no período do idealismo alemão, refiro apenas alguns dos principais desenvolvimentos
que Hegel apresentará acerca da filosofia da arquitetura nas suas Lições de Estética, mais de duas
décadas após a Filosofia da Arte de Schelling.
A arte em geral tem a função de objetivação e reconhecimento do espírito humano, que lhe
permite representar-se objetivamente. A arte não tem, por isso, qualquer ligação com o juízo de
gosto, sendo uma representação objetiva do espírito por si mesmo, sujeita sobretudo a uma história
formativa, em que o espírito busca representar-se objetivamente de forma cada vez mais verdadeira.
Com a integração da arquitetura na história do espírito, é o juízo da história que faz a distinção entre
a boa e a má arquitetura, entre a boa e a má arte, sem ser preciso – porque isso é evidentemente
impossível, e um problema mal colocado – estabelecer critérios gerais e necessários para os juízos
de gosto. Aquilo que é representado na arte é a própria liberdade e manifestação, características do
espírito ou da consciência humana. Os elementos arquitetónicos constituem, por isso, uma
linguagem que refere os conceitos principais característicos da auto-compreensão humana a cada
momento.
28“[…] Stirne des Gebäudes. Dieß ist der Ort der vorzüglichsten Verzierungen durch Basreliefs, wo die Stirn gleichsam
als Sitz der Gedanken äußerlich angedeutet wird. (Filosofia da Arte, 589)

21
 A arquitetura é apresentada por Hegel como a primeira das artes, no sentido da mais próxima
da origem da obra de arte, aquela mais ligada à utilidade e à materialidade, da qual as outras artes
progressivamente se afastam. Em geral, a arte é libertação e, no caso da arquitetura trata-se da
libertação da matéria como gravidade – tema que é uma constante da compreensão da arquitetura
desde Schelling até Schopenhauer. Esta libertação vai sendo realizada pela coluna, pelo arco, pelos
vãos e pelas abóbodas. A arquitetura está então dividida em três grandes períodos históricos, o
simbólico, onde predominam as referências às forças naturais que dominam o homem, o clássico,
que descreve a autodescoberta do espírito como diverso dessas forças naturais, e o romântico, que é
o período culminante da arquitetura, em que o espírito descobre a sua negatividade e infinidade
próprias, e a arquitetura desenvolve todas as suas potencialidades. Este estágio final coincide com a
arquitetura gótica. Neste sentido, Hegel apercebe-se com razão, e antecipadamente, do esgotamento
das formas arquitetónicas no séc. XIX, situação que só pôde ser superada pela revolução técnica do
metal, do betão e do vidro, que veio a libertar as formas arquitetónicas de todas as definições
tradicionais.
A solução hegeliana da antinomia kantiana consiste, de modo até certo ponto análogo ao de
Schelling, em mostrar que a obra arquitetónica não é um meio útil para um fim, mas uma expressão
objetiva e direta da figura com que o espírito em cada momento histórico se concebe a si mesmo.
Neste aspecto, o desenvolvimento posterior a Hegel da arquitetura no seio do chamado fim da arte
não parece ter desmentido as principais teses destes pioneiros da filosofia da arquitetura.

22
2. Daniel PACHECO
Knowledge, Self-Cultivation, and Naturalism: Nietzsche and Architecture in the Middle
Works (1878-1882)

Introduction

In this chapter I explore the role of architecture within the overall project of Nietzsche’s
middle works (1878-1882).29 These writings, far from the Wagnerian and Schopenauerian
influences of the early writings or the more destructive and critical force of later works, instead
present a positive formulation of many philosophical ideas and ideals which pave the way for the
Nietzschean ‘free spirit’, which is why Human All too Human, Dawn and The Gay Science are also
known as the “Free-Spirit Trilogy”. Nietzsche himself had no doubts regarding the essentially
positive task of these works. As he retrospectively puts it in in Ecce Homo, Dawn “is a yea-saying
book, deep, but bright and kind and the same applies once more and in the highest degree to the
gaya scienza” (GS, Why I Write Such Good Books).
This chapter explores Nietzsche’s formulation of an architectural ideal in these works which
helps bring about a joyful science, self-cultivation, and a “naturalistic” turn. I have divided the
paper into three parts. First, I show how Nietzsche’s use of architecture in HAH reflects the harsh
tone of this work in which art and metaphysics are no longer considered sufficient to sustain the
increasingly atheistic and scientific world of late modernity. Architecture here mostly mirrors a
crisis in Nietzsche’s thought, whereby he will now value a more naturalistic and positivistic sort of
knowledge which will substitute earlier quests for metaphysical certainties. In the second part of
this chapter, I show how in GS architecture seems to gain a renewed importance in Nietzsche as
part of his ‘positive’ philosophical project. Here I will present many of the characteristic insights of
Nietzsche’s use of architecture in his middle writings, including Nietzsche’s call for an architecture
that fits the ideal of the seeker of knowledge (GS, §280) and the relationship between architecture
and self-cultivation (ibid, §291).
In the third and final part I will focus on Nietzsche’s claim that “we wish to see ourselves
translated into stone and plants” (GS, §280), arguing how it highlights Nietzsche’s naturalism not
only as a methodological one, but also as both symbolic and practical. I then dedicate a subsection

29For Nietzsche’s published works, I generally use the Cambridge University Press editions. GS, D and NCW are the
exceptions, for which I use Kauffman’s, Smith’s and Ludovici’s translations respectively. For unpublished fragments I
use KSA, and for unpublished works (e.g. PTAG), their existing English translations. I use cite sections rather than
pages for Nietzsche’s works, abbreviations can be found in the bibliography.

23
to what it could mean to be translated into stone and another into plants. The former will reveal how
stone is a primordial symbol of the natural world in Nietzsche, while the latter, besides reinforcing
our turn towards the naturalistic plane of existence, will give us an understanding of the practical
role of architecture, and within it of gardening, in Nietzsche’s project of a gai saber and self-
cultivation.
In my analysis, I will mostly be using Nietzsche’s published writings from 1878-1882,
though the reader may find my argument complemented by exegeses of Nietzsche’s published and
unpublished fragments from this or other periods, not to mention any literature relevant to the topic.
I will try to read Nietzsche as he himself proposes in the preface to Dawn (P, §5): slowly,
approaching the selected passages in constant communication with Nietzsche’s philosophy and
biography while giving special attention to the nuances of the language he uses.
Finally, a word on the choice of this topic. Architecture broadly conceived is found in the
history of Western philosophy since at least René Descartes and Immanuel Kant, namely as a
metaphorical device for laying down epistemic foundations and building philosophical systems
(Lacour: 1999). Nietzsche, however, famously claims that he does not trust any systematisers,
finding “the will to a system. . . a lack of integrity.” (TI, Arrows and Epigrams, §26). Yet, Nietzsche
will refer to architecture and architectonic language throughout his writings. This is especially true
of his middle writings, and I will claim that it gains a special relevance as part of Nietzsche’s
positive project of these writings. In the conclusion, I hope to come back to the relevance of
architecture in Nietzsche’s free spirit project. In the meantime, the reader will find in this paper an
attempt at a general contribution to the scholarship on Nietzsche’s middle writings with
unprecedented attention to his thoughts on architecture.

1. Architecture in Human All too Human: The Monument of a Crisis and the Crisis of our
Monuments

Architecture in Nietzsche’s middle period evolves in two distinctive moments. The first
mirrors Nietzsche’s intellectual and personal condition at the time of HAH, a book that he himself
called the “monument of a crisis” (EH, Why I Write, HAH §1). It is a book that marks an intellectual
liberation from Wagner and Schopenhauer, a turn from the metaphysical to the human, all-too-
human. This period culminates in GS, where we find the second phase of Nietzsche’s thoughts and
use of architecture in the middle period, the development of an architectural ideal consistent with

24
some of the main ideas from these writings.30
Human All too Human opens with a chapter on the First and Last Things, in which
Nietzsche calls us to turn away from our investigations into the metaphysical world and turn to the
“closest”, natural things. Even if a metaphysical world existed, he claims, “knowledge of it would
be the most useless of all knowledge” (HAH, §9). This book, then, bears the mark of a new sort of
knowledge which demands great discipline and resilience in the face of our loss of metaphysical
foundations. At this point, Nietzsche’s thoughts on architecture are mostly a reflection of our
condition of an all-too-human humanity, the monument of a crisis reflected in the crisis of our
monuments:

“Stone is more stone than it used to be. – In general we no longer understand architecture; at
least we do not do so nearly as well as we understand music. We have grown out of the
symbolism of lines and figures, just as we have weaned ourselves from the sound-effects of
rhetoric, and no longer imbibe this kind of cultural mother’s milk from the first moment of
our lives. Everything in a Greek or Christian building originally signified something of a
higher order of things: this feeling of inexhaustible significance lay about the building like a
magical veil. Beauty entered this system only incidentally, without essentially encroaching
upon the fundamental sense of the uncanny and exalted, of consecration by magic and the
proximity of the divine; at most beauty mitigated the dread – but this dread was everywhere
the presupposition. . .” (HAH, §218)31

The very title of the aphorism presents a challenge: why exactly is stone more stone than before? In
the third part of this chapter I will explore this assertion in more detail. For now, I want to focus on
what is explicit and clear about this passage, which is that it is presented as a lament about the
perceived loss of meaning in our great buildings. Our understanding of architecture has decreased
because these buildings (the Greek or Christian temples) have lost their religious or magical
meaning, which means that they no longer supply the metaphysical and existential comfort they
used to. Our modern worldview does not even take the latter as a “presupposition” anymore. What
is there to mitigate then? What are these buildings for in modernity?
This passage, in keeping with the whole of HAH, presages the great crisis of the ‘death of
30It’s also important to note that Nietzsche’s thoughts on architecture in this period are vastly different than what we
find in his early and later works. In his early works architecture is associated to philosophical and stylistic building, cf.
PTAG: 112-13; KSA: 8, 18[23]. In later works it is associated to great culture building. Cf. TI: Skirmishes of an
Untimely Man, §11 and AC §58. See also Buddensieg (1999) for an appreciation of Nietzsche’s biographical evolution
of architectural taste and Lacour (1999) for an interesting overview of the use of philosophical architectonics in Plato,
Descartes and Kant.
31The Cambridge University Press translation for HAH renders the title as: “Stone is more stony than before”. Because
Nietzsche simply writes “Der Stein ist mehr Stein als früher” I will always render “stony” as “stone”, which is more
literal and conveys a clearer meaning for what I will later propose about this sentence.

25
God’ which will not appear until GS. In a note from the time in which Nietzsche was writing GS,
we find an explicit connection between the death of God and the loss of architectural meaning:

“Where has God gone? What have we done? Have we drunk up the ocean? What sponge
have we used to obliterate the whole horizon around us? How have we managed to erase the
fixed, eternal line to which in the past all lines and measurements referred to, by which all
life’s builders [alle Baumeister des Lebens] did their buildings, and without which there
seemed to be no perspective, no order, no architecture [Baukunst]?” (KSA 9, 14[25])

With the ‘Death of God’ it is not only buildings that lose their meaning, not only have the figures
and lines lost their symbolic power, but the very rules of architecture have lost their foundation with
the withdrawal of the “eternal line” that guided architecture. We have “lost all gravity, because for
us there is no up or down” anymore (ibid.) Nietzsche shows a deep concern with the lack of
meaning resulting from this event, reinforcing the tone of lamentation as it relates to architecture
when he writes of the

“aura of [Christian] architecture, which, as the abode of divinity, reaches up into obscurity,
in the dark spaces of which the divinity may at any moment make evident his dreaded
presence – who would want mankind to experience such things again, now that the
presuppositions behind them are no longer believed in?” (HAH, §130)

Here Nietzsche recognizes that religion was important for man to cultivate inner spiritual feelings.
The problem is that we lack solid foundations for these feelings, something which is also valid for
our contemplation of buildings. In a note from this period, Nietzsche tells us that one of the origins
of art is to be deceived, including by architecture (KSA 9, 11[51]).32 The problem, as we saw, is
when we lose the foundations for this deception. What sort of building or architecture should we
moderns identify with, then? In GS, Nietzsche offers us an alternative to despair.

32“. . . to be harmlessly deceived (conjurer, actor, storyteller, etc.), or in architecture, as if the stones could talk”.

26
 2. An Architecture for Knowledge and Self-Cultivation

A. Architecture and the Passion of Knowledge

Nietzsche’s path towards his positive project culminates in GS, and his architectural ideal is
summarised in GS §280, the central section for analysis in my paper:

Architecture for the search for knowledge [Architektur der Erkennenden].–– One day, and
probably soon, we need some recognition of what above all is lacking in our big cities: quiet
and wide, expansive places for reflection. Places with long, high-ceilinged cloisters for bad
or all too sunny weather where no shouting or noise of carriages can reach and where good
manners would prohibit even priests from praying aloud––buildings and sites that would
altogether give expression to the sublimity of thoughtfulness and of stepping aside. The time
is past when the church possessed a monopoly on reflection, when the vita contemplativa
always had to be first of all a vita religiosa; and everything built by the church gives
expression to that idea. I do not see how we could remain content with such buildings even
if they were stripped of their churchly purposes. The language spoken by these buildings is
far too rhetorical and unfree, reminding us that they are houses of God and ostentatious
monuments of some supramundane discourse; we who are godless could not think our
thoughts in such surroundings. We wish to see ourselves translated into stone and plants, we
want to take walks in ourselves when we stroll around these buildings and gardens.

This aphorism can be divided into three distinct yet interconnected subsections. First, there
is the call for an architecture for knowledge-seekers. Then, a contrasting opposition between this
sort of architecture and the type of architecture which has dominated contemplative life for the past
two millennia, religious (Christian) architecture. Finally, we find Nietzsche’s wish to see ourselves
“translated” into elements such as stone and plants as part of the new type of architecture he is
calling for. What I want to do now is to briefly frame the first and second subsections of this
aphorism within the context of the ideas of Nietzsche’s middle period. The second subsection will
be revisited in the final part of my paper, which will also deal with the third one.
As we saw, starting from HAH Nietzsche turns towards a more scientific type of knowledge
away from the first and last things. At the root of this new attitude is Nietzsche’s reading of the new
place knowledge has come to occupy among human beings. This is what, in Dawn §429, he calls
our passion for knowledge:

27
 The new passion. . . our drive for knowledge is too strong for us to be able still to value
happiness without knowledge or the happiness provided by a strong, deeply rooted delusion;
we find it painful even to imagine such a state!. . . Knowledge has been transformed into a
passion in us that does not shrink from any sacrifice and, at bottom, fears nothing but its
own extinction; we honestly believe that under the pressure and suffering of this passion the
whole of humanity must believe itself to be more sublime and more consoled than
previously, when it had not yet overcome its envy of the cruder pleasure and contentment
that result from barbarism. Perhaps humanity will even be destroyed by this passion for
knowledge!

Knowledge now finds the condition of a passion amongst humans, one which we accept to pursue at
the cost of our potential perishing. Not even deeply rooted delusions can pull us away from this new
passion. In Dawn, then, Nietzsche seems to fully accept the pressures that come along with superior
knowledge, and although he admits Dawn may have overtones of a harsh book, he ultimately casts
it as an affirmative one (EH, Why I Write, D §1-2). But to truly survive the audacity of knowledge
inaugurated in HAH, Nietzsche will need more than Dawn, he will need his project of a joyful
science: “Gay Science”: that signifies the saturnalia of a spirit who has patiently resisted a terrible,
long pressure” (GS, Preface, §1). The Gay Science is presented as a cure to the disease – physical,
spiritual, intellectual – that was afflicting Nietzsche at the time. This is the intellectual context to
Nietzsche’s call for an architecture for knowledge-seekers as Nietzsche realizes that the project of a
joyful science must be accompanied by an architectural ideal: architecture must facilitate the
coming of the gay or joyful scientist.
The second part of GS §280, which deals with the opposition between vita contemplativa
and vita religiosa, is also presaged in Dawn, where Nietzsche speaks of the “religious natures, who
preponderate in the vita contemplativa” (§41). In Dawn, Nietzsche is clearly pushing for a new
version of the contemplative life, one unfettered from the figures it has hitherto been associated to,
including the priest or the philosopher as he is traditionally conceived (ibid.) Nietzsche’s view of
the contemplative life is one turned towards this world, not away from it:

To relinquish the world without knowing it, like a nun –– that leads to an infertile, perhaps
melancholic solitude. This has nothing in common with the solitude of the thinker's vita
contemplativa. . . (D, §440)

In GS §280, a new ideal for the vita contemplativa is contrasted to the contemplative life
understood in terms of a religious life. The thoughts of the new contemplators cannot be thought

28
within churches, those houses of supramundane discourse which in GS §125 Nietzsche calls the
tombs of a dead God. The “thinker’s vita contemplativa”, unlike the Christian one, is a life by
which the thinker “leaps into his water” and thus “attains his serenity” (D, §440). Architecture for
Nietzsche is constitutive of the conditions for this new sort of serene contemplative life, “where
good manners would prohibit even priests from praying aloud” in the thinkers’ buildings (GS,
§280).
In GS §280, then, Nietzsche’s architecture finds a direct relationship to ideas of earlier
books from the middle period. There is, moreover, a strong biographical dimension to GS §280: as
we know, in 1880 Nietzsche began to make the discovery of secular urban and palace architecture
in Italy, especially in Genoa and later Turin (Bacqué, 1986; Buddensieg, 1999). I now want to give
a closer look to Nietzsche’s admiration for the architects and architecture of Genoa, through which
we will see how, for Nietzsche, architecture appears as integral to the ideal of self-cultivation.

B. Architecture and Self-Cultivation

This is the passage in which Nietzsche declares his admiration for the Genoese:

“Genoa.–– For a long while now I have been looking at this city, at its villas and pleasure
gardens and the far-flung periphery of its inhabited heights and slopes. In the end I must say:
I see faces that belong to past generations; this region is studded with the images of bold
aristocratic human beings. They have lived and wished to live on: that is what they are
telling me with their houses, built and adorned to last for centuries and not for a fleeting
hour; they were well-disposed toward life, however ill-disposed they often may have been
toward themselves. I keep seeing the builders, their eyes resting on everything near and far
that they have built, and also on the city, the sea, and the contours of the mountains, and
there is violence and conquest in their eyes. All this they want to fit into their plan and
ultimately make their possession by making it part of their plan. This whole region is
overgrown with this magnificent, insatiable selfishness of the lust for possessions and spoils;
and even as these people refused to recognize any boundaries in distant lands and, thirsting
for what was new, placed a new world beside the old one, each rebelled against each at
home, too, and found a way to express his superiority and to lay between himself and his
neighbor his personal infinity. Each once more conquered his homeland for himself by
overwhelming it with his architectural ideas and refashioning it into a house that was a feast
for his eyes.” (GS, §291)

29
This passage follows a celebrated section about self-cultivation in which Nietzsche speaks of the
need to “give style” to oneself, by surveying one’s “strengths and weaknesses” and “fit them into an
artistic plan” (GS, §290). Nietzsche proposes that we observe ourselves daily and attempt to
transform and cultivate ourselves, removing, for instance, “a piece of original nature” here, or
concealing a piece of ugliness that cannot be removed elsewhere (ibid.) The Genoese, for Nietzsche,
appear as great masters of this self-fashioning, something Nietzsche saw in their buildings and
gardens; a self-fashioning manifested in the way they cultivated their surroundings: “[a]ll this they
want to fit into their plan and ultimately make their possession by making it part of their plan.”
(§291) By emphasising possessive pronouns and using the same language throughout both
aphorisms, Nietzsche delineates the intimate connection between the self and surroundings as sites
of cultivation.
The importance of buildings and therefore architecture as something that must stand as an
image of ourselves is already obvious in GS §280 when Nietzsche writes that “we want to take
walks in ourselves when we stroll around these buildings and gardens.” It is also a theme that is
taken up again in Zarathustra: “[w]hat do these houses mean? Truly, no great soul placed them
here, as a parable of itself!” (Z, On Virtues that Make Small, §1). The novel idea is that self-
cultivation is not only about what we can do with ourselves, but also, quite paradoxically, with our
surroundings which we, like the Genoese, want to transform according to ourselves; to remove, add
and alter according to our own character. To include our surroundings into our artistic plans is to
simultaneously make them part of that “self” which is an object of cultivation.
The idea that these men wanted to conquer “the sea, and the contours of the mountains”,
furthermore, gains substance in an unpublished fragment from this period of Nietzsche’s thought,
where he attempts to predict the future of humanity as creators: “humanity will, for a few hundred
years, work to beautify nature herself instead of fashioning works of art” (KSA 9, 4[136]). Self-
cultivation will not stop at fashioning ourselves into works of art, nor simply at producing artworks;
it now includes making nature itself an object of beautification, a place to conquer, like the Genoese
did with their mountains, according to our character. Let us now advance to the final part of my
paper, which argues that in this architectural ideal some sort of naturalism seems to be at work.

3. Naturalism in Nietzsche’s Architecture: Reconquering nature.

A. Naturalism and Architecture

That in GS §280 Nietzsche calls us to leave supramundane discourse and “translate

ourselves” into stones and plants is more than a call for knowledge or self-cultivation. What

30
Nietzsche wishes with this “translation” is to be read next to his more general aspiration to see us
translated back into nature. This we find well fleshed out in a later aphorism from BGE, where
Nietzsche expresses his desire

“[t]o translate humanity back into nature; to gain control of the many vain and fanciful
interpretations and incidental meanings that have been scribbled and drawn over that eternal
basic text of homo natura so far” (BGE, §230)

This passage presents a development of the idea presented in GS §109, in which Nietzsche
calls for a reintegration of humanity into nature. For Nietzsche, humans are natural beings, our
“spirit” shares with other organisms that which “physiologists have established for everything that
lives, grows, and propagates” (BGE, §230). It is in the middle works that Nietzsche can be said to
become a naturalist33 as he starts paying attention to the drives of our organisms and “physics” (or
the necessities of nature) instead of “metaphysics” (GS, §335). This implies a battle against values
and philosophical notions posited in the transcendent. As Christopher Janaway puts it:

“He rejects notions of the immaterial soul, the absolutely free controlling will, or the self-
transparent pure intellect, instead emphasizing the body, talking of the animal nature of
human beings, and attempting to explain numerous phenomena by invoking drives, instincts,
and affects which he locates in our physical, bodily existence.” (2007, p. 34)

Nietzsche, then, rejects the idea of values and an existence rooted in a transcendent or
metaphysical world, instead focusing on our bodily affects and drives. The whole fabricated
distinction between this world and a “real” one Nietzsche finds as early as in Plato’s forms,
Christianity’s Kingdom of God and up to Kant’s thing-in-itself. We find this critical insight of
Nietzsche’s philosophy expressed in the second part GS §280, which I promised to revisit. Similarly
to his critique of the ascetic ideal in the third essay of GM, Nietzsche here casts his rejection of a
vita contemplativa as vita religiosa, with churches as its architectural habitat:

The time is past when the church possessed a monopoly on reflection, when the vita
contemplativa always had to be first of all a vita religiosa; and everything built by the
church gives expression to that idea. I do not see how we could remain content with such
buildings even if they were stripped of their churchly purposes. The language spoken by
these buildings is far too rhetorical and unfree, reminding us that they are houses of God and
33Although this interest is not new. In early years Nietzsche was deeply interested in the natural sciences and even his
lectures on the “Pre-Platonic” thinkers offer constant comparison with the sciences of his day. See Emden 2013.

31
 ostentatious monuments of some supramundane discourse; we who are godless could not
think our thoughts in such surroundings.

But Nietzsche’s task is not merely a negative one. As I mentioned, his general focus on the
drives and affects, especially starting with Dawn, reveal a philosopher who has the positive project
of grounding our self-understanding within naturalistic explanatory accounts of our values. The
specific type of naturalism one finds in Nietzsche, according to Leiter, is a (speculative)
methodological naturalism (M-naturalism), which means Nietzsche models philosophical inquiry in
the inquiry of the empirical sciences (2002, p. 3; cf. 2013, p. 577), attempting to give (speculative)
accounts of the origins and causes of our values, i.e. a natural history of morals, 34 not to mention a
purely evolutionary account of things such as our consciousness (cf. GS, §11).
If Nietzsche does wish to highlight our full participation in nature and to shift our self-
understanding to this participation, he is sometimes also cautious to note that we should will to
differentiate ourselves from nature: “[t]o live – is that not precisely wanting to be other than this
nature? Is living not valuating, preferring, being unjust, being limited, wanting to be different?”
(BGE, §9) Nietzsche’s emphasis on “valuating” informs readings which highlight his “normative”
commitments (Clark & Dudrick: 2012) and apparently limit the definition of Nietzsche as a strict
naturalist. However, according to Leiter, Nietzsche’s valuating project of creating new values,
which Nietzsche defends as the task of the philosopher proper, isn’t opposed to his naturalism: it
just isn’t part of the naturalistic project understood as method (Leiter 2013, p. 582). Instead, to the
Nietzsche who provokes us into creating new values, Leiter calls the “therapeutic” Nietzsche (ibid:
583). The “Humean” (i.e. methodological naturalist) Nietzsche speculatively exposes the natural
roots of our values and philosophical notions while the “therapeutic” Nietzsche arouses our affects
and senses so as to enable us to create new values.
There is, I claim, a supplementary sort of naturalism at work in Nietzsche’s architectural call
to translate ourselves into stones and plants, one which, although not clearly philosophical, is
instrumental to Nietzsche’s project of naturalistic retranslation. While it is true his architectural
ideal of this period cannot be said to be properly naturalistic, i.e. what architects usually call the use
of naturalistic elements in ornamentation such as carved vegetal motifs, Nietzsche’s architecture at
this point has the clear role of supplying us with a sort of naturalism which is both symbolic and
practical. It is symbolic in that it replaces the otherworldly architecture of churches with a new
places for reflection amidst stones and plants. Just like in so much of his naturalistic imagery,
Nietzsche entices us to reconquer not only our natural status, a feature of the “Humean” Nietzsche,
but also nature itself. Sometimes Nietzsche means this quite literally as some sort of mastering over
34Leiter also claims we find a splinter of substantive naturalism (S-naturalism) in Nietzsche’s will to have a “results
continuity” between philosophy and the sciences, which means mostly physiology in his day (2002: 5; 2013: 578)

32
nature, going as far as far as mentioning the Alps as a new site to reconquer (KSA 9, 4[136]). And it
is practical because this is precisely the sort of atmosphere Nietzsche deems necessary for the
flourishing of the free spirits who are to study the natural and human, all too human origins of our
values. The bottom line is that translating ourselves into stone and plants–and we shall see what
exactly Nietzsche means by that–supplies us with a symbolic and practical atmosphere for us to
become students of our values and philosophical notions qua developments of a species inserted in
the natural realm.
To the effect of leaving the unfree discourse of churches behind, then, we need not only an
architectural alternative, places “with long, high-ceilinged cloisters”, but also “to see ourselves
translated into stone and plants” so that we may “take walks in ourselves when we stroll around
these buildings and gardens.” (ibid) Thanks to GS §291, we partly know what it means to see
ourselves in these buildings and gardens; it is a matter of projecting ourselves into our surroundings,
of styling them according to our character and making them part of our cultivation. But this does
not exhaust the meaning of translating ourselves into “stones” and “plants”. The rest of my paper
will have as its goal to unpack what this could mean both at a philosophical and a more practical
level. For now, let us note that translating ourselves into stone and plant is an important, indeed a
crucial step to translate humanity back into nature, something evidenced by the fact Nietzsche talks
about the need to translate ourselves into plants and stones before BGE §230, which suggests the
architectural part of this project is not a mere epiphenomenon to the task of translating ourselves
back into nature and reconquering it, but rather constitutive of it.

B. ‘Der Stein ist mehr Stein als früher’: Nietzsche on reconquering our natural status

Let us go back to the title of aphorism §218 of HAH, which I previously promised to unpack:
“Stone is more stone than before”. As I mentioned above, this could be misleading at first as one
could contrast it with the content of the aphorism, in which Nietzsche claims that the stones and
buildings of our architecture have lost their meaning. This is to be understood within the context of
an architectural meaning that used to be transcendent, divine and magical. I claim that for
Nietzsche, stone is now more stone than before because what has been lost in transcendent meaning
has been gained in immanent, fully naturalized and rediscovered “stoniness”.
The place of stone in Nietzsche’s philosophy is not always easy to pin down; in Zarathustra
alone the word “stone(s)” appears three dozen times with many different meanings. Here, we want
to understand which uses of “stone” and related terms by Nietzsche best illuminate my claim that in
HAH §276 stone symbolizes our riddance of transcendent meanings, which we have now
naturalized into this plane of existence. We find one such passage right after the aphorism on our

33
translation into nature (BGE, §230). Nietzsche, who had just been talking about how our “spirits”
are geared towards mastery of the self and surroundings, now talks about those things which we
cannot change:

in our ground, at the very “bottom”, there is something unteachable, a granite of spiritual
Fatum, of predetermined decisions and answers to predetermined questions. . . an
unchangeable “this is Me” (BGE, §231)35

Granite represents the most unmovable, solid form of stone. As Nishitani Keiji (1990) and Graham
Parkes (1994) have shown, Nietzsche’s use of Granit is informed by his acquaintance with Goethe’s
essay (“Über den Granit”). Nietzsche follows Goethe in his appreciation of granite as part of a
“continuum of life stretching from stone to human beings” (Graham Parks 1994, p. 135). This
discussion becomes even more clear if we go back to the first instance in which Nietzsche urges us
to turn into stone, which is not GS §280 but actually D §541: “How one should turn to stone. ––
Slowly, slowly become hard like a precious stone –– and finally lie there still and silent, to the joy
of all eternity.” Nietzsche uses the symbolic turning into stone as the way to inscribe ourselves into
this natural world, for all eternity. Indeed, eternity is already in this world of eternal becoming, not
in a promised, “real” world. We therefore make sense of this passage by taking into account that for
Nietzsche, following Goethe, granite is the crudest incarnation of stone and a basic symbol of
natural life, and that already in the title of HAH §218 Nietzsche wants to make of stone the greatest
symbol of an existence understood in purely natural terms.
The task of translation into stone, therefore, is more than simply projecting ourselves into
our buildings, as the Genoese did. We are not only after conquering our surroundings, we are after
reconquering nature, including finding and reinterpreting the “eternal text” of homo natura which
we have lost amongst priestly and all too idealistic scribblings. Stone represents this most basic and
crucial element of natural life with no relation to supramundane discourse. The naked building
stones of our architecture, then, appear as a promise for reconquering the natural world of which we
are part.

C. Translating Ourselves into Plants: Gardens and the Shoots of our Drives

One of the dimensions of our translation into plants is practically identical to our translation into
stones. Michael Marder (2013) and Vanessa Lemm (2016) give us ample evidence that Nietzsche
saw a kind of continuity between plants and humanity. Lemm, particularly, shows how plants and
35My translation. Our Cambridge University Press translation renders Granit as “brick wall”. My decision to keep
“granite” is justifiable on the grounds that Nietzsche was well acquainted with Goethe’s essay “Über den Granit”.

34
humans share in their “freedom to creatively form and transform their forms of life” (2016, p. 71).
From plants, which are both determined by their soil but can also adapt and transform around them,
Nietzsche gains the insight that we can learn to “cultivate a moral character without having to deny
the instincts of life and nature” (ibid: 72), that is, to be value creators (valuators) without denying
those things which are necessary and unchangeable to us as organic beings involved in nature.
At an architectural level, however, Nietzsche’s most important figuration of translating
ourselves into plants is in the form of gardens. Gardens, of course, also represent another rhetorical
instance of Nietzsche’s call to turn towards the natural world: “the world awaits you like a garden”
(Z, The Convalescent, §1). The garden is no longer the melancholic Edenic image of perfection
which we have ruined through original sin, but a new promise for redeeming and affirming the
world. This is another instance of symbolic naturalism used by the “therapeutic” Nietzsche to help
advance some of the basic premises of the “Humean” Nietzsche. Surrounding ourselves with such
naturalistic imagery is supposed to help us understand ourselves in natural terms.

What kind of gardens does Nietzsche have in mind? Ansell-Pearson (2014) has emphasized
the importance the model of the Epicurean garden had in Nietzsche’s middle period, citing one of
Nietzsche’s letters to his friend Peter Gast from 1879, where the former asks: ‘Where are we going
to renew the garden of Epicurus?’ (2014, p. 244). In these gardens Nietzsche sought to cultivate a
modest existence of emotional joyfulness and withdrawal from public life (ibid, 239). This
conception of the garden, where Epicurus and his followers sought to further their understanding of
the world and to moderately cultivate pleasure, therefore, is what in GS §280 Nietzsche imagines as
one of those architectural “sites that would altogether give expression to the sublimity of
thoughtfulness and of stepping aside.”
To be translated into plants, like in the case of stones, is a matter of translating ourselves
back into nature. But it is also more than that. By reading Nietzsche next to Epicurus, or by simply
following GS §280, we understand that it is a matter of creating for ourselves gardens in which our
passion for knowledge may be practiced as we step aside from the noise of the public market:
architecture in general and the garden in particular have immediate practical effects. Moreover, in
Dawn, the image of the garden and gardener emerges numerous times as a metaphor for self-
cultivation. In D §174, for instance, Nietzsche writes of “fashioning out of oneself something the
other will behold with pleasure, a lovely, peaceful, self-enclosed garden”, which lays the image of
the garden as a possibility for the great self-fashioning we find in GS §290 while also casting the
ethical ideal of focusing on the self as a replacement to Christian compassion (Mitleid) turned solely
towards the other (Ansell-Pearson, 2014, p. 254; Ure, p 2006, p. 84). Nietzsche also writes
specifically of the self-cultivation of the thinker: “Woe to the thinker” he declares, “who is not the

35
gardener but only the earth for the plants that grow in him!” (D, §382). Finally, this call for being
gardeners of ourselves is complemented by D §560:

What we are free to do. –– One can handle one’s drives like a gardener and, though few
know it, cultivate the shoots of one’s anger, pity, musing, vanity as fruitfully and
advantageously as beautiful fruit on espaliers. . .

In Nietzsche’s turn towards the closest things, such as our drives and the necessary
“physics” of the world, the garden metaphor allows us to visualize a place where, on top of those
necessary things, we find space for those things which we are “free to do”: to cultivate the shoots of
our drives and passions, a world of possibilities which demands an endless process of cultivation. 36
Architecture, be it in the forms of stony, all-too-stony buildings with high ceilings or in the
welcoming plants of Epicurean gardens, presents itself to Nietzsche as the possibility to incarnate
the ideals of his middle period, including a gay science, self-cultivation, and a naturalistic
retranslation of humankind.

Conclusion: Temples of knowledge and The Gay Science

Through the course of this paper, I have attempted to offer a detailed account of the place of
architecture within Nietzsche’s middle writings, showing how architecture has a constitutive role in
the ideal of the knowledge-seeking, self-cultivating free spirit. I also hope to have shown how, for
Nietzsche, architecture has a both a symbolic and practical role in re-establishing humanity as part
of a natural realm of existence detached from otherworldly meanings, with stone being a
particularly strong symbol of this and gardens presenting the ethical possibilities that such a
retranslation entails.
The type of architecture Nietzsche is calling for is seldom to be found, least of all in the
campuses and spaces of many of our universities, which rarely invite the “sublimity and
thoughtfulness of stepping aside.” (GS, §280) But these temples of knowledge and self-cultivation
do exist, mostly in the form of richly funded foundations or research centres. In places like the
Getty Center in Los Angeles or the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, two hubs for
science and culture, the knowledge-seeker and self-cultivating individual will be protected from the
roaring buzz of the city and immersed in the organic complicity of an all too stony stone and
welcoming gardens. Defining Nietzsche’s ideal of architecture as naturalistic of some sort is also a

36Aaron Ridley (2017) attempts to show how gardening in Nietzsche’s thought apparently resolves the paradox
between his claim that we are fated as we are and that we can become creators, thus showing how our “freedom” is built
on a base of necessity.

36
timely topic in architecture. As of July 2019, UNESCO has recognized eight of Frank Lloyd
Wright’s buildings as World Heritage Site. Wright’s concept of an “organic architecture” often lends
itself to resemblances with what I have argued is Nietzsche’s ideal for architecture.
This said, let us go back to Nietzsche one last time. His detailed account of architecture, as
we saw, appears in The Gay Science, which is the book in which Nietzsche’s middle writings
project culminates.37 Those who have closely analysed GS, however, have not given much
importance to the role architecture plays in it as a culmination of Nietzsche’s positive project.
Monika M. Langer (2010) offers her reading of §280 in her attempt to read the book with a
“dancing” (rather than rigid) coherence. Her method is based on finding such coherence between an
aphorism and the ones that precede and follow it. In the case of GS §280, the prior aphorisms are
about accepting fate and lost friendships, and the ones after about “knowing how to end” in style
and metaphorical war-making. Faced with this, Langer’s (2010, p. 170-71) attempt to show how
these aphorisms are in communication remains extremely unconvincing, and they tell us nothing
about architecture’s role in Nietzsche’s GS. In Robert Pippin’s reading of GS (2010, p. 23-44),
architecture is not featured once. Pippin, nonetheless, does well in coming up with the question,
What is a Gay Science?, and at least partially with the answer: “to sustain the intellectual
conscience constitutive of a philosophical life” (ibid, p. 44). My paper has shown how architecture
is constitutive of this “philosophical life”, by which we understand a life practiced by Nietzsche’s
ideal of the free spirit, which includes self-cultivation, a turn to our new object of passion
(knowledge), and the natural world to which we belong.
How can architecture, however, inform our own appreciation of what a gay or joyful science
is? Walter Kauffman, in his translation of GS, has dealt with the specific problem posed by the title
(Die fröhliche Wissenschaft). As our translator notes, “Wissenschaft does not bring to mind only –
perhaps not even primarily – the natural sciences but any serious, disciplined rigorous quest for
knowledge” (GS: Translator’s Introduction, p. 2). In what is perhaps the most influential work in
the history of architectural theory, the Roman military engineer Gentile Vitruvius’ De architectura
libri decem (“Ten books on architecture”), which was rediscovered during the Renaissance and gave
architects from this period numerous insights into ancient architecture and informed all architectural
treatises thenceforth, one of the main working axioms was precisely that “architectura est scientia”
(“architecture is a science”). But architecture today is not just a “science” as we understand it.
Architecture, which embraces the necessary “physics” of the world while opening the doors to
creativity (GS, §335), is indeed a fröhliche or “gay” science in which scientific precision is paired
with artistic playfulness; the latter aspect of a gay science Nietzsche found as early as with those

37As he put it in the back cover of the 1882 edition: “with this book a series of Friedrich Nietzsche's writings comes to
a close”.

37
great masters of the gai saber, the Provençal knight-poets (BGE, §260). To finish my paper, I will
leave my reader with the thought that there is perhaps no stronger representation to what a gay
science is than architecture, which we can easily associate to Nietzsche’s great promise, presented
in GS §113, of a “higher organic system” in which “artistic energies and the practical wisdom of life
will join with scientific thinking”.

Acknowledgements

This chapter builds on an MA thesis I produced at the University of Warwick in 2019 under the
guidance of Prof. Keith Ansell-Pearson, whom I’d like to thank once more for his support. I
presented a version of this chapter at the FILARCH 2020 Symposium and would also like to thank
the organizers for their support. After further thought, I’ve come to revise and develop some of my
earlier views on Nietzsche’s use of architecture in this period, especially in its relationship with
Nietzsche’s naturalism.

References

List of Abbreviations:

AC: “The Antichrist”, in The Antichrist, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols and Other Writings, eds.
A. Ridley and J. Norman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
BGE: Beyond Good and Evil, trans. J. Norman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
BT: The Birth of Tragedy and Other Writings, trans. R. Speirs. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
EH: “Ecce Homo”, in The Antichrist, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols and Other Writings, eds. A.
Ridley and J. Norman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005
D: Dawn, trans. B. Smith, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011.
GS: The Gay Science, trans. W. Kauffmann. New York: Vintage, 1974.
HAH: Human all too Human, trans. R.J. Hollingdale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press:
1996.
KSA: Kritische Studienausgabe, eds. G. Colli and M. Mazzino, Berlin: De Gruyter, 1988.
NCW: “Nietzsche Contra Wagner”, in The Case of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected
Aphorisms, trans. A. M. Ludovici. Salt Lake City, UT: Project Gutenberg Literary Archive

38
Foundation, 2008.
PTAG: Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, trans. M. Cowan. Washington D.C.: Regnery,
1962.
TI: “Twilight of the Idols”, in The Antichrist, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols and Other Writings,
eds. A. Ridley and J. Norman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
UM: Untimely Meditations, trans. R.J. Holingdale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 1997.
Z: Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trans A. Caro, eds. A. Caro and R. Pippin. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2006.

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Ansell-Pearson, K. (2014). “Heroic-Idyllic Philosophizing: Nietzsche and the Epicurean Tradition”.

Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, 74, pp. 237-263.
Ansell-Pearson, K. (2018). Nietzsche’s search for philosophy: on the middle writings. London:
Bloomsbury.
Bacqué, D. (1986). “Le détour apollinien de Nietzsche en Italie ; ou, La question des arts plastiques
dans la philosophie nietzschénne”, Revue d’esthétique, 10, pp. 177ff.
Breitschmid, M. (2001). Der bauende Geist: Friedrich Nietzsche und der Architektur. Luzern: Quart
Verlag.
Breitschmid, M. (2007). “Nietzsche’s “Architecture for the Perceptive”: From Sacred Space
towards a Space for Reflection”, Spaces of Utopia: An electronic Journal, 4, pp. 74-87.
Buddensieg, T. (1999). “Architecture as Empty Form: Nietzsche and the Art of Building”, in
Nietzsche and an “Architecture of our Minds”, eds. A. Kostka and I. Wohlfarth. Los Angeles, CA:
Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities, pp. 259-84.
Clark, M. & Dudrick D. (2012). The Soul of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Cohen, J-L. (1999). “Le Corbusier’s Nietzschean Metaphors”, in Nietzsche and an “Architecture of
our Minds”, eds. A. Kostka and I. Wohlfarth. Los Angeles, CA: Getty Research Institute for the
History of Art and the Humanities, pp. 311-32.
Descartes, R. (1967). Œuvres Philosophiques, 3 vols., ed. F. Alquié. Paris: Garnier.
Harries, K. (1999). “Nietzsche’s Labyrinths: Variations on an Ancient Theme”, in Nietzsche and an
“Architecture of our Minds”, A. Kostka and I. Wohlfarth. Los Angeles, CA: Getty Research
Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities, pp. 35-52.
Franco, P. (2011). Nietzsche’s Enlightenment: The Free-Spirit Trilogy of the Middle Period.
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

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Janaway, C. (2007). Beyond Selflessness: Reading Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morality. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Kail, P. J. E. (2015). “Nietzsche on Mind and Nature”, in Nietzsche and Naturalism eds. M. Dries
and P. J. E. Kail. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kant, I. (1998). The Critique of Pure Reason, trans. P. Guyer and A. W. Wood. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Lacour, C. B., (1999). “Architecture in the Discourse of Modern Philosophy: Descartes to
Nietzsche”. Nietzsche and an “Architecture of our Minds”, eds. A. Kostka and I. Wohlfarth. Los
Angeles, CA: Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities.
Leiter, B. (2002). Nietzsche on Morality. New York: Routledge.
Lemm, V. (2016). “Is Nietzsche a Naturalist?: Or How to Become a Responsible Plant”, Journal of
Nietzsche Studies, 47(1), pp. 61-80.
Marder, M. (2013). Plant-Thinking: A Philosophy of Vegetal Life. New York: Columbia University
Press.
Monika, M. L. (2010). Nietzsche’s Gay Science: Dancing Coherence. Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Neumeyer, F. (1999). “Nietzsche and Modern Architecture”, in Nietzsche and an “Architecture of
our Minds”, eds A. Kostka and I. Wohlfarth. Los Angeles, CA: Getty Research Institute for the
History of Art and the Humanities, pp. 285-310.
Nishitani, K. (1990). The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism. New York: SUNY Press.
Parkes, G. (1994). Composing the Soul: reaches of Nietzsche’s Psychology. Chicago, IL: Chicago
University Press.
Pippin, R. (2010), Nietzsche, psychology, first philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ridley, A. (2017). “Nietzsche, Nature, Nurture”. European Journal of Philosophy, 25(1), pp. 129-
43.
Shapiro, G. (2016). Nietzsche’s Earth: Great Events, Great Politics. Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press.
Vidler, A. (1999), “The Mask and the Labyrinth: Nietzsche and the (Uncanny) Space of
Decadence”, in Nietzsche and an “Architecture of our Minds”, eds. A. Kostka and I. Wohlfarth. Los
Angeles, CA: Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities, 53-63.
Ure, M. (2008), Nietzsche’s Therapy: Self-Cultivation in the Middle Works. Lanham, MD:
Lexington Books.
Ure, M. (2009), “Nietzsche’s Free Spirit Trilogy and Stoic Therapy”, The Journal of Nietzsche
Studies, 38, 60-84.

40
3. Marco DAMONTE
Wittgenstein’s House and Architecture as a Gesture

1. Philosophical interpretation of the Kundmanngasse House: the Tractatus

The first philosophical analysis on the house built by Ludwig Wittgenstein for his sister Margarete
Stonborough-Wittgenstein in Kundmanngasse was published in 1965, in the Italian review “Aut
Aut” by Ugo Giacomini (Giacomini, 1965). From then on, the interest for that building has become
relevant in Wittgensteinian studies. During the Seventies of the past century a group of young
architects under the supervision of Thomas Sperling and Ottokar Uhl carried out decisive enquiries
on the Kundmanngasse House, which, at the end of the war, the Russians used as barracks and
stables, and where Margarete returned from 1947 to her death (1958). The house was saved from
demolition at the last minute by being declared a national monument by the Viennese Landmark
Commission after that its last owner, Thomas Stonborough, sold it and which is now the seat of the
Bulgarian Cultural Institute. Moreover, in the same years, William Johnson (Johnston, 1972), Allan
Janik and Stephen Toulmin (Janik & Toulmin, 1973) illustrated the Austrian culture between the
Nineteenth and the Twentieth century. These two factors gave rise to three points of view:
considering the Kundmanngasse House an architectonic object, studying in depth its relationship
with Wittgenstein's thought, or, finally, interpreting it in the light of cultural history in which it rises.
About the second of these perspectives, the article La casa di Wittgenstein by Francesco
Amendolagine and Massimo Cacciari can be considered a pioneering attempt (Amendolagine &
Cacciari, 1975), since it has offered, on the one hand, a morphological and semiotic analysis
between Wittgenstein's philosophical style and his architectonic conception and, on the other hand,
comparing Wittgenstein's architectonic style with examples derived from the history of architecture.
In this way La casa di Wittgenstein anticipated Günther Gebauer's, Rüdiger Ohme's and Lothar
Rentschler's contributions38 aimed at showing that the Kundmanngasse House represents an
essential passage between Wittgenstein's philosophy written before his architectonic effort and the
one written after it. In quite an unavoidable way, this separation overcame the manual distinction
between the so called first Wittgenstein, the author of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, and the
so-called second Wittgenstein, the author of Philosophical Investigations. As a consequence, the

38 Contained in G. Gebauer, A. Grünewald, R. Ohme, L. Rentschler, T. Sperling & O. Uhl, Wien,

Kundmanngasse 19, Wilhelm Fink, München 1982.

41
Kundmanngasse House is usually considered either the exemplification of the Tractatus or an
anticipation of the Philosophical Investigations.
Those who insist on a parallelism between the Kundmanngasse House and the Tractatus, as
George Henrik von Wright did in an essay in 1982, underly some stylistic analogies based on the
notion of simplicity and staticity: «the building is Wittgenstein's work down to its smallest detail
and is highly characteristic of its creator. It is free from all decoration and marked by a severe
exactitude in measure and proportion. Its beauty is of the same simple and static kind that belong to
sentences of the Tractatus» (Von Wright, 1982, p. 24). Actually, attention to details is a theme that is
common to Wittgenstein's work in philosophy and architecture, but it would be a mistake to see this
simply as a matter of personality or temperament. Wittgenstein's method of examining specific
xamples in detail is achieved notwithstanding an explicit awareness that philosophy resists this sort
of attention in its quest for universal explanations: in matters of aesthetics, he demonstrates a
similar concern for detail even if for other reasons.
Otherwise, and more accurately, Peter Galison connects the aesthetic doctrine of the
Kundmanngasse House design to the Tractarian one of logical atomism, according to which all
meaningful propositions are built up of truth-functional combinations of basic logical units and their
logical connections. In this way, the Tractatus and the House are comparable for the methodology:
«a modernism emphasising […] “transparent construction”, a manifest building up from simple
elements to all higher forms that would, by virtue of the systematic constructional program itself,
guarantee the exclusion of the decorative, mystical or metaphysical» (Galison, 1990, p. 710).
Von Wright's and Galison's interpretative keys are both undermined by some problems. The
first: is it possible in this simple way to compare an architectonical style to a literary one? Or are
these activities so different that it is impossible? Or perhaps don't they belong to two very different
games? The second and more circumscribed one: on the one hand it is questionable if simplicity and
static-ness can be ascribed to the Tractatus whose sentences are highly compressed, often of great
poetic force and extremely difficult to understand; on the other, in Wittgenstein's architecure there is
no simple proportional system and his building is not constructed as a repetition of simple
structures. The Kundmanngasse House is anything but transparent: Wittgenstein does not reveal the
load-bearing structures, he does not exhibit the functional role of the spaces within. Moreover, the
devices he designed for the building such as the window screens, the elevator, door latches and so
on are wholly or partially concealed as a way of simplifying the visual impression they make.
Finally, the inside and outside of the Kundmanngasse House manifest quite different architectural
languages: the former appears to be modernist, the latter echoes certain features of neo-Renaissance
Viennese palais architecture.

42
 Also Lothar Rentschler's semiotic interpretation discussed by Paul Wijdeveld39 aims at a
parallelism between the Tractatus and the Kundmanngasse House through the notion of “attempt of
precision” and the effort of simplicity so introduced in the Tractatus:

5.4541 The solution of logical problems must be neat for they set the standard of neatness.
Men have always thought that there must be a sphere of questions whose answers – a priori – are
symmetrical and united into a closed regular structure.

A sphere in which the proposition, simplex sigillum veri, is valid (Wittgenstein, 1922).

The criteria of simplicity, regularity and symmetry which in the text have to match the solution of
logical problems, should become the solution of architectural problems in the building 40. Actually,
in the Kundmanngasse House precision seems to go against simplicity.
The Tractatus introduces a perfect language, the crystalline language of logic, which appears
to be a flat, ideal, delimeted construct. It is possible to extract from the text some crucial
propositions that reveal a connection between spatial limits and the limits that define subjectivity,
world and language:

1 The world is all that is the case.

5.6 The limits of my language mean the limit of my world.
5.61 Logic pervades the world: the limits of the world are also the its limits. So we cannot say in
logic, “The world has this in it, and this, but not that”.
5.632 The subject does not belong to the world:rather it is a limit of the world.
7 What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence (Wittgenstein, 1922).

The Tractatus ability to locate limits to language, to the subject and the world suggests it has both a
complete and clear view of language, yet its viewpoint is as restrictive as it is omniscient. The very
propositions neatly designating aligned limits are both the product and the enabler of these
restrictions. These circumscribed limits demarcate language into that which is logically determinate
(meaningful) and logically indeterminate (non-sense): actually the Tractatus draws these same
limits distinguishing what language is able to say sensibly, from what it can only show. The cold
severity of the Kundmanngasse House could be interpreted as an attempt to showing off this
distinction between what can be said and what must be silent. What can be said is what can be built
following the rules of a plan. In this case the language exhibited by the Kundmanngasse House is

39 See Wijdeveld, 1993, p. 17.

40 See Wijdeveld, 1993, pp. 146-151.

43
the picture theory language. This theory sets forth a parallel between language and the world in
which linguistic propositions depict possible states of affairs in the world, proposing a logical
isomorphism between representation and that which is represented, or comparing the concept of a
logical picture with a spatial one. Accordingly, the particular components in a proposition mirror the
things they stand for in a direct correlation between words (the plan) and facts (the building). Even
Nana Last grants that the project of the Kundmanngasse House follows the philosophical intuitions
of the Tractatus and that, only in their practical realization, can they make Wittgenstein's mind
change:

broadly speaking, the house's inter-working of vision, space, and movement allow for exactly what
the Tractatus sought to disallow: the interchange between philosophical and spatial constructs. As
such, the house's design inserts a place where the Tractatus's restricted spatiality necessarily
intersects with a three-dimensional, inhabitable space. Evidence for such sites in the Stonborough-
Wittgenstein house include its situated perspectives, use of various degrees of transparency, and
competing centers that defy singular logics or rules. In providing such a forum, the practice of
architecture initiates the Investigation's formation of a practice-based, spatial understanding of
language that again and again turns to this shared territory between architecture and philosohy as
the means to examine the meaningful workings of language (Last, 2019, p. 529).

In any case, the last sentence of the Tractatus, the seventh, makes clear that this view of language
leaves no place from within it for self-reflection. The picture theory is not the whole of the story, as
the erection of the Kundmanngasse House shows, both in the difficulties to follow the original plan
and in the effort to give a global sense to the building.
Rather, the aestethics of simplicity and coolness that characterized the Kundmanngasse
House could have some other ends, namely, to lead one along the path of ethical self-knowledge.
Following Roger Paden, I suggest the idea that the Kundmanngasse House has a relationship to
speaking beyond the limits of language, but with a difference. The Kundmanngasse House cannot
be considered an explicit attempt to reveal “the Mystic” of the Tractatus, nor to indicate the
distinction between what can be said and what can only be shown. On the contrary, this revelation is
an unexpected outcome of the architectural work originally conceived independently from
philosophical speculation. In the Tractatus what is unsayble, and aesthetic is a kind of this sort, is
merely nonsensical. The claim is that despite being, strictly speaking, nonsense the sentences
expressing these things somehow point to deep insight about the world that can only be gestured at
precisely, because they transcend the limits of sense: «the house is an expression of the same
worldview that lies behind his philosophical work» (Paden, 2007, p. 163). In addition to this

44
allusion to the notion of gesture, Paden introduces the relevance of a source of Wittgenstein's
thought. In fact, his claim is that the Tractatus and the Kundmanngasse House share a common aim
to lead one to overcome a self-aggrandizing individual will in order to embrace a Schopenhauerian
ethic of universal compassion. Both the philosophical and architectural works – at least in so far as
they are successful – give rise to a mystical experience of seeing the world sub specie aeternitatis as
a «limited whole» (Paden, 2007, pp. 99 and 158). Nonetheless, it is difficult to consider
Wittgenstein as a moralising prophet of philosophy and architecture, also because this implies
imputing to him a belief in unsayable mystical truths about the good, the beautiful and the
necessary. Even if Paden seems to consider ethics in terms of a doctrine, he makes a significant
advance over other interpretations by locating the philosophical import of the Kundmanngasse
House in the realm of an ethical and Schopenhauerian gesture. From a Wittgensteinian point of
view, ethics does not have to do with moral, but is an attitude to the world or life as a whole that can
show up in anything and everything that we do, say and think. These suggestions will be taken into
consideration further on. For now, let's pay attention to connections that other scholars suppose
being between Wittgenstein architect and Wittgenstein author of Philosophical Investigations.

2. Philosophical interpretation of the Kundmanngasse House: the Philosophical Investigations

On the contrary, Last appreciates Wittgenstein's architectural work as a decisive contribution to a

transition from his early to his later philosophy. In her opinion Wittgenstein's practice of
architecture does not merely precede his return to philosophy, but rather it enters the late philosophy
as the lens through which his view of language is cast. Last affirms: «through architecture,
Wittgenstein found a way to overcome the idealised solipsism of the Tractatus so as to reintegrate
both the subject and practice of philosophy within the wider culture» (Last, 1998, p. 39). The
problem with this passage is that it seems to misread what is a target of Wittgenstein's solipsism as a
view that he endorses. Furthermore, it depends on dubious and misleading spatial analogies
between the logical space of language and philosophy, and the architectural space of the building.
Nevertheless, Last dwells on this aspect:

the lens of architecture does more than provide a way of seeing: it manifests how each philosophy's
fundamental constitution is indebted to a particular visual – spatial – linguistic association.
Apprehending how philosophy and view are formed together makes it apparent that early and late
work alike rely upon specific spatially located views of language to form their philosophical
positions: the Tractatus is the product of the view from outside and above language (what might be

45
thought of as the “view from the ladder”)while the post-practice of architecture (given by the
Philosophical Investigations) develops the view from within language (Last, 2019, p. 521).

In an analytic way Last takes into consideration some passages from Philosophical
Investigation in order to show how they are carried out in the Kundmanngasse House. She starts
from the analogy between a rule and a sign-post: a rule stands there like a sign-post (Wittgenstein,
1968, § 85). This analogy associates the concepts of a linguistic rule, of a visual image, and of a
spatialized artifact. It is crucial to explain what we have to follow and how we can understand what
we have to follow. In particular, it is crucial to appreciate the language as a phenomenon fully
spatialized: «talking about the spatial and temporal phenomenon of language, not about some non-
spatial, non-temporal phantasm» (Wittgenstein, 1968, § 108). In Philosophical Investigation not
only the theory on the language changes, but also the temptative to explain the process of
comprehension:

125 It is the business of philosophy, not to resolve a contradiction by means of a mathematical or

logico-mathematical discovery, but to make it possible for us to get a clear view of the state of
mathematics that troubles us: the state of affair before the contradiction is resolved. (And this does
not mean that one is sidestepping a difficulty).
The fundamental fact here is that we lay down rules, a technique, for a game, and that then when
we follow the rules, things do not turn out as we had assumed. That we are therefore as it were
entangled in our own rules.
This entanglement in our rules is what we want to understand (i.e. get a clear view of).
It throws light on our concept of meaning something. For in those cases things turn out otherwise
than we had meant, foreseen. That is just what we say when, for example, a contradiction appears:
“I didn't meant it like that”.
The civil status of a contradiction, or its status in civil life: there is the philosophical problem
(Wittgenstein, 1968, § 125).

This new way to appreciate language, process of comprehension, and so on, starts from the
beginning of Philosophical Investigation, where Wittgenstein reacts to a quotation of Confessions,
where Augustine presents a theory of what the essence a human language is. Augustine, in
Wittgenstein's view, states that learning a human language is possible linking words to object, but,
at this stage of his reflection, Wittgenstein denies that language is so explicit and regular as a mere
description. He proposes the following counter-example:

46
Let us imagine a language for which the description given by Augustine is right. The language is
meant to ser ve for communication between builder A and an assistant B. A is building with
building-stones: there are blocks, pillars, slabs and beams. B has to pass the stones, and that in the
order in which A needs them. For this purpose they use a language consisting of the words “block”,
“pillar”, “slab”, “beam”. A calls them out; – B brings the stones which he has learnt to bring at
such-and-such a call. – Conceive this as a complete primitive language (Wittgenstein, 1968, § 2).

If Wittgenstein's acting out of Augustine's description is designed to show how it constrains

the functioning of language, the builders' example is meant to show the potential of language to
transcend itself. Slab, pillar, block, beam, and so on, are expressly shown to do more than designate
objects in a one-to-one correspondence. They also function as calls, as shorthand for the phrases
“bring me a...”. These words far exceed the awkwardness exhibited by a mere list of word-meaning
correlations. Although the builders' words are object nouns, the example shows how they become
meaningful in relation to their context, namely, the particular language-game of building with
building stones. In the subsequent passages, Wittgenstein explains that what appears to be an
ostensive use of language, is really a more complex language, where the words can be understood
only because they are linked to a implicit rules and to an explicit practices 41. If the same words are
associated to different instructions (or, better, used in a different context), they have a different
meaning. A scene like this was probably very familiar to Wittgenstein during his presence on the
building yard of the Kundmanngasse House and so we can suppose that this expansive ability of
language emanates, in Wittgenstein's experience, from an explicitly architectural practice. The
constructive aspect underscores the language-game's implicit potential to evolve beyond its initial
four words. It is an example that, by design, exceeds its own parameters. Starting from here,
Philosophical Investigations expands both this specific language-game and this theory of how
language is meaningful. In Last's words:

beginning with the builders and the idea of practice, and continuing with myriad architectural and
spatial examples, architecture emerges throughout the pages of the Investigations in any numbers
of ways. From the start, the builders example shows how language comes to be meaningful, not in
isolation, but by virtue of its basis within practice-based language-games. The text then returns
periodically both directly and indirectly to this example, to show how it and other language-games
are inherently expansive as they encounter various new needs, run into problems, gain new tools,
develop new purposes, and so on. In such ways, the builders' language-game grows from its
original four words by accruing new tools and aims. This culminates in Wittgenstein positing an

41 See Wittgenstein, 1968, § 6.

47
amazing list of some of the endless “kinds of sentences” (PI §239. These span from the
commonplace “assertion, question, and command” to “countless kinds” that include specifically
architectural, e.g., “describing the appearance of an object, or giving its measurements” and
“constructing an object from a description (a drawing)” (Last, 2019, pp. 524-525).

The experience as an architect enabled Wittgenstein to renounce the regulative approach of

the “view from without language” and to accept an open-ended approach. In this “view from within
language”, a language is based on everyday practices through which it becomes bound to the
subject. Spatial and temporal bodies, as with those of the builders, are at odds with a fixed limit
holding together thought, language and view. One the one hand, this holistic conception of the
language42 matches the theory of the language as use (and so the awareness of the plurality of the
possible uses of language)43; on the other, it turns the conception of language as a mere image of
thought into a problem44. To sum up: during the design and the construction of the Kundmanngasse
House, Wittgenstein abandoned the picture theory of language and he started to pay attention to the
ordinary language, changing his previous conception of following a rule45, turning the meaning of
to comprehend, and conceiving a theory of linguistic games46. If logic previously provided the
standard of clarity, Philosophical Investigations must, after its removal, search for other criteria. To
do this, Wittgenstein returns vision to everyday language, demanding not to think, but rather to look
at how language-games in actual fact operate.
Wittgenstein often uses a metaphorical language which is latu sensu borrowed from architectural
work, to explain his philosophical position. Consider, for example, how he posits the need to change
our perspective turning to the analogy of a spatial rotation:

108. We see that we call “sentence” and “language” has not the formal unity that I imagined, but
is the family of structures more or less related to one another. – But what becomes of logic now? Its
rigour seems to be given way here. – But in that case doesn't logic altogether disappear? – for how
can it lose its rigour? Of course not by our bargaining any of its rigour out of it. – The
preconceived idea of chrystalline purity can only be removed by turning our whole examination
round. (One might say: the axis of reference of our examination must be rotated, but about the fixed
point of our real need) (Wittgenstein, 1968, § 108).

42 See Wittgenstein, 1968, § 7.

43 See Wittgenstein, 1968, § 23.
44 See Wittgenstein, 1968, §§ 96 and 115.
45 See Wittgenstein, 1968, § 88.
46 See Wittgenstein, 1968, § 66.

48
 Even if this language is an architectonic one, it is not clear if Wittgenstein's experience as
architect caused his philosophical shift, or if he used this experience to explain what he was
maturing. Actually, it is not clear if here we have something as a relationship of cause-effect. Last
seems quite sure about that:

Wittgenstein's practice of architecture provided a spatial forum for the examination of spatio-
linguistic philosophical constructs central to his philosophy, including rule-following, boundaries,
limits, practice and resemblance. The lens it produces, consolidates a collection of what
Wittgenstein later defines as language-games: venues or instances of language's practice-based
functioning. As he writes in the Investigations, “I shall also call the whole, consisting of language
and the actions into which it is wowen, the 'language-game'” (PI §7). This is what the house does
as well (Last, 2019, p. 529).

Last suggests to pay attention to the spatial conundrums as those of the glass doors occur
throughout the Kundmanngasse House with the location and alignment of the floor joints, location
of window and door openings on the inside and out, and problems of localized symmetry within the
overall asymmetric plan, all of which provide spatial forums to engage related linguistic and
philosophical concepts as they play out in space. Finally, she concludes:

it is this set of problems, introduced to Wittgenstein in the practice of architecture, which, in

spatializing limits, boundaries, relations, practice and correspondence, literally demands that
Wittgenstein reconsider the functioning of language and philosophy. Their spatial manifestations
make clear that spatial concepts cannot be discarded and leave philosophical problems intact. The
Investigations acknowledges this in regularly turning to related examples to show that their
insistent spatiality pervades language (Last, 2019, p. 533).

Coherently with this interpretative line, Last does not have any qualms about considering the
complex spatial and visual configuration of the central hall of the Kundmanngasse House – which is
the pre-eminent spatial collector and orchestrator of the house – a representation of the structure
typical of the Philosophical Investigations; the disposition of the door in the central hall as an
amalgam of the spatial-philosophical-linguistic issues Wittgenstein contends with throughout his
philosophy; the design of the doors which, thanks to panes of glass, allow them to mutate according
to context and use, a representation of the notion of family resemblance; the use of less transparent
material placed on the more private side of the doors and the more transparent on the more public
side a rather straightforward approach, a representation of the notion of following a rule; the spatial

49
dilemma created by the position of the doors in the dining-room, a representation of the complex
boundary questions; and so on.
Approaching the Kundmanngasse House through Philosophical Investigations has the
advantage of appreciating the shift the attention from the edifice considered as an accomplished
object (or, better, a text), to the different steps of its ideation, planning, construction and finishing
touches. It is not the finished object of the house that is of interest, so much as Wittgenstein's
engagement within the practice of architecture. Architectural practice, it seems, allow Wittgenstein
to rise above the solipsism of his early works in order to present a more holistic account of the
practice inherent to language-use from which his philosophy develops 47. However, the exclusive
connection between the architectonic text and the philosophy of the so-called second Wittgenstein
does not result convincing at all. His new conception of language is presented not only referring to
his life in a building yard, but also, for example, to his experience as a primary-school teacher. In
this regard the practice as an architect can be considered a mere exemplification of his language
theory, on the same level of the example taken from the observation of the children's games or of a
game of chess. During the intermission between his early and later works, Wittgenstein undertook
many different sorts of work, including at one time school-teaching and, at another, gardening. It
might be true to say that the practice of architecture is partly responsible for leading Wittgenstein
back to philosophy, but whether architecture was more significant for the developments in his
thinking than other influences at that time, above all sculpting and a growing interest in
mathematics, is debatable.
Examples of Wittgenstein's survey of the ordinary language populate Philosophical Investigations,
most notably with the examination of the notion of games, culminating in the concept of family
resemblance and its explicit abolition of any single shared aspect underlying all usages of a word.
Wittgenstein's reflections confront the restricted view of language with spatial and temporal
examples. This yields an unfolding terrain of examples and varying view-points that bridge
philosophical and spatial constructs, from boundaries to methods of viewings, forms of
representation, visualizations of rule, and sign-posts amidst myriad paths. But is it so certain that the
crucial importance of spatializing and temporalizing concepts is a lesson learned by Wittgenstein
only in the building yard of the Kundmanngasse House?

47 See Last, 2008, pp. 92-93.

50
3. The construction of the Margarete Stonborough-Wittgenstein House in context

Recently, a middle position between the two previously considered, has been proposed by David
Macarthur48. For this scholar, the care of Wittgenstein as an architect coincides with the effort of
working on himself, by overcoming the temptation to instruct others, from some imagined higher
plane, about how to live, but following the motto «just improve yourself, that is all you can do to
improve the world» (Monk, 1990, pp. 17-18). Some interpreters have argued Wittgenstein is a sort
of philosophical therapist who considers his intellectual activity a matter of elucidating what he
calls the grammar of language in order to overcome the temptation to essentialistic metaphysics and
that of scepticism. Consequently, his intellectual effort is a clarificatory activity with an ultimately
ethical point. He always tends to a kind of self-transformation: to get us to see that the timeless
over-general explanations that we are strongly tempted to endorse when we reflect upon things or
their denial in world consuming scepticism, actually stand in the way of seeing reality for what it is.
This effort is a perfectionist one: changing or transforming oneself (and hopefully his own readers
or the inhabitants of the Kundmanngasse House) for the better by helping to overcome illusions,
empty explanations and consoling fantasies of authority and control for a more realistic conception
of oneself, the others and reality. In this line, the Kundmanngasse House is not an exception, but it
shows the connection between Wittgenstein's life and thought.
Wittgenstein's desire to improve the world passes through a judgement on the spirit of the
culture of his time (and Wittgenstein considered architecture one of the most relevant aspects of
it)49, but, above all, it implies to improve oneself bringing back words from their metaphysical use
to their everyday use50. Do not forget that, for him, on the one hand, linguistic questions overlap to
existential troubles and, on the other, that architecture can be appreciated as a paradigmatic case of
language. Peculiar to his research is that its aim in not to learn something new which was hidden
before, but to understand with insight what is already in front of us 51. In this regard, every effort to
appreciate the Kundmanngasse House in relation to Wittgenstein's philosophy of language is
limiting, because his philosophy of language cannot be separated from his metaphysical and
existential conceptions. This observation does not oblige us to insist on psychological or even
psychoanalytic explanations in order to indicate a dependence of Wittgenstein's architectural choice
on features of his personality as «perfectionism, parsimony, austerity and persistence» (Wijdeveld,
1993, p. 18); nonetheless it suggests we should pay attention to the context of his biography.

48 See Macarthur, 2014b, pp. 124-140.

49 See Wittgenstein, 1998, p. 26.
50 See Wittgenstein, 1968, § 116.
51 See Wittgenstein, 1968, § 89.

51
 After the complex and evervating publication of the Tractatus, Wittgenstein considered his
philosophical engagement terminated. So, he decided to become a qualified teacher in an
elementary school. His experience as elementary teacher anded bluntly in April 1926, when he was
accused of inflicting corporal punishment to his young students. Moreover, he was assailed by a
sense of guilt because during the humiliating trial to which he was subjected he minimized the facts,
perhaps lying. The sentiment of moral defeat that took possession of him, prevented him from
returning both to his friends at Cambridge, and to his family in Vienna. He preferred to work as a
gardener in a monastery near Hütteldorf, living for more than three months in a depot. The third of
July of the same year his mother died and he decided to return to the family house in Aleegasse. In
these circumstances his relatives thought of a teraphy-work that obliged him to work with others,
helping him in his attempt to reintegrate in society 52. At the end of 1925, Gretl53 commissioned Paul
Engelmann to construct a villa in Vienna to be the main place of residence of Wittgenstein sister's
own family54, after her marriage to Stonborough. Engelmann designed the basic scheme of the
three-storied house in close consultation with Gretl, his client, over a two-month period 55.
Wittgenstein had taken a great interest in the project even if he was working as an elementary
school teacher at a remote location in the Austrian Alps, in the little village of Otterthal. Each time
that Wittgenstein made a flying visit to Vienna, he was called to mediate between Gretl's desires and
Engelmann's projects56. Finally, he was invited to participate in the design of the house. In the 1926
autumn this occupation became the main one and assumed a new meaning. During the spring and
the summer, Wittgenstein had an existential crisis that led to complete loneliness, so his
participation in the projecting of the Kundmanngasse House may be considered a real therapy to
support his reintegration in society helped by his closest sister, Gretl, and one of his dearest friends,
Paul. Some other details must be considered. After an initial hypothesis to build Gretl's villa at the
back of Alleegasse (Wittgenstein's family house), she decided to buy a land in one of the less
elegant Vienna suburbs (on the Kundmangasse, in the third district) and to erect the villa there.,
After the rejection of his inheritance, Ludwig resided in that area in 1919 to attend the
Lehrerbildungsanhalt and to obtain the qualification as an elementary teacher. In short: the
Kundmanngasse House symbolized the emancipation from Alleegasse. In any case, Wittgenstein
had the opportunity to display his aesthetic conception and his competence as an engineering
student, more than his philosophical speculations and his architectural training, which he never
had57.

52 See Monk, 1990, pp. 236-238.

53 Gretl is the nickname with which Margarete was called by her family.
54 See Wijdeveld, 1993, pp. 73-96.
55 See Wijdeveld, 1993, pp. 45-61.
56 See Pisani, 2013a, pp. 121-131.
57 See Wijdeveld, 1993, pp. 35-44.

52
 Actually, Wittgenstein did not have “no cognition in architecture” at all. He was a friend of
Adolf Loos, one of the most influential modernist architects of the twentieth century, whose
buildings and influential critical writings spurned the Art Nouveau movement, particularly its
expression in the so-called Viennese Secession. Paul Engelmann – from whom Wittgenstein took
over in the construction of the house – was a student of Loos. When his father died, Wittgenstein
assigned a large sum of money to artists without funds and Loos received 2.000 Austrian krones.
Wittgenstein asked von Ficker's to help him to distribute the money since he didn't really care who
the money went to. However, he knew Loos was a beneficiary. They both felt empathy for each
other58.Thanks to Loos, and, through him, to Karl Krauss, Wittgenstein matured his own ideas about
the supposed progress of his time, preferring to consider post-war culture the culture of an age of
Spenglerian decline. If an unrestrainable decline, rather than a self-confident progress, characterized
culture, so arts, including architecture, had the task to take a position because, in a Spenglerian
fashion, the style, being the necessary expression of humankind, had to be the bearer of a new
language.
It is a fact that Wittgenstein's ideas of architecture were influenced by Loos's criticism,
which gave him a theoretical platform from which to reject the taste of his father who was a major
patron of the Secession. In spite of his agreement with Loos's criticism and nonconformism,
Wittgenstein's taste in architecture, contrarily to the modernist appearance of the Kundmanngasse
House which is unadorned and with somewhat asymmetrical cubic geometries, is decidedly anti-
modernist. He says: «it is not as though I did not know that what today represents itself as
architecture is not architecture […]» (Wittgenstein, 1998, p. 16). The Kundmanngasse House is to
be understood as a rigorous application of Loos's ideas «beyond Loos himself» (Wijdeveld, 1993, p.
28). For Loos there is a sharp separation between art and architecture. The first is a question of
transcendence from the everyday, a personal expression of an uncomfortable prophetic or
revolutionary message. In contrast, the latter, is a craft, a matter of good engineering with the aim of
satisfying straightforward functional requirements, preferably in a classical manner: a house should
be, above all, warm, comfortable and safe 59. Wittgenstein is inclined to merge these aspects and to
consider architecture a form of art because, differently from Loos, he does not think the importance
of architecture consists above all in expressing emotions appropriate to each circumstance.
Nonetheless, both consider art something concerning transcendence. Saying that «art captures the
world sub specie aeterni» (Wittgenstein, 1998, p. 5) echoes Loos's claim that the purpose of art is to
make man more like a God. Seeing something as a work of art is seeing as from God's point of
view, as an aspect of eternity, as if art were a world unto itself, outside time. The greater agreement
between Loos and Wittgenstein is to be seen in the polemic against ornament. Loos argues that
58 See Monk, 1990, cit., pp. 112-115.
59 See Biraghi, 2013, pp. 55-60.

53
ornament in modern times has become a sign of cultural decadence and should be eliminated not
only from buildings, but everywhere. Loos's attack on ornament is largely an attack on applied
ornament and decorative embellishments. In particular, in his buildings, ornament has not been
eliminated so much as absorbed into the material fabric and interior structure. In fact, he is not
adverse to creating illusionistic spaces, sometimes giving a feeling of warmth and sumptuousness.
Wittgenstein is a keen disciple of Loos's anti-ornamentalism. The simple unadorned white planar
surfaces and cubic volumes of the exterior of the Kundmanngasse House, its flat roof and terraces
(all fashioned from the standard modern materials of reinforced concrete, glass and steel) are
strongly reminiscent of Loos's domestic architecture. But, with regard to the matter of ornament,
Wittgenstein applied Loos's ideas even more systematically and scrupulously than Loos himself.
The interiors Wittgenstein planned are characterized by an overwhelming impression of austerity,
simplicity and stillness. To luxuriosness and coziness, he preferred a bare and serene style. The
spaces are non-illusionistic, monumental in scale, symmetrical, well-proportioned and quite static.
The walls and ceilings are off-white, the main floors consist in dark, almost black, stone, the doors
and windows are neutrally painted metal and for lighting there are naked light bulbs. In the original
house there were no carpets, chandeliers or curtains. The walls have no cornices or mouldings
(skirtings, architraves etc.). For security and warmth metal screens could be pulled up out of hidden
recesses in the floor and walls to cover windows and doorways.
Another relationship with Loos's thought regards the idea of progress. Wittgenstein lived
during a revolutionary and proselytizing period of modern architecture, which, in its efforts to
reconstruct a post-war devastated Europe, adopted a pontifical role, claiming that its new forms and
materials inaugurated a new way of life for modern man. The modern house had to solve general
social ills by bringing about a new way of life: one of democracy and freedom through mass
production and the freeing up of the floor plan; of hygiene through opening the house to sunlight,
air and plentiful washing facilities; of technological progress in construction and the adoption of
modern conveniences; and of beauty in the enjoyment of simple white geometrical forms that seem
light and airy in comparison with older building types. Loos can be considered an interlocutor with
these positions, while Wittgenstein shared with Spengler a pessimistic attitude to progress and, in
particular, he was deeply sceptical of the grandiose and utopian ambitions of architectural
modernism:

the spirit of [the prevailing European and American] civilization the expression of which is the
industry, architecture, music of present day fascism & socialism, is a spirit that is alien &
uncongenial to [me] […] Is is all one to me whether or not the typical western scientist understands
or appreciates my work, since he will, in any case, not understand the spirit in which I write. Our

54
civilization is characterized by the word “progress”. Progress is its form rather than making
progress being one of its features (Wittgenstein, 1998, pp. 8-9).

Wittgenstein regarded the age of technology in which he lived – and upon which architectural
modernism depended – as a regression of the human spirit and he preferred to repeat to his friends:
«just improve yourself, that is all you can do to improve the world» (Monk, 1990, pp. 17-18).
Another contact between Loos and Wittgenstein is the value of ornaments. Loos cannot be
considered a precursor of rationalism, in fact he declared he took inspiration from tradition
Nonetheless, his choices often appeared very modern, for example in his ideas about the necessity
to avoid ornaments. This choice has material and economic reasons and it also has ethical and
aesthetic motivations, but, above all, it is a message addressed to aristocrats. The Loosian aristocrat
is a person for whom the absence of ornament does not represent only a question of taste, but a
question of spiritual vigour. In this fashion only an aristocrat is able to renounce ornaments, because
ornaments mean something even if only for him. For an aristocrat, an ornament is not an ordinary
indication among others that can be confused with the numerous signs that are chaotically amassed
in a modern metropolis, but it is something given, handed on, something that cannot be created
again. Nevertheless, the Loosian aristocrat is not a mere conservative, nor an enemy of progress: he
can find an ally in the modern man. Wittgenstein's family was one of the wealthiest and the most
sophisticated hautbourgeois families in fin-de-siècle Vienna, during the reign of the Hapsburgs.
Wittgenstein, in a certain sense, is a Loosian aritocrat who, thanks to the economic means of his
family, wanted to design a new house able to express a moral and spiritual vigour renouncing
ornaments and synthetizing traditional and modern styles.
Summing up, Wittgenstein was in the highly unusual position of having a very sympathetic
client and almost unlimited time and money to realise his intricate designs which included internal
fixtures and appliances, many of which had to be custom built at great effort and expense. But what
was Wittgenstein's aspiration? And what was his inspiration?

4. Schopenhauerian Suggestions

A biographical detail often neglected by the Kundmanngasse House scholars is Schopenhauer's

influence on Wittgenstein. Gretl was not only the one who commissioned her house to Wittgenstein
and who took care of him in one the most difficult periods of his life, but also the one who gave to
his sixteen-year-old brother the present of a copy of The World as Will and Representation. This
book made a very great impression on Wittgenstein 60, who quoted it both in the Tractatus and in the

60 See Damonte, 2019, pp. 112-131.

55
Philosophical Investigation. In his masterpiece, Schopenhauer presents architecture as something
that pertains, on the one hand, knowledge and, on the other, will:

if we consider architecture merely as a fine art and apart from its provision for useful purposes, in
which it serves the will and not pure knowledge, and thus is no longer art in our sense, we can
assign it no purpose other than that of bringing to clearer perceptiveness some of those Ideas that
are the lowest grades of the will's objectivity (Schopenhauer, 1958, p. 215).

Architecture is a sort of pure knowledge, but in the end, it is at the service of will or,
perhaps, it is at the service of will because it is a form of knowledge. It is an art only because these
two dimensions clash against each other. Schopenhauer explains in detail what ideas are at the
service of will, because thanks to them architecture regards the suitability, the stability and the
wholeness of a building:

such Ideas are gravity, cohesion, rigidity, hardness, those universal qualities of stone, those first,
simplest, and dullest visibilities of the will, the fundamental bass-notes of nature; and along with
these, light, which is in many respects their opposite. Even at this low stage of the will's objectivity,
we see its inner nature revealing itself in discord; for, properly speaking, the conflict between
gravity and rigidity is the sole aesthetic material of architecture; its problem is to make this conflict
appear with perfect distinctness in many different ways. It solves this problem by depriving these
indestructible forces of the shortest path to their satisfaction and keeping them in suspense through
a circuitous path; the conflict is thus prolonged, and the inexhaustible efforts of the two forces
become visible in many different ways. The whole mass of the building, if left to its original
tendency, would exhibit a mere heap or lump, bound to the earth as firmly as possible, to which
gravity, the form in which the will here appears, presses incessantly, whereas rigidity, also
objectivity of the will, resists. But this very tendency, this effort, is thwarted in its immediate
satisfaction by architecture, and only an indirect satisfaction by roundabout ways is granted to it.
The joists and beams, for example, can press the earth only by means of the column; the arch must
support itself, and only through the medium of the pillars can it satisfy its tendency towards the
earth, and so on. By just these enforced digressions, by these very hindrances, those forces inherent
in the crude mass of stone unfold themselves in the most distinct and varied manner; and the purely
aesthetic purpose of architecture can go no farther. Therefore, the beauty of a building is certainly
to be found in the evident and obvious suitability of every part, not to the outward arbitrary
purpose of man (to this extent the work belongs to practical architecture), but directly to the
stability of the whole (Schopenhauer, 1958, p. 253).

56
 Adjusting the tension between architecture as art (knowledge) or as subjected to utility
(will), is the task of the architect, a task that Wittgenstein assumed consciously:

the great merit of the architect consists in his achieving and attaining purely aesthetic ends, in spite
of their subordination to other ends foreign to them. This he does by skilfully adapting them in
many different ways to the arbitrary ends in each case, and by correctly judging what aesthetically
architectural beauty is consistent and compatible with a temple, a palace, a prison, and so on
(Schopenhauer, 1958, pp. 217).

Moreover, Schopenhauer separates architecture from sculpture, a separation that

Wittgenstein bore in mind and overlapped with Loos's conception of ornaments: «ornamental work
on capitals, etc., belongs to sculpture and not to architecture, and is merely tolerated as an additional
embellishment, which might be dispensed with» (Schopenhauer, 1958, p. 215). What is relevant for
Schopenhauer is exactly what was relevant for Wittgenstein's plans about the Kundmanngasse
House: «all this proves that architecture affects us not only mathematically, but dynamically, and
that what speaks to us through it is not mere form and symmetry, but rather those fundamental
forces of nature, those primary Ideas, those lowest grades of the will's objectivity» (Schopenhauer,
1958, p. 215). Schopenhauer's thoughts on architecture are quite detailed. For example, they
concern the choice of materials: «from what has been said, it is absolutely necessary for an
understanding and aesthetic enjoyment of a work of architecture, to have direct knowledge through
perception of its matter as regards its weight, rigidity, and cohesion» (Schopenhauer, 1958, p. 215).
In spite of the materials of the building, whose characteristics seem to be the heaviness and the
opposition caused by the force of gravity, another much more ethereal element characterized
architecture: the light. It is relevant above all because it determines the knowledge of the building,
conditioning its perception:

now architectural works have a quite special relation to light; in full sunshine with the blue sky as a
background they gain a twofold beauty; and by moonlight again they reveal quite a different effect.
Therefore when a fine work of architecture is erected, special consideration is always given to the
effects of light and to the climate. The reason for all this is to be found principally in the fact that
only a bright strong illumination makes all the parts and their relations clearly visible. Moreover, I
am of the opinion that architecture is destined to reveal not only gravity and rigidity, but at the
same time the nature of light, which is their very opposite. The light is intercepted, impeded, and
reflected by the large, opaque, sharply contoured and variously formed masses of stone, and thus

57
unfolds its nature and qualities in the purest and clearest way, to the great delight of the beholder;
for light is the most agreeable of things as the condition and objective correlative of the most
perfect kind of knowledge through perception (Schopenhauer, 1958, p. 216).

Other elements that oppose the heaviness of the building materials are the artistic
arrangment of water. This sensibility perhaps explains the precision – sometimes obsessive – with
which Wittgenstein planned radiators. Actually, also the other installations he attended to, as the
electric and the plumbing one, can be considered an effort to govern forces alternative to the one of
gravity61. The stairs and the lift can be interpreted in the same way:

in this way architecture is bound to suffer great restrictions through the demands of necessity and
utility. On the other hand, it has, in these, a very powerful support, for with the range and expense
of its works and with the narrow sphere of its aesthetic effect, it certainly could not maintain itself
merely as a fine art unless it had at the same time, as a useful and necessary profession, a firm and
honourable place among men's occupations. It is the lack of this that prevents another art from
standing beside architecture as a sister art, although, in an aesthetic respect, this can be quite
properly coordinated with architecture as its companion; I am referring to the artistic arrangement
of water. For what architecture achieves for the Idea of gravity where this appears associated with
rigidity, is the same as what this other art achieves for the same Idea where this Idea is associated
with fluidity, in other words, with formlessness, maximum mobility, and transparency. Waterfalls
tumbling, dashing, and foaming over rocks, cataracts softly dispersed into spray, springs gushing
up as high columns of water, and clear reflecting lakes reveal the Ideas of fluid heavy matter in
exactly the same way as the works of architecture unfold the Ideas of rigid matter. Hydraulics as a
fine art find no support in practical hydraulics, for, as a rule, the ends of the one cannot be
combined with those of the other (Schopenhauer, 1958, pp. 217-218).

Bearing in mind Schopenhauerian thought, we can easily understand why, in spite of Loos,
Wittgenstein's use of the term architecture presupposes that it falls within the category of art. This
explains how Wittgenstein can say that «what today represents itself as architecture is not
architecture» (Wittgenstein, 1998, p. 49). He is also of the opinion that, in more propitious times,
architecture is a highly exalted artform: «architecture immortalizes & glorifies something»
(Wittgenstein, 1998, p. 74). In this fashion, the Kundmanngasse House must not have fine elements,
because it was planned to show its intrinsic beauty. The partition between the surfaces of the wall
and that of the floor are determined by the harmony of proportions exclusively: the absence of

61 See Wijdeveld, 1993, 123-130.

58
skirting boards and of other devices useful to remedy little construction defects made it essential to
finish off the building with «exceptional accuracy» (Wijdeveld, 1993, p. 36).
Following these Schopenhauerian suggestions, let's visit the Kundmanngasse House underlying, in
particular, the features able to grasp its architectonic identity. In what follows, I will use Last's
analysis, but without giving too much importance to what she considers the strongest evidence for
her reading which can be found in a minor, yet pivotal, decision by Wittgenstein: to make the
pattern of floor joints on the ground floor of the Kundmanngasse House «symmetrical only from
within the boundaries of each room» (Last, 2008, p. 119). I will integrate her statement with
Leitner's62. From the exterior, the Kundmanngasse House appears as an unadorned, white,
modernist, asymmetric cubic building with a main central section and a largely regular grid of
vertical windows which bestow on the house its «particular character» (Wijdeveld, 1993, p. 97).
Internal spaces are «organized and dimensioned wisely» (Pisani, 2010, p. 394). On the main floor
are to be found a salon, a library, a dining room, breakfast room and Gretl's private rooms. The
upper floor contains private rooms for other family members and household workers. Without
doubt, the quintessential space of the house is its central hall, which connects the rooms on the main
floor. To enter the house, Gretl's guests first pass through a pair of glass doors and enter a small
vestibule. They then proceed through a second set of paired glass doors and ascend dark stone stairs
into the brightly lit space of the central hall. Engulfed by a series of eight paired glass and steel
doors on six different surfaces and three sides, the central hall is luminous. To the left of the stairs, a
glass wall and doors leading to the south-west terrace admit light into the hall and create peculiar
light effects, so important in a Schopenhauerian perspective. On the right of the stairs, paired metal
doors lead to the main salon. On the wall, directly opposite the entry, are two sets of paired
translucent glass doors. Those on the left lead to the dining room; to the right, the pair opens on to a
hallway and private rooms. Turning around one hundred eighty degrees to face the entry, guests are
presented with four sets of glass doors: the two center pairs on axis with the entry, a left-hand pair
that provide entry to the library, and on the right, elevated by two steps, doors connecting to the
breakfast room.
The central hall thus sits poised between the simplicity and austerity of the exterior and the
almost maze-like series of reflections produced by paired glass doors that burst out on nearly all
sides. Set into both solid wall and glass doors are tall, structured by thin metal frames with one
vertical division in each glass panel and no horizontal divisions. The one exception to this is the pair
of doors connecting vestibule and hall in which the glass is not sub-divided, allowing for an
unobstructed view of the main entry doors beyond. These so-designed doors each reflect and
reiterate the others; their repeated image absorbs the focus of the house, inside and out, yet they are

62 See Leitner, 2000.

59
not exactly repeated, but are subtly transformed from one instance to the next. Across the central
space, the doors' continual changes, relocation, recalibrations of light, transparency, opacity,
proportion and spatial and social function speak to a range of issues. They connect both interior and
exterior, one room to another and owing to their construction, create spaces between one another,
yielding a dialogue of possibilities and purpose: a sort of Schopenhauerian will seems to have the
task to give a sense to the building. The house becomes a reality at the mercy of the will of those
who live in it. The spaces and their role wait for a will that decides for them. Let's think about the
doors. Largely occurring in pairs, the doors create complex boundaries between the spaces they
connect. Because of the climate, double exterior windows were common in Vienna. But
Wittgenstein, extended this doubling to the interior, throughout the central hall and into the salon.
With the exception of the doors to the breakfast room, and those connecting vestibule and hall, all
of the glass and steel doors in the interior are bi-paneled, double doors that always open out into the
rooms they connect in both directions. On the exterior, where these double glass and steel doors
occur, both sides are transparent glass. That it is not always the case with the interior's more
multifarious conditions and relations. While the doors connecting living room and hall have clear
glass on both sides, those between dining room and central hall or staircase and central hall are
transparent on the hall-side and translucent glass on the other. This allows for varying degrees of
separation and privacy dependent upon where one is located, which way one is looking, and which
panels are open, or which closed. In each of the artifacts in the hall where two materials or degrees
of transparency are brought together, the less transparent material is placed on the more private side
of the doors and the more transparent on the more public side. This would seem to form a sort of
rule. But what seems to be a simple declarative principle confronts, in spatial practices, a complex
series of relationships that disrupt the direct implementation of a present or fixed rule. Examples
occur both in the dining room and salon. In the dining room, the doors to the hall are on a wall with
three similar sets of paired glass and steel doors that lead directly outside to the south-west terrace.
This sets up a series of four such pairs. The situation creates a dilemma as to whether the dining
room-to-hall doors should exactly match the other three sets along the same wall, as they do in size
and detail, or whether they should also mark what is on their side. So: to which room and which
wall do the doors belong? What boundaries do they define? And, above all, who decided it? In the
dining room, Wittgenstein chose to place translucent glass on the dining room side and clear glass
on the hall side. This distinguishes two spaces even as it connects them, presenting distinct faces as
approached from the opposite sides, as to say, in a Schopenhauerian fashion, that reality is only a
representation and that it – necessarily and originally – depends on the will of who takes it into
consideration. A similar situation to that in the dining room-terrace-central hall connection occurs
with the double doors leading from the salon to Gretl's private living room. The twist here is that all

60
of the interior doors leading to the salon are metal, so that these doors combine not two types of
glass to create the transparent/translucent pairing, but rather glass and metal to form a
transparent/opaque combination. As with the dining room, the doors in question occur along a plane
that also contains a series of exterior doors opening onto a terrace. The choice of material becomes
even more significant in the salon, as it is the only room in the house to possess metal doors. The
connection between salon and Gretl's private living room thus had to navigate a series of three
conflicting regularities: the continuation of the glass doors along the exterior wall, the placing of the
more opaque material on the more private side, and the constant that all interior doors to the salon,
and only to the salon, are metal. All of these could not be satisfied at once. Ultimately, Wittgenstein
opted to place metal on the salon side and clear glass on Gretl's private living room side. This
allowed the metal doors to remain solely associated with the salon, but it disrupted the series of
glass doors along the same wall and left the private living space designated by the more transparent
material. In this and other related design decisions, what initially suggests a singular and repeated
image gives way to a multitude of possibilities arising from the specifics of site and the complex
demands of use and occupation.
A relevant element, often omitted, is the presence, around the building of a park and, at the
back of it, of an elegant garden, perhaps a reminiscence of Wittgenstein's immediately previous
occupation as a gardener. In this way, the Kundmanngasse House becomes a deliberately and
complementary whole of nature and culture. The role of nature in architecture is another element
analysed by Schopenhauer:

the landscape-beauty of a spot depends, for the most part, on the multiplicity of the natural objects
found together in it, and on the fact that they are clearly separated, appear distinctly, and yet
exhibit themselves in fitting association and succession. It is these two conditions that are assisted
by artistic horticulture; yet this art is not nearly such a master of its material as architecture is of
its, and so its effect is limited. The beauty displayed by it belongs almost entirely to nature; the art
itself does little for it. On the other hand, this art can also do very little against the inclemency of
nature, and where nature works not for but against it, its achievements are insignificant
(Schopenhauer, 1958, p. 218).

From late 1926 to the completion of the house in 1928 Wittgenstein personally took sole the
responsibility for the detailed refinement of the plan and its execution, which included significantly
altering the entrance, various small changes to the proportions of the rooms and the design and
construction of the central elevator, windows, window screens, locks, doors, doors-handles,

61
radiators, plumbing and electrical wiring. Wittgenstein spared no effort in the design of the interior
fittings of the house, spending a year on the design of the door handles and another year for the
radiators, which are designed to fit into the corners of the room by at an angle of 90 degrees. The
mostly-metal fittings have an unadorned industrial quality and are expressive of Wittgenstein's
mechanical ingenuity and the know-how that came from his study of engineering. This modern
industrial aesthetic is married to an older aesthetic more reminiscent of Reinaissance than modern
architecture. A first example is in the entrance of the Kundmanngasse House: Wittgenstein changed
it and its proportions to place there Gretl's copy of the Discus Thrower 63: this statue, a special
favourite of hers, had pride of place at the head of the main staircase. The second example is the
plausible Wijdeveld's conjecture, for which Wittgenstein's integration of mechanically ingenious,
visually simple, fixtures and appliances with the architecture recalls ancient «Greek and Roman
construction» (Wijdeveld, 1993, p. 160) and the classical age his sister venerated. This aesthetic
synthesis between modern and ancient elements is articulated in the careful proportions of the
rooms, the grand rather intimidating heights of the ceilings, and an overall concern for a sense of
harmony and symmetry in the arrangement of the interior spaces.
The general impression is that when a guest comes in to the Kundmanngasse House, he/she
– being subject to the space – becomes view and viewer at the same time. In a nutshell, reality does
not emerge outside a subjective will – an I – but in relation to it.

5. A gesture of what?

Thanks to what has been displayed in the previous paragraphs, it is now possible to really
appreciate the famous and largerly quoted note written by Wittgrenstein in 1931:

working in philosophy – like work in architecture in many respects – is really more a working on
oneself. On one's own interpretation. On one's way of seeing things. (and what one expects of them)
(Wittgenstein, 1998, p. 16).

Wittgenstein appreciates his philosophical activity and his experience as an architect as two
different ways that have, unexpected and unforeseen, clarified the same point for him, i.e. what
language is: it is the main feature of a human being thanks to which he is able to take care of others
will working, first of all, on one's own will. The plans for the Kundmanngasse House dated
November 13, 1926, are signed by both Paul Engelmann and Ludwig Wittgenstein architects. At
this time and for several years later Wittgenstein was listed in the Vienna city directory as a

63 The original is housed in the Vatican Museum and is said to be the Pentathlete of Alkamenes.

62
professional architect and his letters of the period bear the title «Paul Engelmann & Ludwig
Wittgenstein Architects, Wien III. Parkgasse 18» (Monk, 1990, p. 238). All these are symptoms not
only of zeal, but also of a careful identitary choice. Wittgenstein's biographers, as Ray Monk's, have
drawn attention to the intricate and intimate connection between Wittgenstein's philosophy and the
life he led, and this allows us to appeal to the notion of style to cast light on his work in
architecture. As Wittgenstein wrote «the style is the man himself» (Wittgenstein, 1998, p. 89), so
understanding his style is nothing short of understanding his life as a whole and everything
significant within it. Given the seriousness, time and energy Wittgenstein devoted to the
architectural project for his sister, it is plausible to suppose that we cannot come to know his style
independently of coming to an understanding of his architectural achievement. Nonetheless,
philosophy and architecture do not operate one on the other in a causal way. On the contrary, both –
but each in its own field and with its own aim – have helped Wittgenstein to appreciate what a
human activity is. Engaging in architecture, as engaging in philosophy, requires handling what exits
and giving it a meaning that previously did not exist. This manipulation, whose nature is
performative, implies working on oneself, evaluating the perspective on which reality is appreciated
and aiming to improve our own relations. In a nutshell, the ethics side of philosophy makes it
possible to distinguish the good philosophy from the bad one. And the same occurs in architecture,
as Wittgenstein annotates in 1930:

today the difference between a good & a poor architect consists in the fact that the poor architect
succumbs to every temptation while the good one resists it (Wittgenstein, 1998, p. 89).

Wittgenstein's interpretation of the architectural problems and what sort of understanding is

required to respond to them is similarly a matter of overcoming the temptations of a false authority
with respect to the question of how to design living spaces. Wittgenstein as architect and
Wittgenstein as philosopher have to be distinguished, because only thanks to their respective
autonomy and independency, is it possible to appreciate, so to say, a convergence between the meta-
philosophical conception and the meta-architectonical one. In this respect, Last's conclusion is
true:«Wittgenstein's movement outside philosophy into practices such as architecture, ultimately
serves to form the basis for both his re-engagement with, and re-conceptualization of, the
discipline» (Last, 2019, p. 534). But it is true only in part. Really, on the one hand, the opposite is
also true, in fact his speculative thought and his philosophical ideas influenced his conception of
architecture. On the other hand, architecture was not the sole activity that determined the form of
his new conception of language, but it had a role at least equal to that of his passion for sculpture,
maths problems and, above all, music:

63
within all great art there is a wild animal: tamed. Not, e.g., in Mendelssohn. All great art has
primitive human drives as its ground bass. They are not the melody (as they are, perhaps, in
Wagner), but they are what gives the melody depth & power. In this sense one may call
Mendelssohn a 'reproductive' artist.- In the same sense: my House for Gretl is the product of a
decidedly sensitive ear, good manners, the expression of a great understanding (for a culture, etc.).
But primordial life striving to erupt into the open – is lacking. And so you might say, health is
lacking (Kierkegaard). (Hothouse plant) (Wittgenstein, 1998, p. 43)64.

The Kundmanngasse House is not the mere expression of philosophical notions because its
relevance does not lie so much in the final result, as in the intellectual rigour with which
Wittgenstein planned and realized it. During the activity of building that edifice as the house for his
sister, Wittgenstein clashed against the rules that do not adjust to reality when one wants to respect
them, with the difficulty to express meanings using a pre-existing linguistic code and with the
setback of a communication that made every attempt to express oneself «incomplete» (Wittgenstein,
1998, p. 43). We can say that Wittgenstein as an architect shows a tension without solving it 65. This
tension is a human tension that characterized his personality, but also the age in which he lived. For
this reason, the relationship Wittgenstein's experience suggests there is between architecture and
philosophy is the following: they are independent from each other, but both, despite the cultural
climate at the beginning of the Twentieth century, have an intrinsic trans-formative capacity. In fact,
both are able to re-modulate the perspective of a reflection and the configuration of an artefact.
When philosophy is considered an activity and not a theory, as Wittgenstein appreciated it, it is
impossible to put a clear boundary line between a speculative thought and architecture, even if they
are never overlapping.
In his reflections on architecture Wittgenstein himself likens architecture to a «human
gesture» (Wittgenstein, 1998, p. 42), a version of the Renaissance idea that architecture is akin to
the human body66. A gesture does not explain something as a theory, but it expresses a meaning and
shows a reality. Wittgenstein's philosophical thought already went in this direction. In the Tractatus
he says:

philosophy is not a body of doctrine, but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of
elucidations (Wittgenstein, 1922, § 4.112).

64 This point is underlined in Guter (2011), pp. 7 and 11 and Guter (2019), pp. 18 and 30-31.
65 See Pisani, 2013b, p. 313.
66 See Macarthur, 2014a, pp. 88-100.

64
And Philosophical Investigations makes clear that:

if one tried to advance theses in philosophy, it would never be possible to debate them, because
everyone would agree to them (Wittgenstein, 1968, § 128).

Wittgenstein allowed for a greater range of expressive power to architecture than mere expression
of feeling. Like a gesture, a work of architecture is capable of communicating certain thoughts and
ideas as well:

remember the impression made by good architecture, that is expresses a thought. One would like to
respond to it too with a gesture (Wittgenstein, 1998, p. 26).

Here, expressing a thought, does not mean to explain something or to realize an idea – even
imposing it –, but to show or to indicate something:

we want to understand something that is already in plain view. For this is what we seem, in some
sense, not to understand (Wittgenstein, 1968, § 89).

Following Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein retains that «the purpose of all art is the
communication of the apprehended Idea» (Schopenhauer, 1958, p. 277), but in the sense that art
always shows a will. Moreover, he is aware of the singleness of architecture, which is distinguished
from the other arts by the fact that it gives us not a copy, but «the thing itself» (Schopenhauer, 1958,
p. 216). So, part of the task of the architect is not to impose oneself on others from some supposed
higher plane, but to try to understand them and allow them to achieve their own voice, their own
way of living. Working on oneself involves attempting to overcome the endless self-assertion of the
self and its various fantasies of power and control, precisely the opposite of the modernist
architect's role of self-imposition. In a Schopenhauerian fashion, Wittgenstein does not want
architecture to become an occasion for a blind will to impose itself. Consistently with this
statement, in architecture, Wittgenstein, resisted imposing simplified ideas of human or of human
well-being upon his client Gretl. Some confirmation of this motivation can be found in a remark
from 1929, just after the completion of Kundmanngasse House:

my ideal is a certain coolness. A temple providing a setting for the passions without meddling with
them (Wittgenstein, 1998, p. 2).

65
 Wittgenstein's way of seeing things is expressed through the attention to his client, the
wealthy aristocratic class to which she belonged, as well as an understanding of Viennese culture
and its history; and also the age in which he lives. The Kundmanngasse House speaks primarily for
her rather than for his philosophy or for some ideal of human progress or ethical betterment. As
Wittgenstein himself said:

the house I built for Gretl is the product of a decidedly sensitive ear and good manners, an
expression of great understanding (of a culture, etc.) (Wittgenstein, 1998, p. 38).

His effort has been successful, considering what their eldest sister Hermione testified: «the
house fitted my sister Gretl like a glove as soon as she had furnished it in her own idiosyncratic way
and filled it with her personality. The house was simply an extension of her personality, a subtle
emanation from her, just as from childhood onwards everything surrounding her had to be original
and on a grand scale» (Leitner, 2000, p. 63). Wittgenstein desired the Kundmanngasse House to
show Gretl's will. Wittgenstein's architectural plan is to offer unfurnished spaces designed with an
acute eye to Gretl's furnishings, artworks and lifestyle, one which frequently involved hosting
literary and musical salons for the many artists, musicians and literati of her social circle.
Wittgenstein consciously designs Kundmanngasse House to present his sister's way of living as a
representation of a good life: «through the design of the Palais Stonborough sought to present
Gretl's life as a paradigmatically good life; one informed by spiritual and cultural values, a life of
spontaneous creativity and altruism, a life... of “genius”» (Paden, 2007, p. 162). Kundmanngasse
House – if we imagine it furnished with Gretl's eclectic collection of artworks – might be said to
express a feeling of reverence and, by letting these works speak for themselves, glorifying past
human achievements in art.
It's time to sum up with a final question. Having ascertained that the Kundmanngasse House
is a gesture independently from a philosophical theory, it is a gesture of what? 67 Does it make the
Tractatus tangible? Does it anticipate Philosophical Investigations? Does it show the culture of its
time? Does it reveal the will? And, if so, the will of what? Schopenhauer's will as a blind force,
Wittgenstein's will or the will as his sister's desire? To understand how the notion of gesture might
relate to the Kundmanngasse House, consider the following questions: when is a house a home? Is
a home to be understood as an object (the aesthetic, for instance) to which we react? Or as a
reflection of our lives and our practices (with which we engage)? I think the answer to these
questions is found in Wittgenstein's design of his sister's house, in which its function as her future
home is reflected. Aesthetic concerns are not relegated or elevated above these issues, but

67 In a different way, this is the question posed by Pisani, 2011.

66
complement and inform the practice. From the positioning of door handles, to the height of ceilings
and the use of clear and opaque glass, doors and walls – all seem employed to further delineate the
living space that the house shelters. The attention to details is not a philosophical metaphor, but it is
a reflection on a broader social interest in which we live, facilitating public spaces, and protecting
more intimate ones. It is how we live in a building and what the space is used for, which is central,
and not the way in which it might reflect or represent life. Language might be interwoven in the
construction of buildings, but while construction ends somewhere, language does not. Likewise,
further changes and developments occur to a building once it is inhabited by building-users. Indeed,
the meaning of a building (as with the meaning of language) is located in its current use, and this
often has less to do with the initial design of the house than the way in which its meaning is
established and determined by the will that occupies its spaces.
Glossing Macarthur's conclusion, we can say that philosophy and architecture achieve their
ethical purpose by way of their sensitive responsiveness to the will of another 68. I think this
relationship between architecture and philosophy topical and I wish it could be rediscovered in the
present time when the debate seems to concentrate on architects who address themselves to
philosophers as experts of theoretical containers69, revealing in this way a conception of
architecture and of philosophy as two incomparable worlds. The Wittgensteinian perspectives
previously considered help us to take another direction, because they teach us that every datum is a
relational entity. The problems about home and about inhabitation belong to architects as well as to
philosophers. Both are engaged in the experience of living and of the public sphere of a way of life.
In these experiences the questions of the meaning of life (the Wittgensteinian ethics), and of beauty
are rooted; in these experiences the considerations about the relationship between architecture and
aesthetics start; finally, in these experiences the discussions about the possibility to include
engineering in a sensitive world take their vitality70.

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Rovatti, P.A. (2007). L’uso delle parole. Enzo Paci. Architettura e filosofia. “Aut Aut”, 333, pp. 3-6.
Schopenhauer, A. (1958). The World as Will and Representation, trans. by E.V.J. Payne. New York:
Dover Publication.
Tamburelli, P.P. (2010). Contesto, in Architettura del Novecento, vol. I, Teorie, scuole, eventi, ed. by
M. Biraghi & A. Ferlenga, Torino: Einaudi, pp. 240-246.
Von Wright, G. (1982). Wittgenstein. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Wijdeveld, P. (1993). Ludwig Wittgenstein. Architekt. Amsterdam: The Pepin Press.
Wittgenstein, L. (1922). Tractatus logico-philosophicus, trans. by C.K. Ogden. London: Kegan
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Wittgenstein, L. (1968). Philosophical Investigations, trans. by G.E.M. Anscombe. New York:
Prentice Hall, 1968 (first ed. 1953).
Wittgenstein, L. (1988). Culture and Value, ed. by G.H. von Wright & H. Nyman. Oxford:
Blackwell.

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4. Angelos SOFOCLEOUS
Scruton’s aesthetics and functionalism: The distinction between ‘function as it
is’ and ‘function as it appears’

In his book, The Aesthetics of Architecture, Roger Scruton claims that “Aesthetic experience [for
functionalism] is nothing more than an experience of function - not function as it is, but function as
it appears” (1979, p. 38). In this essay, I deal with these two forms of function – ‘function as it is’
and ‘function as it appears’ - to argue that they should both be included in the definition of a work
of architecture. In particular, I will present the case as to why experiencing function, expressed by
‘function as it is’, is an important aspect of a building and an aspect which determines whether that
building can be considered a work of architecture.

The definition of architecture and the ‘decorated shed’

For the Renaissance thinkers, such as Alberti, a separation between ‘building’ and ‘architecture’ was
inconceivable, as there was no distinction to be made between building as art and building as craft.
However, the notion of a building which conforms to certain aesthetics standards and through which
it distinguishes itself from a building which is a “mere craftsman’s activity” (Scruton, 1979, p. 23)
can be attributed to Kant who gave rise to the aesthetic approach in architecture. Through the
aesthetic approach, the beauty of a work of architecture presents itself as an additional aspect to the
functional aspect of a building (Harries, 2016). That is, it is seen as decoration which presents itself
through the structure of a building.

Kant (2017) argues that a work of architecture is aesthetically incomplete if it lacks the aspect of
beauty. Without the aspect of beauty, Kant thought, a building cannot be considered a work of
architecture, even if functional. As Pevsner (1958) writes, "A bicycle shed is a building, Lincoln
Cathedral is a piece of architecture" (p. 23). Here, one can see the distinction in the understanding
of architecture that has been made since the 18th century – that is, the understanding that
architecture has additional characteristics to a mere building.

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This distinction between building and architecture gives rise to the question “What is architecture?”
Harries (2016) considered a work of architecture to be a comprised of a building with an added
aesthetic component. For example, a bicycle shed on Pevsner’s terms would be a building, but a
decorated shed on Harries’ terms would be a work of architecture.

The term ‘decorated shed’ was introduced by Venturi (1977) to describe structures which, despite
the fact that they are functional and that they can be fully utilized, are seen as aesthetically
incomplete through Kant’s aesthetic approach. The incompleteness rises from the fact that human
beings had always demanded more than function in their buildings - they demanded that “they also
give pleasure as aesthetic objects” (Harries, 2016, p. 29). Thus, through the eyes of 18th century
theorists, it was considered that functional buildings which were also aesthetically pleasing attained
“sensible perfection” as structures (Baumgarten, 2013, p. 12).

However, I argue that one should not be that quick in defining a work of architecture as a functional
building with an added aesthetic component. It would be a reductionist approach to regard Lincoln
Cathedral simply as a decorated shed. What makes Lincoln Cathedral a work of architecture is not
merely the aesthetic component that is added to the building itself and is not what distinguishes it
from ordinary buildings. As Harries (1997) mentions, what makes Lincoln Cathedral different is the
fact that the component which establishes it as a work of architecture “has a re-presentational
function” (p. 118). That is, it allows the individual to not merely be a spectator either to the
structure or to its perceived function (i.e. function as it appears), but to experience what transformed
a building into an aesthetic object: the experienced function of the work of architecture (i.e.
function as it is).

However, Harries (2016) uses the term ‘decorated shed’ in a broad sense and regards functional
buildings as complete works of architecture which “have no need for [an aesthetic] component” (p.
31). But this is a reductionist approach as it disregards the aesthetic beauty of a building and the
experiential aspect of its function and makes them redundant when it is the case that a work of
architecture can, in fact, be appreciated for its aesthetic beauty and for its experienced function.

As Scruton (1979) says, “It is doubtful that a purely visual experience could reveal to us the full
power of St Peter's in Rome” (p. 96). Although Scruton’s point is made against the sculpturalist
approach to architecture, I argue that it can also be applied to the case of ‘function as it appears’. An
individual who visits St Peter’s is not able to have a full aesthetic experience of St Peter’s if she
merely observes its structure from a distance. Scruton “regards a purely visual contemplation or

71
touristic gaze as inadequate, since it expresses a disembodied aestheticism that divorces architecture
from everyday life” (Hamilton, 2012, p. 185). Similarly, St Peter’s would not be able to present
itself as a work of architecture which had attained “sensible perfection” if it had only been a
structure which looked functional.

As Graham (2012) also says, “to see a building as having architectural value is to want to use it, and
not merely contemplate it” (p. 172), providing support for the significance of experienced function.
Hence, describing a building simply as a ‘decorated shed’ is not enough to explain how it is
transformed into a work of architecture, nor a ‘decorated shed’ is a core example of architecture
(Hamilton, 2012).

The symbolical aspect of a work of architecture and anti-functionalist sculpturalism

In fact, asserting that aesthetic qualities can rise from function is a position which ties function not
to its experiential aspect but to its symbolical (perceived) aspect. As Venturi and Scott Brown
(1972) point out, “functionalist architecture was more symbolic than functional [...] It looked
functional more than worked functionally” (p. 109). Venturi and Scott Brown here establish the
distinction between ‘function as it is’ and ‘function as it appears’. For the functionalist, aesthetic
qualities arise from the symbolical aspect of function (‘function as it appears), but the experiential
aspect of function (‘function as it is’) is, once again, ignored.

It is worth mentioning, however, that even if this position aims to present itself as ‘anti-aesthetic’,
as it takes function symbolically, it does not fail to be aesthetic itself, as Hamilton (2012) points out.
Because, as a matter of fact, the functionalist takes function to give rise to the form (structure) of a
work of architecture, and thereby to its aesthetic qualities. This is the position that Scruton (1979)
supports - namely that it is through its functionality that a building can come to satisfy certain
aesthetic criteria. However, I argue that Scruton mistakenly considers this to be ‘function as it
appears’ and not ‘function as it is’. By advocating ‘function as it appears’, Scruton follows the same
path as the anti-functionalist sculpturalist who claims that a full aesthetic appreciation of a work of
architecture can be attained merely by a visual contemplation of it, despite the fact that Scruton
essentially rejects anti-functionalist sculpturalism.

Anti-functionalist sculpturalism, I argue, is tied with Scruton’s ‘function as it appears’, as it rules

out the experiential aspect of a work of architecture without which it cannot attain aesthetic
completeness. ‘Function as it is’, however, has the ability to transform a building to a work of

72
architecture. Considering, that is, that a decorated shed is a work of architecture leaves experience
out and establishes a perception of pseudo-perfection by only considering ‘structure’ and ‘function
as it appears’ as the work of architecture’s only components. Indeed, a decorated shed does not offer
much room for ‘function as it is’, but it is naive to expand the notion of a ‘decorated shed’ to works
of architecture such as St Peter’s or Lincoln Cathedral, where the experiential aspect is of primary
importance.

The state of pseudo-perfection that is reached through considering that a work of architecture
simply is a ‘decorated shed’ “entails that the aesthetic observer should keep his distance from such a
work, leave what he observes just as it is, that he should contemplate its aesthetic plenitude,
absorbed in its presence” (Harries, 2016, p. 30). “Their very perfection”, Harries continues,
“threatens to render aesthetic objects uninhabitable” (ibid.). I take that he means ‘uninhabitable’
literally, as one, taking the example of follies, can see that even structures which do not have a clear
‘function as it is’ - as it conjoins its ‘function as it appears’ - can still be considered works of
architecture. Contrary to Graham (2012), I would not say that follies are “mere ornaments [because]
no one had or has any reason to worship in them” (p. 172). It is not true, as Graham further
mentions, that “the greatest works of architecture can cease to have a function and become simply
spectacles” (p. 174), for their functionalist aspect does not only depend on ‘function as it appears’.
Instead, a work of architecture can also have a potential function, due to its structure - a function
which has not yet been actualized.

Function as a potential property of a work of architecture and anti-functionalist sculpturalism

The distinction between potential and actual function is an important distinction to make as it is one
which goes beyond ‘function as it is’ and ‘function as it appears’, making the case against the
functionalist approach which gives ‘function as it appears’ a position of prominence.

There is also a non-experienced function - or a potential function of an object, beyond what Scruton
called ‘function as it is’ and ‘function as it appears’. The structure of a building reveals functions
which are currently not active in the building’s structure and can therefore not be experienced. For
example, the fact a church which became a concert hall without undergoing a change in its
structural appearance entails that, throughout its being as a church, the building was also a concert
hall, aesthetically and potentially. Its function as a concert hall could not be experienced, however
this was a non-actualized aesthetic property of the church.

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Scruton criticizes anti-aesthetic functionalism as he argues that there is more to a building’s
aesthetic beauty than its function. Similarly, Parsons and Carlson (2012) criticize a solely
functionalist view of the beauty of artefacts as, as they mention, functions change and can therefore
not be the sole component of a work of architecture’s aesthetic properties. I do not wish to defend
the functionalist approach here, however distinguishing between actualized functions and potential
functions might provide the functionalist a reply to the critique of Parsons and Carlson, and also
unveil the dimension of ‘function as it is’.

The potential function of an object also offers a response to the structuralist who allows a building
or a work of architecture to be solely regarded as a ‘tourist attraction’. If we say that the beauty of
an object is, along with its appearance, its perceived function and its experienced function, then a
work of architecture with a particular structure cannot simply become a spectacle or a ‘tourist
attraction’ for it will always have a particular function which follows its structure. A spectator might
simply perceive the appearance of a building and see its perceived function as a tourist attraction
but fail to see its potential function as something else. Nevertheless, the potential function is always
there, in virtue of the structure of the building and its potential utility.

Therefore, on seeing architecture as something functional, Scruton argues against the sculpturalist
view which ignores function, but does not wholly disregard the sculpturalist approach, as he
continues to regard the appearance of a building as an important factor in its aesthetic beauty.
However, Scruton (1979) argues, its aesthetic beauty is incomplete without a function.

Thus, even though Scruton (1979) challenges anti-functional sculpturalism and promotes the
importance of experience in architecture, the fact that he maintains ‘function as it appears’ brings
back the notion of the ‘decorated shed’ which, I argue, is not a sufficient term to describe a work of
architecture as it divorces the aesthetic observer from the observed structure and ignores the
experiential part of its aesthetic qualities, that is, ‘function as it is’.

Nevertheless, Scruton’s criticism of anti-functionalist sculpturalism is worth considering, as it gives

rise to the importance of ‘function as it is’. Lacking the experiential aspect of function, I argue, a
building would end up being what Scruton calls a ‘walk-through sculpture’.

In challenging anti-functionalist sculpturalism, Scruton (1979) criticizes the idea that a work of
architecture is simply a ‘walk-through sculpture’ and argues that “to take a merely sculptural view
of architecture [...] is to treat buildings as forms whose aesthetic nature is conjoined only

74
accidentally to a certain function” (p. 7-8). Although Scruton says that his functionalist approach
focuses on ‘function as it appears’ and not ‘function as it is’, this should not be meant to say that he
disregards experiencing a work of architecture. However, his distinction between ‘function as it is’
and ‘function as it appears’ gives rise to a misunderstanding of the term ‘experience’ - one which
allows the decorated shed and the walk-through sculpture to reemerge. As Graham (2012) mentions,
“if our aesthetic experience of a building lies in our apprehension and appreciation of its
appearance, then function is once more relegated to the hidden structure upon which this
appearance is imposed” (p. 170).

What reveals the error at the walk-through sculpture, according to Graham (2012) is that it regards
the aesthetic beauty of a work of architecture as being distinct from the structure itself. However, as
Scruton (1979) mentions, “our sense of the beauty in architectural forms cannot be divorced from
our conception of buildings and the function that they fulfil.” (p. 10). However, this can only be
attained with ‘function as it is’, not with ‘function as it appears’. Therefore, contrary to Harries
(2016), aesthetic content in a work of architecture will be found in its structure and in ‘function as it
is’, but there is a limited amount of completeness and aesthetic pleasure to be found in ‘function as
it appears’.

In order to avoid the problem of the walk-through sculpture, then, there must be a distinction
between ‘function as it is’ and ‘function as it appears’ so that the notion of ‘experiencing
architecture’ implies the former. Scruton (1979), instead, by promoting ‘function as it appears’,
reaches a contradiction as he establishes function as submissive to structure while at the same time
he maintains his objections to anti-functionalist sculpturalism, aiming to elevate the notion of
experiencing architecture, albeit only for ‘function as it appears’.

Architecture as “inescapably public”

Exploring the public and vernacular status of architecture will allow me to expand more on the
experiential aspect of a work of architecture and to how it is tied with its structure. In contrast to
other arts, such as poetry, music, or painting, which can be reserved for private consumption,
architecture is “inescapably public” (Graham, 2012, p. 166) and it “imposes itself whatever our
desires and whatever our self-image” (Scruton, 1979, p. 13). According to Ruskin (1990),
architecture is the most political of the arts.

In being public, a work of architecture includes structure, perceived function, experienced function,

75
and potential function. More specifically, by looking at experienced function, I argue that function
at a work of architecture presents itself as fluid. The architect of a particular work of architecture
might design the building with a particular purpose or function in mind, but it’s the public which
will determine the experiential function of the building. Contrary to Sullivan’s (1896) claim that
“form follows function”, the structure of a building does not determine its utility. The architect
cannot have full control over the uses of his work. He might design a concert hall for music or for
theatre plays but the concert hall can also, through its potential function, be used as a bunker, or
church. There is nothing that limits a concert hall from being used for these purposes. The scope of
the potential function of a work of architecture is much wider than perceived by Scruton and is
inherently tied to ‘function as it is’.

When we say that architecture is “inescapably public” and that it “imposes itself whatever our
desires and whatever our self-image”, we do not only mean that a work of architecture imposes
itself to the environment and people. Scruton’s view here is essentially sculpturalist - he ignores the
functionalist aspect of a building, especially experienced function, and claims that architecture can
impose itself simply through its status as a structure.

However, part of architecture being “inescapably public” and it having a functional component is
that it is left at the mercy of the public to use it as it wishes. Thus, despite the structure of a work of
architecture and its perceived function - things on which the architect has almost full control, the
experienced function of a work of architecture remains to be determined by its users who, through
their usage, will reveal the building’s potential functions.

A work of architecture’s interior and its relation to ‘function as it is’

Another aspect of a work of architecture that Scruton (1979) disregards when he describes
architecture as vernacular and public, and one which shows how his insistence on sculpture and to
‘function as it appears’ provides an incomplete aesthetic theory, is the interior of a work of
architecture. By stating that a work of architecture is public, Scruton ignores the structure’s interior
which is made with a specific audience in mind. The interior of a work of architecture cannot be
described as public in the same sense as its structure or ‘function as it appears’ look to a spectator,
but it is still a substantial aspect of the work of architecture.

Furthermore, Scruton’s description of architecture as a “process of arrangement in which every

normal man may participate” (p. 16) is not particularly true if one considers the interior of a work of

76
architecture. A work of architecture, if defined through its structure and its perceived function,
imposes itself to the environment and tries to make itself as appealing as possible, and has a wide
scope which encompasses the general public. On the contrary, the scope of the interior of Sydney
Opera, Notre-Dame, Apple’s Headquarters, for example, is limited to the users of those structures
and remains largely independent on the environment in which it exists, in contrast to its outer
appearance or its perceived function which are inherently tied to the structure’s location and the
surrounding environment.

For example, as a concert hall imposes itself onto the city, it must consider this imposition and be
appealing to the general public (even to those who would never attend an event at the concert hall),
fitting itself into the environment. This is another sense in which a building is public - public not for
the individuals but also public in terms of fitting into the environment into which it is built.
However, even though its exterior is universally appealing, this is not the case with its interior. The
function of a building is largely not universal, as it has a more limited scope than its external
appearance. Thus, the extent to which a building is public, and thus ‘inescapably public’ varies
significantly.

Thus, when Scruton (1979) describes architecture as a “process of arrangement in which every
normal man may participate” (p. 15), he ignores an important aspect of a work of architecture which
is not designed with the normal man in mind but with a specific group within the public. Compared
to the other arts, architecture has the claim of the art which is the most publicly present. However,
“nor is all architecture public”, as Hamilton (2012, p. 191) states.

Scruton (1979) does recognize that a private aspect to a work of architecture exists. He says, “our
aesthetic understanding [...] embraces a relation between interior and exterior, between content and
facade. [...] Public buildings [...] have a self each corner of which may be invaded” (p. 249).
However, he does not go further than that and does not recognize this aspect as defining of a work
of architecture despite the fact that it is the interior of a structure which can provide an individual
with the experienced function of a work of architecture.

Thus, the notion of architecture as “inescapably public” can have different meanings depending on
which aspect of a work of architecture one is looking at. I would argue that while the interior of a
work of architecture is made for the people and by the people, the outside of a work of architecture
is made for the people, and not by the people. Understanding this allows someone to see how

77
‘function as it is’ arises when we consider the value of experienced function which is revealed
through a building’s internal structure.

An architect, I argue, primarily designs the structure and the perceived function of a work of
architecture for the people through her own need for self-expression. However, as Hamilton (2012)
says, “If public opinion were allowed a veto on architectural construction, some of its greatest
works might never have been built” (p. 192). It is in this way that a work of architecture is imposing
itself to the public and to the surrounding environment. A work of architecture, Hamilton continues,
commenting on Scruton’s aesthetics, “imposes a vision of humanity independent of any personal
agreement on the part of those who live with it” (p. 190), promoting the view that a work of
architecture is created for the people, without their previous consultation. Nevertheless, it is not the
case that, in designing for the people, the architect remains wholly unconstrained, but as Spinoza
(2000) argues, the architect is constrained by the obedience of necessity. The architect, then, must
“unite his building with an order that is recognizable not only to the expert but also to the ordinary
uneducated man” (Scruton, 1979, p. 250).

However, the view that a work of architecture is created for the people does not take into
consideration experienced function, and this is a view which Scruton (1979) ignores, endorsing
sculpturalism. The external appearance of a work of architecture and a sculpture are similar in that
they appeal to the public in the same manner. An individual, in her everyday life, has to confront
both a work of architecture and a sculpture in the same way. However, the work of architecture has
certain properties which a sculpture does not have, such as experienced function. Experienced
function cannot be revealed by structure nor by perceived function, but by the people who, at the
time of experiencing function, also mold the experiential aspect of a work of architecture’s
functionality. Hence, it is in this sense that a work of architecture (its internal structure and function,
in particular) is created by the people.

In fact, the spectator has the ability, through her “knowledge of, and sympathy with, a particular
state of mind, [to] modify and enrich his perception of a building” (Scruton, 1979, p. 113). “The
validity of such an attempt must rest no in the architect’s intention but in the transformation of the
spectator’s experience” (ibid.). Here, the power of the spectator to transform not only her
experience of the work of architecture but the work of architecture itself through her experience is
emphasized by Scruton. However, I would further emphasize that this transformation is not limited
to the spectator’s perception of a work of architecture but is based on her experience of all its
aspects, including ‘function as it is’.

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The architect and the public

Further, although the architect has a duty to create a building that is also successful as an aesthetic
object (Harries, 2016), she also has to consider how the building will be used. However, I argue that
the architect can only speculate, or guide, the uses to which a building will be put - she cannot
determine them. Scruton (2012), in particular, in challenging the functionalist approach argued that
those who endorse a purely functional approach to architecture “will not know what they are
doing” (p. 6). More specifically, he endorses the view that architects cannot know each and every
use to which their structures will be put, as function is fluid and continuously changes without
necessitating a change in a building’s structure. In addition, even though Scruton promotes the view
that architecture is public, he mentions that it is difficult to know how each individual member of
the public will utilize the building, as those who interact with it can be users, passers-by,
neighbours, or other groups of people, and it is impossible to predict or determine how, or if, these
groups of people will interact with the building.

Moreover, I argue, the architect cannot know the ‘what it is like’ of experiencing a particular
building. That is, while the architect might be able to set the structure of a work of architecture and
its perceived function, she will be unable to set its experienced function, a view which Scruton
endorses. More importantly, Scruton’s approach opposes scientistic rationalism in architecture - the
view that one can build rationally without considering aesthetic or experiential aspects. An example
which Scruton (1979) gives to illustrate this is the following: Suppose that an architect could
develop the optimal plan for an office block which would provide the safest and fastest route
through it. However, he points out, “it may be that the optimal solution defies our capacity to
envisage it” (p. 29). Therefore, ‘function as it appears’ here cannot even be realized in the actual
structure of the building, but only in theory. It is only ‘function as it is’ - experiencing the office
block - that will reveal its true functionalist aspect.

The focus on the experiential aspect of architecture can also challenge the idea that “form follows
function”, which Sullivan (1896) introduced – an idea which has gained significant ground within
functionalism. According to Sullivan, the form of a work of architecture should reflect its intended
function. However, as shown in this section, it is difficult, or impossible in some cases, for an
architect to determine how a particular building will be utilized. Despite her attempts to reflect
intended function through structure, which might be visible through ‘function as it appears’,
experiencing function can be wholly different from the intended or perceived function and it is not

79
necessary for it to be reflected on structure either. Instead, function can be defined through the
relations of individuals to the structure, which are revealed through experience (Abrahamson,
1978).

Beginning with an understanding of the definition of architecture as a ‘decorated shed’, I provided

reasons as to why the term is incomplete and does not establish a definition which allows a work of
architecture to attain ‘sensible perfection’. In particular, I argued that the understanding of
functionalism that is expressed in modern architectural aesthetics puts emphasis on ‘function as it
appears’ (i.e. perceived function) and not on ‘function as it is’ (i.e. experienced function). In
addition, I showed how there is also an additional functionalist aspect in a work of architecture,
which is part of experienced function – namely, potential function. In introducing potential function,
I showed how the functionalist aspect of a building can only be revealed through experience and
also how a building’s form remains, to a degree, independent from its function as it allows a
structure to have a wider scope of functionality than the one for which it was designed. In fact, I
argued, the architect can only speculate or provide guidelines on how a building is to be used, but it
is up to the public to determine, the functional aspect of the building, through experiencing it.
Further, I argued for a revision of the conception of architecture as ‘inescapably public’ – in
particular, the fact that the internal structure of a building is not public but is made with a specific
audience in mind, an audience which will, again, determine the experienced function of the
building. In conclusion, by assessing the current understanding of a work of architecture as a
functional structure which is aesthetically pleasing, I suggested that an additional functional
component, ‘function as it is’. needs to be included in the definition, as the aspect of experiencing a
work of architecture is of primary importance and it is one which, once considered, will act to
establish the aesthetic completeness of a work of architecture.

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References

Abrahamson, M. (1978). Functionalism. New Jersey: Prentice Hall

Baumgarten, A. (2013). Metaphysics, edited and translated by Courtney D. Fugate and John
Hymers, London: Bloomsbury

Graham, G. (2012). Scruton on Architecture. In Hamilton, A., & Zangwill, N. (2012). Scruton's
Aesthetics. Basongstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Hamilton, A. (2012). The Autonomy of Architecture. In Hamilton, A., & Zangwill, N.

(2012). Scruton's Aesthetics. Basongstoke: Palgrave Macmillan

Harries, K. (1997). The ethical function of architecture. Cambridge: MIT Press

Harries, K. (2016). Philosophy of Architecture: Lecture Notes. Retrieved February 19, 2019, from
https://bit.ly/2YBn2k6

Kant, I. (2017). The Critique of Judgement. Lanham: Dancing Unicorn Books.

Parkinson, G. (2000). Spinoza. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Parsons, G. & Carlson, A. (2012). Functional beauty. USA: Oxford University Press

Pevsner, N. (1958). An Outline of European Architecture. Harmondsworth: Penguin

Ruskin, J. (1990). The Seven Lamps of Architecture. New York: Dover

Sullivan, L. (1896). The tall office building artistically considered. Retrieved February 25, 2019,
from https://archive.org/details/tallofficebuildi00sull/page/n3

Scruton, R. (1979). The aesthetics of architecture. London: Methuen & Co.

Scruton, R. (2012). Working towards Art. In Hamilton, A., & Zangwill, N. (2012). Scruton's
Aesthetics. Basongstoke: Palgrave Macmillan

Sullivan, L. (1896). The tall office building aesthetically considered.

Venturi, R., Scott Brown D. (1977), Learning From Las Vegas, rev. ed. Cambridge: MIT Press.

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5. Joaquim BRAGA
O tempo das ruínas no espaço da arquitectura segundo Denis Diderot

A par das considerações estéticas sobre o crime, Diderot, nos seus Salons du Louvre, traz à
expressão inúmeras reflexões sobre as ruínas, que adensam a predilecção do enciclopedista quer
pela mutilação dos corpos quer pela devastação dos objectos. Nas suas múltiplas descrições dos
Salons, as reflexões relevantes sobre as potencialidades estético-artísticas das ruínas estão, porém,
maioritariamente centradas no âmbito das representações pictóricas, nomeadamente na figuração
das ruínas enquanto objectos imagéticos.
No verbete da Encyclopédie dedicado às ruínas, redigido, supostamente, por Louis de
Jaucourt, estabelece-se uma distinção entre duas formas de representação das ruínas: aquela que é
autenticamente artística e que recebe o nome de belles ruines, concerne, somente, à figuração
pictural de “palácios, túmulos sumptuosos ou monumentos públicos”; logo, no campo oposto, a
representação de “uma casa particular de camponeses ou nobres” não cumpre os necessários
critérios estéticos para ser objecto da pintura de ruínas (Jaucourt, 1751, p. 433). O pressuposto da
distinção é dado pelo valor estético do monumento histórico, em detrimento do valor estético e
realista dos “edifícios em ruínas” (bâtimens ruinés).
Diderot não partilha, inteiramente, da concepção monumentalista da pintura de ruínas. No
Salão de 1767, referindo-se à excisão da opulência arquitectónica infligida pelo tempo, o
enciclopedista afirma, assertivamente, que os nobres poderosos “que acreditavam estar a construir
para a eternidade, que construíram excelentes casas para si e que as destinaram, no delírio dos seus
pensamentos, a uma sucessão ininterrupta de descendentes, herdeiros dos seus nomes, dos seus
títulos e da sua opulência, tudo o que resta dos seus labores, dos seus enormes dispêndios e dos seus
majestosos cenários é o entulho que serve de asilo aos mais necessitados, à parte mais infeliz da
espécie humana, mais útil como ruínas do que quando estavam no seu primeiro esplendor” (Diderot,
1876c, p. 251). Independentemente do estatuto arquitectónico do edifício – seja ele majestoso
palácio ou humilde casa –, o que, com a sua gradual destruição, desperta fascínio tem que ver com o
reforço das possibilidades evocativas atinentes à imaginação.
Ora, para que essas possibilidades sejam compreendidas e exemplificadas pelas ruínas,
torna-se necessário colher a intuição do espaço segundo dinâmicas temporais não-lineares,
contingentes, como as que são dadas pela erosão. Na pintura, a conjugação das sensações do espaço

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com as do tempo é assaz potenciada pela figuração de paisagens com marcas de devastação; mas é,
verdadeiramente, no plano da ekphrasis que melhor se manifestam os nexos estéticos entre ambas.
O que Diderot intenta trazer à expressão, por meio das suas descrições ecfrásticas sobre as belas-
artes, é já uma tensão estética entre a simultaneidade das sensações e a sucessão presente nas
formas de compor, percepcionar e descrever os objectos artísticos em geral (Braga, 2020).
Tal tensão é assaz intensificada com a introdução das vivências do tempo estimuladas pelas
ruínas, cujo maior efeito estético reside tanto na decomposição do espaço substancializado pela
arquitectura quanto no esbatimento da promessa de eternidade que o mesmo espaço sugere.
Fazendo do êxtase a verdadeira expressão da destruição contemplada, Diderot confessa as
arrebatadoras sensações que atingem a organização mental dos seus pensamentos e que nestes
deixam um rastro de plena desarticulação: “As ideias que as ruínas em mim despertam são
incomensuráveis. Tudo se aniquila, tudo perece, tudo passa; somente o mundo permanece; somente
o tempo dura. Como é velho esse mundo!” (Diderot, 1876c, p. 229). Logo, a “idade” do mundo vem
agrilhoada com os vestígios da erosão, com os fragmentos adstritos quer à presença de criação quer
à presença de destruição.
Fruto dessa natureza bipolar dos vestígios, o efémero é, portanto, acoplado às dimensões
estéticas da arte arquitectónica, em virtude de permitir uma observação imediata do tempo no
espaço, mas sem comprometer o distanciamento reflexivo que nutre a condição do observador. Pelo
contrário, como evidenciam os Salons de 1765 e 1767, o efémero incute silêncio e solidão,
deslaçando a experiência do observador do ruído das suas acções quotidianas e, num verdadeiro
processo de ataraxia, restituindo-lhe a serenidade da contemplação, Constantin-François de Volney,
poucos anos mais tarde, inicia a sua reflexão sobre as ruínas com tons diderotianos, recorrendo às
ideias de solidão e silêncio, assim como às possibilidades reflexivas que os fragmentos
arquitectónicos expressam: “Eu vos saúdo ruínas solitárias, túmulos santos, paredes silenciosas. Eu
vos invoco! (...) Quantas lições úteis, reflexões fortes ou tocantes, ofereceis ao espírito que vos sabe
consultar!” (Volney, 1791, pp. XII-XIII). Apesar das influências de Diderot, a narrativa de Volney
está, sobremaneira, centrada no passado e assume a dupla forma de evocação e lamento das causas
que levaram ao desaparecimento de edíficos, monumentos, casas, aldeias, vilas e cidades.
Para Diderot, inversamente, não se trata de moralizar a acção humana segundo uma visão
negativa do que do passado aparece como destroço. Silêncio e solidão são, com a pintura de ruínas,
elevados a categorias estéticas e qualificam, simultaneamente, as obras picturais que delas se
aproximam ou afastam. Numa descrição de um quadro de Hubert Robert, Diderot insurge-se contra
o preenchimento excessivo da superfície de inscrição, alertando para a ideia de que o desregramento
das figuras e dos seus movimentos expressivos anulam os efeitos estéticos da vacuidade. A esse
respeito e sob a forma de imperativo artístico, enuncia Diderot a sua crítica, a qual em muito

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repousa sobre a teia conceptual da ideia de sublime, tecida por Edmund Burke: “Emprega, apenas,
as figuras que contribuam para a solidão e o silêncio. Um único homem que errasse por essa
escuridão, com os braços cruzados sobre o peito e a cabeça caída, ter-me-ia afectado mais.
Bastariam, para me fazer estremecer, a escuridão, a imponência do edifício, a grandeza da fábrica, a
extensão, a tranquilidade, o eco sombrio do espaço” (Diderot, 1876c, p. 229). Tal como uma
paisagem recortada pelo tempo, também a pintura, na sua materialidade, deve ter a força sensível do
vazio e inscrever uma ruptura com o modelo da irrefreável continuidade dos acontecimentos
mundanos. A ideia diderotiana de “génio” artístico está ancorada na disrupção do sensível e não
tanto na capacidade de perfazer e consumar o que deverá surgir como belo. À pergunta “Por que é
que apreciamos mais um belo esboço do que uma bela pintura?”, responde Diderot que tal se deve
ao facto de, no primeiro, “haver mais vida e menos formas” (Diderot, 1876c, p. 245).
A mais genuína observação das ruínas requer, por isso, uma supressão do fluxo da vida
quotidiana. É quando o dia cessa que a percepção dos observadores é iluminada pela intermitência;
ou, nas palavras de Diderot: “As ruínas são mais bonitas ao pôr do sol do que de manhã. A manhã é
o momento em que a cena do mundo se torna alvoraçada e barulhenta. A noite é quando ela se torna
silenciosa e pacífica” (Diderot, 1876b, p. 308). O reencontro do sublime da noite com o do poder de
devastação da natureza gera, neste sentido, a perfeita cenografia para a contemplação.
Diderot procura na poética das ruínas o que já não pode encontrar na arte pictural religiosa –
a eternidade soprada pelo tempo histórico substitui-se à da soprada pelas divindades sagradas. No
lugar do templo como lugar de meditação e introspecção, surge, com a poética das ruínas, o espaço
do fragmento como verdadeiro motor do “sonho” e da “melancolia” (Diderot, 1876a, p. 137).
Contudo, como bem refere Roland Mortier, no seu estudo sobre a poética das ruínas, a natureza da
meditação, em Diderot, “pretende ser mais prospectiva do que retrospectiva.” O sonhar que as
ruínas expressam não é “com o que foi”, mas, antes, “com o que não será mais.” Há, assim, uma
inversão mental, por meio da qual a “memória” é suplantada pela “antecipação” (Mortier, 1974, p.
93).
Logo, a poética das ruínas começa por dar voz à reentrada do observador na esfera ilimitada
da imaginação, o que implica a saída virtual do espaço articulado pela arquitectura e a antecipação
espácio-temporal de um mundo que, acusando, duplamente, preenchimento e devastação, deixa de
apresentar vestígio. Segundo Diderot, “as grandes ruínas devem suscitar emoções mais intensas do
que os monumentos inteiros e preservados” (Diderot, 1876d, p. 43). Ampliando o espectro estético
da imaginação, por meio de um efeito de estremecimento nos sentimentos, o observador tem um
campo ilimitado e indeterminado de sensações para poder explorar. Tal “como a estátua que a mão
do artista deixou imperfeita”, interroga-se Diderot, “o que não consigo ver lá?” (Diderot, 1876d, p.
43). Imaginar o elemento ausente é, por conseguinte, um acto estético que transcende a beleza dos

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elementos presentes. O que, materialmente, está em falta abre-se como possibilidade do que faz
falta sentir.
A emancipação da subjectividade estética do espectador é, por via da vacuidade e do não-
preenchimento, assaz favorecida pela pintura de ruínas. O espectador, perante o quadro, é
sugestionado pelas marcas de ausência no objecto representado, pelas formas elípticas que o
desenho dos monumentos em ruínas implica, interiorizando, positivamente, os sentimentos de
devastação e solidão sugeridos pela contemplação das ruínas como autênticas condições subjectivas
da experiência estético-artística. Mas, para que tal suceda, a obra de arte deve ser capaz de duplicar
o ponto de observação do espectador. Como bem refere Michael Fried, para Diderot, “a essência
fantasiosa das representações de ruínas exigiam que o observador fosse compelido a entrar na
pintura, a meditar não, apenas, sobre mas entre os vestígios das civilizações antigas” (Fried, 1980,
p. 130). No momento em que é lhe sugerida a entrada no espaço da superfície de inscrição, o
espectador torna-se actor, deixa-se encenar pelo enredo dramático visual e nele participa como se
fosse uma das suas personagens.
As ideias de sublime, herdadas de Longinus e Edmund Burke, permitindo pôr num autêntico
jogo de tensões e contradições todas as possibilidades fisiológicas dos sentimentos, determinam o
êxtase do espectador perante a decadência expressa pela arte. É pela imaginação emancipada do
espectador que a decadência se transforma em transcendência. O que, aparentemente, poderiam ser
considerados meros fenómenos negativos – como “a imobilidade dos seres”, “a solidão” , “o
silêncio profundo” –, inversamente, “suspendem o tempo” e tornam “eterno o homem” (Diderot,
1876c, p. 106).
Para Chateaubriand, inversamente, a estética das ruínas serve o desígnio religioso e cristão
de remeter os seres a uma condição instável, plena de indefinições e limites, deixando-se cada ser
retratar como um verdadeiro edifício em colapso. Esta visão trespassada pela moral religiosa está
bem presente em Le génie du Christianisme, quando o escritor assevera que “Todos os homens têm
uma atracção secreta pelas ruínas. Tal sentimento deve-se à fragilidade da nossa natureza, a uma
conformidade secreta entre esses monumentos destruídos e a brevidade da nossa existência”
(Chateaubriand, 1866, p. 239). Ao não enfatizar nem moralizar o memento mori, Diderot, como já
se viu, transforma as sensações provindas da passagem do tempo em verdadeiras alavancas da
experiência estético-artística.
Com efeito, o que provém da contemplação das ruínas é um processo de restituição da
vitalidade – tendencialmente refreada pelos códigos culturais –, por meio do qual os seres têm
acesso às dimensões psíquicas recalcadas e as projectam, livre e instintivamente, nos objectos
contemplados. Tal processo de restituição é exemplarmente sugerido por Diderot, quando, no Salon
de 1767, comentando um quadro de Hubert Robert, se entrega a um registo evocativo das paixões

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incontroláveis que nutria por aquela que aparenta ser Sophie Volland: “Se eu te perder, ídolo da
minha alma, se uma morte repentina ou um infortúnio inesperado separarem-te de mim, é, aqui, que
gostaria que as tuas cinzas fossem depositadas e que viria dialogar com a tua sombra” (Diderot,
1876c, p. 230). A devastação nas ruínas não só traz à expressão os sentimentos de ausência, como,
também, permite os da sua exteriorização antecipada. O liame da destruição com a paixão
desenfreada surge-nos, pois, como um vislumbre dos efeitos psíquicos que, no coração dos amantes,
marca a tensão entre tempo e imaginação, finitude e infinitude. Poderiam as vicissitudes amorosas
ser vivenciadas sem esses cenários de assolação, tão bem representados pelas ruínas? – eis a
pergunta que devemos fazer a Diderot.

Referências

Braga, J. (2020). “Ekphrasis e hypotyposis. Da articulação discursiva do sensível em Denis

Diderot”, in: Joaquim Braga e Fabiana Tamizari (Eds), Sensibilidade e Matéria no Pensamento de
Denis Diderot, Coleção eQVODLIBET 7, Coimbra: IEF, pp. 8-20.

Chateaubriand, F.-R. de (1866). Le génie du Christianisme. Paris: Alfred Mame et Fils.

Diderot, D. (1876a). “Salon de 1761”, in: Oeuvres complètes de Diderot: Revues sur les éditions
originales, Tome Dixième. Paris: Garnier Frères.

Diderot, D. (1876b). “Salon de 1765”, in: Oeuvres complètes de Diderot: Revues sur les éditions
originales, Tome Dixième. Paris: Garnier Frères.

Diderot, D. (1876c). “Salon de 1767”, in: Oeuvres complètes de Diderot: Revues sur les éditions
originales, Tome Onzième. Paris: Garnier Frères.

Diderot, D. 1876d), “Observation sur la Sculpture et sur Bouchardon”, in: Oeuvres complètes de
Diderot: Revues sur les éditions originales, Tome Treizième. Paris: Garnier Frères, pp. 40-47.

Fried, M. (1980). Absortion and Theatricality: Painting and Beholder in the Age of Diderot.
Berkley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press.

Jaucourt, L. (1751). “Ruine”, in: Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et
des métiers, Tome 14, 1re édition. Paris: Briasson, David, Le Breton, Durand.

Mortier, R. (1974). La poétique des ruines en France: ses origines, ses variations, de la

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Renaissance à Victor Hugo. Genève: Librairie Droz.

Volney, C.-F. de (1791). Les Ruines, ou Méditations sur les révolutions des empires. Paris: Desenne,
Volland, Plassans.

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 II.
IMAGEM
IMAGE

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6. Susana VIEGAS
Cinema, the City, and Manoel de Oliveira’s Logic of Sensation

Film and Painting

Gilles Deleuze left an important theoretical legacy in the form of a conception of a cinema
of the senses and his thoughts on the affective intersection between images and sounds, broadly
understood as blocks of sensations and blocks of space-time.
The theme of the senses and the visual arts has had a strong impact on sensory documentary
films on the works of renowned artists such as Alain Resnais’s Van Gogh (1948) and Le mystère
Picasso/The Mystery of Picasso (1956) by Henri-Georges Clouzot. These types of films are directly
addressed to the problem of creating new aesthetic sensations, non-human affects and percepts
(Deleuze and Guattari, 1994), in particular those related to films on painting and art works. From
this perspective, a central question concerns how the filmmaker imagines the sensations of the
painter and how the film expresses and supports those new sensations.
Within this line of inquiry, and before I explore Oliveira’s film in more detail, I wish to
briefly consider André Bazin’s thoughts on film and painting, which are part of a longstanding
debate on the quality and suitability of films on art in which film, with its automatic and unhuman
techniques, was often seen as a betrayal of the spiritual, unique, and subjective efforts of the painter.
In his most famous essay on the topic, “Painting and Cinema”, Bazin (1967, p. 164–169) states that
these types of films have educational and aesthetic value since they bring together high culture and
popular culture.
Bazin highlights several problems that the “impure medium” of cinema encounters and that
form the foundation of his criticism: 1) film’s form as a horizontal montage that disturbs the
extensive, in-depth perspective of the painting’s ‘time’; 2) an editing technique that fragments and
creates new synthesis, new connections; 3) black and white images that betray the features of the
painting and cinema’s general inability to be true to colour; and 4) the problem of space, the extent
to which the frame of a painting, its canvas, delineates a pictorial space that is destroyed by the film
screen. In short, according to Bazin, the representation of time, space, and colour is problematic in
film, due to its very nature.
Following the typical Bazinian conceptual framework, Angela Dalle Vacche observes that
“[c]olor in painting is geological and centripetal, hence even more alien to the centrifugal nature of

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film and its screen” (1996, p. 306). Indeed, film, with its centrifugal screen, changes the nature of
the other art form, which is characterized by its centripetal canvas; film imposes its spatiotemporal
qualities on any art form it portrays. As for the transition from the painted canvas to moving images,
the Bazinian perspective clearly highlights the dominant and transformative nature of film in
relation to painting. Even so, with this problematic relation in mind, at the end of his essay Bazin
argues that the encounter between the two art forms can create a “newborn aesthetic creature, fruit
of the union of painting and cinema”, and that films such as Alain Resnais’s Van Gogh and Pierre
Kast’s Goya, Disasters of War “are works in their own right. They are their own justification”
(Bazin, 1967, p. 168).
Rather than comparing the differences between the two art forms (film and painting),
including their ontological differences, I wish to pursue this affirmative line of thought—the idea
that a new creature is born in films about art. Indeed, The Artist and the City reinvigorates this
longstanding debate by introducing new problems. The first is the question of its genre. How ought
we to classify The Artist and the City? As a documentary film it aims to depict the work of a
watercolorist, Antonio Cruz, and as a city symphony film it aims to portray a day in the life of a
modern city, Porto, from dawn to dusk. The film belongs to both genres, although not in a
conventional way. By reconceiving these genres, the film provides us with a new aesthetic
interpretation from each perspective, which I will explore below.

The City Symphony

Film history has shown that movies have always had a special connection to the city. They
have created new city views and celebrated iconic skylines, establishing the city as the main
character of many films. When thinking about the relationship between cinema and the city, many
ideas come to mind. We have all had the experience of visiting a new city for the first time and in a
sense “remembering” it from a movie we’ve seen. In other cases, we feel that we already know a
city, even though we’ve never been there, simply because we’ve seen it on screen. This
phenomenon had already been experienced in the context of paintings, however: David B. Clarke
quotes Jean Baudrillard’s comparison of the connection between certain European cities and Italian
or Dutch paintings and the connection between American cities and film (1997, p. 1). It seems that
the modern city is inseparable from the screenscape, from the way it is filmed and represented by
cinema—as if the city itself emerged out of movies.
Nevertheless, the cinematic city is far from being a truthful representation of the “real” city.
Paraphrasing Paul Klee’s famous aphorism—art’s purpose is “[n]ot to render the visible, but to
render visible” (1985, p. 34)—film likewise seems not to render the visible, but to render visible.

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However, by making its subject visible and perceptible, an image is not thereby limited to what is
there to be represented, nor is it reduced to the present dimension of seeing it.
Moving images are not limited to showing reality as it is because their connection and
editing techniques transcend simple representation: cinema is driven by sensations, not
representation. After all, cinema has changed the way we perceive reality: it gives us new
perspectives on reality, new points of view, that challenge our natural perception of the world.
In a sense, the cinematic city was born in 1895 with the Lumière brothers. One of the first
movies ever publically screened was Place des Cordeliers, which depicts a minute in the life of the
famous French square. It is interesting to note that the specific urban public space is itself a place of
transit: we witness this through the intense movement of its elements, from public transportation to
several urban activities.
In the 1920s, the city itself became the main character of a popular genre: the city
symphony. Such is the case in Manhatta (1921) and Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927),
movies that aimed to provide scopophilic experiences, portraying the city from the outside, as an
object of pleasure and amazement.
This close link between cinema and the city was noted by Siegfried Kracauer and Walter
Benjamin, mostly because, as Graeme Gilloch argues, cinema “is able to capture the flux and
movement of the urban environment, to record the spontaneous and the ephemeral” (1996, p. 18).
Yet the popularity of the genre did not make it immune to philosophical criticism. Some
criticized it, including Kracauer and Benjamin, claiming that the films offered a superficial and
formalist image of the life of the city, an exterior portrait of what the modern city looked like, as the
expression of new sensations, new rhythms, but also of the new forms of alienation that were so
typical of modern urban life. For Kracauer (1995), for example, the attraction that cinema has
always had to the city and street life is grounded in their common nature: both are expressions of
transience and ephemerality.
Consider, for example, Kracauer’s (1995, p. 318) criticism of Walter Ruttmann’s most
acclaimed city symphony: “But does it [Berlin: Symphony of a Great City] convey the reality of
Berlin? No: it is just as blind to reality as any other feature film (…) Ruttmann leaves the thousands
of details unconnected, one next to the other, inserting at most some arbitrarily conceived
transitions that are meaningless.” Kracauer reproaches Berlin for its superficial portrait of an
“ornamented” life, for its fragmented edited sequences without meaningful direction, since its
formalist techniques (the use of eccentric angles, camera movements and speeds, and even the self-
consciousness of the editing work) prevail over everything else. He reproaches Ruttmann’s film, in
particular, for its lack of soul.

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 The superficiality and formalism of these attempts were therefore not received without
criticism, as a manifestation of a deeper quotidian phenomenon to be discovered. But the inner
relationship between the city and cinema has been met not only with criticism but also with more
constructive reactions. As Nélio da Conceição observes, “technology increased an element which is
fundamental in Benjamin’s relationship with the city: physiognomy and, implicitly, the idea of
decipherment” (2018, p. 304). The filmmaker shares the role of a Benjaminian physiognomist,
especially when understanding, examining and expressing a paradoxical realities with a critical
gaze, at the time both superficial and profound.
Thus, although we might view these movies as poems or tributes to large, modern cities, the
life of the city has not always been represented truthfully. With that said, however, how can film
provide a truthful representation of the city?
As Giuliana Bruno (2002, p. 56) has argued, movement is common to both cities and
movies. In each filmic experience, the viewer follows an imaginary path, one designed by the film’s
montage sequences. With Dziga Vertov, for example, moving images became an art form that
created its own city, a mental and imaginary space that Kuleshov called a “creative geography”. The
idea of a path and of walking, together with the sensorial affects and percepts that constitute the
nervous system, allows us to understand the great similarity between walking down a city boulevard
and watching a film: both experiences are based on the idea of a fragmented, discontinued and
shocking point of view on reality itself.
If fragmentation and shock are synonymous with modernity, how can art express that
experience? Is this fragmentary experience partially or entirely reconfigured by the ‘spectatorial
movement’ of the flaneur, the moviegoer or the filmmaker? Can we really say that we come to
know a city better by seeing it on screen? What does the (superficial) screen show us on a deeper
level? In the following, via a film analysis of Oliveira’s The Artist and the City, I will attempt to
look beyond the limits of abstract and formalist city symphonies for an alternative to the above
criticism.

The Artist and the City: A Film Analysis

The Portuguese filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira has always expressed his own concerns about
these questions, at least in his first movies, in a straight dialogue with the contemporary European
avant-garde. For Iván Villarmea Álvarez, The Artist and the City is the last film in a single
cinematic composition that he calls a “modernist trilogy about everyday life and the banks of the
Douro river” (2015, p. 156), a trilogy that begins with the short documentary Douro, Faina
Fluvial/Labor on the Douro River (1931), followed by the fictional film Aniki Bóbó (1942).

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 The cinematic qualities of the city of Porto are the main characters of Oliveira’s first three
movies, along with the city’s iconic historical landscapes, its lively crowds sharing public and
modern spaces, and the anonymous human beings who live, move around and work there.
This trilogy has shaped our collective imagination regarding the city of Porto in all its
photogenic qualities. Interestingly, it begins with a film that in many ways replicates the model of
the city symphony, for example by showing the chaotic and disorienting rhythms of the new
experience of a modern city and of urban life. In this sense, Oliveira can be regarded as a formalist:
he reveals his own cinematic visions by emphasising the film’s formal elements, such as the editing
work. He did not want to create a film that gave the illusion of not having been created or
manipulated, as if it were reality itself.
The trilogy of films ends with The Artist and the City, a short poetic documentary that
explores an imagined city of Porto through the complex relationships between the individual and
the collective, the fragmented and the whole, painting and film itself. My aim here is to question the
relationship between the artistic practice of moving images and the experience of the modern city
towards a logic of sensation. This objective is not limited to the film’s aesthetic qualities, for I also
aim to analyse its social, economic, and political structure, just as Kracauer claimed (1995, p. 318).
Could The Artist and the City be the soul that was lacking in other city symphony films? Does it
give us an innovative perspective on its social, economic, and political structure?
In a way, as mentioned above, The Artist and the City revisits many of the subjects presented
in both Labor on the Douro River and Aniki Bóbó, and it seems at first to recover the city symphony
genre in the sense that it portrays a conventional working day in a big, modern city. In this case, the
journey is that of a painter, the watercolour artist António Cruz, who takes the viewer on a tour of
his favourite city landmarks while painting them.
The film is not limited to depicting a painter at work, however. As a film, it creates a
particular space and a particular time for that cinematic experience. What I wish to explore here is
how the portrait of a modern city is assembled in a montage of fragments and the differences
between painting and film. The Artist and the City was not only Oliveira’s first colour film,
exploring the full sensorial potential of polychrome, but also a film about the powerful forces of the
moving image.
At the age of forty-eight, Oliveira directed his first colour film—colour being the only
reason offered in explanation of his choice to portray this artist in particular, a watercolourist. On
the one hand, we might say that the film explores contemplative ‘representation’ and the transition
from the painter’s urban watercolours to the filmic image of the urban landscape. On the other,
however, the filmmaker was aware of the enormous responsibility of his ingenuity, since a
comparison would doubtless be made between his cinematography and the canvas.

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 António Cruz and the city, Porto, are the film’s two protagonists. According to André Bazin
(1957, p. 48), this “film d’art” is a “poetic documentary about the city of Porto.” 71 The film portrays
the modern mundanity that surrounds the artistic work, showing the painter surrounded by
anonymous crowds snooping at his work, but also by the city’s soundscapes.
But The Painter and the City is more than a poetic documentary about a city; it is more than
a short documentary on an artist and his work. It is not a biopic about a watercolourist—we are not
introduced to the painter’s life and work, to his techniques and influences, or to his importance to
the Portuguese art world. In the end, we learn nothing about António Cruz himself.
Whereas Labor on the Douro was clearly inspired by Ruttmann’s film and structured by
different film editing techniques, The Painter is quite different, as if the filmmaker were rejecting
his earlier work as overly centred on editing methods. Whereas classical city symphonies move
from the periphery towards the city center, like the journey taken by a commuter, The Painter
moves from the artist’s studio to the outdoors, a visual metaphor for the worldview we are about to
experience, but also a literal movement from painting to film.
This first movement gives us the illusion that we are about to see the artist immersed in his
inspiration, the city of Porto. And at first, we are not deceived. Soon, however, after the first few
minutes, the film reveals itself as having other purposes. We do not leave with the artist; we leave
his studio through one of his works, through a slow panoramic movement from the door to one of
the paintings, precisely a painting of a steam train (a symbol for cinema itself), entering into a
cinematically imagined other place, other than the portrayed city of Porto (Figs. 1–4).

Figs. 1–4: Screenshots from The Painter and the City (© Manoel de Oliveira)

71Author’s translation.

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 The next shots are of trains, crossing bridges or arriving at São Bento train station, a clear
reference to the Lumière brothers. Here, we can see that Oliveira is fully aware that cinema has
radically changed the way we view the urban space. As Oliveira continues with this tribute, looking
back into cinema’s history but also to the city’s historical landmarks, he is also looking forward by
creating a new image of a modern, dynamic, fragmented city. This opposition is very important to
understanding the structure of the film. Even if we recognize a time and a place (1950s Porto), the
film has another subject: a sensorial aesthetics that reveals the passages between art forms, between
different techniques. The film’s objectivity—and indeed its music—sometimes mimics the canvas’s
point of view, thus perpetuating the classical hierarchy between spaces: sacred and profane, urban
and rural, etc.), although it generally moves beyond imitation by creating new points of view,
framing the city in a fragmented way and creating a cinematic space that is unsettled and
disconnected, with slow and disorienting vertical camera movements that depart from the human
point of view.
Spatiotemporal fragmentation follows the contemplative gaze of modernity, confronting the
viewer with the painting’s presentness, emphasised by Lessing’s idea of the “pregnant moment”.
Time is a disruptive element in the relationship between painting and film. It is in terms of time
that, in a 1989 interview, Manoel de Oliveira explained how the film was conceived: “I made The
Painter in opposition to Labor on the Douro River. If Douro is a film of montage, The Painter is a
film of ecstasies. We were ecstatic with those images, for a long period of time. Within The Painter
and the City I have discovered that time is a rather important element. I mean, there is colour, there
is framing, there is the shot object, but there is, most of all, time. I have discovered that a fast image
has an effect, but when the image persists, then it gains another form” (1989, p. 56).72
The avant-garde use of a temporal dimension that has freed itself from movement (against a
cinema of montage), and the intersections between still and moving images and sounds—the
simplicity of the city’s noises (trains, trams, …), the intermittent use of an extradiegetic soundtrack
and the absence of traditional voiceover, which could contextualize the film or introduce the main
character (the film also has no intertitles )—will be important in analysing how cinema becomes a
technique that is closer to art than a neutral mechanical reproduction of reality. Oliveira also inserts
the appropriate sounds for some of the elements portrayed in the paintings, such as the noise of a
train passing or the sound of church bells. Sound plays a specific role in the film, shifting between
religious music by Luis de Sousa Rodrigues, a madrigal choir, and the city’s own soundscapes. This
cinematic mode of thinking and feeling explores the ontological connections between different
media and the sensual qualities of the compound of affects and percepts.

72Author’s translation.

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 The city’s social space is inhabited by an anonymous crowd, circulating in a homogeneous
space, an anonymity and homogeneity that is only disturbed by art in the figure of the painter, who
stands out from the crowd, drawing attention to himself as an outsider to the city’s anonymous
rhythm and movements. The painter’s presence interrupts the quotidian and distracts passersby from
their usual routines, thus fragmenting the homogeneous urban space. At one point in the film, a
police officer approaches to disperse the crowd.
But Oliveira takes advantage of editing techniques to insert his own vision of Portuguese
society at that point in time, expressing his own social and political concerns about the extra-
cinematic city and society. This is exemplified in a poetic sequence in which Oliveira alternates
fixed shots of flowering trees with fixed shots of modernist buildings, thus using the concepts of
spring and modernism as metaphors for the awakening of a new society (Figs. 5–8):

Figs. 5–8: Screenshots from The Painter and the City (© Manoel de Oliveira)

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It is also exemplified in a sequence in which the crowd “follows” directions given by mute statues,
moving to the right and to the left, unquestioningly (Figs. 9–10). In these examples, we see
Oliveira’s notorious interest in the anonymous human beings who inhabit, work in and move
through the city.

Figs. 9–10: Screenshots from The Painter and the City (© Manoel de Oliveira)

The filmmaker inserts his own vision in a movement from images to ideas. Far from being empty
and artificial, Oliveira’s formalism is full of meaning, directing us to notice and to think about the
visual contradictions of modern society (also strengthening this perspective are shots of poverty and
of people living in sheds at the periphery of the historical city center).
The Artist and the City is also an experimental art documentary, and this aspect is important
when it comes to blocking the criticisms levied against city symphonies’ ostensibly superficial and
formalist features, adding new layers of interpretation. In this respect, it is also worth noting the
film’s color palette: its sunny yellows, misty greys, and reds and oranges of the afternoon. The
watercolor technique aims to render its subjects visible, capturing their impreciseness and fuzziness
rather than copying reality. At first sight, this conjugation may seem anachronistic; as Bernardo
Pinto de Almeida argues (2015), watercolor was an artistic resistance to modernism itself and its
transformations, whereas cinema was the best expression of a modernist demand. Oliveira is able to
bring both watercolor and cinema together as a study on light. Film is the perfect medium for
reproducing watercolors since both depend on the suspended, almost ghostly, materiality of light,
fog, and mist: a “luminous film.”

The Spiritual Automaton: Images and Ideas

It is with regard to the film’s temporal dimension that Oliveira distinguishes himself. The
filmmaker argues that there was a great difference between Labor on the Douro River and The
Painter and the City, a film in which he wanted to use time in a very different way: instead of

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relying on montage sequences, in The Painter he wanted to extend the duration of each shot to
create an unconventional perception of time, almost more than necessary, turning a distracting
experience into a possibly contemplative one. In this way, the persistence of the shot, its duration
distended more than is “narratively” necessary, becomes the spirit of the spectator. More than giving
fleeting and rapid impressions, the film materializes new, persisting sensations. In a footnote to the
second volume on cinema, The Time-Image, Deleuze appeals to Cézanne’s idea of a “materialized
sensation”, saying that “a film is not understood as offering or producing sensations for the viewer,
but as ‘materializing them,’ achieving a tectonics of sensation” (2008, p. 316 n.44).
This “new aesthetic creature” thus creates a strange aesthetic experience, half contemplation
and concentration, half shock and distraction. This awkward combination is not located temporally
in the present, however, mainly because of the dominant and transformative role of film in relation
to painting.
Of course, painting’s simulation of eternity (its presentness) creates a stronger experience
that concentrates the viewer’s attention, which seems to be the exact opposite of the distraction
produced by moving images. This new creature contradicts the temporal tension between the
painting’s eternity and the film’s ephemeral character: Oliveira stretches the duration of certain
shots to counteract the ways in which film (with its characteristic editing techniques) distracts us.
Time endures in The Painter and the City.
Together with the idea of cinematic time, this perspective challenges our natural approach to
‘motionless’ artistic images, especially our ordinary expected understanding of the present moment:
the actual chronological sequence of present moments according to what is represented [immobile
image = eternal present]. The general use of the parallel montage (of the variable present) in
classical cinema highlights this idea. Although this overemphasis on the eternal present of the
“now” can give us a certain indirect image of time, it is an intra-temporal image that exists in time
and that results from a natural and unconscious understanding of the continuous contraction of the
past and the future [past presents ← living present → future present].
As noted above, Manoel de Oliveira’s The Painter and the City goes beyond the canvas’s
point of view by creating new perspectives that from the human point of view, for example by
framing the city in a fragmented way, thus creating a cinematic space that is unsettled and
disconnected, with slow and disorienting vertical camera movements.
This brings us to one last Deleuzian concept that I wish to mention, if only briefly, because it
sums up what is in question here: the concept of a “spiritual automaton.” 73 Grounded in Spinoza’s
philosophy, the concept of a spiritual automaton plays a central role in Deleuze’s philosophy of film
since it synthetizes his idea that cinema thinks and feels by itself: “We can no longer say ‘I see, I

73For a better understanding of this concept’s philosophical origins, see Viegas 2014.

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hear’, but I FEEL, ‘totally physiological sensation’. And it is the set of harmonics acting on the
cortex which gives rise to thought, the cinematographic I THINK: the whole as subject” (Deleuze,
2008, p. 158). Claire Colebrook (2001, p. 29), for example, observes that “[o]nly with cinema can
we think of a mode of ‘seeing’ that is not attached to the human eye. Cinema, then, offers something
like a ‘percept’: a reception of data that is not located in a subject.” As Richard Rushton argues,
“[w]hile at the cinema, we are able to encounter that which is genuinely new” (2012, p. 11).
Deleuze describes film as a new experience, as a possible field for creating new percepts and
new affects, the elements that constitute his logic of sensation. Although he does not conceptualize
the role of the viewer, he defines the creation of a new subjectivity that is particular to the cinematic
experience, one that is not reducible to psychological analysis (the question of the gaze, voyeurism,
identification, empathy, etc.) but that centres on new ways of thinking and feeling, which he
identifies with the film itself. Concerning the visual arts in general, Deleuze was not interested in
studying movement as the simple dislocation of moving bodies, as in the spatial movement from
point A to point B, or cinematic photograms as immobile images to which abstract movement is
added by the mechanical and rhythmic sequencing of still images. Instead, he was interested in the
inception of movement into spirit, which is precisely what Oliveira attempted to achieve. Thus, the
essence of moving images can be better described by their capacity to create a shock in thinking, to
directly touch our nervous system, and less so by their narrative and imaginative communication
skills.

References

Bazin, A. (1957). « Le petit journal du cinéma. Oliveira », Cahiers du cinéma 75 (octobre): 48.
Bazin, A. (1967). “Painting and Cinema.” In André Bazin, What Is Cinema? Vol.1 (pp. 164-169).
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Pinto de Almeida, B. (2015). “Um desenho de luz.” Prefácio à exposição de António Cruz na
Fundação Gulbenkian, Lisboa.
Bruno, G. (2002). Atlas of Emotion- Journeys in Art, Architecture, and Film. Verso: New York.
Clarke, David B. (1997). “Introduction.” In David B. Clarke (ed.), The Cinematic City (pp. 1-17).
New York/London: Routledge.
Colebrook, C. (2001). Gilles Deleuze. London/New York: Routledge.
Conceição, N. (2018). “Technology and Urban Space: On the Relation between the Historical
Approach and the Transformation of Aesthetic Values in Walter Benjamin.” In António
Marques and João Sáàgua (eds), Essays on Values and Practical Rationality: Ethical and
Aesthetical Dimensions (pp. 293-306). Bern: Peter Lang.

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Dalle Vacche, A. (1996). Cinema and Painting: How Art Is Used in Film. Austin: University of
Texas Press.
Deleuze, G. (2008). Cinema 2. London: Continuum.

Deleuze, G. (2009). Cinema 1. London: Continuum.

Deleuze, G. and F. Guattari (1994). What is Philosophy? New York: Columbia University Press.
Gilloch, G. (1996). Myth and Metropolis: Walter Benjamin and the City. Polity Press.
Klee, P. (1985). Théorie de l’art moderne. Paris: Éditions Denoël
Kracauer, S. (1995). The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Oliveira, M. (1989). “Entrevista com João Bénard da Costa.” In João Bénard da Costa (org.),
Manoel de Oliveira: Cem Anos. Lisboa: Cinemateca Portuguesa/Museu do Cinema.
Rushton, R. (2012). Cinema after Deleuze. New York/London: Continuum.
Viegas, S. (2014). “Deleuze, leitor de Espinosa: Automatismo espiritual e fascismo no cinema.”
Kriterion: Revista de Filosofia 129: 363-378.
Villarmea Álvarez, I. (2015). Documenting Cityscapes: Urban Change in Contemporary Non-
Fiction Film. New York: Columbia University Press.

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7. Paulo Alexandre e CASTRO
Sobre Eco Houses e outras arquitecturas do pensamento

1. Viagem iniciática: arkhé e techné

Na história civilizacional tudo parece indicar que o homem garantiu a sobrevivência da espécie
porque desenvolveu superiormente as suas capacidades cognitivas em detrimento de outras menos
preciosas. A sua capacidade de arquitectar estratagemas de sobrevivência garantiu-lhe um
posicionamento inigualável entre as espécies animais. Pode, pois, dizer-se que é devido à
arquitectura do seu pensamento que ele começa a erigir-se e a erigir aquilo que o dotará de
habilidades técnicas (únicas) no reino animal. Ou melhor, não apenas de capacidades
extraordinárias, mas do desenvolvimento exponencial delas.
As edificações tomadas enquanto conjunto estruturado e moldado de divisões erigido no
mundo físico, não é uma invenção (leia-se criação) humana. Espécies diversas já o faziam muito
antes do primeiro hominídeo que, em boa verdade, segundo as análises da pré-história, se limitaria a
procurar um abrigo em edificações já existentes (grutas e afins). Ora, tais construções eram
efectivamente ecológicas: das colónias de térmitas ou formigueiros às colmeias, os exemplos
abundam e fornecem a exacta noção da integração dessas construções numa sintonia perfeita com o
ambiente.
No mundo humano primordial, aquilo que é conhecido como sociedades pré-históricas e o
respectivo sistema das três idades (em Antropologia e Arqueologia), isto é, a caracterização da pré-
história humana segundo a metodologia empregue na criação de utensílios e ferramentas, portanto,
da idade da pedra (depois idade do bronze) até idade do ferro, faz com que se atente nesta última. É
com ela que se introduzem grandes alterações na forma como se conquistam os materiais, como se
manejam, como se despojam os excessos, como se inicia no fundo, um paradigma de utilização do
meio e, por consequência, de uma certa desveneração. O crescimento das civilizações que marcam
este período e a difusão (aprovação) de crescentes movimentos místicos e religiosos veio acelerar e
validar esse paradigma, uma vez que a colocação do homem no centro do mundo (a própria
antropomorfização da natureza corresponde a essa exigência hierárquica) e a submissão de todas as
espécies (animais e vegetais) aos seus objectivos se torna uma afirmação de poder. E erigir uma
casa é uma demonstração de poder.

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 Aquele que arquitecta a construção de uma casa conforma os desígnios de um desejo ancestral
de edificar obra humana. Repare-se que a arquitectura, essa arte ancestral, vai procurar uma
adequação entre os diferentes juízos de gosto e de valor, entre os seus desejos e ambições que o
homem manifesta na sua demanda poiética e filosófica e assim, a arquitectura é um intento
metafísico de prima ordem, pois que o arkhitékton (cuja raíz arkhé remete para primeiro, originário)
aquele que assume a busca primeira, a chefia, se faz tékhton, construtor de desígnios. O arquitecto
do mundo que conhecemos da filosofia helénica, nada mais é que um construtor engenhoso
(demiurgo, construtor) que desenhou, dividiu, providenciou formas, concebeu ideias para a
harmoniosa arquitectura terrena e celestial. Arquitectar é neste sentido uma tarefa tanto da phusys
como da meta-phusys.
É neste cenário que se encontra a obra De Architectura de Marcos Vitrúvio (século I a.c.), que
faz a apologia dessa demanda e fusão entre as diferentes áreas, mas que acima de tudo nos
permitimos destacar os dois primeiros livros (a obra e composta por dez livros). Se no primeiro
livro, o autor se indaga sobre a própria definição de arquitectura e qual o seu propósito, no segundo
livro coloca a questão da habitação dos primeiros homens e (do progresso) das suas construções. 74
Deixando de lado, as preocupações teóricas de Vitrúvio (a definição da arte que arquitecta passaria
pela harmonia entre a beleza, a firmeza e a utilidade, respectivamente, venustas, firmitas e utilitas)
importa perceber as implicações que esta obra já anuncia, sobretudo a partir do livro segundo, a
saber, o conjunto de alterações e modificações que se operam no meio ambiente (a extração de
matérias disponíveis para construção), na paisagem para atender ao crescimento das populações. 75
Na verdade, a relação não estabelecida entre paisagem e natureza durante séculos (note-se que
segundo Anne Cauquelin a palavra paisagem não existiria),76 revela a dialéctica de manipulação
ambiental, só quebrada pela invenção do jardim como lugar de meditação. 77 Uma manipulação que
surge nesse quadro de receita e proveito do mundo, da natureza no seu estado de abertura (para
usarmos uma abordagem heideggeriana) que instaura à techné. Nessa arte de fazer com saber
(precisão e equilíbrio) a instituição desse ofício que arquitectura o pensamento da construção dá-se
como administração da forma e da matéria, como gestão e exploração do espaço, afirmando o seu

74Por exemplo, ver aqui: http://www.civil.ist.utl.pt/~hrua/Publica/Vitruvio.pdf

75Ver: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20239/20239-h/20239-h.htm
76«Algumas pessoas têm dificuldade em acreditar nisso, e tentam contornar a dificuldade de mil maneiras. É que, entre
os Gregos antigos, nem palavra nem coisa se assemelham de modo nenhum àquilo a que chamamos “paisagem” …
Estupefação profunda quando comparada com a nossa admiração secular em relação a este céu e a esta terra, ás ilhas ao
longe, às costas, àquelas colinas áridas e àquelas florestas agradáveis e à luz. (…) É isto a Grécia. Será possível que
nenhuma ideia da “paisagem” tenha sido formada, formulada, elaborada? A cisa parece impensável. No entanto, é
assim. Para nossa grande confusão». (Cauquelin, 2008, 33).
77«Eis a longa teoria dos jardins, kepos-hortus, locais de repouso e de meditação que, rompendo com o espaço
indeterminado ou sobrelotado de marcas por e através de uma história, constroem os seus traços distintivos longe da
cidade. Esta forma, que os Romanos levaram à perfeição, encontra-se próximo de uma noção ainda não estabelecida, a
de paisagem. Trata-se, de facto, de uma aspiração a uma natureza, de um recolhimento no seio de elementos naturais,
contudo os traços característicos do jardim distinguem-no claramente daquilo que ele toca assim ao de leve – a
paisagem está fora dos seus desígnios». (Canquelin, 2008, 46).

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lugar nas artes e ofícios. Naquilo que é considerado uma filosofia da arquitectura, que diga-se, é
apenas uma leitura modelada através da estética (como as preconizadas por Gilles Deleuze ou
Robert Venturi) e que poderia trazer luz a estas questões, é ainda e só uma perspectiva refeita
através do valor estético dado pela arquitectura ou das suas relações socio-culturais; prova de tais
leituras revelam-se pela visão despendida que a semântica lhes proporcionou entre arquitectar
(capacidade intelectiva) e construir (natureza) e que pouco adiantam, diga-se, em relação à reflexão
sobre arquitectura, dada a partir das Lições sobre Estética de Hegel.
O que importa destacar neste cruzamento entre natureza e construção, entre arquitectar a
habitação e habitar a natureza é a transmutação metamórfica dos materiais que viriam a modelar o
desenvolvimento das cidades; no fundo, a transformação da paisagem e a transmutação dos
materiais vieram alterar a própria forma de pensar a arte e o espaço, pois as matérias da arte e as
matérias da natureza sofrem uma ruptura substancial:

Assiste-se à instauração de uma nova ordem. São dois domínios, mesmo não havendo
intervenção dos artifícios e do fabrico. A madeira da estátua já não é a madeira da árvore; o
mármore esculpido já não é o mármore da pedreira; o ouro fundido, martelado, é um metal
inédito; o tijolo, cozido e moldado, deixou de corresponder à argila do barreiro. A cor, o grão
e todos os valores que afectam o tacto óptico, mudaram. (…) Por vezes, de entre alguns
povos, as correspondências entre as matérias da arte e as matérias estruturais foram objecto de
estranhas especulações (Focillon, 2001, 57).

Tais especulações (místicas) permitiam, no entanto, a construção de abrigo e de traços

artísticos (construção asiática e africana) com sustentabilidade e respeito pelo meio; os materiais
que algumas tribos (africanas e asiáticas) utilizam feitos apenas com restos de madeira e argila, sem
recurso a qualquer tipo de maquinaria (tudo feito com trabalho manual e geralmente e ainda de
forma rudimentar) são o exemplo de uma construção totalmente ecológica.

2.As eco-houses e o pressuposto ecológico

A arquitectura transforma o meio e o homem. Toda a arquitectura humana faz uma modelagem
artificial do meio ambiente e como tal, a construção interpõe elementos, grosso modo, não naturais
na paisagem e no ambiente; diga-se que abstractamente considerada, tal configura uma
trans(a)gressão do ambiente. Pensando o seu contrário significaria per se, uma perfeita e equilibrada

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harmonização entre natureza a edificação. Interpelação mais filosófica que arquitectónica dirão
muitos e ela voltaremos.
A preocupação com o ambiente, a preocupação de respeitar os sistemas ecológicos exigiria mais e
melhor, mas tem havido, parece-nos, um esforço crescente de criar edifícios e casas mais
sustentáveis, ou como soi dizer-se, com menos pegada ecológica. As eco-houses parecem ser um
desses exemplos embora muitas dessas construções (pode arriscar dizer-se, na larga maioria dos
casos) acentuem ainda a vertente económica em detrimento da vertente ecológica.
A definição de eco-house começa com a seguinte descrição: é uma construção de baixo impacto
ambiental que usa materiais e tecnologia que reduz a pegada ambiental e menos energia. A sua
construção é desenhada tendo em conta alguns factores que são passíveis de mensuração de acordo
com o parâmetro da sustentabilidade, tais como a conservação da água, redução de resíduos (e
reciclagem de materiais), controlo da poluição e redução de Co2 (para travar o aquecimento global),
regeneração de fontes de energia.78 De acordo com esta (possível) definição as Eco-houses (também
designadas Eco-homes) são vendidas/publicitadas geralmente apelando aos seguintes elementos:
isolamento térmico acima da média, boa exposição e orientação solar, ventilação mecânica com
recuperação de calor, aquecimento da casa através de fontes renováveis, painéis fotovoltaicos, uso
de materiais naturais, reaproveitamento de águas pluviais, vidros duplos nas janelas, uso de turbinas
eólicas, aplicação de elementos geotérmicos e aplicação de plantas no telhado para regulação de
temperatura e produzir oxigénio, fornecimento de pequeno terreno agrícola para plantação de
vegetais, etc. De notar, no entanto, que em muitos casos, o uso de materiais naturais pode significar
a destruição progressiva de um habitat ou eco-sistema. Dois exemplos podem ser fornecidos,
dispensando desde já o recurso continuado a madeira que estas casas usam geralmente (começam a
surgir outras composições sobretudo em modelos pré-fabricados mas que mantém o mesmo
problema de base).
Um exemplo prende-se directamente com o espaço. Quantas mais casas ecológicas existirem (casas
individuais) maior é o impacto no meio ambiente (a estimativa aponta para 9 biliões de seres
humanos numa década). Isso significa uma maior área de construção e consequente diminuição de
habitats. Neste sentido, não se configura como uma solução sustentável (repare-se ainda que a
orientação solar que publicitam significa em muitos casos, a obstrução solar de outras áreas). Mas
desde logo a fabricação das células fotovoltaicas que implicam a extração e transformação do silício
(note-se que este cristal aparece geralmente na forma de dióxido de carbono – sílica – e silicatos, o
que implica um processo complexo de transformação). Ainda sobre isto, os próprios painéis solares

78Por exemplo em Hassan Almed refere-se: « This project aim is to construct a prototype of an eco-friendly house
which is constructed and powered with minimal CO2 emissions which replacing cement in construction. The main
focus on reducing the production of CO2 is by utilizing an innovative material known as geo-polymer cement and the
usage of a solar panel to power the prototype fully using a clean and renewable energy source. This will in turn reduce
our dependency on fossil fuels». (Almed et al., 2016, 1)

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no seu conjunto: prefiguram um quadro de possibilidades para as eco-houses mas a sua construção
tem implicações directas no ambiente. A utilização de plásticos como a backsheet (que é um
plástico branco colocado atrás do painel solar como isolamento eléctrico em três camadas) e a caixa
de junção, significa quase sempre o uso da indústria petrolífera. Para terminar este exemplo, a
moldura de alumínio anodizado utilizada na junção de todos os elementos. Ora, muitas destas
considerações que hoje estão implicadas na concepção de casas ecológicas estão contempladas
naquele que foi apelidado de médico da arquitectura (e pintor rei) cujo nome é Hundertwasser.

3. O médico da arquitectura e a sustentabilidade

Ressalve-se desde já que Hundertwasser não nos fala de uma utopia futurista, mas de uma filosofia
prática, que é a um só tempo estética, ética e política. O seu pensamento parte da estreita ligação
entre homem e mundo, isto é, dessa primeira instância do sentir que é a sua pele, e, que estenderá
(este conceito) até ao limite, sendo que o limite é o próprio mundo, relacionando a prática do acto
criativo individual (dimensão estética, ética e política pois todos teriam direito a afirmar o seu poder
criador) até à prática generalizada de uma ecologia global que não se subsume na mera
reivindicação de práticas ambientais mas se coordena com a ambição de uma nova arquitectura,
acaba por afirmar o lugar de uma política educativa ao mesmo tempo que reenvia a uma ética
ambiental auto-sustentável. Recordamos aqui a tese de Herbert Read quando nos diz que “a arte
deve ser a base da educação” (Read, 1982, 13).
O homem está no centro do sistema para Hundertwasser não para reivindicar uma
antropocentrismo de qualquer forma abstracta ou científica mas para ser o ser criador da harmonia com
a natureza, e portanto, para ser a chave para o bem-estar, para a felicidade e para nos indicar a beleza
do caminho para lá chegar. Não há beleza sem arte, diz-nos, e essa é a “arte de viver”. Hundertwasser
quer devolver-nos os espaços e os tempos da intimidade, contra as ideologias dominantes (numa clara
resistência à globalização), ao procurar reivindicar o lugar de descobrimento do homem, da sua
criatividade, da sua identidade, no respeito pela natureza e beleza do mundo. Hundertwasser percebe
que os gestos, as acções, a praxis de cada sujeito produz efeitos no tudo de todos. Esse constitui de
facto o grande desafio para o futuro da humanidade e do mundo: recuperar a densidade e a intensidade
dos tempos e espaços, segundo a estruturação da teoria das cinco peles, para engendrar um mundo
melhor, de que já daremos explicação.
Na sua primeira exposição (1952) no Club de Arte em Viena, Hudnertwasser daria o primeiro
sinal daquilo que seria um ciclo de protestos públicos, ao referir que queria ser «independente da

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ameaça gigantesca da nossa civilização».79 De facto, é a partir desta consciência apurada contra a
estruturação e generalização, diríamos, de um certo juízo de gosto que se queria impor sobretudo na
arquitectura, que o pensamento de Hundertwasser se começa a esboçar. Uma das suas grandes
contestações é a sua insurgência contra a linha recta, quer dizer, contra a rigidez de uma geometria
que afasta o homem do seu poder criativo e o arrasta para um horizonte de indefinível
espiritualidade, ou se preferirmos, contra o racionalismo que estrutura o homem para ser de uma
certa forma, limitando-lhe o poder criativo. Assim, a linha recta é como que um fetish de
conveniência, uma imoralidade.80 Naturalmente a “Casa Wittgenstein” seria uma elegia desse fetish
para Hundertwasser, mas vai ao encontro da personalidade do filosofo (os traços de personalidade e
racionalidade lógica que caracterizam o seu Tractatus são disso evidência clara),81 não deixando de
ser curioso verificar que ambos (Hundertwasser e Wittgenstein) desenharem casas que vão contra o
estilo antidecorativo de Adolf Loos.
No manifesto Loose from Loos – a lei que permite a construção individual ou o manifesto de
boicote à arquitectura (este manifesto é uma reacção declarada à posição de Adolf Loos, defendida
em Viena no ano de 1908, contra os excessos florais do Jugendstil, e que poderia ser traduzido na
máxima de que todo o «ornamento é um crime»), pronunciado no Concórdia Hall de Vienne em
Fevereiro de 1968, Hundertwasser refere que a «linha recta é a única linha não criativa. A única
linha que não corresponde ao homem como a imagem de Deus» 82. Mas já em 1953 Hundertwasser
declarava que a «linha recta conduz o homem à queda da civilização», tal como em 1956 na
Gramática de Observação incitava o homem a desenvolver os seus impulsos criativos individuais.
Em Julho de 1958 o Mould Manifesto Against Rationalism in Architecture, pronunciado em
Seckau Abbey, o Addendum em 1959, a que se seguiria o Pintorarium nesse mesmo ano, até
chegarmos ao mais famoso dos discursos: Discurso nu pelo direito a uma terceira pele,
pronunciado na Hartmann Gallery, em Munique em 1967. Aí Hundertwasser declara a arquitectura
moderna como uma prisão imputando ao próprio homem a cobardia dessa vivência, sobretudo na
pessoa do arquitecto.83 Mas é sobretudo a partir do manifesto de 1958 - Manifesto do Bolor contra
79Cf. Koschatzky, Walter, «Hundertwasser» in Catálogo «Hundertwasser – obra gráfica (1951-1978)» [para a exposição
que ocorreu na Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian de 9 Janeiro a 18 Fevereiro de 1979, numa organização conjunta com a
Embaixada da Austria], Printed in West Germany, 1978.
80«The straight line is a heathen, immoral thing. The straight line is a reproductive and not a creative line. Neither God
nor the spirit of humanity resides in it, but rather a brainless, anti-like collectivism which makes a fetish of
convenience». Citado por Bockelmann, Manfred, Hundertwasser – Rainy Day, Munique, Pub. Bruckmann, 1972, p. 42.
81A este propósito ver, por exemplo: Wilson S.J. «The Play of Use and the Use of Play: an Interpretation of
Wittgenstein’s Comments on Architecture», In Architectural Review. 180.1073 (July 1986); Macarthur, David (2014).
«Working on Oneself in Philosophy and Architecture: A Perfectionist Reading of the Wittgenstein
House». Architectural Theory Review. 19 (2): 124–140.
82Citado in Hundertwasser architecture: for a more human architecture in harmony with nature, tradução inglesa de
Philip Mattson, introdução de Schmied, Wieland, Taschen, 1987, p. 58.
83«And these architects, like everybody who as gone to university, are so over-educated. By virtue of the machinery
they have been throught they are no longer capable of conceiving an idea of their own. They are legally qualified but
are totally incapable of thinking creatively, and these people are responsible fou us all. […] They don’t even have the
nerve to stick their nose out the window, they even have the nerve to tack a thumbtack in the wall – for fear of losing

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o racionalismo na arquitectura –, que a defesa do bem-estar, do direito à re-criação da sua janela, o
direito a habitar condignamente, ganha sentido nos sucessivos manifestos e atitudes filosóficas de
Hundertwasser: Inquilino Albero, (Milão, 1973), As retretes de Húmus (Munique, 1975), O
manifesto da santa merda (Pfäffikon, 1979).
A metáfora do ‘bolor’ é usada por Hundertwasser para designar o poder criador da natureza,
ao mesmo tempo que reivindica a inevitabilidade do seu aparecimento, isto é, tal como o bolor que
aparece ao fim de algum tempo quando tudo parece certo, ordenado e/ou estagnado, também o
poder criativo do homem necessita de um espaço de afirmação, de um espaço propiciador ao seu
aparecimento. Já no manifesto da “santa merda”, embora a metáfora esteja também presente e apele
ao poder de transformação, de transubstanciação da matéria, trata-se de revelar o poder dinamizador
dessa matéria orgânica como potência de geração, quer dizer, como um poder dialéctico e, portanto,
cíclico de gerar o novo: trata-se de re-aproveitar, de re-ciclar para gerar de novo, para propiciar um
novo acontecimento da matéria.
Mais do que simples presença polémica, mais do que gerar a controvérsia pela controvérsia,
Hundertwasser pensa o ambiente global e o lugar do homem nele, ao mesmo tempo que procura
esgrimir uma estética de contornos éticos, ou uma ética para uma estética cosmológica, fazendo por
isso lembrar as palavras de Wittgenstein quando referia no Tractatus que «a ética e a estética são
uma só» (aforismo 6.421). Assim, o conceito que melhor serve este propósito é o de pele: pensado
como o que envolve e protege, como fronteira e periferia, mas também como o que (se) proporciona
às descobertas de novos lugares e olhares. Assim, o conceito de pele alarga o horizonte íntimo
existente entre o homem e o mundo, na exposição (i)limitada dos múltiplos corpus.
Hundertwasser estrutura o mundo, na teoria das cinco peles, do seguinte modo: a primeira
pele configura-se como a epiderme (sentido genérico), a segunda pele como vestuário, a terceira
pele como a habitação, a quarta pele como identidade (meio social) e a quinta pele como Terra
(mundo). Significa isto que a primeira pele é aquela que envolve o sujeito, que protege o sujeito
(mas que ao mesmo tempo lhe confere identidade). A segunda pele protege a primeira pele, na
mesma medida em que a terceira protege a segunda. Ora, a quarta pele é já da ordem da
identificação dos valores, quer do homem consigo mesmo quer com os seus semelhantes, pois trata-
se já de uma pele que envolveria a identidade (lacto sensu), dada por exemplo pelos valores da
família e da identidade. A quinta pele afirma-se como meio global, isto é, como o meio onde se
congregam as diferentes peles na medida em que eleva e institui à categoria de valor supremo a
humanidade e a ecologia. Mas não será esta apresentação demasiado redutora do pensamento do
nosso autor? Como se articulam entre si estes níveis? A teoria das cinco peles congrega a
articulação das diferentes camadas, não de modo hierárquico (como se poderia ser levado a pensar
their lease». Citado in Hundertwasser architecture: for a more human architecture in harmony with nature, tradução
inglesa de Philip Mattson, introdução de Schmied, Wieland, Taschen, 1987, p. 55.

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numa primeira abordagem) mas entre si. Significa isto que tudo está pensado a pensar no todo, ou
como refere Restany «o pensamento teórico de Hundertwasser impressiona pela evidência lógica da
sua progressão empírica. A reflexão sobre o bolor vai fatalmente desembocar na conclusão do ciclo
biológico da natureza» (Restany, 2004, 28). Tome-se por exemplo o ciclo biológico da merda. Esta
matéria torna-se terra, que por sua vez gera (fertilizando) relva, jardim, floresta, o que por sua vez
permite a purificação do ar e da água. O círculo como que se fecha, não havendo desperdícios.
Repare-se por exemplo, como estudos relativos à gestão de resíduos não contemplam soluções de
sustentabilidade, que passem muito além do processo de recolhimento, transporte e tratamento, mas
que desconsideram processos caseiros como a compostagem.84
Hundertwasser adapta este esquema ao seu projecto de habitação ecológica. Tratar-se-ia de
uma espécie revelação alquímica da matéria, o que segundo Hundertwasser, permite compreender a
condição de habitar o mundo. Com este ciclo biológico estabelece-se uma articulação perfeita entre
as diferentes peles. Repare-se na “árvore-locatária” (a árvore pagaria a ‘renda’ com a produção de
ar):85 a concepção é de que a implementação/integração espacial de árvores nas janelas, varandas,
mas sobretudo nos telhados, permite não só melhorar o meio ambiente, como devolve-nos o
contacto à natureza, ao mesmo tempo que deixa acontecer a livre criação natural que embeleza por
si própria. São os terraços-jardim, os telhados-florestas, as barbas nas janelas, etc., a proporcionar a
vivência integrada do ambiente. Segue-se que o sujeito se sente bem nesta sua primeira e terceira
pele, nas suas acções concertadas, e influencia positivamente todos os outros níveis (melhora a sua
habitação, o meio social, o meio ambiente, o mundo).

4. Em conclusão: a arquitectura do pensamento e o ambiente

Hundertwasser re-inventa a arte, e nessa acção re-inventa a consciência crítica do artista. Assim o
objectivo do nosso artista é, nas palavras de Walter Koschatzky, desenvolver «a consciência crítica
como uma alavanca para a mudança, formular a anti-arte, incitar à revolução: Hundertwasser inicia
84É um processo aeróbico controlado, efectuado por uma população heterogénea de microorganismos (bactérias,
fungos e alguns protozoários) que actual em várias etapas». Martinho, Maria da Graça Madeira, Gonçalves, Maria
Graça Pereira, 1999. Gestão de Resíduos. Lisboa: Universidade aberta, p. 148.
Citando: «Compostagem é a degradação biológica aeróbia dos resíduos orgânicos até à sua estabilização, produzindo
uma substância húmica (composto) utilizada como corrector dos solos (Faria, 1997, 22).
85Refere Restany a propósito deste projecto: «é assim que funciona o ciclo orgânico da casa-tipo, eco-naturista de
Hundertwasser, a casa do telhado de relva, por exemplo: o húmus das retretes alimenta a relva sobre o telhado e as
árvores locatárias nas janelas. Essa vegetação capta a água da chuva que se junta ao circuito de fornecimento doméstico.
As águas de esgoto são posteriormente purificadas pelas plantas aquáticas de filtragem. No plano ecológico é difícil
fazer melhor; resta apenas pôr vacas a pastar no telhado, seguindo o exemplo da casa de telhado de relva de Ivan
Tarulevic na Nova Zelândia» (Restany, 2004, 79).

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a criação da imagem dum futuro em que a vida se torna mais digna, na qual ele pode ter fé, onde a
sua imaginação poética e o seu respeito pela dignidade humana podem ser revelados».86
Hundertwasser pode assim ser desconcertante, quando refere por exemplo, «que as pessoas
não estão preparadas para ver qualquer coisa de belo», e que por isso, ele mesmo pode ser um
traidor, uma vez que «em vez de criticar ou destruir, eu tento construir qualquer coisa e mostrar às
pessoas um caminho no mundo, como eu gostaria de ver um mundo melhor». 87 O seu carácter
interventivo, seja na pintura, na arquitectura, na ecologia, revelam o artista comprometido mas
também o artista admirado (os austríacos no dia da inauguração da Casa Hundertwasser, criaram
uma fila de 70 000 pessoas).
Não se pense que estão esquecidas as concepções do nosso artista. Os selos, tal como as
bandeiras, as chapas de matrícula dos automóveis ou simplesmente as capas de livros (como fez no
caso da enciclopédia brockhaus) que também realizou, são elementos identificativos que favorecem
o enquadramento com a quarta pele. Aliás, toda a produção do artista nos anos 80 e 90 acentuam o
seu carácter de intervenção social: autocolante «Mais verde em Viena», 1980; cartaz para a
Greenpeace Pacific Southwest e para a Cousteau Society, são Francisco, 1981 «Salvem as Baleias –
Salvem os Mares»; cartaz de 1989 para Budapeste «usem os transportes públicos – salvem a
cidade», entre outros revelam bem a coerência intelectual de Hundertwasser e as suas preocupações
ambientais. Ganham assim sentido as palavras de Restany quando refere em conclusão, acerca das
considerações de Hundertwasser que a «catástrofe que prevê não é, no fim de contas, senão a
dramatização do seu mais sincero desejo: o fim do totalitarismo da cultura global.
Os espaços felizes que nos propõe a partir de hoje o médico da arquitectura são efectivamente
destinados a assegurar a felicidade de uma humanidade finalmente libertada da tirania racional do
funcionalismo» (Restany, 2004, 95). Mais do que a instauração de um sistema filosófico, do que o
legado estético da sua imensa obra pictórica, Hundertwasser deixa em aberto uma leitura mais
profícua do seu pensamento: o poder da arte como motor de transformação social das mentalidades
(porque a arte tem o poder não de reproduzir o visível, mas de tornar visível, como dissera Paul
Klee). Hundertwasser parece subscrever, na medida em que o poder da arte parece abrir as portas
não para sobreviver, mas para viver, e para viver melhor, entendido aqui como estratégia existencial
tal como Albert Camus o dissera: «viver não o melhor possível, mas o mais possível». Viver o mais
possível é viver em harmonia com o meio circundante, é viver na felicidade da construção da
beleza, é procurar viver segundo esse impulso vital e criador que o homem tem à sua disposição.

86Vide, Koschatzky, Walter, «Hundertwasser» in Catálogo «Hundertwasser – obra gráfica (1951-1978)» Exposição
itinerante na Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian de 9 Janeiro a 18 Fevereiro de 1979, Printed in West Germany, 1978.
87«People have no preparation for looking at what is beautiful. If you offer a glimpse of Paradise before the revolution
has triumphed, you are branded a traitor. Perhaps I’m a traitor when, instead of going in for constant criticism or
destruction, I try to do something constructive and to guide people to a world that is- well, just how I like to picture a
better world». (Bockelmann, 1972, 63).

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Refere Restany,

do bolor à santa merda, ao ritmo da sua experiência vivida e pontuada por exibições e
manifestos, a visão teórica de Hundertwasser estruturou-se em volta de uma equação central:
natureza + beleza = felicidade. O homem está no centro do sistema: a harmonia com a
natureza é a chave para a felicidade e a beleza o caminho para lá chegar. Não há beleza sem
arte, que é a arte de viver. (Restany, 2004, 30).

Hundertwasser quer devolver-nos os espaços e os tempos íntimos, contra as ideologias

dominantes (numa clara resistência à globalização), ao procurar reivindicar o lugar de
descobrimento do homem, da sua criatividade, da sua identidade, no respeito pela natureza e beleza
do mundo. Hundertwasser percebe que os gestos, as acções, a praxis de cada sujeito produz efeitos
em todos. Esse constitui de facto o grande desafio para o futuro da humanidade e do mundo:
recuperar a densidade e a intensidade dos tempos e espaços íntimos (segundo a estruturação da
teoria das cinco peles), para engendrar a utopia naturista de um mundo melhor, que no fundo revele
a verdadeira arquitectura do pensamento do homem com o ambiente que habita.

Referências

Almed, Hassan Abdelrahman ali et al., Design and Development of Green Eco-house”, MATECH
web of Conferences, 38 (2016): 1-5. DOI: 10.1051/matecconf/20163802006

Bockelmann, Manfred, Hundertwasser – Rainy Day, Munique, Pub. Bruckmann, 1972.

Crittenden, B, Kolaczkowski, S., 1995. Waste Minimization. A Practcal Guide. Institution of

Chenmical Engineers.

Faria, A. Lobato, 1997. «Tecnologia do confinamento de resíduos urbanos em grandes aterros», in

Águas e Resíduos, nº 5, 22-26.

Heiman, M. 1990. «From “not in my backyard!” to “Not in Anybody’s Backyard”: Grassroots

Challenge to Hazardous Waste Facility Siting». Journsl of the American Planning Association, 56
(3), 359-362.

Koschatzky, Walter, «Hundertwasser» in Catálogo «Hundertwasser – obra gráfica (1951-1978)».

Martinho, Maria da Graça Madeira, Gonçalves, Maria Graça Pereira, 1999. Gestão de Resíduos.
Lisboa: Universidade aberta.

Rathje, W, Murphy, C. 1992. Rubbish! The Archaeology pf Garbage. New York: Harper Collins

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Publishers.

Read, Herbert.1982,. A Educação pela Arte. Tradução de ana maria rabaça e luis filipe silva teixeira.
Lsboa: edições 70, 1982.

Restany, Pierre, Hundertwasser, o Pintor-Rei das cinco peles, Tradução Teresa Carvalho, Lisboa,
Ed. Taschen, 2004.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Tratado Lógico-Filosófico e Investigações Filosóficas, Tradução de M. S.

Lourenço, Lisboa, Edição da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian.

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8. Vítor ALVES
Singularities of the mirror

With the theoretical background provided by Jacques Lacan’s text “The mirror stage as
formative of the function of the I as revealed in psychoanalytic experience”88, this paper explores
the possibility of construction of the architect’s self in confrontation with an “other”, reflected on
the pages of a specialized publication.
Since the 1970s, the connexions between architecture and the media, especially the printed
one, have been extensively explored. In this specific universe, the work of Beatriz Colomina and the
way she interprets the published images as ideological instruments89, is particularly relevant. For
example, in her 1994 book, Privacy and publicity, Colomina examines how Le Corbusier
manipulated the photographs of his Villa Schwob, built in 1916 and published in the 6th issue of
L’Esprit Nouveau magazine (1921), in order to produce or emphasize a particular argument. These
imagens have been tampered to underline very specific formal qualities: by removing the pergola,
some vegetation and the landscape itself, the building depicted, because detached from the place
which it belongs, acquires a more autonomous, purist and ideal character.90 One could say that the
manipulation of these representations, anticipates, on the printed page, something that only would
be fully accomplished with Villa Savoye in 1929.
However, this example is also useful to clarify an argument that Colomina presented a few
years earlier in her essay “Architectureproduction” (1988), where she states that: As in Lacan’s
famous analysis of the “mirror stage” of psychological development, the printed media provide for
Le Corbusier both a turning point and a moment of constitution of his architectural “self”.91 In this
brief sentence, Colomina equals the printed page with the Lacanian mirror, assigning to the paper
sheet the same effects of the specular image. She points out that, unlike the classical conception of
the mirror as an instrument that reproduces an imitation of an original and already constituted self,
Lacan posits that the mirror constructs the self, that the self as organised entity is actually an
imitation of the cohesiveness of the mirror image.92 Nonetheless, Colomina does not consider this to
be an exclusive of Le Corbusier, claiming that:
88Lacan, J. (1995), “The mirror stage as formative of the function of the I as revealed in psychoanalytic experience”, in Écrits: A
selection. London: Routledge, pp. 1-7. The final version of this text was delivered at the 16 th International Psychoanalytical Congress, in
Zurich on July 17, 1949, and published in the Revue Française de Psychalalyse, nº 4, October-December, 1949, pp. 449-455.
89Jannière, H.; Vanlaethem, F. (2008) “Architectural magazines as historical source or object? A methodological essay”, in Sonin, A.,
Jannière, H.; Vanlaethem, F. (eds.), Architectural Periodicals in the 1960s and 1970s. Montreal: IRHA, p. 51.
90Colomina, B. (1994), Privacy and publicity: Modern architecture as mass media. Cambridge: The MIT Press, pp. 107-111.
91Colomina, B. (1988), “Architectureproduction”, in Rattenbury, K. (ed.) (2002), This is not architecture. Media constructions. Oxon:
Routledge, p. 213.
92Idem, pp. 213-214.

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 […] anybody actively involved with publishing is familiar with this experience. The printed
media are the mirror wherein the bits and pieces of one’s writings and work (often
unrealised) return miraculously to their author in a “complete” image. The exhilarating
effect on one of the press is not unlike the jubilation of a six-month-old baby in front of a
mirror.93

Despite of the unexpected but intriguing analogy between the construction of what could be
called the “architectural self”, or “architect-I”, and the psychoanalytic perspective of the formation
of the “I”, Colomina mentions nothing more on the subject.
The “mirror stage” belongs to the “imaginary”, one of the three constituent dimensions of
the human condition and psychoanalysis (the other are the “symbolic” and the “real”), the one that
deals with images – those that exist and those that are formed, whether they are real or virtual. The
text’s object is the alienation of the “I”, a kind of fundamental fiction, occurring before any social
determination, regarding the individual’s relationship with his own body through his identification
with an image. Although Lacan uses the example of an eighteen-month-old baby to illustrate how
the “mirror stage” is a crucial moment in the child’s mental development and representative of the
essential libidinal connection with his body, he insists on highlighting that it also reveals an
ontological structure of the human world […] in which the “I” is precipitated in a primordial
form94 and defines the ideal-I. Meaning that the “mirror stage” is not a phenomenon that occurs at a
certain stage of the child’s development, but a kind of permanent structure of human subjectivity.
The mirror, in addition to being the first moment with oneself, through a specular image that is an
“other”, also illustrates the conflict character of the I/other attachment as an insuperable condition
of the individual.
The experience of the mirror provides the child with a sense of body unity that does not find
correspondence in his proprioceptive experience. The lack of motor coordination, the inability to
control his own body or the fragmented body sensation, are opposed by the perception of a body
unity (the mirror image) that amazes him, but that can already recognize as his own. In other words,
it is the identification with the specular image unity of a total formed body (a Gestalt), that causes
strangeness and generates anguish, by grounding the constitution of the “I” on the illusion of an
image that can never correspond to its faithful reflection, for it forms a subjectively non-existent
unity. Therefore, and according to Lacan’s description, the operation that allows the constitution of
the “I” is the same that condemns it to a condition of alienation, shaped by the identification
experience of the mirror image as an external and discordant image, suggesting a harmony contrary
93Idem, p. 214.
94Lacan, J. (1995), Op. Cit., p. 2.

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to the uncoordinated sensation experienced by the child’s body. Hence, one can understand the
Gestalt as the way by which the human being anticipates the maturation of his power in a mirage
that gives the “I” its rigid and alienated structure. What this experience also allows us to realize is
that what constitutes the “I”, even though it’s an image of oneself reflected in the mirror, is always
something that comes from the outside, by the presence of an “other”.
It is the encounter with the specular image, in front of an image of harmony and coherence,
an “ideal-I”, and regardless the inability to control his own body, which allows the child to
experience the jubilant sensation that resides in the hope to overcome this lack of coordination,
anticipating at a mental level the ability that has not yet mastered at the physical level due the
triumph of the “imaginary” dimension.
Thus, it is understandable how the “mirror” articulates the relation between the human being
and the environment in which he operates. The fact of being born without the ability to dominate his
own body and the difficulty in establishing connections with the surrounding context, presents to
the child as an obstacle to overcome. It is this gap, the primordial discord in Lacan’s words, which
the image in the mirror aims to solve as a mediator between the organism and the world through the
creation of the “ideal-I”. In this way, the “I” is revealed as an essentially paranoid instance, since its
origin is external to the individual, at the same time that is marked by the aggressiveness that the
whole identification process entails, since it highlights the lack of real unity with which the
individual rivals. The identification process means acquire to the “I” the characteristics of the
“other”, to take his place and, eventually, deny his existence. Accordingly, the relation with the
“other” is always an ambivalent one, both erotic and aggressive.
In Privacy and publicity, Beatriz Colomina draws attention to the fact that for Le Corbusier
architecture is a conceptual matter to be resolved in the purity of the realm of ideas, that when
architecture is built it gets mixed with the world of phenomena and necessarily loses his purity.95
However, Colomina argues that this effect is reversed when the same built object is published,
thereby returning to the world of ideas.96 Consequently, printed images, rather than representing
buildings, present ideas. Faced with the impossibility of accessing the built work through a printed
page, when publishing architecture (in its different representations: text, drawings, photographs,
etc.), what is being published is an ideal (an imaginary set of perfections – the ideas – which cannot
be fully realized). In the universe of publications, more than the dissemination of a particular object,
is the dissemination of its idea and its different meanings. In this sense, it is possible to situate this
conception of idea as close to the Gestalt notion as Lacan describes it (in the form of a specular
image of harmony and coherence with significant totality).

95Colomina, B. (1994) Op. Cit., p. 114.

96Ibidem.

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 The energy of “The mirror stage” lies not only in creating an image of oneself, but in its
instrumental use; when establishing a productive relation with the image, it is possible for the child
to see the impact of his movements. Similarly, it would be possible, through the publication as a
mirror, to perceive the extent of the author’s thoughts and their impact on reality. It is the existence
of the mirror that leads the child to make a number of new gestures, to interact with them, to
perceive the effects of these movements on the mirror image and the reflected environment.
Equally, in the case of specialized publications, is its existence which calls for new “movements”,
the creation of new discourses, while the creation of new knowledge justifies the existence of the
publication itself. Publications are the space where new ideas are translated into texts, images and
projects, where their effects can be seen and the impact they have on the reflected environment:
both on the authors (the reflected child’s image) and on the people and things around them (the
reality that the mirror duplicates). An architectural publication, as a mirror, functions as a virtual
complex and the reality it duplicates; it does not belong to the world of phenomena, but it is a
reality in itself, a virtual reality.
The child, during the struggle that occurs to master his own body, uses props, human or
artificial, which allow him to overcome his difficulties (to stand or walk, for example). It is through
other elements, which do not belong to the individual’s own organism, that he is allowed to
understand his potential. But for these potentialities to be fully achieved, they have to be recognized
as tangible realities – realities provided by mirror images. The same effect will be possible to
recognize in the case of publications. The printed work provides their authors with the same
mirages of tangible realities. This effect is perhaps more intense in the cases of unrealized projects,
which is often a sufficient reason for its existence (once published, will it be really necessary to
build it since it always falls short of its “pure idea”?). It is through the published “props” of the
architectural work that individuals are allowed to believe in the tangible reality (considering the
drawings, texts, images, models and other devices that represent the project as “props” since they
allow access to the unbuilt object, in the same way the walker allows the child to walk, even if he
cannot master this ability97).
There is an identification98 with the image on behalf of the author who believes that is
through the publication that the real becomes possible. And this “assuming an image” is crucial for
the transformation of the author to take place. It is in this sense that Colomina speaks of jubilation,
in the same way that Lacan describes the experience of jubilation felt by the child in front of the

97“Unable as yet to walk, or even stand up, and held tightly as he is by some support, human or artificial (what, in France, we call a
‘trotte-bébé’), he nevertheless overcomes, in a flutter of jubilant activity, the obstructions of his support and, fixing his attitude in a
slightly leaning-forward position, in order to hold it in his gaze, brings back an instantaneous aspect of the image.” Lacan, J. (1995), Op.
Cit., pp. 1-2.
98“We have only to understand the mirror stage as an identification, in the full sense that analysis gives to the term: namely, the
transformation that takes place in the subject when he assumes an image – whose predestination to this phase-effect is sufficiently
indicated by the use, in analytic theory, of the ancient term imago.” Idem, p. 2.

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mirror. Faced with the (specular) image of harmony and coherence – the “ideal-I” – provided by the
publications, authors are allowed to experience joy, which is nothing more than the recognition on
them the power to master an ability that they did not believe it was viable (yet). To identify with the
published image is to (fully) believe in the possibility of that reality – they are that reality. But,
despite the jubilant sensation, the identification generates both a sense of anguish and strangeness,
as this experience provides the author a disagreement with his own reality. Through the
identification process, he recognizes himself as the author of that “ideal-I”, at the same time he is
not sure if he is (since the “ideal-I” is an “other” outside the individual). Hence the reason for his
anguish, generated in the precise moment before the choice with which to identify, when he is pure
possibility, but where there is also no possible choice other than his identification. Although he can
never take his place, he is his referent, his complete double, but precisely for this reason, a strange
one. That is why Lacan describes these mirages as forms imbued with significant totality (Gestalt)
to be more constituent than constituted99. Therefore, as the “mirror” is a key element of the Ego
constitution, publications would also be fundamental, although not exclusively100, in the
construction of the “architect-I”.
The publication of a particular work allows its architect-author an opportunity to confront
himself with an image that can provoke contradictory feelings. The fact that what is published is its
author, and this is the way others see him (including himself), can result in the need, sometimes
obsessive, to control what is represented since there is a risk of not recognizing oneself in what is
printed. Hence the “struggle” for the place where authors can build their “I”, since what the
publications allows is not only a moment to produce a statement, but an opportunity for architects to
be recognized, an opportunity to exist, transforming the printed page in a place of desire. A desire
that is nothing more than a particular form of identification: a temporary fixation of a certain image
that the author seeks and assumes, territorializing the object of his desire. But this not mean that
identification works in a linear manner, on the contrary, identification is an ambivalent place (it can
produce certain desires as it prevent others) and in constant negotiation between what it
incorporates and what it rejects. It is essentially an articulation process, a continuous and never
complete construction; rooted in contingency, it is always below and beyond its referent, also
incorporating what is constitutively different. This insinuate, the existence of multiple and parallel
identifications by the individual, producing conflicts, convergences, dissonances and new
configurations, which call into question the unity and stability of the “I”.

99“The fact that the total form of the body by which the subject anticipates in a mirage the maturation of his power is given to him only
as a Gestalt, that is to say, in an exteriority in which this form is certainly more constituent than constituted, but in which appears to him
above all in a contrasting size (un relief de stature) that fixes it and in a symmetry that inverts it, in contrast with the turbulent
movements that the subject feels are animating him.” Ibidem.
100Strictly speaking, this formative effect is not exclusive to publications, but it can also occur in other media (radio, television,
exhibitions, conferences), or on other platforms where someone’s work is presented as an “image of harmony and coherence”.
However, in the case of specialized publications, this effect seems evident.

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 Nevertheless, this process does not occur only in those who are published. It is likely that
the same identification effects exist on architects other than those who publish, since they share the
same type of “body”: both are architects, have the same academic education, the same type of
production, belong to the same architectural culture. Like the mirror, as a physical object, is not
essential for the identification process (it is the devise that illustrates it), likewise, for the
construction of the “architect-I” to take place, it is not necessary to have published work, just the
identification with what is published.
The reader always accesses what is reproduced on the printed page in an incomplete way,
either because of the difficulty in providing all the information necessary for its understanding, or
because of the impossibility of transmitting, for example, through a representation on a two-
dimensional support, a three-dimensional reality. In this impossibility, the reader, when imagining
the object, unconsciously fills the information gaps in order to be able to form a complete and
coherent image.101 In doing so, he invests something of himself in the published element,
transforming it. Departing from the printed page, it is always another object that is built. In a way, it
is at this precise moment that the reader, when mentally building the object, becomes its author. The
published works are thus invested with an affection that enables the identification by readers,
believing now they have the ability to produce objects like those too. Therefore, in the case of
readers, it can be considered a similar process to the effect that the “ideal-I” has on authors when
their work is published. In other words, what is published allows both authors and, with the same
degree of intensity, readers, to believe that they can also be producers of that reality. Meaning that
this process potentially causes the same referent to produce different effects depending on each
careful reader, that is, variations of “I’s” that are based on the (supposed) same “ideal-I”.
But publications, especially periodicals, are not made through dissemination of a single
object or a single author. While identification with an image can lead the reader to identify himself
with the author of the published object, increasing the erotic/aggressive relation, the identification
with the images of various objects and authors can lead to the creation of a new “body” or a
multiplicity of “I’s” in the same “body” – hybrid bodies as a result of combination and blending of
various authors or objects. Faced with the primordial discord between the organism and its
environment, the individual, when confronted with his insufficiency, relies on the anticipation of the
abilities of “others” as a mechanism to relate to reality, as a kind of armour that covers the body as
Lacan calls it. This breach, between organism (Innenwelt) and reality (Umwelt), as Lacan says, will
never be perfectly restored, which is why it generates the inexhaustible quadrature of the ego’s
101The imagination’s ability to fill information gaps in order to give meaning to images, and the viewer’s investment in the observed
object, is noted by Pedro Bandeira when que refers Bernard Voïta work, particularly in the collection of photographs entitle Architectures
(1994) where the artist, using objects he collects from the trash, builds models of places that does not exist, but that in its apparent
banality, are easily recognizable as common places. Half of these images are constructed with scale models and the other half
completed by the viewer’s memory and imagination who, without much effort, identifies pieces of cities in these works. Bandeira, P.
(2007), Arquitectura como imagem, obra como representação: Subjectividade das imagens arquitectónicas [PhD thesis]. Guimarães:
Departamento Autónomo de Arquitectura da Universidade do Minho, p. 28-29.

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verifications102, in an always impossible attempt to be in harmony with its natural reality again. It is
the separation of these two entities that allows the individual to build his own (denaturalized) body.
The body is thus constituted as a form, with its limits defined and contained in a surface (the
mirror), that which is capable of receiving the projections of the individual. Consequently, Lacan
establishes a morphology of the body on which ghosts (the idealizations) can be projected, placing
the (orthopaedic) body-image as a totality at the control core of the “I” endless constitution. This
means that the body’s specular image does not represent any pre-existing biological or anatomical
body (to be true, it would have to be a fragmented one as experienced by the child), but an
extremely plastic, contingent, artificial and constructed form.
Considering this possibility, the conditions are created for the individual, and the architect,
to be several or, in other words, for the components of the constructed armour to be able to come
from several authors, or for there to be several armours mixed according to the readers-authors
unconscious, poured over the form circumscribed by the body limits.

102Lacan J. (1995), Op. Cit., p. 4.

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 III.
PAISAGEM
LANDSCAPE

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9. Susana VENTURA
The becoming-poetry of the icy-cold landscape through architecture

In the beginning, there is a bird: the brown stage-maker that lives in the mountain forests of
northeast Queensland in Australia.
This particular bird is the touchstone of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s thought about art.
For these authors, art begins with the animal when the animal traces a territory and makes a house, what
the two authors define as “the territory-house system.”103 As they recall in What is Philosophy?: “Every
morning the Scenopoetes dentirostris, a bird of the Australian rain forests, cuts leaves, makes them fall
to the ground, and turns them over so that the paler, internal side contrasts with the earth. In this way it
constructs a stage for itself like a ready-made; and directly above, on a creeper or a branch, while
fluffing out the feathers beneath its beak to reveal their yellow roots, it sings a complex song made up
from its notes and, at intervals, those of other birds that it imitates: it is a complete artist” (Deleuze and
Guattari, 1994, p. 184). In Mille Plateaux, they had already stated: “The brown stage-maker
(Scenopoetes dentirostris) lays down landmarks each morning by dropping leaves it picks from its tree,
and then turning them upside down so the paler underside stands out against the dirt: inversion produces
a matter of expression. The territory is not primary in relation to the qualitative mark; it is the mark that
makes the territory” (Deleuze and Guattari, 2004, p. 348).
The appearance of a territory implies a becoming-expressive of the milieu components whene-
ver a territorial or qualitative mark is produced. However, a milieu component only becomes a qualitati-
ve mark when it does not fulfil any function (a function would be a bird’s song when the bird is trying
to seduce a lover or dispel an enemy) or ceases to fulfil it, comprising an auto-objective purposeless,
and liberating instead a proper expressiveness, a rhythm composed of colours, sounds, postures, and
gestures, as it happens with the performance of the brown stage-maker. “The territory-house system
transforms a number of organic functions - sexuality, procreation, aggression, feeding. But this
transformation does not explain the appearance of the territory and the house; rather, it is the other way
around: the territory implies the emergence of pure sensory qualities, of sensibilia that cease to be
merely functional and become expressive features, making possible a transformation of function”
(Deleuze and Guattari, 1994, p. 183). In the desert, informal paths, traced by animals, shepherds, no-
mads, human and non-human, appear in close relation to singularities (vegetation, patterns of winds, to-
pographical features, etc.) drawing an intensive map of lines and multiplicities independent of any

103“Perhaps art begins with the animal, at least with the animal that carves out a territory and constructs a house,” Gilles Deleuze and
Félix Guattari, What is Philosophy? (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 183.

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 Image 01. Straw Hut, Niamey desert, Lacaton & Vassal. Courtesy of the architects.

function of guidance through the smooth space of the desert. These are usually opposed to the stratified
pathways (which in their turn are defined after negotiations, either geographical, socio-political or com-
mercial). The vegetation combined with the winds, combined with the undulating dunes or flat
sandbanks, combined with the lines drawn through time by animals and people create a house in which
its planes are sensations.
Artists of the Land Art movement are familiar with these processes, understanding the emergen-
ce of expressive qualities or qualitative marks as the appearance of a territory, using them as matters of
expression of their own work that, nevertheless, differs from the formers and produces something new.
As Colette Garraud points out, for example, of Michael Heizer’s Double Negative (1969), an earthwork
located on the Nevada desert consisting of two long, straight trenches the artist excavated moving about
240,000 tons of desert sandstone: “The artist appropriates, in a way, the characteristics of the site, ma-
king the immensity and silence of the desert penetrate the artwork” (Garraud, 1994, p.18).104

104Translation by the author.

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 The architects Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal proceeded similarly when they looked for
a place to build their house on the Niamey desert, a straw matting hut. The architects took six months to
choose its location. During this period, they understood the desert as a tactile or haptic space,105 iden-
tifying its singularities: an elevated sand dune, located at the intersection of fresh air currents that run
through the desert following the direction of the river, the Niamey’s city lights at the horizon, and the
celestial dome right above. These singularities defined the precise location of the small hut. They belong
to its architectural composition more than the functions that the hut fulfils (of shelter, cooling or of pro-
viding basic amenities such as electric power it didn’t have). For Vassal, the location and the building
allowed for another form of inhabiting: inhabiting the landscape of the desert through its sensibilia (the
desert as a sensible and sensitive landscape, a plane populated by intensities), through the sensations it
holds, now built up in the form of a hut.106
Deleuze and Guattari’s thought about the territory-house system and its implications on art the-
ory are vast and hold several implications (including the definition of the origin of the work of art with
the animal). We’ll argue that the link between territory, matters of expression, and the composition of
sensations opens up the possibility of creating a “Poetic Landscape,” which borrows its name from an
unrealised project by the architect Peter Zumthor.
In 1998, the Detmold's Literature Group invited several authors (Inger Christensen, Peter
Waterhouse, Michael Hamburger, Yoko Tawada, among others) to write a poem for a place in the rural
landscape near Bad Salzuflen, in Germany. This landscape is characterised by smooth and wide humid
green hills, rolling lines of trees on the horizon and dense forest areas, where glades born to pay tribute
to the sky and the stars. Each poet chose a specific place in the landscape and Zumthor was responsible
for designing a collection of buildings to house each poem, allowing for anyone who sept in to read it.
Each place was doubly interpreted: by the poem and the building, and both could be experienced in the
place that gave birth to them. The various places, accessible on foot, would form a Poetic Landscape,
implying an intensive walk between landscape, architecture, and poetry. Not strangely, the poets
selected singular moments in the landscape - where trees geometrically align in the plain, where a large
horizontal plane is covered with leaves during the autumn and turns into a hill, where several paths tear
the dense forest, encountering in a glade - in an approach that Zumthor called of “seismographic work,”
as if these places corresponded to points of energy, points of ecstasy of the body of the landscape, which
then brought the form of the building. However, as Zumthor denotes: “The text and the building do not
touch. The poem is not in the building, the building says nothing about the poem. The poem does not
105“The same terms are used to describe ice deserts as sand deserts: there is no line separating earth and sky; there is no
intermediate distance, no perspective or contour; visibility is limited; and yet there is an extraordinarily fine topology that relies not
on points or objects but rather on haecceities, on sets of relations (winds, undulations of snow or sand, the song of the sand or the
creaking of ice, the tactile qualities of both). It is a tactile space, or rather ‘haptic’, a sonorous much more than a visual space,” Gilles
Deleuze & Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 421. Jean-Philippe Vassal was born and raised in Casablanca, Morocco, thus, he
had already developed a bond with Africa during his childhood.
106There are also other elements and singularities which also enter into the plane of composition of the small hut: the materials, the
use of these as objets-trouvé, the Tuareg nomad tent, the space as a form of gathering and, of course, the rituals and celebration.
All these take part in Vassal’s becoming-desert.

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 Image 02. Model for Poetic Landscape, Peter Zumthor. Courtesy of the architect.

know the building and does not talk about it. But both the text and the building speak of the
same place.”107
Looking at the drawings and the models made, the buildings emerge in moments of tension, on a steep
slope, defying the very laws of gravity as those of the underground aquifer flows; or on the threshold of
a plane, where the landscape changes nature and two meadows encounter; or between an open meadow
and the beginning of the dense forest, in which part of the building hides. Rather than enhancing or in-
tensifying the landscape’s characteristics the buildings compose with these territorial motifs while trans-
forming themselves into territorial counterpoints. “On the one hand, expressive qualities entertain inter-
nal relations with one another that constitute territorial motifs (…). On the other hand, expressive quali-
ties also entertain other internal relations that produce territorial counterpoints: this refers to the manner
in which they constitute points in the territory that place the circumstances of the external milieu in
counterpoint.” (Deleuze and Guattari, 2004, p. 350). The building’s aesthetic composition (which
presupposes placement, form, materiality, atmosphere, etc.) is born out of the expressive qualities’ inner
impulses (for example when a building’s placement depends of a territorial mark such as the top of a
dune or a hillside or the materials resonate the milieu’s components such as in rammed-earth). The buil-
dings produce a territory, that results from both the internal impulses and external circumstances. “Rela-
107PeterZumthor, lecture presented at the 9th Literature Meeting, Schwalenberg, 21 January 2001; consulted at Zumthor’s büro
(December-February 2010-11).

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tions between matters of expression express relations of the territory to internal impulses and external
circumstances: they have an autonomy within this very expression. In truth, territorial motifs and coun-
terpoints explore potentialities of the interior or exterior milieu” (Deleuze and Guattari, 2004, p. 350).
According to Deleuze & Guattari, territorial motifs are rhythmic faces or characters and
territorial counterpoints are melodic landscapes. In the first case, rhythm is a character born of the
expressiveness of the qualitative mark instead of a rhythm linked to a character, impulse, or other. In the
second case, rhythm emerges as a sonorous landscape in counterpoint to a virtual landscape (instead of
associating the latter to a melody). In both cases, rhythm possesses an expressive autonomy. It is
through rhythm that the milieus’ components are transformed into matters of expression or qualitative
marks. However, they remain contained in their own expressiveness. They are placards or posters, as the
two authors write. The rhythm made of motifs and counterpoints, in its turn, create a style. “In the motif
and the counterpoint, the sun, joy or sadness, danger, become sonorous, rhythmic, or melodic” (Deleuze
and Guattari, 2004, p. 351).
This happens with poetry (as with music, one of the examples by Deleuze & Guattari). Words
possess a rhythm in their own. They are, by principle, language’s answer to chaos. When combined,
they form another rhythm through relations between matters of expression, creating characters and
landscapes. In the poetic form, this rhythm has its own plane, an autonomy from description and repre-
sentation, conquering an expressiveness that thrives the word back to the pure forces, those that in the
beginning belonged to chaos and are now crystallised.
Perhaps like no other form of artistic expression, poetry appropriates the force and the
singularities embedded in the landscape through its rhythm, allowing those who read the poem to
penetrate the landscape and feel it within their bodies, that are transformed, in their turn, by the words
in the landscape. The rhythm of words, of the voice, of the air that rises and descends through the vocal
cords inside the body, joining the lungs to the brain, turns into a gust of wind, perfume of flowers or
moist soil. Poetry reacts immediately to the singularities of the landscape, transforming these into
sensations. This idea is pursued, for instance, by Matsuo Bashō, considered one of the masters of the
Japanese poetic form of the haiku. The haiku does not describe a landscape, instead, it allows the reader
to see herself or himself contemplating a landscape that magically appears as if in front of their eyes.
Only a very skilfully poet can achieve this effect, which involves a transformation of the reader’s body
in the landscape through the tactility of the word (poetry is closer to the oral language than any other li-
terary form as well) so that the reader becomes-landscape, becomes-wind, becomes-flower.
The local government changed and Zumthor’s project for a Poetic Landscape was not fulfilled.
However, it is from that moment on that Zumthor changes his own thinking about the relationship
between landscape and the work of architecture.108 In his essay “Architecture and Landscape,” while
108Years later, Zumthor admits it on his compendium of Buildings and Projects edited by Thomas Durisch. “The Poetic Landscape
project opened new spaces for me, new spaces to think about the connection of architecture to landscape and the creation of

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evoking Caspar David Friedrich’s painting The Monk by the Sea, Zumthor mentions: “An aesthetic
experience: I see a man looking at the horizon line of the ocean with his back to the painter. Like the
painter and the man in the painting, I look at the landscape, at the painted horizon, and feel the grandeur
and vastness. A certain melancholy comes to the fore, imbued with the sense of a world that is infinitely
bigger than I am but offers me sanctuary. In addition to the feeling that nature is close to me and yet
larger that I am, landscape also gives me the feeling of being at home” (Zumthor, 2017, p. 95).
Aware that the work of architecture transforms the landscape, Zumthor seeks to understand it
from its mysteries and its invisible matter. “First I have to look hard at the landscape, at the woods and
trees, the leaves, the grasses, the animated surface of the earth, and then develop a feeling of love for
what I see - because we don’t hurt what we love. Secondly, I have to take care. That is something I have
learned from traditional agriculture, which uses the soil but is, at the same time, sustainable. It takes care
of the things that nourish us. Thirdly, I must try to find the right measure, the right quantity, the right
size and the right shape for the desired object in its beloved surroundings. The outcome is attunement or
possibly even tension. (…) This kind of sensing is not a theoretical task; first and foremost, it means
having faith in sensual perception” (Zumthor, 2017, pp. 98-99).
Zumthor’s sensual perception resembles the molecular perception defined by Deleuze & Guat-
tari, that is closer to matter and its invisible fluxes and forces. One of the examples given by the two
authors is the effect of drugs that opens the perception to a micro perception, 109 that can be of the body
itself, of its matter, but also its unconsciousness, or of things, from music to landscapes. The molecular
perception renders visible the invisible structures of reality, understanding its components from the mo-
lecular processes that happened before form, segmentation or stratification, but are kept in the internal
structures, allowing to follow the fluxes, vectors, and gradients that envelop matter towards specificati-
on (its molar structure). In the landscape, the molecular perception allows to penetrate the landscape, the
animism of its components, and to follow its invisible fluxes, determine the singularities that punctuate
it and give a name to the vastness and infinite, to understand the ruptures and fissures of the earth, the
thickness from which life is born, and, most importantly, to become landscape as in the poem: to lose
one’s consciousness while becoming-flower, earth, the Cosmos.110 Zumthor reveals his procedure to ac-

buildings that serve less a practical purpose than a spiritual need,” Peter Zumthor, Peter Zumthor. Buildings and Projects 1998-
2001. Volume 3 (Zurich: Scheidegger & Spiess, 2014), 11.
109“Castañeda illustrates, for example, the existence of a molecular perception of which drugs give us access (but so many things can
be drugs): we attain a visual and sonorous microperception revealing spaces and voids, like holes in the molar structure,” Deleuze
and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 251.
110The process of becoming (devenir, in French) as defined by Gilles Deleuze is an a-parallel evolution between two ideas, an
encounter between two heterogeneous entities that form a bloc irreducible to either of the terms. As he explains to Claire Parnet, in
Dialogues: “Les devenirs ne sont pas des phénomènes d’imitation, ni d’assimilation, mais de double capture, d’évolution non
parallèle, de noces entre deux règnes. (…) La guêpe et l’orchidée donnent l’exemple. L’orchidée a l’air de former une image de
guêpe, mais en fait il y a un devenir-guêpe de l’orchidée, un devenir orchidée de la guêpe, une double capture puisque “ce que”
chacun devient ne change pas moins que “celui qui” devient. La guêpe devient partie de l’appareil de reproduction de l’orchidée, en
même temps que l’orchidée vient organe sexuel pour la guêpe. Un seul et même devenir, un seul bloc de devenir, ou comme dit
Rémy Chauvin, une “évolution a-parallèle de deux êtres qui n’ont absolument rien à voir l’un avec autre”. Il y a des devenirs-
animaux de l’homme qui ne consistent pas à faire le chien ou le chat, puisque l’animal et l’homme ne s’y rencontrent que sur
parcours d’une commune déterritorialisation, mais dissymétrique. C’est comme les oiseaux de Mozart: il y a un devenir-oiseau, les
deux formant un seul devenir, un seul bloc, une évolution a-parallèle, pas du tout un échange (…),” Gilles Deleuze in Gilles
Deleuze, Claire Parnet, Dialogues (Paris: Flammarion, 1996), 8-9.

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cess this sensual or molecular perception: “I have to love the earth and the topography. I love the
movement of the landscape, the flow and the structure of its forms; I try to imagine how thick the
humus is; I see the hard bump in the meadow and sense the big boulder underneath all the other things I
don’t know very much about, but that give me a wonderful feeling. (…) And when I build something in
the landscape, it is important to me to make sure my building materials match the historically grown
substance of the landscape. The physical substance of what is built has to resonate with the physical
substance of the area” (Zumthor, 2017, p. 99).
Although not a lodestar to Zumthor, his description of the projects made for the Poetic Landsca-
pe resemble the photographic series Mimesis (1972-73), by Barbara and Michael Leisgen. The German
artists noticeably pay homage to Caspar David Friedrich in their work, being the latter’s painting
Morgenlicht the main starting point for this series. In Mimesis, the silhouette of Barbara Leisgen
appears in the middle of the photograph, emphasising the landscape’s components through gestures and
postures. In some photographs, she is stretching her arms in different positions and degrees, to hold the
sun around her, or create a vessel to the clouds, or point the meeting of two mountains in the horizon, or
follow the contours of the undulating countryside. The body becomes a territorial mark within the
landscape, transforming the latter’s components into expressive elements. Plus, in the space of the pho-
tographs, these form territorial motifs or characters to which the body pays a homage with a song made
of postures, gestures, colours, and sounds (we hear the mountains’ echo through Barbara’s body as she
embodies its vastness and majesty). The artists refer that their action pretended to mimic nature’s lan-
guage through the body. “In a time without words the coercion to behave mimetically was enormous.
Reading clouds, stars, the sun, mountains and dances is reading beyond language. (…) The faculties to
resemble and to behave similar are faculties of man. (The attempt to imitate is always magic, too)” (Bar-
bara and Michael Leisgen, 1974). However, we recognise the composition of a melodic landscape for-
med by territorial motifs (when the artists operate a selection of nature’s components - moments of in-
version of patterns, points of tension or confluence, fissures - they are turn these into matters of expres-
sion, and then, through their mise-en-scène in territorial motifs), and territorial counterpoints (i.e. the
postures and gestures of Barbara’s body). “Reading beyond language” reveals an attempt to trace a terri-
tory (which implies the emergency of expressive qualities) through the becoming expressive of rhythm.
In the series of photographs, this rhythm also augments, expands, contracts…
Looking at the German’s couple photographs and Zumthor’s drawings and models of the Poetic
Landscape projects, the resemblance becomes evident. Zumthor might not be familiar with the formers’
work, but an identical understanding of the landscape and nature is recognisable, probably because
Zumthor also proceeds in a similar way to Land Art artists. He makes several expeditions to the site,
spending long periods walking, collecting and documenting singularities, including the passage of time
and the chaos that nature embodies (for example, perceived in the light of a place). These expressive

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qualities will be metamorphosed into the work’s composition to create spatial sensations (the house’s
planes). Among several descriptions provided by Deleuze & Guattari, a sensation is a bloc of affects and
percepts, that might also be described as territorial motifs and melodic landscapes, respectively. It is th-
rough rhythm that these form compounds of sensations, and determine becomings. “But it is not just
these determinate melodic compounds (…); another aspect, an infinite symphonic plane of composition,
is also required: from House to universe. From endosensation to exosensation. This is because the
territory does not merely isolate and join but opens onto cosmic forces that arise from within or come
from outside, and renders their effect on the inhabitant perceptible” (Deleuze and Guattari, 1994, pp.
185-186). The sensation fills a territory - the house, postures, colours - while simultaneously evokes and
embraces cosmic forces. Of course, there is a continuity between sensation and cosmos as they belong
to the same impulses that gave origin to territorial characters and melodic landscapes, traces of an origi-
nal chaos.
In the Poetic Landscape project, Zumthor unconsciously inherits the poets’ approach (albeit
each artistic form proceeds with its means, they share a vision of the landscape), creating a rhythmic
and polyphonic landscape filled with territorial motifs and counterpoints, where the space between
buildings is just as important as the buildings themselves. The operating distances belong to rhythm.
The buildings serve as landscape’s counterpoints. They do not belong to the landscape, but rather
create a landscape within themselves where the former is kept as vibrations, forces, and sensations.
The Poetic Landscape will constitute itself as an aesthetic approach to the landscape-architecture re-
lationship not from the point of view of function (shelter or inhabiting), but as an assemblage or, as
Deleuze and Guattari name, as a refrain. “We call a refrain any aggregate of matters of expression
that draws a territory and develops into territorial motifs and landscapes (there are optical, gestural,
motor, etc., refrains)” (Deleuze and Guattari, 2004, p. 356). The landscape no longer refers to a spe-
cific landscape, but to the melodic landscape produced by territorial motifs and counterpoints. And
poetic refers to the rhythm that belongs to the compound of sensations.
In 2011, Zumthor completed the Steilneset Memorial to the Victims of the Witch Trials in the
Finnmark, located in Vardø, where we recognise the production of a Poetic Landscape just as it hap-
pened when the architect designed the Bruder Klaus Kapelle. At the exhibition held in Kunsthaus
Bregenz, in 2007, it was possible to read in the description of the Poetic Landscape project: “But
then the district government changed from one party to another, and the project died. Did it
really? Perhaps not, as it is still showing signs of life.” 111 It was a rhetorical question as the ar-
chitect was just finishing the Bruder Klaus Kapelle. In his latest monograph, Zumthor confirms it:
“The stock of architectural images I dreamed of and worked on for this project [Poetic Landscape]
later found expression in the Bruder Klaus Chapel in Wachendorf in the Eifel” (Zumthor, 2014, vol.

111Consulted at Zumthor’s büro (December-February 2010-11).

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3 / p. 12). However, Zumthor is thinking here of the similarity between forms attained for both pro-
jects - the excavated mass within an organic and sinuous internal enclosure and a straightforward
and clear-cut external form — that he afterwards attributes to Brigitte Labs-Ehlert.112 Indeed, the
forms are unquestionably similar, but the question of form is secondary. It is the Poetic Landscape
as an aesthetic theory and a form to trace a territory (following Deleuze & Guattari) that allows this
proliferation of built works as we witness again in the Steilneset Memorial.
Vardø is an island located in the Barents Sea, north of the Arctic circle, where the land meets
its end and we feel earth’s curvature and nature’s power so strongly. During the summer, the days
are endless while, during the winter, the sky is of the darkest blue as a constant night, only
punctuated by the lights in the streets and in the houses’ windows. Every house has a light
suspended at the window to lit at nightfall according to an ancient tradition (a gesture Zumthor
repeats inside the memorial, which we also find in Sigurd Lewerentz churches). The island’s terrain
is a continuous carpet of rock, grass, small flowers, with the buildings standing in between. There
are almost no fences and the houses have a direct relationship with this geological and
topographical stratum. Some of the buildings even have informal green roofs camouflaging
themselves in the landscape. And there isn’t any tree at the vast open horizon. Only the infinite
horizontal planes of earth and sea. The community is mainly dedicated to fishing and related
industries, and while walking around the island to enjoy its extraordinary nature (in the very way of
the northerners), we may still find the old wooden structures used to dry fish.

112“The germ cell of the design for the Bruder Klaus Chapel can be found in the ‘poetry houses’ (individual structures designed to
relate to a specific poem) I had worked on two years before in the context of the Poetic Landscape project. It was only later, after the
chapel was built, that Brigitte Labs-Ehlert, the author of the Poetic Landscape Project, pointed out the similarity of the spatial
innovations in both projects.” Idem, Ibidem, 121.

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 Image 03. Vardø, Hélène Binet, 2012. Courtesy: ammann // gallery.

The memorial stands above the terrain through a wooden structure similar to those to dry
fish, allowing the natural untouched landscape to flow underneath: flowers, rocks, stones, empty sea
urchins houses. It perpetuates the walking through the landscape, however changing the sensation.
In the composition of sensations, there are always thresholds of intensity - when a sensation reaches
a limit and changes its nature (for instance: the perfect balance or its immediate fall) - and, in the
memorial, these coincide with the ones of the entrance and the exit of the building, as a long walk
through the northern landscape already took place (and a person is already immersed in the
landscape). Albeit being apparently symmetric, from whatever side we reach it, the sensation
changes by the very act of crossing the space. The entrance, independently of the side, is marked by
the heavy door (clearly understanding the door as a threshold, Zumthor always pays extreme
attention to the doors and all their details: how our hand grasps the handle, the movement that the
door describes when we push it or close it, its weight, the texture of the materials mixed with the
time of use, and the time of nature, etc.) and once inside the dark corridor, it’s difficult to go back.
The memorial becomes a sheltered passage or a dark tunnel in the middle of the northern icy
landscape. Its form inherits the quality of its material: it is a flexible textile form, stretched and fi-

129
xed on the wooden structure that sways with the constant coastal winds and breezes just as the sus-
pended lights inside. The milieu’s components - the terrain, the walking, the suspended lights, the
wooden structure, the wind, the colours, the exquisite birds - are metamorphosed into matters of
expression. Instead of framing them, the building uses them as expressive qualities in its aesthetic
composition.
Inside the Memorial, the atmosphere is silent and quiet. It is a concentrated and saturated space,
where the black canvas (an artifice that Zumthor creates again in the 2011 Summer Serpentine Pavilion,
and, in former projects, we may identify with the double wall or corridor that envelops the internal
space, preparing the body before inhabiting) abruptly cancels the visitor’s senses so that she or he
gradually concentrates on the rhythm that belongs to the building itself. This rhythm composes a
polyphonic landscape where we recognise the territorial motifs or rhythmic characters (the matters of
expression created by Zumthor after his selection of the landscape’s singularities) and to which the win-
dow-light devices (and it’s important to observe that these don’t follow any order or cadence), the sus-
pended silk cloths (where the visitor can read the story of each one of the ninety-one victims), the eleva-
ted wooden floor (that seems to float), and the visitor’s own steps and reading pauses belong to.
Inside the memorial, the silence becomes expressive (what denotes the composition of a spatial
sensation), and we are envisioned with a melodic landscape. Zumthor kept the presence of nature’s
elements inside the tunnel. We hear and feel the wind, the Arctic's icy cold, the cries of the seagulls and
the birds flying in circles, the waves crashing against the rocks. The tunnel is crossed by nature, by all its
elements. As in John Cage’s 4’33’’, all the subtle differences of sound in the interior increase the
attentive listening of our bodies, because the space forms an envelope for the body, at the same time
making the body concentrate on all the subtle sounds coming from the exterior, in their intensive bodily
presence. This dichotomy between external and internal space (and we should notice that many of the
openings are unreachable to the visitor’s eyes, so the presence of the exterior happens mainly through
hearing) pays an important role in the composition of silence as a spatial sensation. Writing about the
Poetic Landscape projects, Brigitte Labs-Ehlert notices: “Who enters the building arrives in an optically
closed, but atmospherically open space to the surroundings. The landscape cannot be seen from here,
but light, noise, temperature, humidity, and smells penetrate the interior through the fine-meshed cavity
walls” (Labs-Ehlert, n.d.). Deleuze and Guattari point, precisely, to the sonorous quality of the refrain.
In this case, the refrain results from the transformation performed by the bloc of sensations (a coupled
sensation of silence and contemplation): a visual sensation is given through hearing - what happens
whenever we are in the presence of a melodic landscape.

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 Image 04. Vardø model, Peter Zumthor. Courtesy of the architect.

The sound of the landscape has always been present in Zumthor’s memorial as a matter of ex-
pression. One of the models made represents Vardø during the Winter with the terrain transformed into a
flat icy surface as if covered in snow. The buildings are dark to contrast with the white of the terrain and
the memorial’s solitude and dignity, gently perched on the ground. As it happens with several Zumthor
projects’ models, the model holds a sensation or compound of sensations within itself. Sometimes this
sensation is close to the one that the built work sustains; other times it is another sensation that,
notwithstanding, defines an atmosphere or an expressive quality of the built work. In this case, the mo-
del becomes a sonorous plane and, contrary to what happens in the memorial, is the visual image that
produces a sonorous landscape (we hear the ice cracking and the vibrations and resonances that echo in
the landscape through the model).
Zumthor’s memorial is the stage-maker’s mise-en-scène, the refrain that captures nature in its
most intense expressiveness, assembling it in a different way (nature as ready-made, as Deleuze &
Guattari would point out). It’s the melodic composition of nature’s joy and despair. It’s a performance

131
when we cross the tunnel perpetuating a continuous movement through the landscape that ties up the
whole island. It’s a chaosmos: a Poetic Landscape.

References

Deleuze, Gilles; Guattari, Félix (2004). A Thousand Plateaus. London, New York: Continuum.

Deleuze, Gilles; Guattari, Félix (1994). What is Philosophy? New York: Columbia University Press.

Deleuze, Gilles; Parnet, Claire (1996). Dialogues. Paris: Flammarion.

Garraud, Colette (1994). L’idée de nature dans l'art contemporain. Paris: Flammarion.

Labs-Ehlert, Brigitte (n.d.). “Poetische Landschaft,” accessed May 1, 2021, http://labs-

ehlert.de/projektarchiv/poetische-landschaft/.

Leisgen, Barbara und Michael (1974). Barbara und Michael Leisgen: Mimesis. Aachen: Exhibition
Catalogue - Neue Galerie - Sammlung Ludwig.

Zumthor, Peter (2014). Peter Zumthor. Buildings and Projects 1998-2001. Volume 3. Zurich:
Scheidegger & Spiess.

Zumthor, Peter (2017). Thinking Architecture. Basel: Birkhäuser.

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10. Anna PONTES
The concept of ruins in the work of Alexandre Herculano and Almeida Garrett

Introduction

It is undeniable that ruins have raised a significant number of interpretations and

conceptions over the centuries, whether perceived as deformed or fragmented structures, deprived
of their original form and use, or as a state of degradation. In addition to these perceptions of ruins,
there are also the preservation efforts or the appeals for them to be undertaken – also becoming
crucial moments for theoretical development on the subject.
The references to ruins in Portugal as historical and artistic objects adopted different
features, in consonance with the chronology and the architectural function. For this reason, Miguel
Tomé differentiated these historical remnants by origin, dividing them into «[...] archaeological ruin
- prehistoric or ancient (source of scientific knowledge and bearer of important documental value);
and medieval ruin, which can be subdivided into religious, military and civilian»113 (Tomé, 2002, p.
59).
The preservation trajectories of monuments from different backgrounds attest to the
development of the theme depending on political, intellectual, and socio-economic decisions. In this
sense, the memories of the Lisbon earthquake (1755) and the violent events of the first half of
the19th century «[...] deepened the relationship of the Portuguese with the material remains of the
past and kept, in essence, the predominance of the archaeological value of the monuments, which
were valued mainly for their antiquity and for what they made known about the past that had
created them […]»114 (Rodrigues, 2010, p. 21-22).
The degraded patina of medieval monuments urged for interventions, in which rebuilding
was accepted provided that the primitive architecture was respected115. Medieval ruins were, above
all, conceived as a state of degradation and abandonment, caused by various reasons, among which
113Translated by the author. Original text in Portuguese «[…] a ruína arqueológica – pré-histórica ou antiga
(fonte de conhecimento científico e portadora de importante valor documental); e a ruína medieval, que se
pode subdividir em religiosa, militar e civil» (Tomé, 2002, p. 59).
114Translated by the author. Original text in Portuguese: «[…] aprofundaram a relação dos portugueses com
os vestígios materiais do passado e mantiveram, no essencial, o predomínio do valor arqueológico dos
monumentos valendo estes sobretudo pela sua antiguidade e por aquilo que davam a conhecer do passado
que os havia criado […]» (Rodrigues, 2010, p. 21-22).
115As seen in Herculano in 1937, as we shall detail.

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we highlight the neglect in the heritage management, with monuments being subjected to
vandalism, abandonment, and poor repairs.
It is worth remarking that the degradation of national buildings, a matter much disapproved
throughout the nineteenth century, is distinct from the passion for fake ruins, from the same century,
whose scenic fallen columns were built to meet pre-Romantic and Romantic appreciation,
especially in England and Germany. In Portugal, the fake ruins were presented with Gothic and
Manueline references (Rosas, 1995, p. 55-56), like those in the Évora Public Garden (1867)116.
The criticism of the ruins in 19th century Portugal was expressed in articles, narratives and
essays published in periodicals and books, under the influence of intellectual instruction received
abroad, mainly by exiles, the European culture and, primarily, the Romantic movement. In this
work, we investigate specifically the articles that Alexandre Herculano117 published in the magazine
O Panorama in 1837 (n. 1), 1838 and 1839 (n. 69-70 and 93-94), of which the last four were
assembled under the title Monumentos Pátrios, in the book Opúsculos (1873), and the book Viagens
na Minha Terra (1846), by Almeida Garrett118, initially published in chapters, in the Revista
Universal Lisbonense (1843). The emphasis of this work is to understand their thoughts on the
ruins’ conception developed in the first half of the 19th century, but which still produced its branches
throughout the following and the current centuries.

A hectic 19th century

The early 19th century represented a period of massive destruction of medieval monumental
buildings in Portugal. The French invasions (1807-1811), the diffusion of the revolutionary theory
itself, developed since the beginnings of the French Revolution, and the discomfort of the English
domination (1810-1820) enabled questionings and changes in the Portuguese political conjuncture.

116On the fake ruins of the Romantic movement in Portugal, see Santos & Braga (2016).
117Alexandre Herculano de Carvalho e Araújo was a writer, historian, archivist, journalist, editor of historical
documents, farmer, and politician (he served as a deputy and president of a municipality). He had technical
instruction at the Aula do Comércio and attended the diplomatic course at Torre do Tombo (1830-1831). After
the civil war, he worked at the Oporto Library until 1836, taking over the editorship of the weekly magazine O
Panorama the following year and the direction and editorship of the unofficial sections of the Diário do
Governo in 1838. Literary, essayistic, and journalistic work remained fruitful in the following years for
Herculano, who became a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Lisbon, the Royal Academy of
History, and the Academy of Sciences (Assis, n. d., p. 1–15).
118João Baptista de Almeida Garrett graduated in law from the University of Coimbra (1816-1821), where he
stood out as a liberal student leader. He took part in the Oporto Liberal Revolution (1820) and in the
Vilafrancada (1823) and then went into exile in England. In Paris, he published the poems Camões (1825)
and D. Branca ou A Conquista do Algarve (1826), regarded as milestones of Portuguese Romanticism.
Although he returned to Portugal, Garrett went back into exile in England between 1828 and 1832, during
Miguel’s government. After the Civil War, Garrett returned to being involved again in journalism and politics
and was also one of the writers of the 1838 Constitution. Garrett was an opponent of Cabralism who kept up
his political and social criticism when he started writing Viagens na Minha Terra. Over the years, he became
more moderate, earning the title of Viscount. The writer, poet, journalist died on December 9 th, 1854
(Domingos & Hohlfeldt, 2013, p. 208–209; Alves, 1997, p. 1–5).

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According to Sérgio Matos, the nationalist conscience arose in contestation to the French presence
and the British power, and since the end of 1808, the use of the term «nation» was noticed, an
alteration from the previous terms, «Kingdom» or «Monarchy». Then, «The concept already
appears in the sense of a singular collective (‘the mass of the Nation’ that ‘wields the weapons’), an
entity endowed with its own will, autonomous in relation to the figure of the monarch who was far
from the European theatre, although associated to it»119 (Matos, 2008, p. 114).
The escape of the royal family to Brazil (1807-1821), at the time of the French invasions,
the collapse of the colonial system between the two regions (1815-1822) and the Oporto Liberal
Revolution (1820) are marks of the internal conjuncture, in which liberalism firstly ascended in
Portuguese politics, the «vintismo» (1820-1823)120. The conflict between absolutists and liberals,
even after the Treaty of Évoramonte (1834), marked an agitated, oligarchic period, accentuated by
civil war (1832-1834) and by absolutist coups (1823, 1824). Many monuments were occupied or
degraded during this period, whereby their deterioration and abandonment increased after the
disentailment of the Church property.
In the context of the liberal regime reforms, the systematization of laws guided by Mouzinho
da Silveira (1780-1849) led to the extinction of the religious orders and the incorporation of Church
property into the National Treasury (decree of May 28th, 1834)121. The effect of these laws for the
moveable and built heritage of the Church was detailed in a sequence of laws and ordinances122 in
order to organize the material set integrated into the State, in a reformist process initiated at the end
of the government of D. Pedro IV and legalized in the reign of D. Maria II (Neto, 2019, p. 194).
The buildings of notable antiquity123 that would be excluded from the alienation process,
according to the law of April 15th, 1835, should be surveyed, inventoried, classified as public
monuments and conserved – as also requested in the following year, in a circular of February 19th,
1836. Despite the financial incentive approved in the Parliament, with an annual sum for the
conservation of monuments, in February 1838, the government inertia in the matter was noted
(Neto, 2019, p. 196-199).

119Translated by the author, original text in Portuguese: «O conceito surge já num sentido de colectivo
singular (‘a massa da Nação’ que ‘empunha as armas’), entidade dotada de vontade própria, autónoma em
relação à figura do monarca que se encontrava longe do teatro europeu, embora a ele associada» (Matos,
2008, p. 114).
120On the subject, see Monteiro (2019, p. 31–65).
121On the same subject, Rui Branco argues that these and other laws of Mouzinho da Silveira (for example,
the extinction of the tithe, the guarantee of individual property, the elimination of tolls, the allocation of
judgements to the courts) were not only intended to overcome the Old Regime, but rather the development
of a liberal and capitalist policy (Branco, 2019, p. 99).
122We highlight, for the year 1834, the ordinance of June 4 th, which presented the guidelines for the
procedure of the transfer of religious goods; the ordinance of June 20 th, intended for the Cardinal Patriarch
on the conservation of extinct convents; and, among others, the ordinance of August 18 th on the deposit of
the convents' libraries (Neto, 2019, p. 193).
123Therefore, in line with the law of April 15th, 1835, resembling great achievements of national epochs or
artistic excellence.

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 Moreover, the abandonment, sale, or reuse [of buildings or just their architectural pieces]
contributed to the destruction or degradation of a more significant number of monuments in
Portugal. Faced with this situation, Jorge Custódio points to the extinction of religious orders and
expropriation of religious property, institutionalized in liberalism, as another earthquake [of 1755],
however, caused by individuals – relating to new cultural values and in opposition to the economic
and political structures at the time (Custódio, 1993, p. 36).

From destruction to criticism

In recognition of the historical and national values, the affirmation of the cultural heritage in
the nineteenth century occurred within the liberal and Romantic society, mobilizing the public
opinion (Custódio, 1993, p. 33). This consecration was possible in this period because of the
press124, used for debate and theoretical formulation, in addition to its mediatization (Rosas &
Vasconcelos, 2004, p. 212-213). In this context, attitudes of protest and indignation took place in the
face of the ruin or disfigurement of national monuments in the writings of Alexandre Herculano and
Almeida Garrett. With these authors, the appreciation of medieval monuments, as representative of
the nation’s past, and the disapproval of its ruins were accompanied by dismay and criticism
towards the state of monuments.

Alexandre Herculano

Alexandre Herculano presented a brief report on the Carmo Ruins along with an illustration
in the first issue of the magazine O Panorama (1837), in which he was redactor. The valorization of
the medieval monuments as national roots125 was pronounced together with the warning about the
few vestiges of national buildings and the alterations that hid the primitive architecture in its glory.
Therefore, he called on the Government and the Municipalities to prevent such destruction, as it
was already occurring in England and France (Herculano, 1837, p. 2). The condition of the Carmo
Ruins’ columns confirmed the attempt of rebuilding, seen as positive for having respected the unity
of the architecture (Herculano, 1837, p. 4).
Influenced by the debate on the subject at the time126, Herculano called on his readers to
124In the first quarter of the 19th century, the deportation and exile of political personalities contributed to the
first steps of the Portuguese press in London. Academic training or life abroad was not unusual among the
circle of readers, writers and groups associated with cultural heritage. Nevertheless, Nuno Monteiro points to
this context as decisive for the cultural environment of 1820 (Monteiro, 2008, p. 100) and the development of
a new heritage knowledge outside the national tradition after the liberals’ victory (Maia, 2007, p.14).
125It is worth mentioning that there were archaeologists, like Francisco Martins Sarmento (1833-1899), who
defended the Lusitanian origin of Portugal, particularly during the second half of the 19 th century and the first
half of the 20th century (Fabião, 2011, p. 126).
126As Ramalho Ortigão argued in Culto da Arte em Portugal, Romanticism was introduced to Portugal

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raise their voices against what he called the destructive spirit of their generation, in support of the
«[…] monuments of history, of art and of national glory, which every day we see crumbling into
ruins»127 (Herculano, 1838a, p. 267). In the history of architecture’s ruins, the previous destruction
resulted from ignorance and carelessness, at that moment «[...] we destroy because of exaggerated
and false ideas: we actively destroy; we destroy because destruction is the vertigo of time, a fever
that devours, not bodies, but spirits. We can consider ourselves happy if we can cure anyone of it;
save even a single stone from the hands of the modern Huns»128 (Herculano, 1838a, p. 268).
The acts of vandalism against the monuments were confirmed by letters from readers from
all over the country, who bemoaned the ruins or reported the vandalism that caused them, according
to Herculano (1838b, 276; 1839a, 44). In this broader view of the monuments’ situation in the
country, Herculano warned that to abandon monuments, however, would be to disown the national
past testimonies, disregarding memory, conservation, history, and religion. Santarem, rich in
monuments, was an example of this vandalism against monuments (Herculano, 1839b), whose ruins
were also later described by Almeida Garrett.
To this end, he advocated the creation of an Association to denounce the demolition of
monuments: the National Monument Conservation Society (Herculano, 1838b, p. 275-77), founded
in 1840, with a brief but relevant activity (Rodrigues, 2010, p. 25). In the same sense, Herculano
called out for attention to monuments relevant to the nation until a heritage law could solve the
vandalism issue (Herculano, 1839a, p. 45).

Almeida Garrett

Almeida Garrett's criticism of the ruins was made in opposition to the alterations,
degradation, and destruction of the monuments, as it is possible to comprehend in the book Viagens
na Minha Terra (1846), whose chapters were previously published in Revista Universal Lisbonense
(1843)129. The disapproval of the ruined state of the monuments in Santarem – or, as far as we can

through Chateaubriand and Victor Hugo. The choice of the monuments theme and, within these, ruins, is
contextualized with the scientific productions and discussions of that time (Ortigão [1896] 2009, 13). The
articles written in the Revue des Deux Mondes by Victor Hugo – Guerre aux démolisseurs (1832) – and by
Montalembert – Du Vandalisme en France. Lettre a M. Victor Hugo (1833) and Le Vandalisme (1838) – read
by Herculano, played a relevant role in his narrative on monuments (Rosas 1995, p. 23–24; Rosas &
Vasconcelos, 2004, p. 215–216).
127Translated by the author, text in Portuguese: «[…] monumentos da história, da arte, e da glória nacional,
que todos os dias vemos desabar em ruínas» (Herculano, 1838a, p. 267).
128Translated by the author, text in Portuguese: «[...] nós destruímos por ideias exageradas e falsas:
destruímos ativamente; destruímos, porque a destruição é a vertigem do tempo, uma febre que devora, não
os corpos, mas os espíritos. Felizes nós se pudermos curar alguém dela; salvar ainda que seja uma só
pedra das mãos dos modernos Hunos» (Herculano, 1838a, p. 268).
129The weekly magazine Revista Universal Lisbonense presented general subjects regularly between 1841
and 1853 and intermittently until 1859. The first chapters of Viagens na Minha Terra began to be published
on August 17th, 1843, a month after the writer carried out the travels. The publications of the narratives were
interrupted and later reissued in 1845, being fully published in the journal until 1846 (Domingos & Hohlfeldt,

137
infer, in Portugal – is interspersed by the accounts of the journey that begun on July 17th, 1843. The
book also featured the author’s reflections and thoughts, written as it were a dialogue with the
reader, and stories such as the romance of Joaninha, the girl of the nightingales, and her cousin,
Carlos. According to Clara Soares and Maria João Neto, it was an examination of both the country
and itself, given that the September Revolution did not correspond as it should have regarding
heritage (Soares & Neto, 2015, p. 121).
The writer distinguished, in the book, the ruins of time from those profaned by human
beings, so we assume that he was inspired by François-Auguste Chateaubriand130. The beauty of the
ruins of time would carry with it the ability to learn about the past. Garrett reflects on how much
better he would understand the history of the great writers, such as Titus Livius and Tacitus when
visiting the eternal city and sitting in the immortal ruins of Rome. However, being in Santarem, the
book of stones, he remembered that the people there had not yet fallen, like Nineveh or Pompeii.
Therefore, ruins were also the term used to describe what the government had been doing in
Santarem, removing the architecture of its buildings through alterations (Garrett, [1846] 1999, p.
126, 141).

The ruins of time are sad but beautiful; those that revolutions bring are
marked with the solemn stamp of history. But the vulgar degradations and
the cruder repairs of ignorance, the petty repairs of parasitic art, these
profane our solemn history, take away all prestige131 (Garrett, [1846] 1999,
p. 141).

The author’s defence of the monuments’ historicity, which overrides its ruined condition,
condemns the renovations that distort the building's architecture, often referred to as bad repairs.
The additions and transformative interventions were worse than the ruins themselves. They were
considered destructive to the history behind the stones, a criticism also existent in Lírica de João
Minimo (1829), published in London, about the alterations in the Monastery of Odivelas. Thus,
referring to the beginnings of the defence of the 'unity of style' in Portuguese restoration (Soares &
Neto, 2015, p. 120-126).
2013, p. 210-218).
130For Chateaubriand, there were the ruins caused by time (or ruins of nature) and the ruins caused by man
– while the former would not be disturbing, for being an effect of time itself, the latter, of devastations, coming
from the most violent destructions, were not susceptible of restoration (Chateaubriand, [1802] 1966, p. 41).
Although Chateaubriand's best-known work, Génie du Christianisme, was translated into Portuguese by
Camilo Castelo Branco in 1845, Garrett, who lived in Paris, had praised it since 1824, stating that the book
was an ingenious work and that it had left him somehow persuaded (Garrett 1824 apud Maia, 2007, p. 19).
131Translated by the author, text in Portuguese: «As ruínas do tempo são tristes mas belas, as que as
revoluções trazem ficam marcadas com o cunho solene da história. Mas as brutas degradações e as mais
brutas reparações da ignorância, os mesquinhos consertos da arte parasita, esses profanam, tiram todo o
prestígio» (Garrett, [1846] 1999, p. 141).

138
 Garrett pointed out, at that time, the reflection of political conflicts concerning the idea of
the nation’s past132. The heritage crisis, perceived in the book, involved the context that followed the
extinction of the orders in 1834: the sales, alterations and depredations deemed undue, the
dismantling and the use of materials. He described this indignation throughout the book while
travelling from Lisbon to Santarem. Once in the city, he deplored the abandonment of local
monuments, as «What an amazing and dismal mess of rubble, of stones, of heaps of earth and
plaster! There are no streets, no paths, it is a labyrinth of ugly and torpid ruins»133 (Garrett, [1846]
1999, p. 133-134).

The influence of intellectuals

Intellectuals of the first Romantic generation, Herculano wrote about monuments

theoretically and systematically, while Garrett reflected about them in his literary productions, with
refined aesthetic knowledge (Rosas, 1995, p. 30–31). The importance of the two intellectuals to the
reflection on Portuguese heritage is remarkable, even with different ways of communicating with
their readers. The criticism of ruins and bad repairs remained in texts published throughout the
century, of which we mention those by Joaquim da Costa Cascaes and J. P. Fernandes Thomás
Pippa.
Despite the «demolimania» – Cascaes’ concept – losing power in Portugal, the conservation
process should have had people with artistic and archaeological knowledge in leading the
interventions so that it would not have resulted in architectural mutilations134. In this sense, Cascaes
confessed his preference for the maintenance of monuments as ruins rather than being recklessly
repaired: «The ruins of an unmangled monument can often enrich the treasures of art; but never
through architectural nonsense»135 (Cascaes, 1854, p. 210).
Thomás Pippa, in a text published in the issue n. 4 of the Jornal de Belas-Artes (1857),
joined the set of intellectuals who advocated the formation of a Commission of National

132The disenchantment with the political situation of which he was part appears in several passages of the
book. We underline the current use of the term ruins to describe the situation both in material terms
(degraded buildings) and in the metaphorical sense: «In Portugal, there is no religion of any kind. Even its
false shadow, which is hypocrisy, has disappeared. Stupid materialism has remained, stupid, ignorant,
debauched and shameless, to show off its hideous cynical nakedness amidst the desecrated ruins of all that
elevated the spirit [...]» (Garrett, [1846] 1999, p. 201). Our translation from the original text (Portuguese):
«Em Portugal não há religião de nenhuma espécie. Até a sua falsa sombra, que é a hipocrisia, desapareceu.
Ficou o materialismo estúpido, alvar, ignorante, devasso e desfaçado, a fazer gala de sua hedionda nudez
cínica no meio das ruínas profanadas de tudo o que elevava o espírito [...]» (Garrett, [1846] 1999, p. 201).
133Translation by the author, original text in Portuguese: «Que espantosa e desgraciosa confusão de
entulhos, de pedras, de montes de terra e caliça! Não há ruas, não há caminhos, é um labirinto de ruínas
feias e torpes» (Garrett, [1846] 1999, p. 133-134).
134On the subject, see Chalante (2008).
135Translated by the author, original text in Portuguese: «As ruínas de um monumento, não mutilado,
podem muitas vezes enriquecer os tesouros da arte; as parvoíces arquitetónicas nunca» (Cascaes, 1854, p.
210).

139
Monuments, which was created in the mid-nineteenth century, and the formation of a court that
would be able to investigate cases of demolition or intervention in the built heritage (Maia, 2007, p.
173; Rodrigues, 2010, p. 25).

Brief Conclusions

Medieval ruins were a reason for criticism and denunciation to Herculano and Garrett, but,
mainly, a condition of ephemeral degradation, for which solutions were expected. The valuation of
the ruins in their fragmented aspect was reserved to the archaeological ones, although with
difficulties regarding their protection and research. The ruins of time, as Garrett argued, remained
beautiful. As for the ruins of men, both authors dedicated their criticism to them. Those ruins
signified destruction, made by human beings in power or on duty – and the Portuguese monuments
should be saved from it, but not by being wrongly repaired.
The disapproval of the degraded state of the Portuguese heritage was an alarm to the nation
since the ruins attested to the condition of forgetfulness of the national past. Also, the intellectuals’
reproach of the acts of vandalism, including those made by people with sufficient knowledge not to
do so, could be understood as a statement of political disenchantment. Moreover, the criticism of
the intellectuals reached the architects and restoration technicians, so they disapproved the bad
repairs and additions made up to that point in time – worse than the ruin itself.
The appeal for heritage preservation occurred facing the iconoclastic fury that silenced the
country’s history (Herculano, 1839a, p. 44), whose voids bothered the two writers. An evaluation of
the country followed the denunciation of the ruins in the light of the destruction caused by liberal
struggles and the extinction of the religious orders in 1834, accompanied by disenchantment at the
neglect and abandonment of the cultural heritage, in which reports of destruction came from all over
the country, as in letters addressed to the editorial staff of the magazine O Panorama, or in journeys
around the country. Otherwise, the degradation of medieval monuments, original symbols of the
nation, was also interpreted as the resulting product of poor repairs, i.e., the renovations and
transformations of buildings by nineteenth-century architects or restorers.
The void stated in the degraded patina of national buildings affected the national glory.
Therefore, the complaint to rulers, politicians and peers evidences an institutional concern for the
preservation of the past, as occurred in other countries with records of revolutionary destruction of
absolutist monuments, such as France. However, the practical counterpart was evidenced in the

140
recommendation of the creation of an association or the approval of laws in favour of monuments
(Herculano, 1839a; 1839b).
The influence of Herculano and Garrett on the discussion about heritage in Portugal is
undeniable, reverberating through the 19th century and in the following centuries. The leading role
they both had in the scrutiny of the ruins caused by the Portuguese people – in civil war, through
neglect, or by bad repairs – presented the voids of the medieval ruins as the voids of history, for
which they cried out and for which they sought to enunciate the heritage policies to come.

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11. Inês Vieira RODRIGUES
Ocean – From mythical space to urban territory

1. The image of a finished world and the illiteracy about the oceans

In 1968, the view of the Earth from the Apollo 8 mission changed our perception of
ourselves. In line with Latour’s (2017, p. 130) theory, “it is from this Great Outside that the old
primordial earth will now find itself known, weighed and judged. What was only a virtuality
becomes, for both large and small minds, an exciting project: to know is to know from the
outside.”136 It is important to mention Bragança de Miranda’s (2005, p. 26) assumption, according to
whom all images are vehicles for circumnavigating and the Earth is only visible in the image,
furthermore spatial photographs confirm it. Continuing to draw upon the same argument,” the ‘real’
maps, based on photographs taken by satellite, would take a lifetime to travel” 137 and the image of
the Earth as seen from Apollo leaves us out of it. However, the finitude of the massive object in
which we live had already been apprehended since a ‘first globalization’ or a ‘liquid revolution’, the
terms traced from the theory of Peter Sloterdijk (2008) when referring to maritime “discoveries”.
Indeed, the ocean appears on the oldest maps, since Ptolemy (see fig. 1), and even if nautical
charts are an intellectual appropriation of maritime space (Vagnon, 2018), a significant
part remains unknown over the course of the twenty-first century. On the other hand, the
atmospheric element has been studied and represented in the conditions of the human relationship
with the environment, although practically ignored until the nineteenth century. In addition, it is
important to note that it was only in 2009 that some representations such as underwater topography
and data related to the oceans started to appear on Google Earth.138

136All translations from French are the author’s.

137All translations from Portuguese are the author’s.
138According to The Guardian, 2009.

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 Fig. 1 – Leinhart Holle, Map of the World, represented in the second projection proposed by
Ptolemy 1482. Source: Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.

Contemporaneity is characterized by the exploration of the “vertical”, that immersion in the

atmosphere in a way as much or more intense than that which has been investigating the liquid
environment (namely with flights and space explorations), even though the ocean makes up about
93% (Martín-Merás, 2014) of the Earth-body139. Currently, as Sloterdijk (2008, p. 151) argued, after
half a millennium on Colombo's four voyages, the circumnavigated, discovered, represented,
occupied and used Earth “presents itself as a body anchored in a dense fabric of traffic movements
and telecommunication routines.”
For that matter, as Paul Valéry claimed, we live in the time of the finished world (1945), in
which the uniform census of all points on the surface of the Earth-body is technologically possible
(Sloterdijk, 2008). However, this methodological ideal does not seem to apply to the ocean, perhaps
because the liquid medium is the target of disregarding distances, reduced to almost nothing –
practically diminished as a connection between territories of different nation-states. There is still an
illiteracy about the oceans, announced has a global challenge among international and, more
specifically, European institutions and organizations.

139Term acquired from Peter Sloterdijk's (2008) theory.

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2. The need for a new system of governance in the “post-historic” regime

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Philip Steinberg (2001) wrote one of the first
studies dedicated to the ocean, arguing that the sea, like nation-states, has been built over time. The
author warned of the convention deeply rooted in social theories that the limits of “societies”
coincide with those defined by nation-states and, consequently, this assumption reduces territories
like the ocean to a second level, in which “society” is not formed. Steinberg's reflection intersects
that of Peter Sloterdijk’s (2008), insofar as the German philosopher characterized the contemporary
era as being faithful to its terrain-conservative feature, which, it is claimed in this text, has a clear
expression in a major part of the theories and forms of regulation.
A decade ago, when interviewed, Paul Virilio (2013) declared that the moment of romantic
contact with the sea was over, calling for a new system of governance to replace the old geopolitics,
the latter guided by a territorial extension that designated an interval of “space” between the nations
of the different states. The French philosopher invoked a “metropolitics” that considers “permanent
confrontation” and “chronic instantaneity”. Moreover, Virilio (2013, p. 39) highlighted the need for
a commitment with the globalization in our territories, by means of considering the geopolitical
contexts and “the continuum”, as well as through identifying the culture of the sea and the flows.

Fig. 2 – Albrecht Durer, Draughtsman Making a Perspective Drawing of a Reclining Woman, c.

1600. Source: Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.

Subsequently, this appeal for a new governance regime needs an inevitable change within its
frame of reference, which involves withdrawing the concept of “nature” from theories and practices
and recognizing that the relationships are not unidirectional. The call for a change in perspective
seems evident when thinking about images such as Masaccio's Holy Trinity, Dürer's Draughtsman

145
Making a Perspective Drawing of a Reclining Woman (see fig. 2), or even Malevich's Black Circle,
since the questioning of axioms seems to be present in each one of these oeuvres d’art. As claimed
by Virilio (2013), it is proposed here to alert to the reinvention of a geopolitics, in recognition of the
alteration of the limits and the so-called “last frontiers”. In addition, it is considered as essential to
uncover the distracted – or, at times, disenchanted – position of architecture and urbanism in
relation to the commons.
Actually, it conveys the impression that we currently live in a “post-historic” regime, an
expression used by Peter Sloterdijk (2008, p. 19) as a follow-up to the period designated by the
concept of “history” which, according to the author, designates the succession of phases of
unilateralism. It is argued in this text that the research on the oceans is one of the milestones of this
“post-historic” era, oriented towards “supra-regional futures”140. In this sense, and subscribing to
Bragança de Miranda’s (2005, p. 34) approach, it is fundamental to emphasize that a new sharing of
the common is outlined, “which will take little advantage of the previous one that has prevailed.” It
is important to continue to draw from the theory of the same author the idea that this is “a dynamic
that does not fit within any legal system, and that pressures them all intensely. The problem of the
common refers to something more radical: the relationship with nature and the flesh, that is, with
the “Earth”141” (Bragança de Miranda, 2005, p. 33).

3. Flesh and terrain, a material identification

Returning to the need for a new perspective, it is argued that the act of mapping plays a key
role in this revolutionary approach. Naturally, regarding cartography, it is of paramount importance
to pay attention to the various means and forms of representation, taking into account Sloterdijk’s
(2008, p. 109) argument, according to which “the discovery aims at capturing: that is what gives
cartography its function in the history of the world.”
In general, contemporary cartography still represents the sea in a simplified way. The maps
are dominated by the blue, homogeneous color, almost without “imperfections” and without
“background” – apart from maps based on bathymetric information. The exterior white of the maps,
as an old representation of the unknown and the terrifying, might be today the blue of the oceans, a
blue without meaning. The liquid milieu is still seen as another environment, a place without a
subject, oblivious to human actions. We are facing a phenomenon of apparent contrast, within
which human beings, generally, “do not develop cultured relations with the maritime environment
and still less try to practice an identification” (Sloterdijk, 2008, p. 164). In fact, – and it must be
140An expression taken from Peter Sloterdijk’s theory (2008, p. 153).
141The italics in the sentence are added by the author of this text.

146
clarified that this refers to a panorama mostly inscribed within a western perspective, – it seems that
still today the ocean is largely perceived as a place without self. However, when the image of the
Earth-body was possible, we realized that the “other”, the blue, after all, was us. The blue is us.

Fig. 3 – Francisco Goya, Saturn Devouring His Son, c. 1819 - 1823. Madrid, Museo del Prado.
Source: Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.

In a practically opposite way, the relationship of humans with the terrestrial environment is
conferred with an immense significance and conformation. This is because “in the matter of the
Earth, the destiny of the flesh is immediately present, in its immense fragility. The flesh has a
terrestrial origin” (Bragança de Miranda, 2005, pp. 13-14), since the terrestrial absolute is the
absolute that belongs to the earth (Molder, 2020, p. 48). With a view to go further in explaining this
symbolic relationship, Bragança de Miranda (2005, p. 26) states that “the body is a form of
individuation of the flesh, as the site is a form of individuation of the Earth.” Within the same
deliberation, the Professor refers to the absolute abyss, Tartarus, as the summit of the underground
in an apparent undifferentiation between “Earth” and “body”. Georges Didi-Huberman (2011, p. 25)

147
also writes about “the symmetrical chasms of the visceral world”, the undoubted “monsters” that
originate the human being. Additionally, using an expression of Alessandro Baricco (1996), the sea
was itself an abysmal anthropophagic monster. Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son (see fig. 3) is
here considered as a sublime depiction of this anthropophagy, and to a certain extent, as a
representation of a body-earth material commonality. Undeniably, the monsters themselves depicted
in maps and stories are part of the maritime imagery. In this line of thought, the return to Bragança
de Miranda’s theory (2005) is appraised as essential to identify a fundamental remark: that “the
private property regime and its relation to the commonality of the Earth is at stake” (p. 27), bearing
in mind that “our142 language uses the word “earth” for the earth-matter and for the earth-planet
which we inhabit” (p. 26).
Indeed, the ideas formulated about the ocean tend to be (re)produced in discourses,
legislation and cartographic representations. In general, the lack of knowledge and the simultaneous
romanticization of oceanic space have direct consequences for urbanism and its practices. Maps are
the symptom of these views since ultimately, a map is always contingent to interpretation.

4. Claiming the sea as a territorial constitution – a maritory

During the seventies, Henri Lefebvre wrote that the urban problem was imposed on a
worldwide scale (1970, p. 25), announcing the “urban era” as a new, unknown and little appreciated
field. The philosopher and sociologist went further, stating that with this new period, what was
understood as absolute would be relativized: reason, history, the State, and “man” (Lefebvre, 1970,
p. 52). Recently, the authors of the publication entitled Implosions / Explosions (2014), influenced
by Lefebvre's thinking, called for a new theory of urbanization. Neil Brenner and Christian Schmid
warn about the fact that urban ideologies and consequent visualizations persist, namely in
administrative discourses, planning and culture.
However, in the Portuguese context – in particular, within the area of architecture and
urbanism – the consolidation of research practices that are hesitant to approach other geographies
begins to be called into question with some analyses that are emerging about oceanic space, which
are nevertheless sparse. Therefore, it is claimed here that it is fundamental to take into consideration
the establishment of other perspectives to question the condition of the urban and the role played in
the ocean and by the ocean. Indeed, today, fantasies about the Ocean Sea 143 should result in new
policies and representations. One of the greatest contemporary urban challenges is the planning of
142Referring to Portuguese language.
143Here is an example of the reference to the Atlantic Ocean as the “Ocean Sea” from the XVI century, written by the Azorean priest
and historian Gaspar Frutuoso (1522-1591, p. 159): “(...) because in fact, any of these islands, in this very long and wide ocean sea, is
nothing but a somewhat spacious prison (...) a very narrow and much shorter grave.”

148
maritime territory, hence it is important to focus the analysis on the space of the networks, in the
geopolitical context, in a perspective of a rearrangement that designates urbanism as a policy and
urbanization as a domain.
In the light of the last couple of years, it is important to emphasize the still very recent,
although rapidly increasing discourse on the importance of the sea – and, specifically, one that
addresses the Azorean Region. The political discourse has been given particular emphasis to the
geostrategic position of the archipelago, as attested by the document “Strategic Vision for the Plan
for the Economic Recovery of Portugal 2020-2030”. The motto is easily recognizable: the “Blue
Economy”, the “Blue Generation” and even the “Blue Entrepreneurship”, as if the "blue" had an
almost soothing, peaceful and even sanitizing effect in relation to any noun that precedes it. Within
this reasoning, “blue” operates a political role, very similar to “green”. The latter, when used in
speeches or regulations, seems to automatically guarantee an ecological and moral duty. In this
sense, “blue” and “green” appear to have some redeeming effect.
In a still timid way, within an international perspective, the urban and territorial dimension
of the liquid environment begins to erupt in urbanism studies. In 2021, the ocean is far from the
mythical and the bucolic territory of bygone days. It is also no longer characterized only as a means
of communication or as a network of infrastructures, that is, only as a connection axis. Currently,
climate change and the absurd amount of plastic in the seas are examples of themes that trigger the
exchange of information between various areas of knowledge.
However, environmental concerns, by themselves, do not free the understanding of the seas
from the dimension inherited from the romantic period. As Nathalie Roelens (2018) points out,
drowning in the Mediterranean Sea today transforms the mythical imaginary into a frightening
reality without redemption, a reality that has the boy Aylan Kurdi as its symbol. Roelens impeccably
summarizes the simultaneously brutal and metaphoric duality that is intended to emerge in this text,
when she claims that the Ocean Sea combines two imaginaries: that of failed bodies and that of
epiphany, affirming that the coast is a place of ethical violations.
To conclude, the etymological epicenter in “Architecture” underlines the Greek term árkhō,
which elects the “principle”, the “rule”, and it is consequently the magnificent epistemological field
for considering the (de)construction of space and its order. In the area of urbanism and geographic
analysis, the conception and study of the ocean as a territory – in particular, as an urban territory
and, more precisely as it is argued, as a maritory – depends on a complexity of contributions and
knowledge, and as Sloterdijk (2011, p. 81) asserted, “only from philosophy can the intelligence
learn how its passions find concepts.” The design of the liquid environment – that is, the search to
make it readable and, consequently, to claim it as an integral part of a territorial constitution –
seems to be, from this standpoint, one of the greatest contemporary challenges.

149
Acknowledgments

This research was funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT-
MCTES) through national and European funds (European Social Fund), under the scope of the
Ph.D. Grant 2020.05223.BD.

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151
12. Leonardo OLIVEIRA
Espectros da modernidade no cemitério Campo da Esperança (Brasília-DF)

1. Modernidade

Walter Benjamin disse, da modernidade, que ela nasceu sob o signo do

suicídio; Sigmund Freud sugeriu que ela foi dirigida por Tânatos – o instinto
da morte. (Bauman, 1998, p. 21).

O termo modernidade não possui uma definição única e precisa, como também são
imprecisos os limites cronológicos do que se convencionou chamar, de um ponto de vista histórico,
de Idade Moderna. Com finalidade didática, a historiografia ocidental geralmente aponta que a
transição da Idade Média para a Moderna foi marcada pelo fim do sistema econômico feudal e pela
tomada de Constantinopla pelos turcos otomanos, em 1453, entre outros fatores. No entanto, o
historiador da arte suíço Jacob Burckhardt (1818-1897) sustenta que os antecedentes históricos do
que poderia ser chamado de “espírito moderno” datam do século XIII, quando, ao passo que em
alguns países (como a França, Espanha e Inglaterra) o sistema feudal era tão organizado que
naturalmente se transformou em uma monarquia unificada, a Itália se desvencilhou quase que
inteiramente do feudalismo. Talvez essa seja a razão pela qual, nesse país, tenha sido mais evidente
o surgimento do que se comumente entende no Ocidente por modernidade, cujos sinais emergiram
no período chamado de Renascimento (ou, mais recentemente, Renascença), no século XIV; nessa
época, os imperadores já não eram reconhecidos como senhores feudais e o Papado era poderoso o
suficiente para impedir uma unidade nacional. Em ambos os conjuntos de governantes –
imperadores e Papado – pôde ser detectado pela primeira vez o “espírito político moderno da
Europa”,

[…] entregue a seus próprios instintos e, muitas vezes, exibindo as piores

características de um egoísmo desenfreado, ultrajando todos os direitos e
matando todos os germes de uma cultura mais saudável. Entretanto, onde
quer que essa tendência cruel seja superada ou de alguma forma
contrabalançada, um novo fato adentra a história – o Estado como o

152
 resultado da reflexão e do cálculo, o Estado como uma obra de arte. 144
(Burckhardt, 1937, p. 1-2).

Difundido pela Europa nos séculos seguintes, o Renascimento foi um período caracterizado
por transições, entre as quais se destacam o surgimento de mudanças profundas nas relações sociais;
uma nova postura do homem frente ao trabalho e a si mesmo; a organização do sistema bancário; e
o advento do capitalismo comercial, que também pode ser chamado de capitalismo mercantil ou
pré-capitalismo. Segundo a filósofa húngara Agnes Heller (1929-2019), o Renascimento foi a
“aurora” do sistema econômico capitalista e os modos de vida dos indivíduos renascentistas tiveram
origem no processo por meio do qual os primórdios desse sistema “destruíram a relação natural”
entre indivíduo e comunidade”, “dissolveram os elos naturais” que ligavam o homem à família, à
situação social e ao seu lugar previamente definido na sociedade, e “abalaram toda a hierarquia e
estabilidade social”, tornando as relações humanas instáveis tanto no que se refere à organização
das classes e dos estratos da sociedade como ao lugar dos sujeitos nesses estratos (1982, p. 11, grifo
da autora).

Também no Renascimento houve certo abandono dos ideais católicos dominantes na Idade
Média para que o homem se tornasse o centro das atenções. A religião não foi olvidada por
completo, mas o indivíduo renascentista se afastou das explicações do mundo criadas antes da Idade
Moderna e, mais crente em si mesmo, passou a olhar para as próprias conquistas, engendrando uma
autoconfiança que naturalmente favoreceu o desenvolvimento de novas habilidades. No âmbito das
artes, mais especificamente literatura e pintura, podem ser apontados o gênero da biografia 145 e a
técnica do retratismo146 – tarefas que objetivam descrever um sujeito humano – como sintomas do
surgimento de uma nova ideia de individualidade. Heller (1982, p. 15) aponta que, nessa época, o
destino dos homens passou a depender das realizações individuais e já que este se formava no cerne
de uma sociedade,

[...] foi precisamente o aparecimento de uma relação individual com a

144 Do original: “[…] surrendered freely to its own instincts. Often displaying the worst features of an
unbridled egotism, outraging every right, and killing every germ of a healthier culture. But, wherever this
vicious tendency is overcome or in any way compensated, a new fact appears in history – the State as
the outcome of reflection and calculation, the State as a work of art.”.
145 Destacam-se as contribuições do escritor francês Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), criador desse
gênero literário. O historiador inglês Peter Burke (1937-) assinala que o período histórico do Renascimento
“testemunhou um perceptível aumento do interesse tanto pela escrita quanto pela leitura de biografias,
primeiro na Itália e depois em outros lugares”, sendo que “Na Itália do século XVI, a biografia se tornou um
componente ainda mais importante da paisagem cultural” (1997, p. 85). Burke, P. (1997). A invenção da
biografia e o individualismo renascentista. Estudos Históricos, 10(19), 83-97.
146 Essa técnica pode ser observada na pintura da Mona Lisa, concluída na primeira década de 1500, do
polímata italiano Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519).

153
 sociedade, a escolha do seu próprio destino por cada indivíduo, que tornou
necessários uma perspectiva, um sentido dos valores e um modo de
comportamento cada vez mais individualista – numa palavra, aquilo a que
chamamos, com um excesso de simplificação, o “individualismo do
Renascimento” [...].

A autora ressalta ainda que, nesse sentido, talvez fosse melhor falar em um “culto do homem
que se faz a si próprio”, esclarecendo, porém, que aquilo que ele fazia de si não era necessariamente
sinônimo de posses, poder ou dinheiro (embora muitas vezes o fosse), mas consistia basicamente
em avaliar até que ponto deixara a sua marca no mundo (1982, p. 15). O advento desse novo tipo de
individualidade, portanto, estava associado ao irrompimento da dimensão intelectual renascentista e
possuía certo compromisso com o mundo exterior e a humanidade.

Ainda no século XV, reinos europeus lançaram-se nas Grandes Navegações na busca de
riquezas em nome da fé cristã. De acordo com o geógrafo Francisco de Assis Veloso Filho (2012, p.
5-7), entre os anos de 1487 e 1522 foram completadas a exploração do contorno da África e a
primeira circunavegação da Terra; a exploração do litoral africano até a Serra Leoa foi alcançada em
1460 e, em 1469, o rei Afonso V de Portugal (1438-1481) arrendou a utilização comercial das terras
além da Serra Leoa pelo prazo de seis anos. Assim, no início do século XVI, o desenvolvimento
econômico europeu levou ao processo de colonização de outros territórios, que, marcado pelo
caráter de dominação dos povos colonizados, ocupava terras e explorava seus recursos naturais.
Esse processo iniciou na América, onde houve, a princípio, saques de metais preciosos
anteriormente acumulados pelos povos nativos: os ameríndios. Ainda nesse século, as terras
americanas passaram a ser economicamente exploradas por meio dos sistemas de plantação de
açúcar, algodão e outros produtos tropicais, que eram cultivados para exportação, contando com a
força de trabalho escravo dos ameríndios e, posteriormente, africanos, trazidos pelos colonizadores
do outro lado do Atlântico. De acordo com os pesquisadores da University College London Mark
Maslin e Simon Lewis (2020), foi a partir da expansão europeia, nos séculos XV e XVI, na era da
colonização e subjugação dos povos indígenas em todo o mundo, que o capitalismo se
desenvolveu147.

Nas primeiras décadas do século XVI, começou a pairar sobre a Itália uma aura de

147 “This was capitalism, which itself grew out of European expansion in the 15th and 16th century and the
era of colonisation and subjugation of indigenous peoples all around the world.”. Disponível em:
<https://theconversation.com/why-the-anthropocene-began-with-european-colonisation-mass-slavery-and-
the-great-dying-of-the-16th-century-140661>. Acesso em: 24 jan. 2021.

154
instabilidade proveniente dos âmbitos econômico, religioso e social: o aquecimento do comércio
italiano, em razão das riquezas levadas das Américas para a Itália, ocasionou uma alta nos preços
das mercadorias, de um modo geral; a Reforma Protestante, que iniciou em 1517, acarretou no
comércio abusivo de indulgências pela Igreja; e o Saque de Roma, em 1527, abalou o sentimento de
ordem nutrido durante o Renascimento, que durou até cerca de 1600; assim, o mundo renascentista
se viu quase que repentinamente abalado. Tais fatores contribuíram para o surgimento de uma crise
generalizada que, em algumas décadas, viria a evidenciar a necessidade de uma nova
fundamentação para a ciência e novos princípios filosóficos.

Em 1603, quando o poeta inglês William Shakespeare (1564-1616) publicou a tragédia

Hamlet, os países do Ocidente europeu estavam próximos daquela crise, que não foi apenas
econômica148, mas espiritual. A Revolução Científica149 iniciada no século anterior introduzira novas
teorias científicas e novos instrumentos, gerando um descompasso entre as mudanças culturais e
revelando a ausência de uma filosofia que oferecesse um caminho alinhado com a modernidade.
Logo, a consolidação da noção de indivíduo moderno está estreitamente relacionada a uma
revolução intelectual, proposta pelo filósofo e matemático francês René Descartes (1596-1650) em
1637, no livro Discurso do método, que sugeriu o rompimento com a tradição escolástica, a
implementação de um novo modo de pensar e a constituição de uma teoria original do
conhecimento. Em linhas gerais, Descartes (2001, p. 5) defendeu que, por meio da razão, seria
possível distinguir o verdadeiro do falso e o único modo de alcançar a verdade seria duvidando das
“verdades” anteriormente impostas, sem duvidar, no entanto, da própria dúvida:

[...] enquanto queria pensar que tudo era falso, era necessariamente preciso
que eu, que o pensava, fosse alguma coisa. E, notando que esta verdade –
penso, logo existo – era tão firme e tão certa que todas as mais extravagantes
suposições dos céticos não eram capazes de a abalar, julguei que podia
admiti-la sem escrúpulo como o primeiro princípio da filosofia que buscava.
(Descartes, 2001, p. 38, grifo do autor).

148 Segundo o historiador britânico Eric Hobsbawm (1917-2012), no âmbito econômico a crise foi motivada
sobretudo por uma crise de produção: ao passo que a Itália e partes da Alemanha, França e Polônia
demonstraram uma espécie de retrocesso em termos de industrialização, a Suíça, Inglaterra e Suécia
apresentaram um rápido desenvolvimento. Hobsbawm, E. (1954). The General Crisis of the European
Economy in the 17th Century. Past & Present, 5(1), 33-53.
149 Expressão introduzida pelo filósofo francês de origem russa Alexandre Koyré (1892-1964) em 1939 e
difundida posteriormente pelo físico e filósofo estadunidense Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996).

155
 No século seguinte à primeira publicação de Discurso do método, entre as décadas de 1760 e
1770, o matemático e engenheiro escocês James Watt (1736-1819) e seu parceiro comercial, o
inglês Matthew Boulton (1728-1809), assentaram mais um tijolo na construção do edifício da
modernidade: ao desenvolverem a máquina a vapor moderna150 contribuíram substancialmente para
a Revolução Industrial, que despontou na ilha da Grã-Bretanha, rompeu com as condições históricas
anteriores e, posteriormente, disseminou-se pelo mundo. De acordo com Hobsbawm (1996, p. 28-
29), a década decisiva para o que teria sido a primeira fase dessa Revolução, em que ocorreram
transformações “qualitativas e fundamentais”, foi a de 1780, quando alterações irreversíveis
modificaram não só o modo de produção vigente, mas as relações de trabalho. Tais mudanças
exerceram um impacto direto e significativo nas sociedades da época, que testemunharam, além da
modernização da indústria, o crescimento desenfreado das populações urbanas e a difusão do
capitalismo. Hobsbawm aponta que as Revoluções Francesa (1789-1799)151 e Industrial são
praticamente inconcebíveis sob qualquer forma que não a do triunfo do capitalismo liberal
burguês152 e que

A grande revolução de 1789-1848 foi o triunfo não da indústria como tal,

mas da indústria capitalista; não da liberdade e igualdade em geral, mas da
classe média ou sociedade burguesa liberal; não da economia moderna ou
do estado moderno, mas das economias e dos estados em uma determinada
região geográfica do mundo (parte da Europa e algumas porções da América
do Norte) cujo centro eram os estados vizinhos e rivais da Grã-Bretanha e
França.153 (Hobsbawm, 1996, p. 1, grifo do autor).

150 De acordo com o químico holandês Paul J. Crutzen (1933-), a criação da máquina a vapor teria dado
início ao período chamado de Antropoceno, que se refere à atual época geológica, marcada pela intensa e
predatória ação humana sobre a Terra. Crutzen, P. J. (2006). The “Anthropocene”. In: Ehlers, E. e Krafft,
T. (orgs.). Earth System Science in the Anthropocene (p. 13-18). Berlim, Heidelberg: Springer.
151 Período caracterizado por uma grande agitação política e social na França que ocorreu entre 1789 e
1799. Segundo Hobsbawm (1996, p. 53-54), essa revolução foi “mais fundamental” e teve consequências
mais profundas que as outras que estavam acontecendo no mundo, tendo sido por meio dela que a
“ideologia do mundo moderno” penetrou pela primeira vez nas civilizações antigas, que até então haviam
resistido às ideias europeias (“The ideology of the modern world first penetrated the ancient civilizations
which had hitherto resisted European ideas through French influence. This was the work of the French
Revolution. [...] The French Revolution may not have been an isolated phenomenon, but it was far more
fundamental than any of the other contemporary ones and its consequences were therefore far more
profound.”).
152 “It is equally relevant to note that they are at this period almost inconceivable in any form other than the
triumph of a bourgeois-liberal capitalism.” (1996, p. 2).
153 Do original: “The great revolution of 1789-1848 was the triumph not of “industry” as such, but of capitalist
industry; not of liberty and equality in general but of middle class or “bourgeois” liberal society; not of “the
modern economy” or “the modern state”, but of the economies and states in a particular geographical
region of the world (part of Europe and a few patches of North America), whose centre was the
neighbouring and rival states of Great Britain and France.”.

156
 O conjunto de transformações advindas das revoluções dos séculos XVIII e XIX
representam o que os pensadores prussianos Karl Marx (1818-1883) e Friedrich Engels (1820-
1895)154 entendiam, de modo geral, por modernidade. Em meio aos conflitos urbanos da Revolução
de 1848155, esses autores publicaram o Manifesto do partido comunista, uma análise crítica da
Revolução Industrial então em curso que defendeu a existência de uma sociedade sem classes e
apontou a necessidade de reformas sociais. Para eles, a história legada pela escrita de todas as
sociedades até 1847 era a da luta de classes. Na Inglaterra industrial moderna, os indivíduos se
organizavam em relações de produção de bens que acarretavam a contínua exploração do
proletariado – a classe dos “modernos operários assalariados” – pela burguesia – a classe dos
“modernos capitalistas” e “proprietários dos meios de produção social” –, acentuando a diferença
classista (1998, p. 42). Essa questão havia existido desde épocas remotas, pois em quase todos os
lugares encontrava-se uma estruturação completa dos corpos sociais em diferentes estratos. Nesses
corpos sociais, opressores e oprimidos estiveram em contínua oposição uns aos outros de modo que
esse embate terminava, a cada vez, com “uma reconfiguração revolucionária de toda a sociedade”
ou “a derrocada comum das classes em luta”; logo, a “moderna sociedade burguesa”, emergente do
declínio da sociedade feudal, não aboliu os antagonismos classistas, mas apenas inseriu novas
classes, condições de opressão e estruturas de luta no lugar das antigas (Marx e Engels, 1998, p. 7-
8).
Os pensadores destacam ainda que a época em que o manifesto foi escrito era caracterizada
como a da classe burguesa, que, onde quer que tenha chegado ao poder, “dissolveu a dignidade
pessoal em valor de troca” e não deixou nenhum outro laço entre os indivíduos senão o “insensível
pagamento à vista” (1998, p. 10). Nesse sentido,

Ser capitalista significa assumir não apenas uma posição meramente pessoal
na produção, mas também uma posição social. O capital é um produto
coletivo e só pode ser posto em movimento mediante a atividade comum de
muitos membros, e até mesmo, em última instância, mediante a atividade
comum de todos os membros da sociedade. O capital, portanto, não é uma
potência pessoal, ele é uma potência social. (Marx e Engels, 1998, p. 22).

154 Cabe sublinhar que esses autores desenvolveram a concepção histórico-sociológica que receberia a
alcunha de materialismo histórico, inflexão na evolução do pensamento dos fundadores do marxismo
marcada em A Ideologia Alemã (1932), conforme aponta o historiador e cientista social brasileiro Jacob
Gorender (1923-2013) na apresentação da edição de O Capital, publicada pela Editora Abril Cultural em
1983.
155 Acontecimento caracterizado por uma série de revoluções decorrentes de crises econômicas, entre
outros fatores, na Europa Central e Oriental. A esse respeito, as análises de dois pensadores se destacam:
O 18 Brumário de Luís Bonaparte, publicado em 1852 por Karl Marx (1818-1883), e Lembranças de 1848:
as jornadas revolucionárias em Paris, publicado em 1893 pelo pensador político e estadista francês Alexis
de Tocqueville (1805-1859).

157
 Dezenove anos depois da divulgação do Manifesto do partido comunista, Marx apresentou
um exame mais profundo dessa questão ao publicar o primeiro volume de O Capital156, que propôs
uma análise crítica do sistema econômico capitalista e lançou as bases do pensamento socialista
marxista. Segundo o autor, o dinheiro é a primeira forma de aparição do capital e a circulação de
mercadorias é o ponto de partida deste; cada novo capital adentra em primeira instância o mercado,
que pode ser de mercadorias157, trabalho ou dinheiro, que, sempre primeiramente como dinheiro,
deve transformar-se em capital por meio de determinados processos (1983, p. 125).

No âmbito do que poderia ser chamado de modernidade filosófica, destaca-se o pensamento

do filósofo alemão Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), que, tendo feito uso das ideias de Descartes,
publicou em 1907 o livro Die Idee der Phänomenologie, reunindo cinco lições que examinaram a
questão da verdade a fim de fornecer bases incontestáveis à ciência por meio de um novo
método: o fenomenológico. A abordagem fenomenológica na investigação filosófica buscaria
reduzir o conhecimento científico a uma espécie de fenômeno puro, uma essência, que se daria
intuitivamente na consciência humana. De acordo com Husserl (2008, p. 21-22), a fenomenologia é
“a doutrina universal das essências em que se integra a ciência da essência do conhecimento”. O
pensamento filosófico é definido pela posição perante os problemas da possibilidade do
conhecimento, e a teoria do conhecimento é a tentativa de tomada de posição científica perante
esses problemas; a ideia da teoria do conhecimento é a de uma ciência que os resolva, além de
fornecer uma intelecção clara da essência do conhecimento e da possibilidade da sua efetuação. A
crítica do conhecimento é, nesse sentido, a condição da possibilidade da metafísica158.

A obra do filósofo alemão Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) também é fundamental para uma
descrição do panorama filosófico do século XX. Heidegger foi aluno de Husserl e não só seguiu a
abordagem fenomenológica nas suas investigações como desenvolveu a fenomenologia enquanto

156 Publicado em 1867, foi o único volume que Marx lançou em vida. Os dois volumes seguintes foram
publicados por Engels entre 1885 e 1894; e o quarto (e último), pelo filósofo tcheco-austríaco Karl Johann
Kautsky (1854-1938) em 1905.
157 Segundo Marx (1983, p. 45), uma mercadoria é um objeto externo que, pelas suas propriedades,
satisfaz as necessidades humanas de qualquer espécie, podendo ser originadas, sem alterar esse
objeto, “do estômago ou da fantasia”.
158 A metafísica seria um estudo do ser em sua totalidade. Para o filósofo grego Aristóteles (c. 384-322
a.C.), o primeiro a tratar sistematicamente dessa questão, a metafísica seria uma espécie de filosofia
primeira, disciplina fundamental da filosofia. No início do quarto livro de Metafísica (c. 350 a.C.) há o que
talvez seja a primeira definição desse termo: “[1003a21] Há uma ciência que estuda o ente enquanto ente e
aquilo que se lhe atribui a em si mesmo. Ela não é idêntica a nenhuma das assim chamadas ciências
particulares: de fato, nenhuma outra examina universalmente a respeito do ente enquanto é ente, mas,
tendo recortado uma parte do mesmo, estudam o que decorre a respeito dela, por exemplo, as ciências
matemáticas.” (2007, p. 13). Aristóteles. (2007). Metafísica, Livro IV (Gamma) e VI (Epsilon). Clássicos da
Filosofia: Cadernos de Tradução, 14, 13-34.

158
método. Ao filósofo interessava a Ontologia 159, que propõe o exame de questões relacionadas ao
ser humano e sua existência, tarefa empreendida no livro Sein Und Zeit (1927); nele, o autor
apresenta uma análise do ente (ser humano) não a partir do mundo exterior, mas de uma perspectiva
interna, perguntando-se, sobretudo, como era o ser humano, em vez de o que este era. Heidegger
defendia que, para que fossem examinadas as questões do ente, ele deveria começar examinado a si
próprio. De acordo com o professor de filosofia da Universidade Federal do Paraná André Duarte
(2006, p. 99), o filósofo pensou a modernidade como uma época determinada por um novo projeto
metafísico fundamental, isto é, uma interpretação inédita do ente na totalidade, e por uma nova
apreensão da verdade. No ensaio Die Zeit des Weltbildes (1938), encontram-se as primeiras
formulações mais precisas acerca da concepção heideggeriana sobre as relações entre modernidade,
técnica e ciência:

A metafísica estabelece uma época ao dar-lhe o fundamento de sua forma

essencial por meio de uma determinada interpretação dos seres e de uma
determinada concepção de verdade. Esse fundamento prevalece em todos os
fenômenos que caracterizam a época. Por outro lado, o fundamento
metafísico deve ser reconhecível nesses fenômenos para uma reflexão
suficiente sobre eles. […] A ciência pertence aos fenômenos essenciais dos
tempos modernos. A técnica de máquinas é um fenômeno igualmente
importante em termos de classificação. […] A técnica de máquinas continua
sendo o rebento mais visível da essência da técnica moderna, a qual é
idêntica à essência da metafísica moderna160. (Heidegger, 1977, p. 75).

O filósofo francês Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995), influenciado por Husserl e Heidegger,

desenvolveu a fenomenologia na primeira fase da sua obra não mais no âmbito da Ontologia, mas
no da Ética, que, de acordo com ele, deveria ser o ponto de partida de toda filosofia, a filosofia
primeira. Em Totalité et Infini (1961), um dos seus principais escritos, Levinas aponta que
fenomenologia husserliana possibilitou a passagem da ética para exterioridade metafísica; uma vez
que a “verdadeira vida é ausente”, a metafísica surge e é mantida nessa asserção, pois volta-se para

159 Do grego ontos (“ser”).

160 Do original: “Die Metaphysik begründet ein Zeitalter, indem sie ihm durch eine bestimmte Auslegung des
Seienden und durch eine bestimmte Auffassung der Wahrheit den Grund seiner Wesensgestalt gibt.
Dieser Grund durchherrscht alle Erschei-nungen, die das Zeitalter auszeichnen. Umgekehrt muß sich in
diesen Erscheinungen für eine zureichende Besinnung auf sie der metaphysische Grund erkennen
lassen. […] Zu den wesentlichen Erscheinungen der Neuzeit gehört ihre Wissenschaft. Eine dem Range
nach gleichwichtige Erschei-nung ist die Maschinentechnik. […] Die Maschinentechnik bleibt der bis jetzt
sichtbarste Ausläufer des Wesens der neuzeitlichen Technik, das mit dem Wesen der neuzeitlichen
Metaphysik identisch ist.”.

159
o “outro lugar”, a “outra forma”, o “outro” 161 (1987, p. 15-21). Os últimos exemplares da obra
levinasiana trataram do que o filósofo chamou de ética da alteridade, que se traduz na
responsabilidade incondicional do Eu pelo Outro 162, talvez propondo uma dissolução do
individualismo humano163, isto é, a tendência de viver somente para si mesmo. Levinas não foi o
primeiro a desenvolver a ideia de alteridade, mas influenciou profundamente pensadores que viriam
a desconstruir a metafísica logocêntrica do pensamento ocidental.

Tendo como pano de fundo a mudança de paradigmas nas ciências humanas que emergiu na
França a partir de 1950, o filósofo francês Michel Foucault (1926-1984) sugeriu que, na tradição
europeia, a atitude perante a alteridade assenta-se na fissura que estabelece a distância entre a razão
e a não razão164 (Foucault, 1973, p. IX-X), conduta que já existia na Antiguidade ocidental, mas que
somente a partir de Descartes assumiu papel decisivo como critério de exclusão (Kroflič, 2007, p.
35). A ideia geral dessa questão foi transposta para a arquitetura por Foucault de modo inédito: em
14 de março de 1967, o filósofo proferiu uma conferência na instituição francesa Cercle d’Études
Architecturales que originou um pequeno texto intitulado Des espaces autres, escrito na Tunísia no
mesmo ano, mas publicado originalmente em outubro de 1984, no quinto número da revista
Architecture, Mouvement, Continuité. Nesse texto, Foucault trata de dois grandes tipos de
“alocações”, que, para ele, estavam ligadas a todas as outras alocações e, ao mesmo tempo, as
contradiziam:

[...] as utopias [...] são as alocações sem lugar real. São as alocações que
mantêm com o espaço real da sociedade uma relação geral de analogia
direta ou invertida. É a própria sociedade aperfeiçoada, ou é o inverso da
sociedade; mas, de toda forma, essas utopias são espaços
fundamentalmente, essencialmente, irreais. [...] Por serem absolutamente
outros quanto a todas as alocações que eles refletem e sobre as quais falam,
denominarei tais lugares, por oposição às utopias, de heterotopias.
(Foucault, 2013, p. 115-116).

161 “La phénoménologie husserlienne a rendu possible ce passage de l'éthique à l'extériorité

métaphysique. […] ‘La vraie vie est absente.’ Mais nous sommes au monde. La métaphysique surgit et se
main tient dans cet alibi. Elle est tournée vers l’‘ailleurs’, et l’‘autrement’, et l’‘autre’.”.
162 Como diz o filósofo (1987, p. 54) em Humanisme de l’autre homme: “O Eu diante dos Outros, é
infinitamente responsável.” (do original: “Le Moi devant Autrui, est infiniment responsable.”). Levinas, E.
(1987). Humanisme de l’autre homme. Paris: LGF - Livre de Poche; Biblio/Essais édition.
163 Cabe apontar que, para Heller (1982, p. 15), o individualismo já estava presente na “sociedade
burguesa amadurecida”, mas pouco teve em comum com o comportamento (cada vez mais)
individualista do período do Renascimento.
164 Do original: “What is originative is the caesura that establishes the distance between reason and non-
reason; reason's subjugation of non-reason, wresting from it its truth as madness, crime, or disease, derives
explicitly from this point.”.

160
 Esse segundo grupo é descrito por meio de cinco princípios; entre eles, destaca-se o que diz
respeito ao funcionamento “preciso e determinado” de cada heterotopia 165 no interior de uma
sociedade, pois aquela pode, conforme a sincronia da cultura em que se encontra, ter um ou outro
funcionamento ao longo da história. Para exemplificar esse princípio, o filósofo aponta o espaço
cemiterial, que, na cultura ocidental, sofreu transformações importantes: até o final do século
XVIII, era situado no centro das cidades, ao lado da igreja e configurado hierarquicamente: havia a
vala comum, onde os mortos perdiam a individualidade; as sepulturas individuais e, por fim, as
sepulturas no interior da igreja. No final desse século e início do século XIX, os cemitérios foram
expurgados para as margens das cidades, sendo precisamente esse o momento em que houve a
“individualização da morte”166 e a “apropriação burguesa do cemitério”167 (2013, p. 117-118).

No pensamento foucaultiano, a noção de individualidade 168 associa-se à do poder 169,

165 Junção entre hetero (do grego héteros: “outro”, “diferente”) e topia (do grego topos: “lugar”).
166 Essa “individualização” diz respeito ao enterramento dos mortos em covas separadas.
167 Foucault provavelmente refere-se ao fato de que nos cemitérios construídos no século XIX, em geral,
se buscava a utilização de monumentos tumulários e outros dispositivos a fim de registrar e ressaltar a
posição social dos mortos.
168 Em 28 de novembro de 1971, Foucault mencionou essa questão em uma entrevista, conduzida pelo
filósofo holandês Fons Elders (1936-) e transmitida pela televisão holandesa, em que reforça a sua crítica
ao “humanismo”, mais explicitada na sua obra a partir da década de 1960: “Costumamos pensar que a
expressão da individualidade, por exemplo, ou a exaltação da individualidade é uma das formas de
libertação do homem [...] Mas eu me pergunto se o contrário é verdadeiro. Tentei mostrar que o humanismo
era uma espécie de forma, de fabricação do ser humano segundo um certo modelo e que ele não funciona
de forma alguma como uma libertação do homem. Ao contrário, o humanismo funciona como um
aprisionamento do homem a certos tipos de moldes que são todos controlados pela soberania do sujeito.”
(do original: “We are used to thinking that the expression of individuality, for example, or the exaltation
of individuality is one of the forms of man’s liberation [...] But I wonder if the opposite is true. I have
tried to show that humanism was a kind of form, was this sort of fabrication of the human being
according to a certain model, and that humanism does not work at all as a liberation of man, but on the
contrary works as an imprisonment of man inside certain types of moulds that are all controlled by the
sovereignty of the subject.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzoOhhh4aJg). Para o filósofo Luiz Damon
Santos Moutinho (2004), a crítica foucaultiana do “humanismo” foi longamente preparada por um
aprofundamento da noção de “negativo” e vem desse aprofundamento a possibilidade de pensar
uma “experiência sem sujeito” até o ponto limite em que a identidade seja rompida e o “humanismo” possa
ser superado.
169 A noção de poder, central no pensamento foucaultiano, foi mais profundamente examinada quando o
filósofo já possuía maturidade filosófica. Para ele, “[...] o que define uma relação de poder é que ela é um
modo de agir que não atua diretamente e imediatamente sobre os outros. Ao contrário, ele atua sobre suas
ações: uma ação sobre outra ação, sobre ações existentes ou sobre aquelas que possam surgir no presente
ou futuro” (do original: “[...] what defines a relationship of power is that it is a mode of action which does not
act directly and immediately on others. Instead, it acts upon their actions: an action upon an action, on
existing actions or on those which may arise in the present or the future.”). Foucault, M. (1982). The Subject
and Power. Critical Inquiry, 8(4), 777-795. Nesse sentido, sendo uma espécie de feixe de relações não
negociáveis que se desenvolvem de modo assimétrico, o poder está presente em todos os âmbitos, atua
sobre todos os indivíduos e age em todos os espaços. A filósofa e pesquisadora da Universidade Bar-Ilan
(Israel) Miri Rozmarin (Rozmarin, M. (2005). Power, Freedom, and Individuality: Foucault and Sexual
Difference. Human Studies, 28, 1-14.) diz que, segundo Foucault, a dinâmica aberta de efeitos entre
indivíduos é uma condição necessária para a constituição do poder e que, em vez de explicar os efeitos das
ações dos indivíduos por meio de algum mecanismo abstrato, a definição foucaultiana de poder envolve
uma noção de individualidade que estaria embutida neste: “O indivíduo é um efeito do poder e é, ao mesmo
tempo, na mesma medida em que é um efeito seu, seu intermediário: o poder transita pelo indivíduo que ele

161
entendido a partir do rompimento com a tradição marxista clássica: diferentemente desta, que
compreendia aquele dentro da esfera econômica e associado à questão das classes sociais, Foucault
o entende como uma relação que se exerce de modo assimétrico, sendo que nenhum indivíduo está
isento das relações de poder. O filósofo analisou o “poder sobre a vida” no último capítulo de
Histoire de la sexualité: la volonté de savoir (1976), apontando que a partir do momento em que se
descortinou o “limiar de modernidade biológica”, o homem moderno passou a ser um “animal” em
cuja política sua vida estava em questão170 (1976, p. 188). Segundo o autor, essa implicação da vida
biológica humana nos cálculos e mecanismos de poder não era novidade, já que, por muito tempo,
um dos privilégios característicos da soberania fora o direito de vida e morte, que derivava da
patria potestas romana, exercício exclusivamente masculino que concedia ao pai de família o
direito de dispor sobre a vida de seus filhos e escravos. Esse dispositivo significava poder “causar a
morte ou deixar viver” (Idem), que, no Ocidente, a partir do período clássico, passou a ser
complementado por um dispositivo que funcionava de modo inverso: tratava-se de “causar a vida
ou devolver à morte” (Ibid., p. 181), destinando-se a “produzir forças, ordená-las e fazê-las crescer
mais do que barrá-las ou destruí-las” (Ibid., p. 179), pois tais vidas representavam força de
trabalho171, que, para Marx, era a mais importante das forças produtivas. Assim, o poder moderno
focava basicamente na gestão produtiva da vida humana, que seria útil somente se fosse dócil e
disciplinarizada; tendo como objetivo fortalecer o sistema capitalista, essa gestão ordenava os vivos
conforme seu valor e utilidade para o Estado.

De acordo com Foucault (1976, p. 179-180), até o século XIX as guerras eram travadas a
fim de proteger os soberanos; a partir de então, passaram a ser em nome da existência de todos e
mais violentas que antes, quando “os regimes nunca haviam praticado holocaustos 172 em suas
próprias populações”, como ocorreu no século XX. Segundo o sociólogo polonês de origem judaica
Zygmunt Bauman (1925-2017), o Holocausto que aconteceu na II Guerra Mundial se trata de um
“fenômeno tipicamente moderno”, que não pode ser compreendido fora do contexto das tendências
culturais e realizações técnicas da modernidade e que representou um encontro entre antigas tensões
constituiu.” (do original: “The individual is an effect of power, and at the same time, or precisely to the extent
to which it is that effect, it is the element of its articulation. The individual which power has constituted is at
the same time its vehicle.”). Foucault, M. (1980). Two Lectures. In: Gordon, C. (org.). Power/Knowledge:
Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977 (p. 78-108). Nova Iorque: Pantheon Books.
170 “Mais ce qu’on pourrait appeler le ‘seuil de modernité biologique’ d’une société se situe au moment où
l’espèce entre comme enjeu dans ses propres stratégies politiques. L’homme, pendant des millénaires,
est resté ce qu’il était pour Aristote: un animal vivant et de plus capable d’une existence politIque;
l’homme moderne est un animal dans la politique duquel sa vie d’être vivant est en question.”.
171 Em uma nota da edição inglesa de 1888 do Manifesto do Partido Comunista, Engels diz que a vida da
classe dos “modernos operários assalariados” (o proletariado), que não dispunha de meios de produção
próprios, dependia da venda da sua força de trabalho (Marx e Engels, 1998, p. 42).
172 “Jamais les guerres n’ont été plus sanglantes pourtant que depuis le XlXe siècle et, même toutes
proportions gardées, jamais les régimes n’avaient jusque-là pratiqué sur leurs propres populations de pareils
holocaustes.”.

162
– que esta não soube resolver – e instrumentos da ação racional 173 criados pelo desenvolvimento
moderno174 (1997, p. 18-19). Esses fatos culminaram nos acontecimentos da I e II Guerra Mundial e
do Holocausto judeu, eventos que, para o arquiteto Fernando Fuão (2019, p. 21), devem ser
entendidos como um “projeto” de “higienização do mundo e purificação de raças”. O pensamento
de Levinas, que foi judeu, lituano e viveu o Holocausto, pode ser interpretado como uma resposta a
esse genocídio. Tanto Levinas como Heidegger influenciaram fundamentalmente o filósofo de
origem judaica nascido na Argélia Jacques Derrida (1930-2004), cujo pensamento
desconstrutivista175 abalou as estruturas da arquitetura filosófica ocidental na segunda metade do
século XX. Nesse contexto, sob o pano de fundo pós-estruturalista 176, o filósofo desenvolveu noções
fundamentais para que as sociedades, cidades e arquiteturas contemporâneas 177 pudessem ser
repensadas.

Quando Derrida tinha vinte e quatro anos de idade, foi iniciada a corporificação de uma
ideia que, em poucos anos, culminaria em uma das mais representativas concretizações da
modernidade de um contexto político, social, geográfico e cultural muito distinto daquele em que o
filósofo vivia. Em 4 de abril de 1955, o então candidato à presidência da república brasileira
Juscelino Kubitschek (1902-1976) fez duas importantes promessas no primeiro comício da sua
campanha, em Jataí-GO: a de transferir a capital do Brasil do Rio de Janeiro para o Planalto Central
e a de construir Brasília, que seria a nova sede do Poder Executivo. Ao assumir o governo no ano
seguinte, Kubitschek deu início à “audaciosa tarefa” – nas suas palavras – representada pela
interiorização da nova capital; a garantia de uma mudança processada em “bases sólidas” seria

173 O filósofo e sociólogo francês Gérard Rabinovitch esclarece que, no livro Modernidade e Holocausto
(1989), as expressões “velhas tensões” e “ação racional” se referem, respectivamente, a “antissemitismo” e
“esquema cultural, enquistado em consequências mentais, do ‘espírito da racionalidade instrumental’.”.
Rabinovitch, G. (2003). Preocupa o teu próximo como a ti mesmo: notas críticas a modernidade e
holocausto, de Zygmunt Bauman. Ágora, 6(2), 301-320.
174 Do original: “[...] el Holocausto fue un fenómeno típicamente moderno que no puede entenderse fuera
del contexto de las tendencias culturales y de los logros técnicos de la modernidad. [...] fue un encuentro
singular entre las antiguas tensiones, que la modernidad pasó por alto, despreció o no supo resolver, y los
poderosos instrumentos de la acción racional y efectiva creados por los desarrollos de la modernidad.”.
175 Em linhas gerais, a desconstrução derridiana poderia ser compreendida como uma tentativa de
questionar e rejeitar modelos previamente instaurados pela metafísica logocêntrica do pensamento
ocidental. O Glossário de Derrida (1976, p. 17) apresenta a desconstrução como uma “Operação que
consiste em denunciar num determinado texto (o da filosofia ocidental) aquilo que é valorizado e em nome
de quê e, ao mesmo tempo, em desrecalcar o que foi estruturalmente dissimulado nesse texto. A leitura
desconstrutora da metafísica ocidental se apresenta como a discussão dos pressupostos, dos conceitos
dessa filosofia, e portanto a denúncia de seu alicerce logo-fono-etno-cêntrico.”. Santiago, S. (org.). (1976).
Glossário de Derrida. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Francisco Alves.
176 De modo superficial, trata-se do movimento que emergiu na segunda metade do século XX, na França,
que representou a tentativa de superação do estruturalismo, já que este, para Derrida, estava associado à
metafísica logocêntrica. No campo filosófico, teve como representantes (além de Derrida): Foucault, Gilles
Deleuze (1925-1995) e Jean-François Lyotard (1924-1998).
177 As palavras contemporânea(s), contemporâneo e contemporaneidade serão empregadas aqui de modo
generalizado, referindo-se àquilo que teve lugar na história humana a partir da segunda metade do
século XX e/ou perdura até os dias atuais.

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fornecida pela construção de uma cidade “moderna” e “urbanisticamente revolucionária”
(Kubitschek, 2000, p. 5). O presidente deu prioridade máxima à construção de Brasília durante seu
governo, pois justificava, entre outros argumentos, que a cidade iria produzir uma nova época para
o Brasil, incorporando o interior do país à economia e sendo o marco decisivo na trajetória temporal
brasileira rumo a sua emergência enquanto uma grande nação (Holston, 1993, p. 25).

Para que Brasília fosse construída, Kubitschek decretou a publicação do edital do Concurso
Nacional do Plano Piloto da Nova Capital do Brasil no Diário Oficial da União em 20 de setembro
de 1956. A proposta vencedora foi a do arquiteto e urbanista nascido na França Lucio Costa (1902-
1998), que já havia trabalhado na década de 1930 com um dos membros do júri do concurso, o
arquiteto carioca Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012), em duas ocasiões: no seu próprio escritório
(Niemeyer fora estagiário de Costa) e na elaboração do projeto do Pavilhão Brasileiro na Feira
Mundial de Nova Iorque. Nesse período, os dois profissionais tiveram contato pessoal com o
arquiteto franco-suíço Le Corbusier (1887-1965), que, durante o IV Congresso Internacional de
Arquitetura Moderna (Grécia, 1933), elaborou a Carta de Atenas, manifesto que lançou as bases
para o urbanismo moderno do século XX. As características formais que determinaram o Plano
Piloto e os primeiros exemplares da arquitetura pública brasiliense 178 estavam rigorosamente
alinhadas com esse manifesto179 e com as aspirações do programa de metas do governo Kubitschek,
que visava ao desenvolvimento do país e à superação do passado colonial deste. No Relatório do
Plano Piloto (RPP), redigido por Costa para se inscrever no concurso 180, Holston (1993, p. 67)
argumenta que a fundação de Brasília é apresentada como se ela não tivesse história e que são
ocultadas as intenções da mudança social defendida pelo arquiteto sob uma “mitologia de princípios
arquitetônicos universalizantes”, de cidades e técnicas de planejamento consagradas.

Inaugurada em 21 de abril de 1960, em menos de quatro anos desde o lançamento do edital

do concurso, Brasília foi a maior cidade construída no século XX, representando a espacialização da
ordem e, aos olhos dos envolvidos na sua construção, a garantia do progresso e do nascimento de

178 Projetados por Niemeyer, que, no pequeno livro Conversa de arquiteto (1999, p. 50-51), diz que a
profissão da arquitetura exige contatos com “homens do governo, das indústrias e do poder” e que
Kubitschek considerava-o seu “elemento chave” na construção de Brasília. Niemeyer, O. (1999). Conversa
de arquiteto. Rio de Janeiro: Revan.
179 Brasília foi uma das duas cidades do mundo plenamente configuradas e construídas com base nos
princípios da Carta de Atenas. A outra foi Chandigarh, Índia, cujo projeto urbanístico foi elaborado em 1951
pelo próprio Le Corbusier.
180 No edital do Concurso Nacional do Plano Piloto da Nova Capital do Brasil (seção I, item 3), consta: “O
Plano Piloto deverá abranger: a) traçado básico da cidade, indicando a disposição dos principais elementos
da estrutura urbana, a localização e interligação dos diversos setores, centros, instalações e serviços,
distribuição dos espaços livres e vias de comunicação (escala 1:25.000); b) relatório justificativo.”. Edital
para o Concurso Nacional do Plano Piloto da Nova Capital do Brasil. (20 de setembro de 1956). Diário de
Notícias, Rio de Janeiro, p. 5.

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uma nova era brasileira. Conquanto imersa nessa ideia de gênesis, a cidade não pôde escapar da
presença da morte: tal como as demais urbes já construídas, houve a necessidade de implantar em
Brasília um cemitério, cuja área foi demarcada pelo engenheiro agrônomo carioca Bernardo Sayão
(1901-1959) provavelmente entre 1956 e 1958. Ao terminá-lo, Sayão perguntou a um de seus
ajudantes: “quem será o infeliz que vai batizar esta terra?” (Kubitschek, 2000, p. 227).
Tragicamente, foi ele mesmo: em 15 de janeiro de 1959, o engenheiro veio a óbito ao ser atingido
por uma árvore no município de Açailândia-MA, precisamente no trecho entre Imperatriz e Guamá,
durante os trabalhos de abertura da rodovia Belém-Brasília. Seu corpo foi transportado para Brasília
de avião e sepultado no então alcunhado de cemitério sul, inaugurado antes mesmo da nova capital,
em 1959181. Kubitschek sugeriu que esse cemitério fosse chamado de Campo da Esperança em 2 de
novembro do ano seguinte durante a primeira missa dos mortos da nova capital (1960, 4 de
novembro), rezada pelo então arcebispo católico de Brasília, o carioca D. José Newton de Almeida
(1904-2001). O cemitério sul, primeiro e único construído no Plano Piloto e elemento da
configuração da escala bucólica182 de Brasília, foi projetado por Costa, que o mencionou no item n.
19 do RPP, onde constam as diretrizes gerais que deveriam nortear sua arquitetura:

Os cemitérios localizados nos extremos do eixo rodoviário-residencial

evitam aos cortejos a travessia do centro urbano. Terão chão de grama e
serão convenientemente arborizados, com sepulturas rasas e lápides
singelas, à maneira inglesa, tudo desprovido de qualquer ostentação. (Costa,
1991, p. 13).

Segundo Foucault, os cemitérios adquiriram feições completamente diferentes nas

sociedades modernas; quando se passou a expurgá-los para as margens das cidades, a partir do final
do século XVIII, foi sob a justificativa de salvaguardar os vivos das doenças supostamente trazidas
pelos mortos (2013, p. 117-118), fato que ocorreu inicialmente nos cemitérios europeus e
posteriormente no Brasil183; em ambos os casos, esse afastamento espacial estava relacionado ao

181 De acordo com Kubitschek (2000), a inauguração do cemitério foi, na verdade, dupla: Benedito
Segundo, motorista de Sayão, ao saber da morte do patrão, morreu de enfarto. Companhia Urbanizadora da
Nova Capital do Brasil. (1959). Revista da Companhia Urbanizadora da Nova Capital do Brasil, 3(25),
Brasília.
182 No RPP, Costa propõe quatro escalas para a cidade: residencial, monumental, gregária e bucólica.
183 A obrigatoriedade de construir cemitérios a céu aberto no Brasil foi imposta na Lei de 1º de outubro de
1828 (Art. 66, § 2º), promulgada por D. Pedro I, que originalmente diz: “Sobre o estabelecimento de
cemiterios fóra do recinto dos templos, conferindo a esse fim com a principal autoridade ecclesiastica do
lugar; sobre o esgotamento de pantanos, e qualquer estagnação de aguas infectas; sobre a economia e
asseio dos curraes, e matadouros publicos, sobre a collocação de cortumes, sobre os depositos de
immundices, e quanto possa alterar, e corromper a salubridade da atmosphera.”. Brasil. (1878). Collecção
das Leis do Imperio do Brazil de 1828 – Parte primeira. Rio de Janeiro: Typographia Nacional.

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discurso médico higienista que emergiu nesse período, marcado por epidemias. No século XX,
Costa reproduziu essa marginalização do cemitério sul na proposta do Plano Piloto talvez não pela
mesma justificativa, mas possivelmente porque, para o urbanista, o significado do espaço cemiterial
era incompatível com o progresso e desenvolvimento almejados na construção de Brasília, já que o
cemitério seria o repositório de parte daquilo que a premissa geral da cidade buscou rejeitar: a
história, os costumes, o passado, a morte.

2. Espectro e Hontologia segundo Derrida

I am thy father's spirit,

Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day confined to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purged away.
(Shakespeare, Hamlet, Ato I, cena V).

Trinta e três anos depois da inauguração de Brasília, foi publicado pela primeira vez o livro
Spectres de Marx184, um dos principais textos da segunda fase da obra derridiana, iniciada a partir de
meados dos anos 80; nesse momento, Derrida passou a refletir mais sobre questões voltadas para a
ética, política e democracia. Valendo-se das palavras iniciais de Marx e Engels em Manifesto do
partido comunista185 e obsediado pela tradução da frase shakespeariana “the time is out of joint”, da
cena V do Ato I de Hamlet, o filósofo aprofunda a questão do espectro, que é operado como fio
condutor das suas reflexões e entendido como: “[...] uma incorporação paradoxal, o devir-corpo,
uma certa forma fenomenal e carnal do espírito. Ele torna-se, de preferência, alguma ‘coisa’ difícil
de ser nomeada: nem alma nem corpo, e uma e outra.” (Derrida, 1994, p. 21).

Para Derrida, o espectro (le revenant) está sempre por retornar. Esse retorno nem sempre
acontece de modo amigável; na verdade, aquele geralmente volta para obsediar os vivos,
configurando uma “obsessão espectral” que é histórica. Fuão (2019, p. 20) aponta que as “rondas
espectrais” têm habitado toda a existência humana e todo o âmbito político desde tempos remotos;
nesse sentido corrobora a filósofa Dirce Solis (2019a, p. 20), que vai além: para ela, espectros têm
sua expressão mais profunda nas próprias mitologias originárias e fundacionais dos povos, e nas
representações de toda ordem por estes engendradas, inclusive nos mais variados textos produzidos

184 Resultou do colóquio internacional Whither marxism?, realizado na Universidade da Califórnia em 1993.
185 “Um espectro ronda a Europa – o espectro do comunismo.” (Marx e Engels, 1998, p. 7).

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pela humanidade. Solis (2014, p. 242) destaca que, para Derrida, os textos da filosofia
(principalmente os da modernidade) estão repletos de espectros.

Tudo começa pelo reaparecimento espectral e, mais precisamente, pela espera dele. O
espectro não possui essência, existência ou substância, e jamais está presente enquanto tal; não está
vivo nem morto, nem passado nem presente, mas sempre meio (milieu). É um “indecidível” e, por
isso, coloca-se como ponto de partida para toda e qualquer decisão (Solis, 2014, p. 241). Falar de
espectros é questionar a metafísica logocêntrica, que, para Derrida (1973, p. 53), determina o
sentido do ser como presença. O filósofo defende que somente é possível aprender a viver por meio
da morte e dos outros186, que não estão presentemente vivos, devendo-se considerá-los em nome da
justiça; nenhuma ética e política parecem possíveis sem o reconhecimento do respeito por eles, quer
estejam mortos ou ainda não tenham nascido, e nenhuma justiça parece possível sem o princípio da
responsabilidade diante deles. Nesse gesto anacrônico de considerar os que não estão presentes –
mortos ou porvir – residiria a possibilidade de ser justo e aprender a viver com esses espectros, o
que configura uma “política da memória, da herança e das gerações” (Derrida, 1994, p. 10-12, grifo
do autor). Assim, à perspectiva ética associa-se a dimensão política, uma vez que o filósofo coloca a
questão da herança como essencial, pois é dela que decorre o compromisso com as causas dos
outros (Rocha, 2010, p. 38). Ser justo para além do presente vivo, portanto, configura o que Derrida
chama de:

Momento espectral, [...] que não pertence mais a esse tempo, caso se
compreenda debaixo desse nome o encadeamento das modalidades do
presente [...]. Estamos questionando neste instante, estamos nos
interrogando sobre este instante que não é dócil ao tempo [...]. Furtivo e
intempestivo, o aparecimento do espectro não pertence a este tempo [...].
(Derrida, 1994, p. 12-13).

Já que o reaparecimento do espectro é atemporal e não se pode controlar suas idas e vindas,
para dar conta da “espectralidade” é preciso recorrer ao que Derrida chama de “hontologia”187, que,
como esclarece Fuão (2019, p. 20), seria o estudo das assombrações, visitações espectrais e daquilo
que retorna sob a forma de uma herança ou obsessão. Assim, a Ontologia dá lugar à Hontologia,
baseada na leitura dos espectros: diferentemente daquela, que examina a questão do ente e este

186 À guisa de exemplo, Derrida (1994, p. 12) cita as vítimas de: guerras; violências políticas; extermínios
nacionalistas, racistas, colonialistas e sexistas; opressões do imperialismo capitalista; e todas as formas
de totalitarismo.
187 Seria uma tradução para o termo derridiano “hauntologie”, que provém de um jogo de palavras entre o
verbo em inglês “to haunt” (assombrar) e o seu correspondente em francês “hânter” (obsediar).

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permite ser por ela capturado, a Hontologia não se deixaria capturar pelo estatuto do Logos (Solis,
2014, p. 245; Fuão, 2019, p. 20). Antes dessa captura, o espectro já despareceu na sua aparição,
mas, ao mesmo tempo, está lá e para Derrida o que mais importa são as condições em que se dá esse
aparecimento. Todavia, o autor não deixa claro se o “aparecer” da aparição diz respeito a algo
verdadeiro ou falso, pois, para ele, a distinção hierárquica da metafísica logocêntrica não cabe
(Solis, 2019b, p. 55). Portanto, poder-se-ia pensar o espectro não só como os outros, que não estão
presentemente vivos, mas também como uma “Coisa” – nas palavras de Derrida – representada por
um conjunto de ideias, doutrinas, práticas, posturas, condutas etc. e sempre baseada nas questões da
repetição, do retorno, da obsessão. Sendo ao mesmo tempo algo não identificado que aparece, mas
que não se pode tocar, é possível sentir sua presença, pois, mesmo sem vê-lo, sabe-se que o espectro
está lá, caracterizando o que Derrida chama de “efeito de viseira” ao apontar, a respeito daquele,
que

Esta Coisa que não é uma coisa, essa Coisa invisível entre seus
aparecimentos, não a veremos mais em carne e osso quando ela reaparecer.
Esta Coisa olha para nós, no entanto, e vê-nos não vê-la mesmo quando ela
está aí. Uma dissimetria espectral interrompe aqui toda especularidade. Ela
dessincroniza, faz-nos voltar à anacronia. A isto chamaremos efeito de
viseira: não vemos quem nos olha. (Derrida, 1994, p. 22, grifo do autor).

Nesse sentido, seria possível imaginar o espectro como uma corporificação inexistente que
tem olhos de ressaca, oblíquos e dissimulados188, que, por ser anacrônica, percorre livremente o
tempo histórico da humanidade. No Ocidente, tem coexistido com a questão espectral uma estreita
relação entre as crenças referentes ao post mortem e os espaços de enterramento dos mortos.
Segundo o historiador francês Fustel de Coulanges (1830-1889), as mais remotas gerações, muito
antes de surgirem os primeiros filósofos, acreditavam em uma segunda existência para além da vida
terrena; no entanto, conforme as antigas crenças dos gregos e romanos, não era em outro mundo que
a alma passaria essa existência, mas na terra, junto aos homens; acreditou-se, por muito tempo, que
a morte não separava a alma do corpo e que ambos se encerravam no mesmo túmulo 189 (1900, p.
13). No período da Idade Média, do século V ao XV, sucederem-se e combinarem-se crenças
188 Referência à personagem de Machado de Assis (1839-1908) em Dom Casmurro (1899) Capitu, cujos
olhos de ressaca arrastam tudo para dentro de si, denotando uma sagacidade própria de quem faria o que
fosse necessário para conseguir o que quer: “Capitú, apesar daqueles olhos que o diabo lhe deu... Você já
reparou nos olhos della? São assim de cigana obliqua e dissimulada.”. Assis, M de. (1899). Dom Casmurro.
Rio de Janeiro: H. Garnier, Livreiro-Editor.
189 “D’après les plus vieilles croyances des Italiens et des Grecs, ce n’était pas dans un monde étranger à
celui-ci que l’âme allait passer sa seconde existence; elle restait tout près des hommes et continuait à vivre
sous la terre. On a même cru pendant fort longtemps que dans cette seconde existence l’âme restait
associée au corps. Née avec lui, la mort ne l’en séparait pas; elle s’enfermait avec lui dans le tombeau.”.

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tradicionais e rituais lentamente cristianizados diante da morte humana; nesse dédalo de atitudes, a
sociedade medieval considerava a possibilidade do retorno dos mortos para visitar os vivos.
Simultaneamente, importantes transformações das estruturas sociais levaram à redefinição das
relações entre estes e aqueles, e essas relações se inscreviam nas realidades do espaço social pela
articulação entre as casas dos vivos e o cemitério, que está, para o historiador medievalista francês
Jean-Claude Schmitt (1946-), entre os lugares mais propícios às aparições dos mortos (1999, p. 18-
204).

O tema dos espaços de enterramento e dos possíveis significados a eles associados tem
estimulado o imaginário humano desde antes do período medieval, retornando frequentemente em
representações artísticas. O próprio tema do cemitério é um espectro, já que na literatura da Idade
Moderna ele apareceu em diversos gêneros e subgêneros narrativos: na tragédia Hamlet, coveiros
cavam a cova de Ofélia190 em um adro, pátio externo geralmente localizado ao redor das igrejas
onde os mortos eram enterrados; no século XVIII, os poetas pré-Românticos ingleses Edward
Young (1683-1765), Robert Blair (1699-1746) e Thomas Gray (1716-1771) e o irlandês Thomas
Parnell (1679-1718) trataram, em seus poemas, dos temas do cemitério, da melancolia, dos
fantasmas; no conto de horror The Premature Burial (1844), o escritor norte-americano Edgar Allan
Poe (1809-1849) explorou a questão do medo de ser enterrado vivo, comum durante o século XIX;
em textos mais recentes, como no romance ficcional Incidente em Antares (1971), do escritor
brasileiro Érico Veríssimo (1905-1975), e no best-seller Pet Sematary (1983), do norte-americano
Stephen King (1947-), o cemitério poderia ser interpretado como o protagonista da narrativa. Cabe
destacar que, em Pet Sematary, os mortos enterrados no antigo cemitério indígena voltam para
assombrar e aniquilar os vivos sob a forma espectral de mortos-vivos.

Assim como a literatura, a arquitetura é uma arte com grande potencial simbólico, em que o
discurso é elaborado principalmente com elementos construídos. De fato, aquela recorre a esta para
engendrar as espacialidades imaginárias onde as narrativas se desenvolvem e, em ambas, é possível
verificar a frequentação espectral. De acordo com Fuão (2019, p. 20), quando Derrida inaugura a
questão dos espectros considerando-os como um “outro totalmente diferente”, ele está induzindo a
uma revisão da história, da cidade e da arquitetura por meio da lógica dos retornantes; o presente
190 “A churchyard.
Enter two Clowns, with spades, &c
First Clown
Is she to be buried in Christian burial that
wilfully seeks her own salvation?
Second Clown
I tell thee she is: and therefore make her grave
straight: the crowner hath sat on her, and finds it
Christian burial.” (Ato V, Cena I.).

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estudo, apesar de tratar dessa questão na arquitetura, propõe um deslocamento do significado de
espectro, que será pensado não como esse “outro” que não está presentemente vivo, mas um
conjunto de ideias, propósitos, doutrinas ou desejos, que se traduzem e corporificam no espaço
arquitetônico alterando negativamente a lógica destes. Essa transferência de significação representa
justamente a proposta geral da desconstrução: assimilar um “texto” como algo inacabado que
permite determinados deslocamentos (Rocha, 2010, p. 41). Nesse sentido, com apoio no
pensamento derridiano, ao mesmo tempo em que se sugere esse gesto desconstrutivo pensa-se o
cemitério como um texto191 passível de ser interpretado e desconstruído, que será “lido” como o
lugar onde as manifestações espectrais se materializam invisivelmente no espaço, podendo não só
aparecer, mas habitar, dominar e interferir nas relações humanas que nele se desenvolvem.

Tendo como foco do estudo o caso do cemitério Campo da Esperança, os três espectros que
se pretende examinar surgiram na (e em razão da) modernidade, aproximadamente entre os séculos
XV e XX: o capitalismo, que envolve as questões da mercadoria, do consumo e do monopólio; o
higienismo, fundamentado na ideia da limpeza humana como tentativa de eliminar o “outro
totalmente diferente” do espaço; e a individualização, associada ao culto da própria individualidade
e do Eu, atitude que é entendida aqui como um modo de legitimar, evidenciar e eternizar o poder.
Pressupõe-se que tais espectros rondam esse cemitério e intervêm nas relações entre vivos e
também entre vivos e mortos, obsediando aqueles, observando-os sem serem vistos e caracterizando
o efeito de viseira sugerido por Derrida. A atemporalidade e anacronia espectral justificam a
utilização dessas noções, que emergiram em séculos pregressos, para investigar uma situação
contemporânea, já que neste estudo serão apresentados e examinados acontecimentos
historicamente recentes. Por fim, a hontologia será operada como uma espécie de método (embora
Derrida não fosse simpático a essa palavra) para identificar e interpretar esses espectros negativos
da modernidade.

À vista disso, poder-se-ia conjecturar que tais espectros, na verdade, nunca deixaram de
obsediar a sociedade moderna desde que surgiram, isto é: nunca desapareceram de fato. Sem nunca
terem desaparecido, não poderiam ter retornado e, portanto, não seriam espectros. Porém, entende-
se a construção de Brasília como um divisor de águas entre o passado e o futuro planejado, o antigo
e o moderno. Sob a égide da modernidade, foi pretendido iniciar a escrita de uma nova história, o

191 Para Solis, não há nada fora do texto arquitetônico (aludindo à frase de Derrida (1973, p. 119): “não há
nada fora do texto”), que é passível de interpretação ao ser desconstruído. Nesse contexto, Derrida não se
refere ao “objeto arquitetônico” enquanto desconstruído, mas ao acesso à realidade desse objeto, acessado
por meio de quase-conceitos que incluem os sistemas de linguagem, cultura e representação
marginalizados para além das fronteiras da razão logocêntrica do mundo ocidental. Portanto, a
desconstrução “textualiza” as coisas. Solis, D. E. (2009). Desconstrução e arquitetura: uma abordagem a
partir de Jacques Derrida. Rio de Janeiro: Uapê Sociedade de Estudos e Atividades Filosóficas.

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planejamento de uma nova configuração social, em uma tábula rasa, limpa e nua. Nesse terreno
vazio, esses espectros negativos retornaram e se materializaram dissimuladamente no espaço,
obsediando os vivos sob o pretexto da construção de um Brasil desenvolvido. Presume-se que essa
obsessão tem se agravado, sobretudo, no cemitério, espaço marginalizado e ambivalente onde há, ao
mesmo tempo, controle dos corpos e ausência de zelo administrativo. Trata-se de uma heterotopia
onde a frequentação espectral tem conformado e dominado a própria lógica da arquitetura, alterando
o modo como esta desempenha seu papel, se expandindo e determinando a dinâmica dos rituais
fúnebres e o modo como os mortos são gerenciados.

3. Espectros da modernidade no cemitério Campo da Esperança

Espectros estão por todo o lado. Estão em todo o lugar, em todas as esferas
do pensamento, são ideias, juízos, impressões, desejos, são retornantes
(revenants). Estando por todos os lados e sendo retornantes, revivem,
convivem em espacialidades. A espacialidade enquanto sentida, refratada,
pensada possui dimensão espectral. (Solis, 2019b, p. 61).

Os homens vivem, então, num mundo de mercadorias [...]. O capital se

encarna em coisas [...]. (Marx, 1983, p. XXXVII-XXXVIII).

Ao passo que, nas sociedades pré-capitalistas, eram várias as determinações que

asseguravam as formas como os indivíduos realizavam os rituais fúnebres, nas capitalistas essas
determinações foram, em grande medida, reduzidas a um fundamento: a mercadoria. Quando os
corpos eram inumados em espaços eclesiásticos, até o século XIX, os rituais articulados pelas
igrejas e suas irmandades já não eram isentos de alguma relação financeira; contudo, na
contemporaneidade observam-se algumas peculiaridades: o progressivo estreitamento entre as
temáticas da morte e do consumo e a transposição da lógica comercial de mercado às práticas
funerárias tradicionais (Veras e Soares, 2016, p. 227). Essa lógica segue o padrão dos demais
setores do mercado: no livro L'Homme devant la mort, publicado pela primeira vez em 1977, o
historiador francês Philippe Ariès (1914-1984) afirma que os funerais “constituem uma indústria”
cujos “chefes” são os “diretores funerais, importantes homens de negócio” que, como qualquer
outro mercado econômico, adota os costumes do capitalismo (2014, p. 804-806). Atualmente, a
preparação desses rituais pode envolver a aquisição de produtos e serviços complementares
mediados por padrões de consumo192 que celebram questões associadas à modernidade, como a
192 De acordo com Bauman, a sociedade do consumo representa “o tipo de sociedade que promove,
encoraja ou reforça a escolha de um estilo de vida e uma estratégia existencial consumistas, e rejeita todas

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necromaquiagem, procedimento que busca dissimular a morte por meio de técnicas cosméticas; os
funerais virtuais, que recorrem a aparatos tecnológicos para a transmissão destes em tempo real; a
espetacularização dos rituais por meio do uso de música, luzes e chuva de pétalas de flores; e
outros. A aquisição desses produtos e serviços é estimulada pelas empresas que os comercializam.

Segundo a doutora em antropologia Isabela Morais (2009, p. 108) o processo do morrer se

“empresariou” no Brasil a partir da segunda metade do século XX, mais precisamente após a década
de 1980, com o surgimento de empresas privadas que iniciaram suas atividades administrando
cemitérios-parque ou funerárias. Para a autora, a estrutura atual dessas empresas não se assemelha a
organizações sociais de outrora, que, em geral, detinham intenções comunitárias para possibilitar o
enterramento dos seus associados, pois naquelas o axioma principal é o lucro. De acordo com o
Sindicato dos Cemitérios e Crematórios Particulares do Brasil, o faturamento anual do mercado
funerário brasileiro soma cerca de R$ 7 bi (AFFAF, 2020, p. 26), número definido por estatística
que envolve serviços como sepultamento e cremação de corpos humanos, os elementos vitais para o
funcionamento do “negócio” da morte193. Uma vez que esse mercado é altamente rentável, o esforço
para acumular capital e obter lucro pode prevalecer sobre outros interesses. Para Marx (1959, p.
28), a desvalorização do mundo dos homens aumenta em proporção direta com a valorização do
mundo das coisas194; essa ideia, que se encontra no cerne da sociedade capitalista ocidental (e,
portanto, no funcionamento do mundo contemporâneo) atua como um espectro que ronda e convive
com espacialidades, que, no caso deste estudo, são representadas pelo cemitério.

De início, não se pode ver o espectro: ele é quem vê primeiro e, sendo uma aparição
“sensível/insensível, visível/não-visível”, sente-se sua presença (Solis, 2019b, p. 60). Embora a
frequentação espectral não siga a lógica imposta pelo calendário, supõe-se que a presença

as opções culturais alternativas.” (Bauman, Z. ([2007], 2008). Vida para consumo: a transformação das
pessoas em mercadorias. Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar). Nesse sentido, como apontam Veras e Soares
(2016), refletir sobre o consumo em um período em que não são vendidos somente produtos, mas “estilos
de vida”, abre caminho para pensar a mercantilização de produtos funerários como a comercialização de
“estilos de morte”. Para o doutor em antropologia José Carlos Rodrigues (1983), uma consequência dessa
comercialização está relacionada à lógica do sistema, que impõe a produção em série; assim, a criatividade
tradicional desaparece e a morte se transforma em “catálogos que contêm tudo”: “modelos de sepulturas, de
caixões, de epitáfios, de alças de metal, de cerimônias fúnebres, de coroas de flores, de anúncios fúnebres
– tudo já preparado, em conserva (ou congelado), pronto para ser consumido.”.
193 Os pesquisadores Lana Veras e Jorge Coelho Soares (2016) analisaram as capas da Revista Diretor
Funerário, periódico brasileiro especializado no setor funerário que existe há mais de vinte anos, publicadas
entre 2005 e 2013 e, ao verificar a recorrência de termos como “tecnologia”, “modernidade”, “avanços”,
“inovação”, “profissionalismo”, “capacitação” e “revolução”, concluíram que estes indicam a vinculação do
discurso editorial a valores exaltados na modernidade: “A ideia de futuro bem-sucedido, construída no início
do período moderno, exaltava o novo, a técnica, a razão e depositava na ciência a expectativa de resolução
dos dramas humanos, de modo que toda ligação com o tradicional, com o artesanal, com a emoção ou com
o familiar era percebida como sinal de atraso e defasagem.”.
194 “The devaluation of the world of men is in direct proportion to the increasing value of the world of
things.” (grifo do autor).

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dissimulada do espectro do capitalismo retornou ao Campo da Esperança por volta de 13 de
fevereiro de 2002, quando esse cemitério passou a ser administrado pela empresa concessionária
Campo da Esperança Ltda. O contrato de concessão assinado entre ela e o Governo do Distrito
Federal visa, entre outros objetivos, à “modernização das instalações físicas” e “exploração
econômica das atividades inerentes aos serviços públicos de cemitérios” (DF, 2002, p. 1). Segundo
a jornalista Ana Maria Campos 195, esse contrato entregou a um grupo privado um “negócio” que
mais uma vez misturava uso do solo com interesses políticos, empresariais e sociais.

A Campo da Esperança Ltda. presta serviços funerários como velório, exumação e

sepultamento; este é mais comumente realizado em jazigos, que são construídos lado a lado, de
forma geminada. Atualmente, um jazigo de uma gaveta custa R$ 824, 46 e funcionários dessa
empresa são incentivados a vender jazigos de três gavetas, mais lucrativos que os de uma, além dos
demais serviços oferecidos (Kokay, 2008, p. 50), representando um “pacote de serviços casados
aparentemente mais vantajoso” que, efetivamente, torna a aquisição mais onerosa (DF, 2008, p. 42).
Colocados na posição de produto de consumo, esses serviços e procedimentos funerários seguem os
trâmites do mercado e podem se submeter, inclusive, ao lobby com os governos pela conquista e
manutenção do monopólio sobre o direito a exercer essa lucrativa atividade (Veras e Soares, 2016,
p. 227). Vale destacar que os seis únicos cemitérios ativos do DF, incluído o Campo da Esperança,
são gerenciados por essa empresa, nos quais têm sido verificados possíveis “irregularidades e atos
de improbidade administrativa” desde a celebração do contrato de concessão, de modo que em 18
de março de 2008 foi instaurada pela Câmara Legislativa do Distrito Federal (CLDF) uma
Comissão Parlamentar de Inquérito (CPI) destinada a investigar essas irregularidades e os preços
dos sepultamentos cobrados pela concessionária entre 1999 e 2007 (DF, 2008, p. 3-8).

A CPI dos cemitérios, fundamentada em matérias jornalísticas e denúncias recebidas pela

ouvidoria da CLDF, culminou em um relatório publicado em 16 de setembro de 2008 que inicia
apresentando um episódio ocorrido no ano anterior: ao visitar o local onde havia a sepultura do filho
– localizada em área nobre, mas originalmente social, onde são sepultados gratuitamente indigentes
e pessoas carentes de recursos financeiros, no cemitério de Taguatinga-DF –, os pais constataram
que aquela havia dado lugar a uma calçada do novo cemitério-parque. Sem o consentimento prévio
destes, os restos mortais do filho foram transferidos para um ossuário e misturados a outros ossos
humanos, tanto embora o título de arrendamento do jazigo estivesse pago até 2011. Assim,

195 Disponível em:

<https://www.correiobraziliense.com.br/app/noticia/cidades/2012/12/17/interna_cidadesdf,339553/cemiter
ios-do-df-tem-administracao-terceirizada-e-acumulam-reclamacoes.shtml>. Acesso em: 28 jul. 2021.

173
 Após verificarem o “erro”, o gerente do cemitério lhe ofereceu [ao pai] um
túmulo novo, em outro local, de duas gavetas (porque não constroem mais
campa de uma só gaveta), porém a família teria de comprar a segunda
gaveta, sob a alegação de possível necessidade futura. (DF, 2008, p. 30).

O relatório aponta que eram demolidas principalmente sepulturas de uma gaveta, localizadas
nas áreas de enterramento social, sob o argumento de que “era necessário abrir espaços para novos
sepultamentos”. Nesses espaços foram construídos jazigos de três gavetas, vendidos a preços
elevados; no ato comercial, havia pressão sobre as famílias para comprar esses jazigos com vistas à
“utilização futura” (DF, 2008, p. 37-38). As áreas antigas do cemitério, pouco lucrativas por serem
reutilizadas somente mediante exumações, encontravam-se abandonadas, embora muitas famílias
pagassem a taxa de manutenção e conservação dos jazigos. Além de priorizar o serviço do
sepultamento nas áreas-parque novas, mais onerosas, a concessionária impõe uma série de
dificuldades para esse serviço nas antigas (Ibid., p. 38).

Conforme o entendimento da CPI, a concessionária acredita que problemas eventualmente

surgidos podem ser contornados com “trocas”, “pequenas indenizações” ou “isenções de taxas e
serviços”, pois a reparação do dano é “vantajosa financeiramente” se “comparada com o lucro na
venda” de jazigos (DF, 2008, p. 31). Outras denúncias são apresentadas nos resumos dos
depoimentos prestados à comissão e nas cópias de boletins de ocorrência registrados na Polícia
Civil do DF, como o que relata um episódio ocorrido em agosto de 2007:

Compareceu a esta DP o comunicante [...] informando que sua tia [...] foi
enterrada no cemitério do Gama [administrado pela empresa Campo da
Esperança Ltda.] no dia 19/12/1966 [...]. No mês de agosto do ano de 2007,
o comunicante foi convocado [...] para comparecer ao referido cemitério
para realizar a transferência dos ossos para uma nova cova, e para isto, teria
que ser paga a quantia de R$ 2.539,78 [...] valor este que fora pago à vista, e
parte através de cheques pré-datados. No dia 16/08/2008, quando foi até o
local para assistir à exumação dos ossos, foi constatado que os referidos
ossos haviam desaparecido, e ninguém sabia dizer o que havia acontecido.
(DF, 2008, p. 245).

O relatório indica que a concessionária solicitou diversos reajustes na tabela de preços de

serviços prestados entre 2003 e 2006 que, no entanto, não foram convertidos na execução das obras

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de “modernização das instalações físicas” contratadas (DF, 2008, p. 43-44). Mais recentemente,
entre 25 de janeiro e 31 de março de 2017, a Secretaria de Estado de Justiça e Cidadania realizou
visitas e trabalhos de inspeção nos cemitérios do DF. Tais diligências culminaram no relatório de
inspeção n. 02/2017, que indica a permanência das irregularidades relativas à prestação de serviços
apontadas em 2009 e 2011, na Decisão n. 6371/2009 e na Informação n. 43/2011-TCDF,
respectivamente. Entre elas, destacam-se a cobrança das taxas dos serviços de sepultamento e
exumação sem previsão no contrato de concessão (DF, 2017, p. 32-46).

À época das averiguações da CPI, as áreas de enterramento social196, em geral, eram

consideradas “nobres” em razão das suas localizações originais, que, por serem próximas da entrada
do cemitério ou das capelas, mais valorizadas. De acordo com Kokay (2008, p. 37), essas áreas
deram lugar a jazigos de valor elevado, seguindo a lógica da “privatização” dos cemitérios, prática
que, no entendimento da deputada, tem a anuência do Poder Público, uma vez que a noção de
concessão, entendendo-se como uma das espécies do contrato celebrado por parte da administração,
pressupõe o consentimento do Estado em relação ao uso de bem e/ou exploração de serviços
específicos e previstos no termo do contrato por outro sujeito de direito (DF, 2017, p. 42). Verifica-
se, portanto, que o Estado possui um papel ativo na reprodução da lógica capitalista ao dispor de
regulamentos legais que criam e mantêm condições para essa reprodução, além de exprimir e
defender, por meio do seu poder decisório, interesses de determinados grupos hegemônicos. Longe
de ser uma prática recente, eis aí a frequentação espectral.

Tal vida, tal morte. Os pobres são enterrados sem a mínima atenção, como
animais vadios. O cemitério dos pobres de Saint-Brides, em Londres, e um
lodaçal sem árvores, utilizado como cemitério desde o tempo de Carlos II,
cheio de montes de ossadas. Todas as quartas-feiras os defuntos pobres são
deitados numa vala de quatro metros de fundo, o padre recita o mais
depressa possível a sua litania, torna-se a tapar sumariamente a vala e, na
quarta-feira seguinte, volta-se a cavar a vala enche-se de cadáveres a ponto
de já não caber mais nenhum. O cheiro putrefato que deles emana empesta
os arredores. (Engels, 1975, p. 355).

196 Segundo o relatório de inspeção n. 02/2017, “Não há justificativa para diferenciação existente entre os
sepultamentos nas áreas destinadas aos enterros sociais e os sepultamentos realizados nas áreas novas
(cemitério-parque). Nas áreas estruturadas como cemitérios-parques, os túmulos são construídos com dois
ou três jazigos verticais lado a lado, apresentando cobertura vegetal (grama esmeralda) e adequada
identificação dos sepultados, feita mediante placas de mármore e plaquetas de metal. Já nas áreas de
sepultamentos gratuitas, construídas pela própria concessionária, cada cova recebe até três corpos
sepultados na vertical, diretamente na terra sem haver, contudo, qualquer estrutura de alvenaria lateral.”
(DF, 2017, p. 42).

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 O segundo espectro a ser examinado refere-se ao movimento higienista que emergiu na
Europa no século XVIII, quando foi elaborada uma nova política pública baseada na higiene e no
discurso médico. Na França, especificamente, essa forma de administração decorreu da Revolução
Francesa (Costa, 2013, p. 52). Em meados do século XIX, congressos higienistas já aconteciam em
Bruxelas; a partir daí a manifestação desse espectro como um ramo da medicina se disseminou na
sociedade europeia, o que pode ser observado na publicação de estudos que se ocuparam a
investigar o tema. Um deles foi a Encyclopédie d'Hygiène et de Médecine Publique, cujo primeiro
tomo foi publicado em 1890, um ano depois da Exposição Universal de Paris, evento que reuniu
higienistas do mundo todo. No prefácio desse tomo, escrito pelo médico francês
Jules Eugène Rochard (1819-1896), verifica-se a relação entre o discurso médico higienista e a
modernidade:

[...] a higiene, como é entendida hoje, é uma ciência moderna. É

contemporânea das descobertas feitas nos nossos dias na física, química,
fisiologia e história natural; foi desse movimento que ela saiu. [...] Os
cientistas e especialmente os médicos entraram com entusiasmo por este
novo caminho; pessoas do mundo os têm seguido, e a higiene não demorou
a ter sua literatura específica, seus congressos, suas sociedades; ela recrutou
auxiliares em todas as categorias e em todas as profissões liberais. 197
(Rochard, 1890, p. 1).

De modo geral, os higienistas buscaram eliminar as epidemias e as condições urbanas

indesejáveis na Europa: era preciso limpar as cidades da insalubridade, que se concentrava
principalmente no tecido urbano medieval. Os tratados de higiene pública passaram a determinar
regras para a construção de novas moradias para os operários, que haviam sido removidos das suas
habitações a fim de que bulevares modernos, ventilados e iluminados fossem abertos nas áreas
urbanizadas. Esse objetivo foi atingido em planos de reformulação urbana como o de Paris,
orientado pelo então prefeito da região do Sena Georges-Eugène Haussmann (1809-1891) e
executado entre 1853 e 1882. A busca pela higiene, que não era só física, mas moral, foi respaldada

197 Do original: “[...] l’hygiène telle qu’on la comprend aujourd’hui est une science moderne. Elle est
contemporaine des découvertes faites de nos jours en physique, en chimie, en physiologie et en histoire
naturelle; c’est de ce mouvement qu’elle est sortie. [...] Les savants et surtout les médecins sont entrés avec
enthousiasme dans cette voie nouvelle; les gens du monde les y ont suivis de loin, et l'hygiène n'a pas tardé
à avoir sa littérature à part, ses congrès, ses sociétés; elle a recruté des auxiliaires dans tous les rangs et
dans toutes les professions libérales.”.

176
e legitimada pelas teorias científicas da época e estava fundamentalmente vinculada à tentativa de
fragmentar socioespacialmente as cidades e impor distâncias físicas entre os indivíduos. De fato,
esse movimento determinou vários aspectos da sociedade: a doutora em ciência da educação
Christiane Gioppo (1996, p. 169) aponta que ele parece ter influenciado áreas em que as noções de
organização e formação de mão de obra eram essenciais, como a industrial, em que tais
conhecimentos eram importantes para a “construção” de um “operário padrão” cuja formação
precisava ser guiada para que toda a sua vida estivesse voltada à fábrica. Nesse sentido, o
higienismo foi o principal argumento para iniciar essa disciplinarização, que pretendia remodelar
tanto o conjunto de hábitos tradicionalmente arraigados como o próprio operário, adaptando-o ao
seu espaço de trabalho. Na década de 1920198, esse ideário estava em plena ascensão não só na
Europa, mas em outras partes do mundo incluindo o Brasil.

Uma vez que os médicos e os higienistas normatizaram a organização das cidades com base
em teorias que relacionavam as doenças ao meio ambiente, foram criadas regras para a construção
de cemitérios; destas, talvez a principal tenha sido a marginalização dos espaços de enterramento
nas periferias urbanas justamente para que a saúde da população fosse, em tese, protegida contra
doenças que se acreditava serem transmitidas pelos cadáveres humanos. Assim, o espectro do
higienismo retorna não só como estratégia para isolar os cemitérios no planejamento das cidades
modernas, mas limpar os Outros do espaço cemiterial. A deputada federal Erika Kokay (1957-), que
foi membro da CPI dos cemitérios, apresentou voto em separado sobre o relatório final desta; para
ela (2008, p. 2), o diagnóstico das situações investigadas apresenta “antagonismo e a incoerência”
entre os resultados, conclusões, recomendações, indiciamentos e encaminhamentos sugeridos pelo
relator do documento, o então deputado distrital Benício Tavares (1956-), cujo mandato foi cassado
em 2011 por captação ilícita de sufrágio e abuso de poder econômico. Nesse voto, Kokay menciona
uma comissão que ocorreu em 1998, denominada Grupo de Trabalho de Necrópoles e Serviços
Funerários, que constatou o iminente esgotamento das áreas de enterramento no cemitério Campo
da Esperança; a concessionária, ao assumir a administração desse cemitério em 2002, conseguiu
ampliar sua capacidade em vinte anos, acontecimento que, para a deputada, remete a “práticas
198 Foi precisamente nessa década que Le Corbusier publicou pela primeira vez o livro Vers une
architecture (1923), que buscou enaltecer o progresso científico por meio da arquitetura e propor a ruptura
com os modos de vida tradicionais e com o passado histórico, cujas manifestações o autor qualifica como:
“sujo”, “infecto”, “insalubre”, “fedorento”, “poeirento”, “podre”, “pútrido” e “tuberculoso” (1973, p. 7-195) (Le
Corbusier. (1973). Por uma arquitetura. São Paulo: Perspectiva, Ed. da Universidade de São Paulo). Esse
livro está estreitamente relacionado ao advento da arquitetura e do urbanismo modernos do século XX, que
tem Brasília como exemplar. Também cabe destacar que a questão do higienismo foi posteriormente
mencionada por Le Corbusier na Carta de Atenas, que diz: “As leis de higiene universalmente reconhecidas
fazem uma grave acusação contra as condições sanitárias das cidades. [...] não basta [...] encontrar uma
solução; é preciso ainda que esta seja imposta pelas autoridades responsáveis. Bairros inteiros deveriam
ser condenados em nome da saúde pública.”. Le Corbusier. ([1933-1943], 1993). A Carta de Atenas. São
Paulo: Hucitec, 1993.

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ilegais” referentes à abertura de novas áreas de enterramento, denominadas “áreas-parque”, por
meio da remoção irregular de restos mortais, do desaparecimento de ossadas humanas e da
destruição de covas rasas, questões verificadas principalmente nas áreas destinadas aos
sepultamentos sociais199 (Kokay, 2008, p. 35-37).

Das denúncias que levaram à instalação da CPI, a maioria dizia respeito “à remoção não
autorizada ou não comunicada às famílias de restos mortais de parentes enterrados em cemitérios do
Distrito Federal” (DF, 2008, p. 17). O relatório aponta que essas remoções eram feitas por meio do
uso de uma pá mecânica e que, em alguns casos, as ossadas humanas não eram separadas nem
identificadas. Outra denúncia refere-se ao sepultamento de até três corpos de indigentes em uma
mesma cova, o que é proibido por lei pelo decreto regulamentador e pelo contrato de concessão
(Ibid., p. 40). Fundamentalmente, tais remoções e reutilizações de espaço – que a concessionária
chamou de “reciclagem” (Ibid., p. 37) – configuram uma espécie de política do apagamento baseada
na tentativa de higienizar o cemitério eliminando as pessoas carentes de recursos financeiros; estas,
no entanto, não desaparecem por completo: elas também retornam sob a forma de espectros para
obsediar os vivos e denunciar “violências políticas”, pois, como aponta Derrida (1994, p. 13),
“justiça alguma parece possível sem o princípio da responsabilidade para com os que não estão
vivos”.

[...] é a partir do século XIX que cada indivíduo teve direito à sua caixinha
para sua pequena decomposição pessoal [...]. (Foucault, 2013, p. 118).

O terceiro espectro examinado refere-se ao desejo de individualização, associado ao culto da

própria individualidade, e como ele se materializa no espaço cemiterial. Na Antiguidade ocidental,
apesar da relativa familiaridade que os indivíduos tinham com os mortos, estes eram considerados
impuros e mantidos distantes, em seus “devidos lugares”, a fim de impedir o risco de poluição e que
voltassem para ameaçar os vivos; por isso, os espaços de enterramento eram separados das cidades.
Na Roma Antiga, eram comuns o enterramento ao longo das estradas e a individualização das
sepulturas, lugar normalmente marcado por uma inscrição expressando o desejo de conservar a
identidade do túmulo e a lembrança do falecido. Por volta do século V, na alta Idade Média, essas
inscrições desaparecem e as sepulturas tornam-se coletivas (ao menos para as pessoas

199 De acordo com o Art. 9º do Decreto n. 40.569, de 27 de março de 2020, 10% da área do cemitério
Campo da Esperança deve ser destinada ao sepultamento gratuito de “pessoas economicamente carentes
e indigentes”, cuja situação precisa ser atestada por assistente social designado (a) pela Secretaria de
Estado de Desenvolvimento Social do Distrito Federal; no entanto, tais sepulturas gratuitas devem ser
concedidas pelo prazo de até três anos, que pode ser reduzido quando: se tratar de crianças com até seis
anos de idade; houver avaria no túmulo ou infiltração de água nos carneiros; houver interesse público
comprovado, a critério da autoridade sanitária; ou houver determinação judicial (DF, 2020, p. 2-5).

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economicamente carentes) e anônimas: os cadáveres seriam entregues à Igreja para aguardar a
ressurreição. A partir desse momento, a distinção entre cidade e periferia, onde se enterravam os
mortos, começou a desaparecer: depois do século VIII, aproximadamente, os cemitérios ao longo
das estradas seriam inteiramente abandonados e o local da sepultura deveria ser próximo à Igreja,
em um “lugar santo”, onde nenhum monumento ou inscrição celebraria a individualidade do morto
(Rodrigues, 1983, p. 121-122).

No período pré-capitalista, aqueles que detinham o poder (imperadores, reis, papas, nobres)
foram os primeiros a individualizar suas sepulturas. Entre os últimos séculos da Idade Média e os
primeiros da Moderna, por volta dos séculos XII e XVI, o túmulo individual, a inscrição funerária e
a representação individual e realista da figura do morto na estatuária fúnebre significavam alguns
dos sintomas de um movimento de valorização da individualidade, que foi moroso e diretamente
associado ao conjunto de transformações que operavam ao nível do sistema econômico. Nas
imediações do século XV, o processo do morrer era carregado de um sentido dramático, vinculado a
alterações nas concepções de morte e vida; nesse contexto está o aparecimento das biografias, nas
quais a identidade pessoal se eternizaria após a morte. Basicamente, a construção de túmulos
individualizados expressava uma tentativa de assegurar o morto na Terra (Rodrigues, 1983, p. 127-
139), isto é, imortalizá-lo na arquitetura cemiterial: ele excederia a presença por meio do seu
túmulo, que perenizava a lembrança das suas realizações, das suas ideias e do que ele representava
para os vivos.

Entre os séculos XVII e XVIII, os indivíduos começaram a buscar o ancoramento das suas
identidades nos cemitérios extramuros, que, cada vez mais populares, passaram a espelhar as
cidades, marcadas pela propriedade privada, de um modo quase que direto. Não possuir uma
sepultura individual no século XIX era inadmissível e ter uma concessão perpétua no cemitério
representava uma espécie de título de nobreza, de modo que, assente no desenvolvimento da noção
de indivíduo e na imposição desta sobre todas as dimensões da sociedade ocidental, a alma
converteu-se em “quintessência da individualidade”, reproduzida nas fileiras de sepulturas
particulares dos espaços cemiteriais. A essa altura, as sepulturas cobriam-se de monumentos
tumulários, muitas vezes verticalizados, e o fausto da individualidade das classes dominantes era
ressaltado pela singeleza dos túmulos das pessoas economicamente carentes (Rodrigues, 1983, p.
165-182). Em 1889, com a Proclamação da República e o subsequente processo de laicização do
Estado brasileiro, acentuou-se o debate em torno da administração do espaço cemiterial, que até
então possuía um estreito vínculo com a Igreja. Embora ainda existam cemitérios administrados por

179
congregações religiosas no Brasil, aquele debate determinou o caráter público e secular dos
cemitérios do DF (DF, 1999, p. 1), construídos entre as décadas de 1950 e 1970.

Em 22 de agosto de 1976, JK e seu motorista, Geraldo Ribeiro, vieram a óbito após um

acidente automobilístico no quilômetro 165 da rodovia federal Presidente Dutra, que atravessa a
parte leste do estado de São Paulo e a região sudoeste do estado do Rio de Janeiro. O corpo do ex-
presidente foi velado, primeiramente, no saguão do edifício da revista Manchete, no Rio de Janeiro;
na tarde do dia seguinte, ao chegar a Brasília, foi conduzido à Catedral Metropolitana Nossa
Senhora Aparecida, projetada por Niemeyer e inaugurada em 1970, onde o velório prosseguiu. O
sermão foi proferido pelo arcebispo D. José Newton e, o esquife, coberto com a bandeira nacional.
Estima-se que o cortejo fúnebre foi acompanhado por cerca de 100 mil pessoas, que gritavam:

“O povo leva, o povo leva”. E o povo levou o esquife [...] nas mãos, até sua
última morada: o cemitério Campo da Esperança, ao lado da sepultura de
Bernardo Sayão [...]. O cortejo levou três horas e meia para chegar ao
Campo da Esperança. [...] O corpo baixou à sepultura às 23h55. O povo
gritava: “Viva J.K.”, “Viva a democracia”. As luzes dos edifícios públicos
permaneceram acesas durante toda a noite. (Viana, 2006, p. 105-106).

O acontecimento da morte pode trazer uma espécie de suspensão temporária da razão,

faculdade enaltecida pelos primeiros defensores da arquitetura moderna, resultando no ilógico, no
absurdo. O povo levou o esquife de JK a pé, percorrendo aproximadamente 7,8 km, em uma cidade
planejada para o automóvel. Os cemitérios foram localizados por Costa nas extremidades do Plano
Piloto para evitar nele o cortejo, que, ainda assim, aconteceu. Essa cerimônia fúnebre, tradicional
nos séculos pregressos e banida da cidade modernista, voltou como um espectro para assombrar o
idealizador do seu plano urbanístico. O acontecimento da morte, portanto, nem sempre é um fim;
pode ser um meio para transgredir determinações impostas e consagradas como regras
incontestáveis. O cortejo na cidade, marcado pelo caráter cívico e pela comoção popular, já havia
acontecido na ocasião do suicídio do ex-presidente Getúlio Vargas (1882-1954) e aconteceria
novamente com a morte de Tancredo Neves (1910-1985), presidente eleito, mas não empossado.
Para o antropólogo e sociólogo Edgar Morin (1921-), a cidade oferece ao cidadão uma
compensação para a morte, e este pode extrair da participação cívica uma força capaz de dominá-la;
a cidade representa a soma de todas as individualidades cívicas e contém em si a fonte que nutre
cada individualidade (1997, p. 45).

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 Os restos mortais do ex-presidente foram mantidos no Campo da Esperança entre 1976 e 12
de setembro de 1981, quando foram levados para o Memorial JK, edificação também projetada por
Niemeyer e situada no ponto mais alto de Brasília, no qual foi rezada a primeira missa da cidade,
em 3 de maio de 1957. Quase dez anos exatos após a morte de JK, em 14 de setembro de 1986, o
deputado mineiro José Aparecido de Oliveira (1929-2007), então governador do DF, assinou o
decreto que deu o nome de Praça dos Pioneiros ao local desse cemitério onde esteve sepultado o ex-
presidente. Nessa localidade, parte integrante das Áreas Especiais do Setor “A”, também estão os
túmulos de pioneiros200 e outros envolvidos na construção da cidade. O capítulo IV do Decreto n.
40.569, de 27 de março de 2020, discrimina as autoridades a cujos sepultamentos a Praça se destina:
“o Presidente da República; o Vice-Presidente da República; o Governador do Distrito Federal; o
Vice-Governador do Distrito Federal; os Ministros de Estado; os Ministros dos Tribunais
Superiores; os Desembargadores do Tribunal de Justiça do Distrito Federal; os Secretários de
Estado; os Ministros do Tribunal de Contas da União; os Parlamentares; o Arcebispo de Brasília, o
Bispo Auxiliar e outras autoridades religiosas de hierarquia equivalente.” (DF, 2020, p. 2-3).

Tal como não haveria distinção entre classes sociais em Brasília, conforme sustentado pelos
envolvidos na sua construção, no plano teoricamente utópico de Costa o Campo da Esperança seria
isento de ostentações, já que o arquiteto orientou que os cemitérios do Plano Piloto tivessem
“sepulturas rasas e lápides singelas, à maneira inglesa, tudo desprovido de qualquer ostentação”;
esta, impedida de ser verticalizada, foi horizontalmente moldada na linguagem modernista da
cidade. A figuratividade da estatuária tumular, presente nos cemitérios dos séculos pregressos, foi
abstraída, geometrizada, simplificada e adaptada para o cemitério da nova capital. Segundo o
historiador e crítico de arte baiano Clarival do Prado Valladares (1918-1983), o Campo da
Esperança foi imposto a Brasília na época da sua concepção como forma de evitar o “mau gosto”
predominante nos cemitérios do resto do país; o autor afirma que, no entanto, os planejadores da
cidade conseguiram evitá-lo somente na vertical (1972, p. 1119).

Tradicionalmente, lápides são elementos de pedra colocados sobre sepulturas nos quais
geralmente se inscrevem as datas de nascimento e falecimento e o nome do indivíduo. Não há
lápides tradicionais na Área Especial do Campo da Esperança: as inscrições são gravadas no próprio
plano horizontal do túmulo e geralmente exibem a profissão que o falecido possuía em vida. Existe
certa variação de linguagem entre as sepulturas dessa área, talvez representando uma tentativa
discreta de individualização, mas, em geral, elas se assemelham em forma, tamanho e material
construtivo. Todas respeitam o gabarito de altura imposto, já que as edificações tumulares
200 Palavra usada para designar os primeiros habitantes de Brasília, a qual se refere, em geral, a técnicos,
funcionários públicos, engenheiros, arquitetos etc.

181
verticalizadas são características dos cemitérios do século XIX, que a premissa geral de Brasília
buscou superar. Nessa área há dois túmulos que, no entanto, se destacam: o do ex-governador
Joaquim Roriz (1936-2018), que cumpriu quatro mandados no DF, e o de JK, projetado por
Niemeyer e revestido com o mármore de Carrara remanescente da construção da Catedral
Metropolitana Nossa Senhora Aparecida. Um dos modos pelos quais o poder se apropria da morte é
por meio da arquitetura cemiterial, que eterniza o indivíduo poderoso; não coincidentemente esse
túmulo foi feito de pedra, material perene e resistente ao tempo e às intempéries. O espaço
cemiterial é repleto de forma que são conteúdos e que por isso negam o vazio da sepultura,
povoando-a de signos que parece cobrir o vácuo sobre o qual se apoiam; por essa razão, não é
preciso haver um cadáver para que exista uma sepultura, porque não é isto que se supõe existir nela
(Rodrigues, 1983), tanto que hoje os restos mortais de JK estão em uma edificação maior e com
mais chances de ser visitada pelos vivos, que cultuarão a memória do ex-presidente por meio do seu
acervo pessoal de fotografias. Tanto nessa edificação como na Área Especial do Campo da
Esperança, verifica-se o papel social dos túmulos e sua função moral como monumento à glo-
rificação de mortos ilustres – que, nesse caso, são representados por Governantes, membros do
governo, detentores de cargos públicos de alto prestígio e líderes religiosos – no sentido de realçar a
importância civil da morte (Motta, 2009, p. 62).

De modo similar ao acontecimento trágico de Sayão, que demarcou a área do cemitério que
ele mesmo inaugurou, JK cumpriu a promessa de construir uma cidade cujas vias foram
posteriormente o palco para o espetáculo da sua morte. Suas realizações históricas – com destaque
para o que foi talvez a maior concretização do ideário da modernidade em solo brasileiro, símbolo e
promessa de progresso e de rompimento com o passado colonial – o garantiram um local eterno na
Área Especial do cemitério Campo da Esperança. Os vivos buscaram imortalizar o ex-presidente
destinando-lhe um lugar proeminente nesse cemitério, mas, antes disso, é possível que JK estivesse
tentando imortalizar a si mesmo na história por meio da construção de Brasília. Fato é que o ex-
presidente excede a presença de modo espectral por meio do seu túmulo, cuja dimensão física,
materialidade construtiva e opacidade radiante do mármore de Carrara o distingue dos demais.

Só viram ali modernidades, quando essa não passa de um verniz sobre um

fundo antigo. (Ariès, 2014, p. 804).

182
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 IV.
MONTAGEM
MONTAGE

188
13. Constantinos V. PROIMOS
Architecture as Theory of Communicative Design

Roger Scruton’s The Aesthetics of Architecture (1979)201 is widely recognized as a reference

book for all those interested in philosophy of architecture. In this seminal book, Scruton, in his
typically direct and explicit manner, confronts the problem of the essence of architecture, namely
what architecture is and what it amounts to. Scruton devotes an entire chapter, chapter 3
specifically, to the question of whether architecture has an essence and arguably throughout the
book this question surfaces again and again. It is curious indeed that while Scruton diligently
examines architecture from many points of view and with regard to the concomitant theories that
sustain them, he finds them all wanting.
Scruton examines functionalism, the view that the building is a means for achieving a
function, the utility of the building which he deems a weak doctrine. He considers space, and in
particular the view attributed to Bruno Zevi that the essence of architecture is “space as enclosed”202
but finds his view as well as that of Siegfried Giedion “vacuous and circular” and furthermore that
it fails “to provide an account of all that we appreciate in buildings.”203 What he then terms as
Kunstgeschichte is a theory based on the Hegelian concept of history and the spirit or idea that
underlies it, but Scruton finds the theory useless for “it denies itself even the ability to ask what is
fundamental to our experience of architecture.”204 Proportion, or the ancient theory that the
Renaissance revived and Le Corbusier modernized via the Modulor claims that architecture is a
system based on mathematical relationships. Scruton deems it “useless” because it provides “no
general aesthetic of construction” and because the rules of proportion are a posteriori and are
derived
from some discovered criterion for its application (…) How then can any purely
mathematical theory be used to predict a “harmony” that is in essence visual, dependent on
the aspect of the building from many points of view in space?205
Despite finding all these well-known theories wanting, Scruton does not seem to wish to
cast them completely aside. For him it is the experience of architecture and its description that need
to take precedence over its abstract principles. These do not seem to be entirely wrong, are useful

201Roger Scruton, The Aesthetics of Architecture, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1980.
202Ibid. p. 43.
203Ibid. pp. 48, 44.
204Ibid. p 55.
205Ibid. pp. 63, 66, 65.

189
and have a role to play, but they are “premature.”206 The experience of architecture is imaginative in
character for it is imagination that prevails in this experience, Scruton claims.207 Architectural
experience is “inherently interpreted,” “becomes modified through argument” and acquires the
status of a symbol.208 I attempt to single out three decisive moments in the history of modernity,
reading them backwards, from our present time to the beginning of twentieth century, with an
intermediate stop in 1972 in which architectural experience is inherently interpreted, becomes
modified by argument and acquires the status of a symbol, in order to add to Scruton’s list for the
essence of architecture its communicative aspect, the aspect that emphasizes understanding and
negotiation of human needs and desires.209 I would like to argue that in what is termed as folded
architecture since the 1990’s, in the seminal study manifesto of Denise Scott Brown, Robert Venturi
and Steven Izenour Learning from Las Vegas (1972) as well as in Le Corbusier’s manifesto of
modern principles Toward an Architecture (1923), architecture needs to be considered as a theory of
communicative design, a term inspired by Jürgen Habermas’s Theory of Communicative Action.210
This is clearly a view that Scruton comes close to, via the notions of interpretation, argument and
symbol that he employs in the context of architectural experience, but he never examines
architecture as theory of communicative design explicitly and as such, a task that I endeavor to
undertake. Of course Habermas’s theory involves a great deal more than his communicative model
of action that involves language, like his critique of instrumental reason211 etc but at this stage, I
simply wish to point to the centrality of communication and its vital role in defining architecture in
three important moments in the course of twentieth century history of architecture.

Communicating with Diversity. Folded Architecture

The notion of folded architecture stems from the concept of the fold as this was developed in
Gilles Deleuze’s volume The Fold. Leibniz and the Baroque, originally published in Paris in
1988.212 The fold is meant as a cultural force that is arguably active in every era of cultural
development but originates in the Baroque.213 The fold represents constant movement, continuously
refers to other folds and constantly generates other folds in an infinite work in progress.214 The

206Ibid. p. 70.
207Ibid. pp. 260, 261.
208Ibid.
209Jurgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action. Reason and the Rationalization of Society, vol. 1, transl.
Thomas McCarthy, Cambridge, UK, Polity Press, 2004, p. 95.
210Ibid.
211Ibid.
212Gilles Deleuze, The Fold. Leibniz and the Baroque, transl. Tom Conley, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota
Press, 1993. The original edition in French was published by Minuit. See Gilles Deleuze, Le pli. Leibniz et le baroque,
Paris, Minuit, 1988.
213Deleuze, The Fold. Leibniz and the Baroque, op. cit., p. 18, 3.
214Ibid. pp. 12, 8, 10.

190
concrete or prefabricated parts.216
The conception of folded architecture questions the long-held value of firmitas originally
professed by Vitruvius and reinstated by Alberti. Firmitas means “strength,” i. e. static perfection
infinite variation of folding means constant fluidity and curvilinearity or an infinite series of
and stability,
curvatures but also endurance
and inflections 215 in architectural
reflected in time and isdesign
inseparable
in threefrom the other
dimensional two Vitruvian
structures whose values of
217
venustas,
parts “beauty”
form mutual and utilitas,
relationship “utility.”
in space The prototype
and are generated by severalfor firmitas
materials is reinforced
like the Egyptian pyramid,
aiming or
concrete at prefabricated
safeguardingparts.
the216
rule and reign of the king at eternity (Fig. 1, Great Pyramid of Giza,
The conception
2580-2560 of folded architecture questions the long-held value of firmitas originally
BC, 4th Dynasty).
professed by Vitruvius and reinstated by Alberti. Firmitas means “strength,” i. e. static perfection
and stability, but also endurance in time and is inseparable from the other two Vitruvian values of
venustas, “beauty” and utilitas, “utility.”217 The prototype for firmitas is the Egyptian pyramid,
aiming at safeguarding the rule and reign of the king at eternity (Fig. 1, Great Pyramid of Giza,
2580-2560 BC, 4th Dynasty).

Folded buildings like the Tel Aviv Museum of Art designed by Preston Scott-Cohen, 2007
2011 (Fig. 2) or the Klein Bottle House at Rye, Victoria, Australia, designed by Charles Ryan
Folded buildings like the Tel Aviv Museum of Art designed by Preston Scott-Cohen, 2007-
McBride in 2008 (Fig. 3) need constant and high maintenance in order to be preserved intact and,
2011 (Fig. 2) or the Klein Bottle House at Rye, Victoria, Australia, designed by Charles Ryan
215Ibid. pp.
McBride 24, 3,(Fig.
in 2008 4. 3) need constant and high maintenance in order to be preserved intact and,
216See Nenad Sekularac, Jelena Ivanovich Sekularac, Jasna Cikic Tovarovic, “Folded Structures in Modern
Architecture”
215Ibid. in4.Architecture and Civil Engineering, vol. 10, no 1, 2012, pp. 1, 2.
pp. 24, 3,
216See Nenad Sekularac,V.
217See Constantinos Proimos,
Jelena “Architecture
Ivanovich at theCikic
Sekularac, Jasna AgeTovarovic,
of its Digital Production:
“Folded Structures The Force, Differentiation and
in Modern
Humanity of the Fold as an Architectural Principle” in Constantin Boundas
Architecture” in Architecture and Civil Engineering, vol. 10, no 1, 2012, pp. 1, 2. and Vana Tentokali, eds, Architectural an
Urban Reflections After Deleuze and Guattari, London, Rowman and Littlefield International, 2018,
217See Constantinos V. Proimos, “Architecture at the Age of its Digital Production: The Force, Differentiation and pp. 153-162.
Humanity of the Fold as an Architectural Principle” in Constantin Boundas and Vana Tentokali, eds, Architectural and
Urban Reflections After Deleuze and Guattari, London, Rowman and Littlefield International, 2018, pp. 153-162.

191
 more importantly, are generated as an architectural response to the increased desire and need for
flexibility in design.218

more importantly, are generated as an architectural response to the increased desire and need for
flexibility in design.218

218Ibid.

The desire and need for flexibility in design means the ability to correspond to changing
circumstances which reflect the social perplexity of contemporary multicultural societies and is
made possible by the increasingly digitalized means that dominate architectural design.
The desire and need for flexibility in design means the ability to correspond to changing

Luke Feast in his 2006 article “The Discrete and the Continuous in Architecture and Design”
circumstances which reflect the social perplexity of contemporary multicultural societies and is
made possible by the increasingly digitalized means that dominate architectural design.

argues for an immanent ethics Luke

of sustainable design issuing from the fold. The flexible complexity
Feast in his 2006 article “The Discrete and the Continuous in Architecture and Design”
argues for an immanent ethics of sustainable design issuing from the fold. The flexible complexity

218Ibid.

192
that folded architecture espouses is ecological because it is open and welcomes change in order to
correspond to the increasing complexities of today’s societies. The design ethics is immanent to the
design process: the designer is a conceiver of morphogenetic scenarios devoted to strategic planning
and social intervention. The designer is thus less of a producer of material forms and more someone
with an ethos of care, privileging becoming rather than being and engaging with duration through
the virtual rather than through the actual. Sustainability means the ability of architectural systems to
maintain a dynamic stability which enables them to constantly adapt to changing circumstances and
thus continue over long periods of time. Design products involve “individualization” and
“personalization” as they are less conceived as finished forms and entities but rather as assemblages
of elements which evolve in time through upgradability and repair, exactly like computer software,
to meet people’s changing needs and desires. The flexibility of folded architecture is a direct
response to complexity, namely to the uncertainty to future situations and to the unforeseeable array
of events, constantly emerging in contemporary societies by the actions of minorities and other
social groups and entities.
It thus becomes clear that the principle of firmitas, strength, longevity or endurance is
revised on account of a communicative strategy that the architect must assume in an effort to
correspond to societal demands. The architect needs not only to be in contact with these demands
but has to maintain a constant state of alertness so as to understand, negotiate and accommodate
individual and group claims which are sometimes conflicting. Such individual and group claims are
expressed subjectively but are also embedded and grounded in language and rational action as
Jurgen Habermas has pointed out.219 The expanding workings of the market and bureaucracy
authorities threaten the specifically human communication structures and day to day social
relationships with erosion and thus need to be countered by reasoned argument, consensus and
cooperation, to reach a common understanding and a concomitant collective coordination of
actions.220 In today’s complex societies the architect must develop a sensitivity to such reasoned
argument, consensus and cooperation in order to readily correspond to individual and group claims
that she/he may accommodate by flexible communicative design. Furthermore, architects need to
train in sociology and the rest of human sciences in order to readily grasp emotional and behavioral
difficulties and problems which again may be tended by flexible communicative design.

219See Habermas, Theory of Communicative Action, op. cit., p. XIV.

220Ibid. p. 86.

193
 Learning from Las Vegas is the title of the famous study conducted by Robert Venturi,
Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour that led to the book bearing the same title, published in
1972 and containing the first questioning of modern architectural orthodoxy.221
Sufficiently and Mutually Understanding the Commonplace

Learning from Las Vegas is the title of the famous study conducted by Robert Venturi,
Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour that led to the book bearing the same title, published in
1972 and containing the first questioning of modern architectural orthodoxy.221

Las Vegas is chosen precisely because it is the most commonplace urban environment. The
stake of the authors is to research whether there is something to be learned from the commonplace.
Las to
However Vegas is chosen
learn precisely
from the because it one
commonplace is thefirst
most commonplace
needs urban environment.
to sufficiently The mutually
understand and
stake of the authors is to research whether there is something to be learned from the commonplace.
accept it by examining it non- judgmentally, for what it is. This non-judgmental view is already a
However to learn from the commonplace one first needs to sufficiently understand and mutually
departure from the purist, progressive, revolutionary and utopian modern architecture which is, in
accept it by examining it non- judgmentally, for what it is. This non-judgmental view is already a
principle, dissatisfied with what exists222 and therefore has an often utopian vision of changing it.
departure from the purist, progressive, revolutionary and utopian modern architecture which is, in
Being more
principle, understanding
dissatisfied with whatand less
exists 222 authoritarian, allows an alternative perspective in architecture,
and therefore has an often utopian vision of changing it.
223
one that
Being enables
more communication
understanding with the inherent
and less authoritarian, meaning
allows an of perspective
alternative existing forms.
in architecture,
Las Vegas
one that enables may be viewed
communication with theasinherent
a flamboyant
meaning urban system
of existing in223which communication prevail
forms.
LasVenturi,
221Robert Vegas may be Scott
Denise viewed as aand
Brown flamboyant urban Learning
Steven Izenour, system infrom
which
Las communication prevails
Vegas, revised edition, Cambridge
Massachusetts,
221Robert Venturi,The MITScott
Denise Press, 1977.
Brown and Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas, revised edition, Cambridge
222Ibid. p. 3.The MIT Press, 1977.
Massachusetts,
223Ibid.p.p3.7.
222Ibid.
223Ibid. p 7.

194
over space and the landscape, through signs (Fig. 4). 224 Modern architecture is relying on “structure,
form and light at the service of space” but the Las Vegas strip is essentially a sign-dominated
complex urban continuum.225 Its experience reveals the symbol, rather than form, to dominate
space226 and become thereafter more important than form. This domination of symbol over space,
form and finally architecture, serves the intensity of communication along the highway which is
filled with automobiles.227 Symbols and signs are changing all the time reflecting the dynamism of
the strip. They use mixed media like words, pictures and sculpture in order to persuade, advertise
and inform228 on the level of three message systems: the heraldic, composed by the signs, the
physiognomic, composed by the building faces and the locational, composed by the location near
the most important buildings.229 Symbols rhetorically occupy the front of the building and leave the
back to more conventional arrangement. Architecture becomes iconographical, a decorated shed
with a rhetorical front or a shelter with symbols on it. 230 Instead of heroic and original, wanting to
change the world, reformist and progressive and expressive through the “skillful, accurate, and
magnificent play of masses seen in light,” as the typical modern architecture, Las Vegas architecture
becomes ugly and ordinary, explicitly serving commercial communication 231 and the interests of a
silent-white-majority middle class.232 The need to communicate with this middle class from the
members of which most of the clients are, remains. For the most part, such communication of the
architect with the middle class client is not heroic and cannot simply promote space and articulation
to the detriment of symbolism and ornament.
For as the example of Las Vegas demonstrates, oppressed symbolism and ornament returns
to haunt the modernist architectural consciousness. One way to account for this return is to explain
Las Vegas as the paradise of unprohibited communication with the desires and needs of the middle
class which for a long time was forced to fit in the corset of ascetic architectural modernism. These
desires and needs in Las Vegas have gone wild and Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenour are right in
pointing out that architects and philosophers need to peruse them in a collected and careful manner
so that to get the lesson of miscommunication with the desires and needs of the people in which
modern architecture has long been trapped, after its first heroic phase before the Second World War.

224Ibid. p. 9.
225Ibid.
226Ibid. p. 13.
227Ibid. p. 18.
228Ibid. p. 52.
229Ibid. p. 73.
230Ibid. p. 90.
231Ibid. p. 103, 116.
232Ibid. p 155.

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 Le Corbusier on How to Avoid Revolution
Le Corbusier’s insistence that his magnum opus Towards an Architecture (1923) be printed
in the exact same order as it was delivered to the publisher, both in terms of content and images, is

well documented (Fig. 5).

It testifies to the righteousness of a man who left nothing to chance. It is also an indication of the
wellhe
importance documented
accorded(Fig.
to 5).
his first book that heralded the advent of a new architecture which,
It testifies to the righteousness of a man who left nothing to chance. It is also an indication of the
importance he accorded to his first book that heralded the advent of a new architecture which,

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according to him, is a pure creation of spirit. 233 An aspect that has not been accorded the attention it
merits, is the way Le Corbusier opens his book with the dilemma “Architecture or Revolution.” 234
This aspect surfaces at the very beginning of the book and recurs also as its last chapter. Judging
from its placement alone, at the beginning and at the end of his book, this dilemma “Architecture or
Revolution” must have had a great importance for the author.
Le Corbusier introduces the subject of this dilemma, architecture or revolution, in the
context of the industry and the engineering that steers architecture to new achievements and feats,
the most notable of which is perhaps the increased standardization of production, applying both to
details and to the whole of construction and leading to a revolution in the methodology and scope of
construction businesses.235 In his last chapter, entitled “Architecture or Revolution,” Le Corbusier is
even more explicit: the steel and the cement have revolutionized architecture by imposing a
stoppage in its slow gradual development, along the centuries and by erasing styles in favor of a
new building system that emerged in twentieth century industrial societies.236 Society is in turmoil
and the several social classes demand a home worthy of their dignity and available to cater for the
worker and the intellectual alike, especially during their free time. It is not solely therefore the sheer
need for a dignified shelter but also the free time that needs to be accommodated in a morally
appropriate way237 as well as the basic family needs that have to be satisfied; people need to be
warm, to have access to natural light, to clean air and live in their own place. Most of the societal
demands have to do with the satisfaction of these basic essential needs and these demands can be
accommodated through architecture. “We can avoid revolution” once we satisfy the societal
demands but in order to satisfy them we need to understand, accept and realize them and the only
way to realize them is to keep open the communicative contact with the working classes and the
intellectuals.238 Architecture is therefore not solely the prerogative of the wealthy classes but a right
extended to the working classes too and this right to architecture may help society adopt social
change in a smooth, progressive and communicative way and not in the abrupt, violent manner that
social revolutions imposed until now.

233Le Corbusier, Vers une architecture, Paris, Flammarion, 1995.

234According to Simone Brott the original title of Le Corbusier’s book was to be Architecture and Revolution and the
title changed the very last minute before the publication. Brott presents Le Corbusier’s utopian project of social
redemption as a despotic theory of revolution issuing from German philosophy and specifically from Hegel and
Nietzsche as well as from the architect’s admiration of the Italian fascist revolution. She concludes that fascism was not
the enemy of modernism in architecture but its principal technique. See Simone Brott, “Architecture et revolution. Le
Corbusier and the fascist revolution” Thresholds, 41, Spring 2013, pp. 146-157,
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/thld, accessed 13/4/2021. Contrary to Brott, in his text “Architecture
or Revolution?” Neil Leach proclaims architecture as an indirect democratic force of social reform. See
https://neilleach.files.wordpress.com/2009, accessed 13/3/2021.
235Le Corbusier, Vers une architecture, op. cit. p. XXI.
236Ibid. p 228.
237Ibid p. 233.
238Ibid. p. 243.

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 Le Corbusier’s conviction is that we can avoid revolution via communicative action on the
one hand and communicative design on the other. Le Corbusier lent an ear to the perturbation of his
times, to the horrible perspective that the industrial society may destroy the family and to the need
of workers and intellectuals alike to have a standard of living that matches the technological
prowess and achievements of industry. The success of his designs are due to this communicative
correspondence from his part to the needs and desires of the lower working classes of his time.

In Place of a Conclusion

The reason why I singled out three moments in the history of twentieth century architecture
was to reveal the importance accorded in each of these to communication of the architects with the
society that envelops them. As the discipline of architecture changes once again due to the digital
revolution that the western world undergoes, it is important to remember what is essential in it. We
cannot, as Scruton claims, extract this essence by “drastic strokes of elimination” of all false
theories on it, for “then it is hard to see what will remain at the end.” 239 Scruton’s criticism of
functionalism, Kunstgeschichte, architecture as space, the proportion theory does not aim, in my
view, to eliminate all these theories as merely false but to preserve them as doctrines that are weaker
than what they initially were purported to be. It seems that all the theories he criticizes are
inevitably part of the essence of architecture. Furthermore, architecture needs to be considered as a
theory and a practice of communicative design, especially in its modern denomination, if architects
wish to maintain close ties with the society for which they work and with which they interact. This
was the necessity that the present paper wished to proclaim.

References

Brott, S. (2013). “Architecture et revolution. Le Corbusier and the fascist revolution”

Thresholds, 41, Spring 2013, pp. 146-157,
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/thld, accessed 13/4/2021

Deleuze, G. (1988). Le pli. Leibniz et le baroque. Paris, Minuit.

239Scruton, op. cit. p. 45.

198
Deleuze, G. (1993). The Fold. Leibniz and the Baroque. Transl. Tom Conley, Minneapolis,
University of Minnesota Press.

Habermas, J. (2004). The Theory of Communicative Action. Reason and the Rationalization
of Society. London, Polity Press.

Leach, N. (2009). “Architecture or Revolution?” https://neilleach.files.wordpress.com/2009,

accessed 13/3/2021.

Le Corbusier. (1995). Vers une architecture. Paris, Flammarion.

Proimos, C. V. (2018). “Architecture at the Age of its Digital Production: The Force,
Differentiation and Humanity of the Fold as an Architectural Principle” in Constantin
Boundas and Vana Tentokali, eds, Architectural and Urban Reflections After Deleuze and
Guattari. London, Rowman and Littlefield International.

Sekularac, N., Sekularac, J. I., Tovarovic, J. C. (2012). “Folded Structures in Modern

Architecture” in Architecture and Civil Engineering. Vol. 10, no 1.

Scruton, R. (1980). The Aesthetics of Architecture. Princeton, NJ, Princeton University

Press.

Venturi, R., Brown, D. S. and Izenour, S. (1977). Learning from Las Vegas, revised edition,
Cambridge Massachusetts, The MIT Press.

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14. Carlo DEREGIBUS
Designing toward the future. The project as a tactical tool.

The problem with design

While the philosophical implications of architecture have often been inquired, and from different
points of view – with the aesthetical one being the most diffuse – the philosophical turn in design
studies is relatively recent (Deregibus, 2018). One could be bewildered by the fact that, while the
artistic side of architecture has raised so much interest, architectural design has been treated mainly
by specialists, just as it was a procedure, a facility or a technical application, more than
the constitutive part of architecture.
This misconception reflects a traditional corporative vision, with a pupil learning from a mentor,
gradually mastering tools and finding his own way after a decade of apprentice (Greene, 2012). Just
as a painter learns to paint or a sculptor learns to sculpt, an architect learns to “designs”, one could
say. But the difference clearly emerges in the lack of correspondence between the name and the
verb: quite all artists’ names have a clear connection with what they actually do (e.g.,
painting>painter, sculpting>sculptor, dancing>dancer, playing the piano>piano player or pianist,
composing music>composer, photographing>photographer, directing>director), but this rule does
not work for architects – having “designer” a different and broader meaning. Such correspondence
often has a strong relationship with specific tools (a painter uses brushes, colours and canvas, for
example): but the rule doesn’t apply to architects. Even if tools have a dramatic relevance, as often
underlined (Ford et al., 2017), architectural design cannot be described as an application, nor does
architecture depend on its technical base. On the one hand, because the technique is quite unclear in
architecture: should it refer to technological and structural knowledge or form and shape, to the
ecological footprint of his building or its urban impact, Or to all these things, and even other ones?
On the other hand, many renowned architectures show critical technical fallacies, so it is
challenging to see technical value as essential for architecture (Deregibus, 2020a). Architecture
could even exist regardless of the technique, as shown by the utopic architecture - from the cases of
Jacques-François Blondel, Etienne-Louis Boullée and Claude-Nicolas Ledoux to Archigram, Cedric
Price and Kiyonori Kikutake (ibidem). And even if, most usually, architectures require to be built
and that constructive side is crucial – think about Santa Maria del Fiore in Firenze, the Sydney

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Opera House, the Pompidou Center or the Meiso No Mori (Deregibus & Giustiniano, 2020) – this
practical side does not seem to raise much attention. It is considered a matter of competence at
most. This conception confirms a romantic view of architecture, where the artist imagines the final
building from the very beginning, and the main problem is to follow his indications (as obscure as
they may be, as masters are notoriously cryptic). Technical matters would then be nothing more
than the management of the translation of concepts into forms.
Strictly connected to this vision is the tendency of seeing the conceptual phase as the product of a
single, inspired mind, clearly positioned in time and space. We are so used to thinking that
architecture is conceived by an individual or a single entity (whether it is Michelangelo or
MVRDV) that we frankly ignore all the other involved actors, even if they quite entirely take on the
project. We continue to look at the artist as the master though in most architectural firms, nowadays,
even the conceptual phase is shared – that’s the essence of the brainstorming stage. Authorship
seems to imply an individuality of some kind. And this author seems to live outside the world, fully
displaying his own artistic concept with no constrictions or limits imposed. Narrations look at the
result as it was the pure effect of the artist’s will even when the projects are strongly influenced (in
other words: always) by the clients (Clemente, 2000) or by others (for example, the changed
economic conditions, as happened to many skyscrapers in the mid-east). The same happens when an
architect inspires the preliminary design of a project that is then developed by others (for example,
the Pompidou Center was conceived by Renzo Piano, Richard Rogers and Gianfranco Franchini,
but was then entirely developed by ARUP). Or when the architect designs a part of a complex but is
considered the primary author of the whole intervention (for example, Torino Esposizioni is known
as work by Pier Luigi Nervi even if the concept and the general plan are by Ettore Sottsass and
Roberto Biscaretti di Ruffia). Reflecting on authorship shows that many people could claim a kind
of partial authorship. For example, the client commissioning the work, the planner setting the
urbanistic rules that allowed (or not) some shape, the building company proposing some variations
(Deregibus, 2020b) are actual “authors”, as they genuinely influenced the final result - perhaps even
dramatically.
Furthermore, a specific problem of architectural design is time. Even a work of non-architectural art
could last ages or even centuries: to name an extreme example, the piece “Organ²/ASLSP” by John
Cage was designed to be played “As SLow aS Possible”, and also if a nine-hour recording could
sound long enough, a performance started in 2001 in Halberstadt was designed to last for a
whopping 639 years. But buildings’ construction typically lasts for years, often decades and seldom
centuries: in general, the timescale of architecture tends to be very long (Deregibus, 2020a). Think
to the polemics about the Sagrada Familia (for instance, Bohigas i Guardiola, 1972): could we
continue to say, after its more-then-150-years construction, that its author is Antoni Gaudì?

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Moreover, even if the author remained the same, a so long timing changes the relationship between
the concept (the designed architecture) and the final building (the actual one): the world will have
changed meanwhile. For example, an economic crisis could stop the construction or impose
massive changes, as happened for the Jeddah Tower and similar projects (see Deregibus, 2020b). In
such cases, we should even say that those changing elements gained a kind of authorship on the
final building.
Lastly, it’s worth noticing that even if the term design concerns all fields, and that’s why so much
has been said about it, the architectural design seems to be inextricably related to a stylistic question
(see Margolin, 2015; Buthayna, 2018). The attention tends to shift toward the results of the design
activity more than the design activity itself (e.g., Modern design produces Modern architecture; the
experimental design by Gregg Lynn produces Blob architectures). This is a peculiar way of looking
at the conceptual side of design, as if the relation between aesthetic and sense, and between
inspiration and result, was crystal-clear (Buchanan & Margolin, 1995).
These reasonings lead us to say that the ontological nature of architectural design concerns not only
its result and its authorship but also the way the design deploys and the project can actually
influence the process, all along with its own definition. Obviously, such an idea relies on, or rather,
deal with the radical heteronomy of architecture – architects usually don’t pay, nor authorise, nor
build their building, nor do they calculate the structures or the systems (Deregibus & Giustiniano,
2020): thus, anyone believing that architecture can be described and qualified on a pure compositive
and stylistic way may find our proposal incomprehensible, if not totally senseless. Conversely, from
the ontological relation between the act of designing, the product of this act – which is a project
and, eventually, a building – and architecture, a tactical and strategic potential emerges: and design
becomes the exploiting of this potential.

A matter of future

Essentially, design is about imagining something in the future: something new or different than
usual. Typically, in our life, we act by devising routines (Deregibus & Giustiniano, 2020),
exploiting our analogical skills (Melandri, 1968) for dealing with events. For example, tomorrow
morning, you will probably wake up, wash you and have breakfast just like any other day. But when
something changes our patterns, or when we need or want something new, we also plan the way to
get it. Indeed, it’s easy to see that in the purpose itself – e.g. the will to try a new restaurant for
dinner – there is a part of design – we have to choose the place, evaluate if it fits our schedule, if we
have money enough, how going there and so on. Some of these problems can be easily managed,
while others require accurate planning: then, most obviously, unexpected events may change or

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invalidate our plan. Because, indeed, the main problem of the future is that, well, we do not know it.
We cannot decide it, nor can we invent it: and that’s precisely why we continuously plan it.
Therefore, design is about making predictions based on the knowledge of the purpose of the system
(Dennett, 1987) – indeed, what Dennett calls design refers to a fusion of form and functions, while
titles what we mean intentional stance. So, anytime we desire or need something, design is about
making rational hypotheses for changing this intention into reality.
From this point of view, designing is not (just) about concepts: it is a practical need, for any action
requires some management of its development. But this management does not come after the
conceptual phases: indeed, it innervates it, and the problems we hinted at immediately become
evident. It has been said that, as the project is made by documents and communicated using
documents, design activity is all about producing documents (Armando & Durbiano, 2017) that are
relevant due to their being a trace of the process’ evolution (Ferraris, 2009). For example, the
agreement between the client and the contractor is made possible by documents describing the
result – something that stays on the “practical need” side of design: these documents may be
sketches, technical drawings, writings, images, simulations, tables or similar. I disagree with this
interpretation. The documents will change during the process: their value depends (for the most) on
the relative power of the actors of the process itself (Deregibus & Giustiniano, 2019). They do not
fix any point, nor do they prove anything. Instead, they are a punctual representation of a work-in-
progress state whose evolution could either follow an evolutionary line, or not. In other words,
more than about producing documents, design is about controlling what makes the documents
effective and meaningful.
Then, even if we could look at the project’s development as an almost continuous progress, the
process is usually divided into a sequence of phases. There are various design levels, from
preliminary concepts to construction drawings, even in small projects like house renovations.
Obviously, the articulation of these levels and their afference to different systems (normative,
social, economic and so on) is much more complex when actors and stakeholders increase. Still, the
concept itself doesn’t change too much: in the first phase, when the design is preliminary, some
very tedious initial verifications join with the creative moment of the process. By one or more
proposals, the architect develops the so-called concept of the project, that is, the general vision of
what the result will be. Or rather, what it should be. Using the terminology of system theory, we
could say that this concept implies a first act of distinction (Luhmann, 2002) between the project
and all the other, endless, unexpressed and even unexplored alternatives. In other words, any act of
design is both a decision and a threshold. For example, by proposing a tall building in a preliminary
phase, without even designing any further detail, the architect (or is it the client?) already excludes a
vast series of alternatives: a smaller facility, a horizontal development, a hypogeous solution and

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many other solutions. This distinction becomes very clear if we consider that, habitually, there is
even a pre-preliminary phase. Indeed, feasibility studies orient the design among the endless
alternatives, whose exclusion relies either on the intentional stance or the ability to make rational
analogies with other cases. Hence, by making this distinction, the architect defines a desired state in
the future, defining its expected qualities and, by contrast, the unacceptable one. The terms are here
quite relevant: indeed, as we cannot predict the future, the project is more a hope than a promise. A
whole series of accidents could change the project’s conditions so that the unacceptable qualities
could become unexpected but required, so accepted, affecting the entire project and even causing its
complete revision (Deregibus, 2020b).
Maybe one could be tempted to think that accidents and unexpected events are pretty rare: perhaps
even that they be avoided with reliable risk management. But this wishful thinking must be halted
forthwith. In any project, there are many unexpected events: it’s an ontological condition, and for
architecture, compared to other arts, the unexpected plays a much more prominent role. Yet, not all
things are unexpected! We (almost) know how a beam works, so we’re reasonably able to predict its
behaviour in quite all conditions, and the same happens with system engineering. Most important,
we are pretty capable of predicting the actual appearance of the building. Generally speaking, we
could say that it’s possible to predict those things with a solid scientific and technical nature, like
structural calculations or renderings. However, even in those cases, something can go wrong, like in
the case of London Millennium Bridge, where the crowd’s effect was spectacularly underestimated,
or the tragic fire of the Grenfell Tower.
More specifically, a design could (possibly) work within its system – the system constituted by its
initial conditions and distinctions: therefore, accidents coming from inside the system can be
somehow predicted or, at any rate, supposed. But when unexpected come from the outside of the
system, that is, from other systems – which are indeed the environment of the project’s system –
consequences cannot be even imagined (Deregibus, 2021a). Examples of these external systems are
rules and norms, budget, stakeholders’ rights, political changes, to name a few. For example, in
Italy, in 2018, there was a normative change concerning how to calculate structures for resisting
earthquakes: the new norm came after a series of disasters, so it could appear to be a good accident.
But the problem is that the new safety level was so difficult to achieve that, in many cases,
respecting it became too expensive or complicated. For example, a massive project for
renovating Torino Esposizioni, a 60.000mq structure built between 1940 and 1960, stopped because
the new requirements would have doubled the renovation cost. So, an accident coming from an
external system influenced the design so much that it failed.

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The dark side of the models

As we saw, we can reasonably say many things about the future, but it's impossible to predict it:
thus, the project is ontologically lacking. But the problem with design is precisely that,
traditionally, the project aspires to be a prescriptive model of the future: the project's concept acts
like a relatively undefined but ideal architecture, so the project becomes a model (in scientific
terms) of that ideal. Town plans are probably the best example of this prescriptive model: they last
and work for a long time, during which the conditions that led to the original design (and initial
strategic decisions) cannot but change: thus, they will provoke variations to that original design
which, like a waterfall, will lead to even further changings. Then, if the aim was to describe and
norm the future – that is, precisely the supposed aim of town plans – then the design would be
ontologically wrong, as it would impose fixed points which couldn't fit the unexpected evolution of
the present. In other words, it would model an ideal future-of-the-present: a deeply desired, but
impossible, state. Such design would oppose (or better: would like to oppose) the project to the
events: any variation could only be a problem, a deviation from the ideal project (Jullien, 2004), and
would clash with the prescriptive project. Clearly, it is possible to anticipate acceptable variations or
define how to manage changes in the project: but just as clearly, changes could be way greater, thus
constituting a forced deviation from the ideal path. In all the traditional projects, the sequence of
phases strives to be an incremental and gradual approach toward that ideal project (Deregibus &
Giustiniano, 2021): or rather, the architect hopes that they will be as such.
But, as we saw, as unexpected as possible, from an ontological point of view, design is traditionally
more steered at defining prescriptive models of the future than refining architectural features (i.e.
the shape). This means that, in the case of unexpected events, the first qualities to fall will be
precisely the aesthetic ones, as they quite exclusively rely on the designer's artistic status rather than
objective arguments, are the first to fall (Deregibus & Giustiniano, 2019). In other words: we
mainly characterise architecture on its aesthetic quality, but these qualities are the weakest ones, as
they don't have a scientific, normative background. If a structural or a safety norm changes, the
shape will most commonly change as well, maybe in a dramatic way. Only rarely do aesthetic
features outlive significant changes, winning the “opposition to the events” – as it happened for the
Sidney Opera House. Quite never – just for important historical monuments or very symbolic
buildings – there will be a derogation to the rule for preserving the architectural features.
This weakness of the form directly comes from the combination of the traditional idea of design and

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the sequence of phases we hinted at: in fact, the sequence of acts of distinctions of the project
gradually (inconstantly) defines a system whose complexity we systematically simplify in a model.
With the result that the project becomes that model. Think to a usual design process, analysing it
using system's theory as defined by Luhmann (2002). From the very first line, the architect starts
making distinctions (for example, the line could represent a wall, or a street, in some scale and with
a certain degree of approximation); the second sign (the second distinction) both rely on and tests
the validity of the first one, and so on. Each distinction limits in some way the endless possibilities
of the open world, narrowing them and inferring some acceptable or unacceptable character of the
project (for example, that the wall can stay here, more or less, but not too distant from here). These
distinctions gradually define a system, that is, an interrelated series of constraints that fix the
project's features. Sometimes, a new distinction will be incompatible with the new one, and the
whole system will have to be adapted, recanting some of the assumptions and rebuilding the system
again. At the end of the process, the system will be entirely consistent with the actual building
(Deregibus & Giustiniano, 2021). But this kind of design process (the traditional one) has a dark
side. Any time we make a distinction, we take for granted the previous ones and tend to consider
more a constraint than an opening; more a definition than a field of validity; more a prescription
than a potentiality. In other words, we tend to consider the position of that wall as shown by the
sign, even if we already know that we can safely change it: we stop thinking of the sign as a
phenomenon and transform it into a fetish (Husserl, 1970). That's when we start building a model
instead of designing.
The problem is that models are ontologically fragile: they (possibly) work just within the system. Or
rather, the model defines a new system by excluding all unexpressed potentialities of the acts of
distinction. Indeed, we can see that a distinction indicates all possible futures-of-the-present
(Luhmann, 1996), i.e., all possible evolution of the present situation that fit a field of validity
implicit in the sign itself. Conversely, in a sneaky way, the model imposes a present-of-the-future,
i.e., a specific evolution of the present whose reliability can be hoped at best (Deregibus, 2021a).
Consequently, it conceals all other potentialities of the situation. As long as we consider the system
itself, the trick could work: maybe the design will be less than successful, but we will not even be
sure about that – in fact, we wouldn't see any alternative. But, as we said, problems typically come
from irritation between systems, i.e. from outside the specific system of architectural design (or, to
be more precise, the specific system defined by the design distinction as taken on before the
unexpected problem). And due to the extreme heteronomy of architecture and the number of
possible irritations, then we can say that the distinctions of the project, by defining a model, at the
same time originated the conditions for the failure of the project itself, for example, when a stronger
actant (Greimas, 1987) bursts into the process, or a norm changes. Because these unexpected events

206
will be ontologically out of the model, both during the design process (Deregibus, 2021a) and after
the building: affecting the way the building will be unexpectedly lived (Deregibus & Giustiniano,
2021). This means that the project does not truly model the future, since it obviously cannot predict
it: but rather, the expectations toward a desired future: consequently, it is ontologically false. Hence,
models result from an illusion of control, and the traditional nature of design – that is, to build
models – is also the leading cause of its failure.

From ideal to ideals

It could now seem that this “modelling stance” of design should be contrasted in any way:
furthermore, it could seem that, as predictions are impossible, design was senseless or, at least,
irrelevant. Obviously, this is not true. Just as relativity theory didn't necessarily impact all the fields
of traditional physics – as its effects were valid at the infinitesimal scale – the traditional way of
design still works quite well. That's why, every day, buildings spring up, cities develop, and bridges
or towers do not collapse. No model can avoid the unexpected, but we can be quite sure about a
beam's resistance (thanks to safety factors and continuous experiments). But speaking about
architecture and architectural design, as architects' role lost much power from the postmodernity
onward (Deregibus, 2018), modelling design is a problem more than a resource. In fact, modelling
reflects a problem-solving attitude, as beam design clearly shows. But in the case of architectural
design, in competitions and private works, “questions” (e.g. which shape a building should have)
are always vague and ambiguous. The low quality of too many buildings (i.e., the vagueness of their
design) is a consequence of considering architecture like decoration of a solution. If the problem is
uncertain, the solution will equally be weak and prone to many changes: subsequently, architects
will be less and less considered (Deregibus, 2021b) precisely due to their inability to face problems
by giving realistic, credible answers, and this professional deficiency makes their aesthetic proposal
even weaker.
Therefore, either we accept this inefficacy, reducing the project to a mere base for its own variations
(as they say: “plans are useless, but planning is indispensable”): or we change the usual way of
intending design. And the first pass toward a new way of intending design is to avoid the ideal of
ideal.
We said that the so-called conceptual phase likely tends to crystallise an ideal building.
Simultaneously, the sequence gradually should increase the project's precision, pushing the event
toward that precise design. It's worth noticing that even that primitive, original, ideal project comes
from a blurred request, a continuous shifting between various hypotheses on the future. Is it better
to build a new library or a theatre? Is it preferable to make it on the seaside, or to respect some

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distance? Is it desirable to spend less or have a better building? Theoretically, architectural contests
and competition seem to attest that it is possible to answer such questions way before the design's
conceptual phase: accordingly, architecture should likely shape these answers more than the
questions. Nevertheless, most times, even in competitions, there are many changes between the
victory and the actual completion of the building (an extreme example is the Piedmont Region
Headquarters, in Torino, which moved 5 kilometres away from the competition site). Most
obviously, in all cases, such as the renovation of buildings or cities, or new complex or public
buildings, or even smaller, private interventions, such variations are unavoidable and even
predictable. The whole process then assumes a radical contingential nature (Deregibus, 2020b), in
the sense that in every moment, everything can change so that the whole process could deviate – or
rather, the entire system of the process is irritated. Rules can change, people and stakeholders –
even unknown ones – can intervene, and accidents can reduce the budget or increase timings: all the
project's supposed invariants can move (Deregibus & Giustiniano, 2019). In such a situation,
architects' possibility to have a role depends on their ability to be significant, that is, to find the right
questions more than the correct answers: but the modelling attitude only allows a rough definition
of questions, being so concerned with answers.
Therefore, the usual way to face this indeterminacy is risk management, usually seen as project
management's essence (Frohnhoefer, 2019). We cannot here discuss the whole theory: nevertheless,
we will hint at the critique by Luhmann (1996), who stresses the risk/hazard distinction – where risk
is dependent on someone's choice, while hazard is not. Risk management tries to assess risk
sources, or rather, the possible known risk sources: this means that while the identifiable dangers
are those that someone's decisions already changed into risk, other potential risk sources remain
unnoticed. Indeed, the way hazard transforms into risk is vastly underestimated. Most management
tends to hide the (ontological) possibility of failure by masking unwanted events using percentages
– that is, with an apparent control over those events, something that immediately should recall the
so-called Murphy's law (Bloch, 1977). The effect is that we manage the so-called known knowns –
which is obvious: but such an approach cannot truly help against the unexpected – the unknown
unknowns (Okashah & Goldwater, 1994). Again: risk management is not senseless and can be very
useful – just as models. Only, it cannot overcome the idea of controlling the future and the approach
toward an ideal project.
Another possibility is the participatory way of design, as the design thinking method exemplifies.
As other methods, design thinking was born as an effective way of managing and innovating
companies, industries, and processes (Martin, 2009; Brown, 2009). Then, architects borrowed this
method, applying it in architectural design: but differences are obvious – the first is that doing a
project is so complex that users' choices are always inducted (Hill, 2012). Therefore, such a

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method's efficacy in architectural design can be high, at least in small contexts, but it cannot face
complex processes or unexpected situations (Deregibus, 2021b). Moreover, the results will go
toward a safe mediocrity, as compromise relies on reciprocal clearing – or, in other words, on a
shared and diffused level of dissatisfaction. Therefore, architects would inevitably evolve from
legislators to interpreters (Bauman, 1987), as the results will always be within the premises: within
actants' prejudices and fetishes.
However, there exists another possibility: to skip the whole idea of ideal, going beyond the
modelling approach by looking at design as a continuous management of the radical
contingency (Deregibus, 2020b) of the process for exploiting the potential of the situation. “Radical
contingency” means that everything can be different, since no element of the projects is fixed or
indisputable: or rather, that considering some factors as fixed is always a choice and not a matter of
fact. Such an approach does not look at the phases as they were a gradual approach to the result
precisely because everything can revolutionise the project at any time. So better would be to
develop a design approach flexible enough to question any project element, with the only precept of
avoiding their facticity (Meillassoux, 2008). Like the Husserlian fetish, facticity is the tendency to
give for granted the appearance of a phenomenon. An example could be the tendency (and
temptation) of applying norms most slavishly, neglecting the fact that the norm is a distinction
itself: so, there are endless things that do not break the rule, without at the same time reflecting its
facticity (see Derrida, 2003). Another example could be the infatuation of architects for their first
design, as it was the only possible one, even if many alternative designs could work: as any
competition shows, many different projects answer the very same question with various shapes.
Being strongly concerned with modelling, facticity fosters the opposition between the project and
the events, forcing them to become consistent (Deregibus, 2020b). Even more, rarely this
consistency can be compelled – even Frank Lloyd Wright had to give up the golden finishing of the
Kaufmann house despite his immense influence: budget control won against aesthetics.
Thus, a more effective architectural design requires renouncing the ideal, accepting and even
exploiting the fact that there are many ideals, depending on the moment and the changes. As the
ideal always has a referent (with reference to something or someone), and the reference is
contingent, then the ideal must also be contingent. Therefore, design must change from the
construction of prescriptive models to a flexible, continuous act of shaping – we could say, “from
walking to sailing” (Shrivastava & Persson, 2014).

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Shaping the future

For passing from ideal to ideals, a continuously variable ideal, the design must develop coherently
with the so-called potential of the contingency, instead of modelling the contingency and its future.
Among all the plausible evolution of the contingency that can be foreseen or hypothesised (the
futures-of-the-present), the “potential” is the development that seems the most favourable one, as
the contingency shows a propensity toward it (Jullien, 2004). In other words, the potential is the
best future-of-the-present merely because it has the highest possibility to become the present-of-the-
future (the actual evolution of the present as it will be). At any moment, in a process, it is possible to
“sense” this propensity – is the client more or less disposed to expend? Is there any social tension
toward or against some buildings? Is there an inclination for implementing technological
innovations? Anything can influence this propensity, and that’s why it continuously varies:
consequently, it cannot be forced nor modelled (Deregibus, 2020b). At the same time, design, other
than following the stream, chasing the changes and trying to limit them, can influence them by
using the project itself: or rather, precisely by evolving the project all through the process. In other
words, it is possible for design to continuously set inceptions of potential in the process. Obviously,
this capability comes at the price of renouncing the idea of an ideal starting concept to reach. Quite
the opposite, it requires to move the ideal, even dramatically changing it when needed – that is,
when the propensity of the situation goes against the previous ideal concept. Hence, instead of
defining an initial model for an ideal architecture, the project happens together with the process,
adapting itself to the ever-changing contingency while, at the same time, influencing it. Therefore,
the project develops its strategic value by turning its weakness – its ontological indeterminacy –
into its most effective resource (Deregibus, 2021b).
In the last four years, this approach has been studied and practised by the Masterplan, a research
group of the Politecnico di Torino whose name intentionally refers to what usually is a document (a
“masterplan”) and changes it into a design process (De Rossi & Deregibus, 2020). At least three
things of tactical design must be highlighted.
The first is the importance of time and timings. As the propensity may change at any moment, the
project too must pass from the strict sequence of incremental phases to a continuous shaping,
continually discussing previous steps along with the changes. The attitude should
be formative (Pareyson, 1954), in the sense that the design should define its rules all along the
process, revealing its validity at its end. Admittedly, the phases continue to exist from the practical

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and normative perspectives. Still, the design attitude must overcome their division for anticipating
possible accidents, or rather, as predicting is impossible, for making the project flexible enough to
overcome accidents. Consequently, a swift, ideally continuous re-design is essential.
The second is the political value of such an attitude. In simpler processes, spatialising – or changing
the requirements into spatial, architectural features – is essential not only for proposing solutions
but also for understanding the client’s deepest desire. And even if architects are not usually
conscious of the tactical power of the project, they actually exploit it quite habitually. In more
complex cases, spatialising the various stakeholders’ positions can highlight their most genuine
intentions and interests, as all actions affect space and spaces. In these situations, architects tend to
use the project more to propose an image of the final building. Instead, they could exploit the
tactical dimension of the project for influencing and even orienting the process. For example, for
introducing the topic of quality of public space from the very beginning, they could suggest
imaginaries or highlight less evident elements. Even better, they could use architectural solutions
that can improve the quality of public space for spatialising other requirements: thus using the
polyvalence of the space for incepting a character (e.g. the quality) into the project while “following
the stream”.
The third is the peculiar relation between design and form. As we have seen, traditional design is
mainly concerned with the style of architecture: thus, the obsession with the shape. But accepting
the contingent nature of the project clarifies that the result can be, at most, conjectured, not decided.
This assumption could lead to a pretty frustrating consequence: the renounce of the importance of
the form. It could seem, in other words, that any form fitting the process would be good enough
(Carpo, 2017). Why spending energies and money for producing an architecturally relevant shape if
the process could dramatically influence it? Better could seem to plan buildings as a result of the
external suggestions, whatever could it result. This approach is much more widespread than it could
appear: indeed, quite all the buildings’ production works this way. But this cynical vision comes
from the misunderstanding and underestimation of the tactical potential of the project. The form has
its own meaning: on the one hand, it is the physical convergences of the different needs; but on the
other, it goes beyond these instances, gaining an autonomy given by the fact that, after the process,
its life will continue, alone (Moneo, 1989): the form itself, thus, becomes a need. Hence, exploiting
the tactical and strategic dimensions of design does not exclude architecture’s creative, formal
dimension. Instead, it frees it from being self-referential (and therefore weak), as orienting the
whole process allows the architect to shape the form while shaping its conditions of possibility. The
shape continues to be the last referent of design: but in a tactical approach, instead of a single, ideal
form, there will be several ideal ones. Instead of an abstract, pre-imposed aesthetic ideal, the ideal
must rise all along the process: otherwise, the result will be a building, but not architecture.

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Shaping utopias

History shows that the utopian concept weakened in the last century, shifting toward the nostalgic
recollection of a past as legendary as false. At the same time, the negative view of the future, the
dystopia, pervaded imaginaries (Bauman, 2017). This change follows the evolution of post-
modernism, the gradual mistrust of the future, the so-called end of ideology (Bell, 1960) and the
raising individualism that hamper a shared view of the world: to the point that, from being the shape
of an ideal future, utopia became a way for violence (Popper, 1986). Again, the problem is the
concept of ideal: utopia, or the expectations of a better future, has too often been the way for
justifying even violent and extreme actions. All the ideologies of the last century relied on the
premise of a better world, an ideal one indeed: and the same could be said for religious extremisms.
Thus, the relation between utopia and traditional design is much stronger than it could appear,
as both aspire to define an ideal future: we could even say that the conventional project continues to
pursue utopias, as anachronistic and ineffective as it could be. However, the fall of utopias
corresponds with the rising of dreams of a different kind: small-scale, minimalist utopias, whose
horizon is not the ideal world but the individual's scale (Zoja, 2013). Such mini-utopias cannot but
spread in our society, even if they rely on a (quite overoptimistic) irenic ethical ideal. In fact, the
basic idea is that endless small actions can change the world step by step, no matter what they are
aimed at: the individual utopias should ideally join somewhere, in an ideal world impossible to pre-
determine, but that must be gradually discovered. Obviously, some trends can orient single
thoughts, like the ecological utopia described by Callenbach (1975). Still, the difference is that this
new version of utopias could likely avoid the totalitarian pretension of classical utopias reported by
Popper. Now, it seems that these minimalistic actions could automatically produce a better future –
that's the "protopia" concept (Kelly, 2016), indeed a quite problematic vision, not by chance coming
from the wealthiest part of the world. Interestingly, just as the traditional utopias corresponded with
the traditional design, these new minimalistic utopias match the tactical design. Only the ability to
shape the future with a multi-idealistic approach is consistent with the mini-utopias, since it does
not aim for a mere agreement between the stakeholders, but mutual reinforcement of the
requirements.
Space constitutes the sole joining between the actors. Thus, a tactical design, instead of picturing an
ontologically false future – the traditional utopias – can exploit the ever-changing potential of the
situation for designing toward that future, shaping utopias all along any process.

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15. David ÁLVAREZ
Civilizing sheds: Autopoiesis and the cosmopolitical assemblage of the city

INTRODUCTION

A political philosophy of the city may sound like a redundant concept, after all, “political”
comes from polis. But modern politics is filtered by the political imaginary of the sovereign
territorial national state while by “polis” we tend to translate “city-state,” as it conveys local density
and self-government. Our cities, however, fall in the middle between the formal sovereign self-
government of the state on the one hand, and the local conditions of dense interaction and public
participation on the other. Modern “citizenship” is therefore a remnant that no longer refers to a city
but to state-nationality. In fact, by belonging in a city we are all just “residents,” which is both an
administrative status and a temporary condition.
Even in a so called “urban age” of demographic urbanization and cosmopolitan metropoleis
the specific conditions of coexistence, coordination, and cooperation in the city are being filtered
through the lens of the sovereign community. The statist frame still makes a lot of sense considering
that it is our most clear institutional reference for the foundational Platonic quest for the just society.
We have in the Platonic Republic a clear structure that can translate principles into a social order.
Our cities, on the other hand, have limited self-government and are subordinated to state authorities
even if their infrastructural networks and connections exceed the limits of the territorial state
(Brenner, 2019). According to Saskia Sassen (2006), they are best conceived as “complex and
incomplete systems,” while for Niklas Luhmann (1997), the scope of the system is actually global
and although we cannot talk about of a world-state we can nevertheless conceive our urban system
as global in reach.
According to Sasken’s diagnostic, our networked global cities are the product of a process of
denationalization driven by the states themselves, which create the coordinating agencies that
configure a localized cosmopolitan order within the state’s territory. Transnational corporations and
other global institutions take advantage of these conditions and press to extract further concessions
from local authorities that in turn compete for the attraction and accommodation of these global
players. Even if a more flexible division of labor calls for the decentralization of the classic
command and control headquarters, global actors still depend on a localized infrastructural nest of
supporting services (legal, consulting, accounting, auditing, translation, logistics, etc.) that can only

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thrive in the critical mass of global cities. These shifting local conditions of hyperdensity and
hyperdiversity create specific challenges for our conceptions of real freedom, equality, recognition,
justice, membership, and solidarity that do not always fit in the inherited political imaginary of the
nation-state. For instance, there are spatial, material and infrastructural conditions that are specific
to city-life as a “form of life” (Jaeggi, 2018, 66-75).
The urban dimension of the built environment is here crucial. In particular, from a
perspective of political philosophy, if buildings in the city have an impact on the civic-political life
then they have to be considered “civilizing sheds”. That is, if they have some degree of agency -be
they Latourian “actancts,” or material realizations of Foulcaultian disciplinary institutions, or
assembled parts of a Deleuzian society of control; then they must be “civilized.” That is, put in
minimal and negative terms, they cannot undermine the social and infrastructural fabric on which
they depend. It is therefore important to explore the connections of the political philosophy of the
city and architectural theory and urbanism.
In this text, I will focus on one particular conception of architecture, the Autopoiesis of
Architecture and the particular proposal of Parametric Urbanism, both elaborated by Patrik
Schumacher and exemplified in many of the projects by Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA). 240 In
particular, there are two points that are problematically interesting. First, the autopoietic conception
defends the autonomy of the architectural discourse from its political dimension based on a system-
theoretic account that defines architecture as a closed and self-referential system of communications
regulated by its intrinsic code of Form and Function. Second, this autopoietic conception identifies
one particular design trend (“Parametricism”) as the hegemonic and epochal style that subsumes
and neutralizes its main rival theoretical currents and practices, in particular, Deconstructivism and
Assemblage Theory.241 I will argue that buildings that count as “civilizing sheds” enter in a relation
with the city in which they nurture the infrastructure that sustains them by allowing critical
240 While the system-theoretic conception of the autopoiesis in architecture is an original and colossal contribution by
Patrik Schumacher in his two great volumes (2011 and 2012), the branding and elaboration of Parametricism as a
research program (style) agglutinates work by different theorists and practitioners with a similar approach to
technology applied to design. Schumacher reads commonalities that he captures in his multiple publications,
manifestos, and teaching activity but not all practitioners feel represented in this particular vision or in the politics it
favors. See for instance the debates in Leach (2009a), Poole & Shvartzberg (2015) or Schumacher (2016a). Not even
Zaha Hadid herself felt fully identified with this conceptual portrait. Interesting as they are, the family discussions
within Parametricism are critical but too parochial, therefore, by Parametricism I will refer to Schumacher’s program
-unless stated otherwise, as is presented in his more consolidated texts.
As a gifted polemicist, Schumacher also entered into other theoretical debates, for instance with Graham Harman and
the Architecture of Object Oriented Ontology (OOO), claiming that this philosophical and practical current could be
also assimilated as a sub-branch of Parametricism (Schumacher 2018). Harman emphatically objects (Harman 2018).
This is a very enlightening debate but independent from the critical political point of this text, so I will limit the
discussion to the frictions with Deconstruction and Assemblage in the context of the city.
241 The claims of epochal hegemony may sound exaggerated frequently relativized as part of the ambitious agenda and
exuberant personality of Patrik Schumacher, but beyond their theoretical interest, the fact that it is a digital tool-based
thinking, that it has an expansive and integrative agenda for all design activities, that it proclaims a natural affinity with
the neoliberal ideology, and that it aspires to model architectural firms along the big corporations their serve, all these
factors combined call for a prudential judgment. There are precedents of underestimation of emergent nature of
technological-corporate assemblages and their destabilizing power for our political order.

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engagement of affected actors. Zaera-Polo’s Birmingham Station and Zaha Hadid Architects’ DDP
in Seoul are two exemplary cases.

I. AUTOPOIESIS OF ARCHITECTURE: The Emergence of Framing-Sheds.

When Niklas Luhmann developed his theory of social systems he did not consider
specifically the case of architecture. We have to thank Patrik Schumacher for his great contribution
that adopts, adapts, and makes sense of the history and social function of architectural practice
through this very technical framework. In this regard, his strategy relies on previous analysis of the
relation between architecture and social communication, emphasizing its framing effect. In short,
buildings become “framing-sheds,” included within the wider array of social communications that
are systematized in Luhmann’s theory.
However, in order to produce an explanation of social coordination through different
communicative systems, Luhmann had to provide a prior explanation of the production of stable
meaning among communicative attempts between different parties. These parties, as persons, are
closed systems in themselves (both somatic and psychic) and they stay therefore in relative isolation
from each other. Their communicative attempts are just irritations from the periphery of the system
that can only become successful coordination when they are coded and decoded in a regular way.
The radical significance of Luhmann’s enterprise is that persons, as subjects, are not conceived as
belonging to the system of social communication. They remain at the margins, in the environmental
periphery of social communications. Additionally, and more significantly for the theory, the
stabilization of meaning and reference that are the preconditions for coordination between these
external parties, is postulated through a “double contingency” (Schumacher, 2011, pp. 378-389).
With this radical contingency Luhmann aspires to avoid any strong commitment with
foundationalist conceptions of human nature or with any metaphysical conception of reference and
meaning. For Luhmann, communication can be postulated as the product of permutation and chance
over time, and it is therefore contingent on an evolutionary process similar to a Darwinean
evolution. Once communication appears, however, it reveals itself as an emergent property with
unprecedented and unpredicted consequences. Systems of social communication evolve, grow in
complexity, and are reproduced overtime, relying on the contingent factor of social convention, like
the traditions in which individuals are socialized as semantic actors. Luhmann’s framework offers a
temporal and conceptual reconstruction of the emergence of meaning and communication in very
abstract terms. Schumacher’s originality consists on spatializing this contingency by the
introduction of the built environment, which emerges as the material memory of society that helps
frame the meaning of the communications that it hosts. This frame allows semiotic agents to

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coordinate using these shared reference points that materialize social institutions in their built
volumes.
In Schumacher’s account, architecture emerges as an autonomous system after the internal
differentiation of the system of art. When with modernism the artistic practice makes explicit its
goal of creating art for art’s sake, it becomes an autonomous and self-reflective system, independent
of external justificatory functions. The artistic code then prescribes the pursuit of beauty itself,
unburdened by any other functionality. Art becomes useless and therefore, alienated from utilitarian
design. Therefore, architectural communications cannot be ruled only by the aesthetic code of
expressive authenticity, as the beauty of architecture in conditioned by its function. In this regard, in
order to properly understand the social-systemic approach that Schumacher adopts we should recall
two interesting factors. First, that this characterization comes from a spatialization that Schumacher
applies to the more temporally oriented conception of Luhmann, which was itself also an alternative
solution to the social evolution of cultural values in Parson’s functionalism (Schumacher 2011, p.
387). The second aspect is that the autopoietic conception of architecture presents a binary code that
simplifies and stylizes the traditional Vitrubian triad of Beauty, Utility and Firmness (Schumacher,
2011, p. 228). Firmness has fallen from the characterization of the values of architecture because
“architects don’t build.” Architects draw, design in paper and digitally, write manifestos, perform
presentations, practice criticism, etc. The logical corollary of this distinction seems to be that the
built work itself does not belong to architecture, if the practice is understood as a specialized system
of social communications. The building would be itself the object of architectural communications
that are themselves independent from the technicalities of structural engineering. Consequently, in
Schumacher’s periodization proper architectural discourse and practice starts in the Renaissance.
Only in this period we can find treatises and communications in which the art of design is not
subsumed into the practice of building. The self-referential closure of this system comes to its
explicit realization with the emergence and proliferation of digital tools and programs that allow for
direct visualization and manipulation of parameters regulated by pure considerations of functional
beauty and originality.
This all leads to an interesting problem about the place of buildings in architecture.
Schumacher himself seems to be at two minds regarding this issue as his position oscillated during
the drafting of the epilogue of his Volume II (Schumacher, 2012, pp. 726-230). Buildings are first
taken for granted and later critically questioned because objects of communication are relegated to
the environment of the communicative system, just as persons are in social communications. This
seems consistent with Luhmann’s a radical approach, but under further scrutiny Schumacher
decided to modify his position again and to include the building within the proper domain of social
communications. The arguments adduced are analogic and refer to other social systems in which the

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product or social deliverable is itself considered a type of social communication: “binding
decisions” in the political system, “court decisions” in the legal system,” updated representations of
the world” in the mass-media system, etc. This, in addition to a re-evaluation of the semiological
dimension in the architectural interactions, supports the conclusion that “buildings/spaces should be
theorized as communications, as framing communications that operate as permanently broadcasted
premises for social interactions that are to unfold within their ambit.” (2012, p. 719)

SIMULATED SEMIOTIC AGENCY: Uneventful Sheds.

This point nicely recaptures the question of the spatialization of double contingency in
social communications by anchoring a framing reference in the shared built environment. The
semiological dimension is better understood if we have in mind that Schumacher is a strong
advocate of the use of virtual simulators of the behavior of users in the designed environment
(2016a; 2016b). This trend implies a further step beyond the common use of crowd models in
architecture. These early experiments tried to recreate the behavior of masses of people in crude
terms that replicate those of the physical flows through infrastructure. But this oversimplified
approach has limited use beyond very strictly channeled environments like airports or emergency
exits. In fact, the representation of highly sophisticated communicative agents, like socialized
individuals, in terms of physically determined vectors is a paradoxical trait in a conceptual
framework that is premised on the reconstruction of a social order as systems of communications. In
this regard, the incorporation of simulators into digital modeling constitutes a qualitative change in
the possibilities of design that has been emphatically embraced by Parametricism. However, this
attempt to capture the sophisticated agency of communicative actors leads to a problematic concern
at the intersection with a political philosophy of the city: at what point designing for simulated
semiotic agents becomes asking rhetorical questions?
For Parametricism, modelling is not just the re-creation of a form that expresses a function.
The understanding that buildings frame social communications implies that there is a semiotic
interaction between the users and the material design. In particular, here modelling does not
communicate about expected “behavior,” since that was the mechanical presupposition behind flow
management that reduces agents to vectors. In contrast, virtual modelling aspires to capture
“agency,” and by that it means the interactions of complex agents equipped with the capacity to
read their surroundings, navigate them, adapt or modify them accordingly. The relation with these
surroundings is more properly depicted as one of interaction, since the building design in the digital
medium establishes a frame for the communications of the architectural team that reacts to the
simulated responses of the users. That is, in order to be accurate the modeling has to confirm

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predictive success with real life duplicates, and then adjust the design through this feedback. The
more feedback is entered into de design, the more control is introduced in the virtual experimental
conditions. This in turn leads to a surprising regression: the more accurate the modeling of the
communication within the design, the more it resembles the mechanical model of flow
management. Does it make sense then to keep talking about the semiotic agency of socialized
individuals? When one can anticipate the answers, questions become rhetorically redundant. They
need no reply. That is, if anticipation becomes prediction then agency can be reduced to mere
behavior.
We can interpret this predictive success of virtual simulation in two ways. The first and
more basic one just takes the simulated behaviors as highly accurate reproductions that can be
efficiently accommodated in the design. In this regard, a model is a highly detailed scaled prop. The
second sense takes “modeling” as a verb, as in “shaping,” where the interaction is rhetorical
because one party displays persuasive clues that influence the actions of the other in an expected
direction. As a result, the consequences of the combined dimensions of virtual modeling of semantic
agency lead to a paradoxically “uneventful architecture.”
By an “architecture of event” we can identify the design theories that try to translate the
anti-hierarchical ideas of the philosophy of deconstruction into space. This current emerges from
the collaboration between designers like Bernard Tschumi and Peter Eisenman, and the philosopher
Jacques Derrida. According to Tschumi, the event is an activity that cannot be designed, it cannot be
programmed, it can only be allowed by avoiding the imposition of function in rigidly ordered
spaces. With too much modeling and anticipation we minimize the occurrence of events and, as a
consequence, design becomes “successfully uneventful.”

AUTOPOIESIS AND DECONSTRUCTION: Critical Sheds.

Luhmann considered that Derrida’s philosophy of deconstruction could be explained within

his system as a perspective of second order observation (Luhmann 1993). It is all about relevant
distinctions that mark inclusions and exclusions, and their reproduction. In Schumacher’s
adaptation we start with the spatialization and materialization of social institutions as forms that
frame the reproduction of different social communications.
Similarly, Derrida also characterizes architecture as a frame, as an inherited constructum that
we inhabit, and as the last fortress of Western metaphysics, perpetuated in the concrete materiality
of its forms (Derrida 1986). Derrida summarizes in four main invariable points the elements that
construct our world as meaningful: the experience of meaning is dwelling, or inhabiting an order; it
occults and legitimizes the foundational myth of the city; it subscribes to a functional teleology of

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service; and finally, this order depends on the value of beauty, harmony and totality as reworked by
the fine arts through their historical manifestations.
The point of Deconstruction is then to expose this naturalized frame through a series of
juxtapositions and dislocations, and to capture it in thought In this regard, we should remember that
deconstructivist architecture has a consistent vision orienting its practice, one that targets stablished
institutions of the hegemonic order with an architecture that is called to reveal their faulty
foundations. . Observing the frame therefore, reveals the arbitrary behind naturalized distinctions. It
is worth quoting in length:
Deconstructions would be feeble if they were negative, if they did not construct, and above
all if they did not measure themselves against institutions in their solidity, at the place of
their greatest resistance: political structures, levers of economic decisions, the material and
phantasmatic apparatuses that connect state, civil society, capital, bureaucracy, cultural
power and architectural education (…). (Derrida 1986, p. 70)
This, of course, differs form a positive programmatic agenda for architecture since the point
is not a substantive goal but one that mutates with the historical configurations of hegemonic
institutions. It is also detached form the nostalgia for an architecture entrusted with the function of
providing ethical orientation on dwelling, something impossible in our plural and fragmented
societies (Harries, 2018; Lilla, 1997). However, Karsten Harries, commenting on the classic
Heideggerian fragment on the Greek temple, summarizes the thought in an interesting way:
Transporting human beings into the presence of a god, the temple lets them experience a
particular place as holy, this providing their life with a focus. So understood, architecture, as
opposed to mere building, has an essentially public function: its task is to help gather
scattered individuals into a genuine community by presenting the powers that preside over
its life. Architecture is the presentation of the divinities. (Harries, 1997, p. 279)242
The building frames and reveals, but for Derrida, it reveals the powers that make impossible
the idea of a proper community. Bernard Tschumi himself, looking back 20 years after the work
that prompted Derrida’s text, concedes that today, digital tools would have changed the appearance
of his project but the conceptual question, which is its true form, would remain largely intact
(Costanzo 2009, p. 26). Alternatively, we could hold that in a context of social dissolution, an
architecture of clear and rigorous forms could be institutionally challenging and still deconstructive
242 Between Harries’s nostalgia and Lilla’s disenchantment, Arturo Leyte reminds us that Heidegger never
actually discussed his contemporary modern architecture -neither the works nor the designers, in his work
about building, dwelling, and thinking. For instance, Leyte notices how a modern masterwork like Mies’s
Fansworth house, sits at the river bend between the revealing Greek Temple and the well-adapted
vernacular palafito (stilt house), capturing there the impossibility of fully dwelling that marks the condition of
da-sein (Leyte, 2005, pp. 76-85). However, Leyte criticizes the use and abuse of Heidegger’s images and
examples when they are isolated from the general plan and development of his work on the origin of the
work of art. For his masterful commentary, see his Post Scriptum (Leyte, 2016), for the fragment on the
Temple, see his own bilingual edition (Cortés & Leyte, 2016, pp. 66-85).

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in concept (Fontana-Giusti, 2016).
Both currents, Deconstruction and Parametricism stand in a complex relation as both are
defined by their reaction to modernism, but where Deconstruction adopts the constructive
possibilities of digital technology while consciously avoiding the discourse of progress,
Parametricisms in turn, aspires to supersede modernism as a new epochal style for the post-Fordist
urban economy. In this regard, Schumacher considers Deconstruction as a limited transitional style
with no positive agenda that has been practically subsumed into Parametricism. This is consistent
with Schumacher’s critical take on the critical role of architecture and his defense of the need to
present a neutral conception that could accommodate the agendas of the real players (clients) that
have the power to get things done. Despite it all, one could argue that this is a “political turn”,
political realism by another name.

THE ARCHITECTURE OF CHOICE: Nudging Sheds.

At this point and from a political point of view, it is difficult to avoid the latent dystopian
concern about the desirability of total modeling (Simone & Pierterse, 2017, pp. 77-88). The
integrated power of social platforms and big-data has triggered already reasonable concerns not
only in relation to our market behavior but also in connection with an alleged capacity of influence
of electoral decisions targeting specific segments of the demos –like in the Cambridge Analytics
case. The consequences of incorporating these powerful tools should be examined explicitly.
“Nudging” users into the desired decisions had been consistently advocated by Cass Sunstein and
Richard Thaler as an exercise of “libertarian paternalism” by the government and in favor of the
best interests of the citizenship (Thaler, Sunstein & Baltz 2013). Nudging works through the careful
manipulation of the “architecture of decision,” so citizens feel they exercise their control over their
lives because they can chose and make decisions despite the fact that the selection and presentation
of the options have been arranged in order to incentivize the “correct” one. This “architecture of
decision” also has spatial translation in some cases, like in the program for incentivizing healthy
eating habits in public canteens. Sunstein and Thaler defend their approach as a legitimate counter-
attack, as fighting fire with fire, aware as they are of the power of advertising, of persuasive
communication, and of the superabundance of hyper-technical information, coupled with the
inability of most users to navigate these complex scenarios. The potential integration of these
technologies along with other trends like smart cities and neuroarchitecture can evolve into a
problematic architecture of nudging. This raises questions about ethical and political agency that the
architecture of autopoiesis cannot answer. This is so because it is presented as an auto-limiting
frame that favors a neutralist conception of architectural theory. On the other hand, it is paradoxical

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that the actual design of the polis through continuous architectural practice could be defended as an
intrinsically apolitical agency.
For Parametricism the explanation is straightforward: those decisions that do not conform to
the code of beauty and utility are non-architectural in nature. This way, the closure and autonomy of
the system is ideally preserved through this analytic art of distinction. Proper political decisions
(macro-politics) are located in the official political system and consist only on those collectively
binding. This ideal separation of spheres provides analytical rigor for the reconstruction of social
order but not so much in order to track “the political.”
It is plausible to accept that “there is no political architecture” in the sense that architectural
form does not determine a political ideology. The example provided by Jameson of the democratic
repurpose of Ceausescu’s monumental House of the People in Bucharest is clear enough (Leach
2015, p. 59). Elaborate ideologies and political positions resonate more clearly at the symbolic and
semantic level but not at the purely formal. However, it is still possible to admit that we are affected
by some forms or spaces that are experienced as imposing, oppressive, inviting o deterring
regardless of their official designation. It is true that there is not an architecture of Hobbesian
Absolutism, but we cannot make sense of Hobbes’s political thought without the experience of fear.
The disposition resulting from these exposures affects us, and its impact on agency in the polis is
political. However, Schumacher only considers as properly political the issues that become
politicized when they enter the communicative space of the political arena. He concedes that there
is a Foucaultian level of urban micro-political form of social power related to the organization of
space in the architectural domain, but this level is defined away as non-political social power. He
then argues that the architect’s expertise in evaluating micro-political impacts is limited and strictly
dependent on the specificity of the clients’ communications, and that it is the professional’s duty to
interpret and translate them to the best of her skills. All other (political) responsibility belongs to the
client or to the political sphere, and is therefore alien to architecture (Schumacher 2014-b, 472-477).
This neutralist conception ignores two relevant questions of urban life: that our formal political
order is shaped by the political imaginary of the nation-state; and that city-life is marked by
conditions of informal but intense interactions that do not register into the formal macro-political
arena.

LIBERTARIAN URBANISM: Swarming Sheds.

In order to avoid a determinist connection between the internal logic of the autopoietic
system of architecture and his personal libertarian militancy, Schumacher explains the correlation
between architecture and free-market urbanism in terms of the natural co-evolution of the economic

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and architectural systems. Co-evolution evokes affinity and mutual influence in a way that doesn’t
apply to the political system (2012, pp. 676-700; 2015; 2016c). While the market system is
presented with the stereotypical virtues of efficiency, the political system is presented as an
imperialistic domain that speaks a bureaucratic logic alien to the code of architecture. However, the
natural affinity attributed to the market and architectural systems is not proper to the logic of
architecture but more specifically to that of Parametricism. Schumacher draws here a
correspondence between the swarming variety of elements spatially related through parametric
connections and the Hayekian metaphors of hiving orders of spontaneous individuals in unplanned
coordination.
This is another paradox since some recent megaprojects that are presented as exemplars of
Parametric urbanism are superblock complexes and macro urban redevelopments that take place
under authoritarian regimes (China and Turkey). It is important to notice, however, that the
affinities that Schumacher presents between a free-market libertarian approach to urban
development and Parametric Urbanism are more analogical and rhetorical than conceptual. The
Hayekian order that emerges spontaneously from freely interacting individuals is supposed to be an
order of economic efficiency. Parametric urbanism, in contrast, is defended because it imposes a
unifying visual language on the city. Swarming and variation within specific parameters are then the
intended goal, not an unintended emergent side-effect. Free market urbanism has no quarrels with
visual chaos or with the aesthetic incoherence of the city because untamed diversity and visual
noise may be just epiphenomena that express a deeper rational functionality. Let’s remember that
the hand is invisible, like the deep efficiency below the apparent chaos of street markets in Lagos
praised by Rem Koolhaas (Godlewski, 2010). One may argue that by imposing unifying parameters,
the competitive dynamic among private actors is being subordinated to the aesthetic imperatives of
the architectural system. By definition, emergent properties cannot be planned. One may learn to
appreciate their logical beauty and grow fond of it but market agents are not Leibnizian monads
because unstable equilibria do not enact some pre-established harmony. At the end, and despite of
all the Darwinian talk of adaptation and systemic co-evolution, Parametric Urbanism seems closer
to a secular branch of (highly) Intelligent Design than to a real Hayekian order.

PARAMETRIC IMPERIALISM: Integrated Sheds.

This is one of the tensions between the overall framework of Autopoiesis of Architecture
and Parametricism as a programmatic proposal for a hegemonic global epochal style (Schumacher,
2012, pp. 622-2016a). While the autopoietic description presents itself as ideally self-referential and
autonomous from the political system, the Parametric program is expansive and imperialist. It

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applies to all design practices, from clothing, to furniture, to architecture, and to urbanism. Its
reference is the world-shaping power of Bauhaus modernism as the last truly epochal style.
However, the driving force of the modernist program was the industrial culture, the machine era,
and the division of labor. This was an order where functional design shaped the forms, and social
organization replicated standardized, modular, homogeneous products of all kinds. Seeing like a
modern state implies a zenithal perspective of geometrical visual order that makes the territory
readable (Scott, 1999). In contrast, Parametricism is a style that emerges from digital tool-thinking
proper from a post-Fordist, networked, and globalized society. It is a different context but part of
this difference relies on that this is not an industrial and productive society focused on the problems
of market supply. In our case, our digital environment revolves around the creation of demand, on
the subjectifying effects of the shaping of desires, on the architecture of our choices, and on the
promotion of an entrepreneurial and managerial attitude to one’s life (Brown, 2015; Spencer 2016).
Parametricism is tool-thinking and as such it doesn’t seem to differ greatly from BIM design (Leach
2015, p. 69). However, unlike modernism, the specificity of Parametricism consist on the emerging
capacity to modify, variate, adapt, and replicate a design keeping certain parameters constant. The
values of “maximal diversity with maximal continuity” are in fact the expression of its
morphogenetic engine. This same approach applies to all designed elements in the environment,
furniture included, that are actually incorporated into the general design and its related variations.
We can talk of actual incorporation as the furniture and other spatial elements are also
parametrically modified in their simulated interaction with virtual users. As we can see, in the
modernist case all elements keep a uniform formal style through the imposition of some common
external design guidelines, but in Parametric design the relational element springs from a single
algorithmic dna that expands across the designed environment –just like all lava flows share a
common magmatic source. This is an order that mistakes diversity for mere variation. It is an
application of the principle of continuity over that of accommodation. And finally, it presupposes a
relational ontology “of the same” that excludes real otherness. Escalating this program to city-size
brings problematic questions for political philosophy.

PARAMETRIC SUPREMATISM: Post-critical Sheds.

A last point that I would like to analyze is the hegemonic pretension in the Parametric
program as elaborated by Schumacher. Again, as we briefly mentioned before, in Schumacher’s
approach there are two different projects that are presented in an intertwined way –the conceptual
redefinition of contemporary architecture according to Luhmann’s social system theory
(autopoiesis), and Parametricism as the final stage and most sophisticated realization of this

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systemic evolution. In particular, I would like to focus now on the quasi-Hegelian way in which
Schumacher explains the superiority of his formulation of Parametricism in relation to
Deconstruction and Assemblage Theory. The strategy consists on presenting the convergences as a
definite sign of assimilation while the divergences are characterized as architectural dead-ends.
As we saw, the point of Deconstruction is to defamiliarize our bodies with our spatial
dispositions and show their contingency by designing “otherwise than usual,” and by allowing
unexpected engagements with the environment. As the creation of these experiences relies on
complex and unusual spatial designs, the resort to digital tools marks a clear confluence with
Schumacher’s Parametricism. But in contrast, the purpose there is to expose the “double
contingency” of social communications reinforced through the spatial framings on the ground.
Accepting Parametricism as the neutralizing assimilation of Deconstruction implies assuming a
formally elegant but utterly uneventful architecture.
The other contending current is what Schumacher comprises under the general category of
Assemblage –by Assemblage Theory we can consider the highly influential ontology of Deleuze
and Guattary, its adaptation to geography and urbanism by Manuel Delanda, but also the relational
theory of Bruno Latour and its application to Action-Network Theory (ANT). Its most salient
practitioner in terms of architectural projects and theory is Alejandro Zaera-Polo (AZP/FOE). His
work shares with Parametricism the emphasis on a spatial order of fluid continuity and the resort to
digital tools in order to generate and visualize these shapes. However, Zaera-Polo’s production is
also characterized by an explicit reflection about the impact and consequences of building and its
embeddedness in the urban fabric. His highly influential “The Politics of the Envelope” (2008;
2009) presents a typology of buildings according to their interfacing qualities and magnitudes in
relation to the surrounding city. Envelopes are there explicitly defined as “political agents,” which
makes sense when we consider that they constitute the porous membrane that regulates the
interaction with and through the public space and at the same time, they express the visual identity
of the building. These typologies respond to a ratio between the exposed surfaces in length, height
and width: Flat-Horizontal (Lose fit), Spherical (Relaxed fit), Tight-Vertical (Tight fit/slab), Vertical
(Slim fit). Each of these typologies has a particular affinity with corporate projects, with
institutional commissions, with public infrastructure, or with private purposes. They express
through their volumes and skin, a capitalist or civic relation with the surrounding public space.
Through their fenestration or lack of, through their openings or their insulation, they also articulate
prevailing discourses of securitization, surveillance, privatization or sustainability. The theoretical
formulation of Zaera-Polo’s position embraces this relational feature as part of an onto-political
reality that articulates a multiplicity of elements, building links and alliances among them. The most
explicit formulation comes under the label of “Cosmopolitical Design” and it is elaborated in

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tandem with architectural ethnographer and critic Albena Yaneva (2015) and under a strong
influence of Latour’s Action-Network Theory. Cosmopolitical Design tracks down and makes
explicit the constructive articulation of a plurality of actors (actants) and their correlative effects
and interactions. The network is the register of these alliances across multiple domains. The
compositional program behind this approach is deeply relational, cosmopolitan in its inclusive (flat)
ontology, and “political” because it reconstructs an order of interactions in which the integrity of
entities is defined according to their capacity to influence others.
As we can see, this cosmopolitical formulation is relational in a profound way, and differs
from Parametricism’s characterization of connectivity in a fundamental sense. In Schumacher’s
case, as we have seen, we cannot strictly speak of “deep relationality,” as the variety of distinct
elements share an inner identity and in many cases are in fact splinters from a common core. It is
therefore more proper to speak here of continuity throughout controlled variation. This principle of
continuity is not in itself “political,” as there is no ethical or political value in inclusion. It is
singularly aesthetic. It is just a firm formal preference that constitutes a style because this visual
coherence and connection provides order and harmony over urban cacophony and chaos. It is easy
to link visual continuity and functionality through the practical value of spatial orientation but,
although highly plausible a connection, it can be argued that it is still a contingent one. To be sure,
we can articulate continuity among a heterogeneous diversity of elements without presupposing
parametric commonality, for instance, in Maki’s seminal studies in collective form (2008).

PRESCRIPTIVE ARCHITECTURE/URBANISM: Style as Fate.

One of the problems of relying so heavily on a socio-theoretical conception, even if it is one

so abstract and philosophical as Luhmann´s, is that it can only aspire to produce rational
reconstructions after an empirical social reality. In systems theory the dynamic of social systems is
explained in relation to a postulated intrinsic trend towards homeostasis in the exchanges with the
environment. Simplification and differentiation are means to achieve this equilibrium in situations
where growing complexity implies chaos and confusion, which are minimized when an emerging
organizing principle guides transformations in a functional direction –in the case of architecture,
through the organization of space.
However, social systems are not pre-existing metaphysical constructs. They are immanent,
material realities that only exist in the moment they are actualized through particular operations.
Systems theory tracks regularities and evolutions, like, for instance, the drive for internal
differentiation within the social systems of the modern world in order to cope with its growing
complexity. But this epochal trend is historically specific. It is related to the crises of hierarchical

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and rigid systems of social integration and the emergence of horizontal and egalitarian orders. This
reconstruction makes sense to explain the emergence and expansion of the modern territorial state
as the hegemonic political form, but perhaps not so much to explain the persistence of cities that
thrive in complexity. However, this social evolution is not a normative theory. It is only constative,
not prescriptive. It cannot anticipate a normative direction, neither aesthetically nor politically.
So when we see Schumacher taking an observer position and making distinctions about the
epochal evolution of architecture we may agree or disagree about the characterizations, but we have
shared historical records to interpret and to argue about the soundness of the description. In
contrast, when he talks about Parametricism as a new and emerging epochal style, his owl is flying
before dusk. His observations are not really descriptive since he is presenting a programmatic and
normative conception of the practice. What is in and out in an emerging system-differentiation is
itself a matter of more or less plausible stipulation, but in matters of style, distinctions cannot avoid
revealing to us, when we observe the observer from a second order position, that there is too much
room for discretion about where the lines are drawn. Even more when the theorist is himself an
influential educator and practitioner. In this case, his observations may very well become self-
fulfilling prophecies. Second order observations on the Parametric program are critically
deconstructive in Luhmann’s sense because they expose that the discourse about the decline of
Deconstructivism may be actually more related to the capacity to forge hegemonic alliances with
powerful players that determine what is actually built in accordance with the stability of the
dominant forces of the system. If we can really see this at work in the Parametric discourse of the
neutralization of critique and on the technical assimilation of Deconstructionism, then,
paradoxically in a very Derridean sense, Deconstruction is realized in the observation of the death
of Deconstrutionism by exposing its red-handed factual killer.

IRREDUCIBLE CITY: It’s Complicated.

Complexity is the mark of the metropoleis. They are in fact defined as “complex and
incomplete systems” (Sassen 2006) in contrast with the sovereign modern state, and conceived as
even global in their scope (Luhmann 1997). The principle of visual continuity advocated by
Parametric Urbanism is incorporated within a general defense of a free-market approach to urban
development because on this context it can deliver the maximum of variation with unity, while it
combines both an aesthetic and a functional justification. On the one hand it is presented as the
aesthetic solution to the fragmented and confusing urban landscape by producing a coherent and
harmonious urban visual language. On the other hand, it is justified in functional terms by providing
orientation and direction in our interaction with the urban environment. However, even if they

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might contingently converge in their final expression, these are two heterogeneous principles. In the
case of the imposition of an urban visual unity we are dealing with a principle that is external to the
logic of each single building and that is not justified in the style. In the second case, the functional
principle of orientation also exceeds the defining purpose of the singular building. This order is in
fact a purely civic, political code that helps mediate and articulate single architectures and
urbanism. The city then, appears as a set of material statements that frame the buildings that in turn
frame social communications. However, buildings frame but they are also being framed by the
discourse of the polis –even if this lacks an adequate translation in the formal macro-political
sphere.
One plausible consequence of this need of articulation is the admission that the code of
architecture cannot exclude the political dimension of urbanism, as “permanently broadcasting
premises on the ground.” This means that we need criteria to identify “good design practice” that
cannot probably be reduced neither to the spontaneous emerging orders of the market, nor to rigid
and centralized urban planning.
These criteria are independent of mere “client’s preference satisfaction,” irrespective of its
public or private nature. Similarly, they are also independent of citizen or user preference
satisfaction. The reason is that these are purely procedural criteria that do not necessarily avoid the
same unsatisfying outcomes that we resent in our urban environment. Unlike what Schumacher
states, when an architect mediates between these two dimensions, the building and the city,
architecture and urbanism, he is not doing politics, or not politics understood as a separate an
independent system of participation into binding decision making. This politics is part of
architecture as an art of diplomatic articulation of the best interests of two masters. The architect is
the necessary part in this discussion because he has the know-how competence that opens the range
of possible realizations beyond the stated goals of the parties. This is nothing new, this constant
negotiation is common practice but it is obscured in Schumacher’s account of the profession and by
his simplification of the code ruling the architectural system.
The simplification of architecture into Form and Function, Beauty and Utilitas, expels from
the system any other normative consideration because the functions are restricted to the client’s
demands. The justification given, as we saw, is paradoxically, a political one, that realism and
professionalism implies accepting that the relevant actors nowadays are private agents and global
corporations. The hegemonic style is the style of the hegemonic clients. However, since Pikety’s
masterful account, libertarian free-market and neoliberal discourses cannot be defended resorting to
some individualist meritocratic ideology. Today, it is not possible to deny that our order is one
dominated by accumulation and transmission of wealth (inheritance within the family) and that
professionalism cannot fulfill anymore the promises of social integration and prosperity. Not even

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the most recalcitrant of libertarians can deny that the power and influence of our contemporary
caste system is incompatible with the promise of modernity. In our cities, the increasing
precariousness of the job market, real estate speculation, and the privatization of the urban space
prevent any meaningful measure of social integration for large portions of the population. This
situation in turn fuels radical polarization, unrest, and social instability worldwide. And here we
arrive at a fundamental contradiction: modern social system-differentiation emerges as a reaction to
the crisis of integration of the traditional hierarchical society, and Parametricism as an epochal style
is presented as the most accomplished stage of this evolutionary dynamic, but the radical avant-
gardism of this streamlined conception that rules out any ethico-political concern in architecture,
together with its pairing as a co-evolutionary complement of the market economy, leads to the
dysfunctional scenario that we had just described. System differentiation is not an end in itself, it is
only functional when it leads to new levels of social stabilization through the reduction of
dysfunctional complexity. But when system autonomization just means economic colonization with
little social control, a radically autonomous architecture just becomes part of the problem. Urban
complexity is not in itself intrinsically dysfunctional, it is in fact one of the reasons of the successful
historical resilience of this social formation through its many transformations while other more
powerful organizations declined. In fact, it is not at all clear -despite Schumacher’s insistence
otherwise, that the vividness of city life could prosper or even survive under Parametric Urbanism.
The same thing could be argued about the supposed assimilation of Assemblage Theory, Folding, or
Cosmopolitical Design by Parametricism.

COSMOPOLITICAL DESIGN: Networked Sheds.

In the Cosmopolitical approach advanced by Zaera-Polo, it is accepted the central role of the
market as the central mechanism for providing social coordination and eliciting a greater degree of
participation through entrepreneurship. It is however, presented as a means to give expression to the
wider plurality of social initiatives. Despite this embracement of the role of the market in our
societies, for Zaera-Polo this realistic concession does not prevent him from defending a political
role of architecture, as the political in “Cosmopolitical” shows.
We can summarize this politically engaged approach in relation to the city as the awareness
of two transformative trends that justify correlative reactions. First, the awareness of the growing
percentage of urban space that is under private control or management. Second, an increasing
sensitivity to the way that new technologies and materials applied to the facades impact on the
quality of the urban space. On the first case, in the absence of effective official policies that counter
the exclusionary effects of the privatization of public space, it is the duty of the cosmopolitical

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designer to try to find and argue for the design solutions that maximize de degree of accessibility
and use by the general public. In the second case, when we are aware that the different typologies of
envelopes express a political function by acting as membranes that filter the interactions of the
building with the environment, users and public, it is the duty of the designer to take into account
these affected parties as matters of concern, and facilitate their association with the project at their
highest agency.

POLITICAL SURFACES: Shallow Criticism.

In this simplified account I tried to capture the attitude of concern for all entities entangled
with the project and the relational-flat-ontology that is common ground for the philosophies behind
these design approaches. This approach has been criticized, however, because the political impact of
architecture is mostly explained in terms of “affect,” and understood in a non-cognitive way
(Spencer 2016, pp. 141-158). Douglas Spencer accurately advises of the risks of our times where
the weakness of emancipatory paradigms clears the terrain for the colonization of our cities with an
“architecture of neoliberalism.” He argues that neoliberalism, as both the “ideology of no-ideology”
and a form of governmentality (Foucault), works best through modes of subjectivation that conform
to the architecture of choice of the market and a managerial attitude to the self. In parallel, affect-
oriented architectures provide new forms of immersive experience for users that lack both the
reflective dispositions to filter the sensorial overload, and the critical discourses to expose it. The
outcome, he claims, is a market-friendly architecture of compliance and control.
It is difficult to resist the poignancy of Spengler´s diagnosis along with his reminder that we
can no longer aspire to any totalizing critique of our social order without opening the way to
accusations of totalitarianism. But Spengler’s analysis may incur in the same danger of “totalizing
critique” that he exposes. On the one hand, he accurately denounces the selective
instrumentalization of philosophical works by designers; on the other he blurs together a series of
previously and carefully drawn distinctions between design orientations and their inspiring
philosophical frameworks, under the categorical label of “architectures of neoliberalism. The
subtitle is even more devastating: “how contemporary architecture became an instrument of control
and compliance,” as throws all contemporary baby-designers out with the bath water. If this
diagnostic applies to all “contemporary architecture,” in theory and practice, without gradations,
then he is becoming complicit with what he denounces, that is, that the materialist, emergentist,
immanentist, affect-oriented positions in fact capture our complex reality in a positive and
productive way. There would be no point in criticizing the real: “it is what it is, and you better
embrace it.” This is precisely the culmination of the neoliberal discourse: “there is no alternative,”

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which sounds like the resigned version of Schumacher’s triumphant discourse. Alternatively, we can
acknowledge the penetrating points made by Spengler but nevertheless try to rescue the critical and
political aspects of these theories and philosophies. This way we can show that (a) that the validity
of the critical philosophies behind Deconstructivism and Cosmopolitical Design is independent and
not reducible to the factual success of practitioners and studios; (b) that there is no base for the
evolutionary and assimilationist program postulated by Parametricism; (c) but concede that we
cannot capture the complexity of our urban world and its forms of domination with the ontologies
inherited from modernism; and (d), recognize that these emerging ontologies may be used against
themselves to extend their emancipatory potential (Owen, 2018), or (e) be supplemented with other
sources for criticism, for instance, for the identification of latent forms of urban socialization
(Purcell, 2016, p. 108),

Affect has always been an integral part of the architectural experience, what is of relevance
now is its active embracement on part of the theoretical discourse that discovers the enhanced
expressive possibilities brought by the new materials and technologies that produce fully enclosing
envelopes, membranes, skins, and screens. There is a transformation in architecture that takes notice
of the increasing impact on those surrounding it, and this transformation is elaborated within the
general context of a sociocultural moment dominated by of media and political landscape driven
also by the immediacy of affective contagion. Zaera-Polo and other sympathetic designers embrace
this affective potential as part of an alternative political approach that adopts an attitude of creative
affirmation within an ethos of pluralization, as a reaction against a paradigm marked by a
paralyzing emphasis in nostalgic negativity, against totalizing abstract reconstructitions that cannot
duly appreciate the richness of the particular, and against ideological formations and narratives that
are utterly hopeless against the pre-linguistic, non-cognitive power of affect. If this is so, in what
regard is Cosmopolitical Design a “political” alternative? We could argue that in two main ways.
First, the more Deleuzian side embraces the virtualities latent in our social environment to foster
pluralization within market capitalism but against the homogenizing forces of global markets, and it
embraces affect as a legitimate medium of social transformation. Second, the more Latourian side,
exemplified by the elaborations of Albena Yaneva (2017), emphasize five ways to make architecture
political (explicitly), which encompass attentiveness to the connecting and mediating qualities of
objects, sensitivity to the multiplicity of actors involved in the design process, respect to the
entanglement of the city with the practice and multiple ontologies that sustain it, receptiveness to
the reactive agency of buildings and sites, and acknowledgement and promotion of the engagement
of multiple perspectives and design publics.

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CIVILIZING SHEDS: Sustaining the City.

Accordingly, Yaneva analyses Birmingham’s New Street station by Alejandro Zaera-Polo as

an optimum case-study. This is a fascinating example, also analyzed by Spencer, because the project
is not a totally new design but an upgrade of the existing station (the most hated one in the UK).
The solution consists on a spectacular wrapping envelope that also incorporates a new adjacent
shopping-mall --this is a sign of the times, when public projects depend on parallel commercial
enterprises for its financing. The resulting form of the envelope combines the spherical typology of
the mall with the typical long-flat volume of public facilities and infrastructure. The wrapping skin
is a polished metallic surface that reflects its environment but that has been shaped in studied angles
in order to avoid reflecting the surrounding buildings. Instead, and that is the animating idea of the
proposal, it is conceived so in order to articulate in its mirroring effect Birmingham itself. That is, a
post-imperial, post-industrial metropolis of the service and technology sectors, that has become a
communication hub in the Midlands. The envelope captures the agents assembled in this stable
formation, for instance, the surrounding light, a sky that is no longer clouded by the smoke of
chimneys and factories, the train-tracks passing through, the commuting public, and the IT screens
embedded in the skin that update and keep in sync the public with the train-schedules (but also with
the commercials from the mall). The form assembles the actors but the actors also dictate the form.
However, can we really say that this project is “representing” Birmingham? Actually not, because
neither of these very characteristic local elements play a symbolic role. They are not embedded as
iconic tokens. They do not stand for anything; they are not in place of anything else. On the
contrary, they are actually assembled as material actors, with their local qualities and intensities.
The station does not represent the city because it just articulates it, or a part of it. At most, we could
argue whether this actual part of Birmingham is representative of the whole, but only as a way of
assessing whether the elements assembled are commonly found in the whole. There are other
critical questions to be answered, for instance, is whether all the relevant actors involved are
properly acknowledged, if we do justice to them or whether the network of assemblages is cut
unjustifiably short by unjustified exclusions. One could reply that if this is an immanent framework,
then “it is what it is,” in the sense that there is no point in invoking any external principle to validate
it. But within the same logic one can claim that there are alternative modes of assembling networks
of actors, and some are more powerful than others. For instance, incorporating the commuters as
mere physical flows, as vectors channeled through lanes and escalators is a weak way of
considering the agency of these actors. The design itself may even induce these actors to become
crowd, mass, and to inhibit their dispositions to interact as actual persons to each other. In contrast,
when confronted with the multitude reflected through the agency of the envelope, one is forced to

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admit the diversity of Birmingham’s population and therefore the cosmopolitical dimension
actualized in that place -which is also a hub of tracks that extend and connect with other hubs in a
network that links territories and populations, one is pressed to make sense of the particular
demographic of this postcolonial city (Henry, McEwan & Pollard, 2002; Myers & Grosvenor,
2011). The experience of being among those fellow commuters affected by this mirroring reflection,
as an instantiation of an I in a We, makes also evident that the city as such, as a territorial unit, is
itself an ideological mirage, because it cannot be thought without a larger network of relations
across territories that sustain the practices that keep it going. By articulating this point, the station
may become a target for some other networks that reject that reflection; or alternatively an ally, for
instance, for social movements that see the station as an articulation of an extended and thick web
of relations and connections that provides a stronger account of the urban fabric. This is a personal
hypothetical reconstruction of how a cosmopolitical, immanent account may provide a critical and
political function. It differs from traditional critical theories in that it is not elaborated as negativity,
and it is not driven by an external normative principle or procedures of intersubjective justification.
It is politically “realist” because its final test is the capacity to assemble and articulate networks of
alliances that thrive because they are stronger and more stable. It is only a contingent fact that
successful emancipatory struggles may derive from universalizing the recruitment of actors,
recognized in their most empowered version, within a mobilizing construction of the facts on the
ground, and a credible account of an alternative future assemblage of things. Notice that, at the end
of the day, in this chain of alliances, the strongest mobilizing account is probably the one that
ultimately resists the hardest and more critical scrutiny.

The images show Birmingham’s New Street station, by Alejandro Zaera-Polo, and Dongdaemun
Design Plaza (DDP) in Seoul by Zaha Hadid Architects. In this case they are both public
commissions. DDP is a piece of “architectural landscape” with multiple functions, housing shops, a
design museum, and serving as public plaza and pedestrian passage-way in a busy intersection.

235
Commissioned as an iconic landmark for Seoul by the authorities, the shapes of this fascinating
blob succeed in attracting visitors that want to capture the image in a picture. However, as a public
utility it is felt imposing and alienating and remains underused (Kim, 2018). Paradoxically, it works
at its best when is taken back by the swarming and popular street-market that had been ousted from
the original site. It is difficult to deny, not even for Schumacher, that this cosmopolitical market-
extension enhances both the project and the city. Both buildings are, to my account, examples of
“civilizing sheds” as both, in their way, produce strong cosmopolitical articulations of entangled
and affected actors while they also enact critical resistance, by actually reflecting the real diversity
of a post-imperial metropolis, and the resistance against the neoliberal logic of expulsion and the
political marketization of iconicity –in this case, re-marketized by the returning street vendors.

CONCLUSION

Buildings with the capacity to affect the city the way we saw are “civilizing sheds.” Projects
can be evaluated according to their capacity to interact with the city, and one can argue that
achieving this kind of effects enhances the quality of the project, even if these performances were
not included in the client’s specifications. In addition to Form and Function, this criterion of
perfectibility, “good urban form,” has a validity that is independent of the tradeoffs that the original
project has to undergo in its multiples negotiations. It is the responsibility of the designer to argue
convincingly for the best and more complete articulation of these principles. Otherwise, the practice
is self-defeating, as it would contribute to undermine the complex urban network on which every
project depends. In a world of global metropoleis, life is ordinarily cosmopolitical. Parametric
Urbanism, however, reveals itself as a limited frame to make sense of the emerging political
challenges of this new order of spatial coexistence. The assemblage of civilizing sheds is, more than
ever, a political imperative of architectural practice.

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16. Thomas FROY
Dwelling Today: eruv, sukkah, Heidegger, Levinas and Derrida

Introduction

When we think about what it mean to be at home, to dwell, it is difficult to think of fixity, stability
or security. In these disrupted times, we are experiencing a number of major crises – the climate
crisis, the migrant crises, even the Covid crisis – which call into question the very possibility of
dwelling. Our dwelling places have shifted from being places we call ‘home’ – places of comfort,
relaxation, hospitality, ease – to being places of confinement, restriction, even imprisonment. At the
same time, working and living from home have allowed us to ‘meet’, communicate and attend
events with people on the other side of the globe. In complex ways, the present moment has been
one in which our conception of what it means to dwell, to be in a house, to be at home, have been
thrown ‘up in the air’.
It’s no longer possible, at it may have been in the past, to think of the dwelling as that simple place
of ‘origin’. The traditional narrative of modernity, which Zygmunt Bauman describes as a process
of ‘uprooting’ (Bauman 2013: 28), has long dispensed with the idea that our dwellings are located
in areas of ‘belonging’: I dwell where I belong, I belong where I originate. Where once we might
have understood our identity on the basis of our origins, Bauman claims that we have long uprooted
ourselves from place-based identity (2013: 15-16). So what does it mean, today, to dwell uprooted
from, or even without, a place of originary belonging?
When we think about dwelling today, then, we can no longer think of originary belonging; nor,
however, can we simply serenely drift into exile, atopia and placelessness. A number of
contemporary theorists, among them Giorgio Agamben, advocate versions of what might be termed
‘negative dwelling’. Instead of dwelling in a place of originary belonging, we dwell ‘without place’
– in ‘atopia’: in a brief reading of a letter written by Paul Celan to Max Frisch explaining Celan’s
plans for to spend “Jewish Easter” with his aunt, Agamben draws our attention to Celan’s
ambivalence with regard to the Judaism of his Easter. Unlike those Jews who escaped with Moses
from Egypt, Celan does not “recall ever escaping from Egypt” (Celan & Bachmann 2010: 257).
Agamben interprets this non-recollection as indicative of Celan having “positioned himself …
before or anyway outside of the exodus” (Agamben 2020: 73). Eliding the aspect of the letter which
deals with memory (Agamben does not problematise what it means ‘not to recall’ Exodus),
Agamben plays on, or perhaps effaces, the difference between the time and space of Exodus,

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between ‘being before’ and ‘being outside’ of Exodus: this occurs in Agamben’s interpretation of
Celan’s non-recollection of escape as indicative of a position “before or anyway outside of the
exodus”. This play or effacement of the difference between ‘being before’ and ‘being outside’
allows Agamben to subsequently claim that Celan’s poetry “communicates in … atopia” (2020: 75).
Celan, Agamben claims, cannot call any place – Paris, London, Czernowitz or Jerusalem – ‘home’
(Ibid.,).
Agamben’s reading leaves open what it means to dwell in ‘atopia’: to dwell, presumably, ‘a-topos’,
that is, ‘without place’. Is this still dwelling? Does dwelling without place remain dwelling? It’s not
at all clear that the activity in which Celan’s poetry and life exist in ‘atopos’ can be described as
dwelling in any positive sense of the word. Agamben’s description of dwelling, I suggest, can be
recognised as a ‘negative’ description of dwelling. This is apparent in the simple difference
between, on the one hand, what Bauman describes as pre-modern ‘rooted’ dwelling, which provides
a positive, productive or generative relation between birth, origin, place, belonging and identity, and
the placelessness described by Agamben, according to which Celan has no place, no homeland,
nothing to call his own. Celan’s life and work, for Agamben, fail to constitute any sense of what it
means to dwell, to be at home, to have a place. Agamben describes a mode of dwelling which lacks,
which is negative.
Negative theorisations of dwelling, such as Agamben’s, can be found in the work of a great number
of contemporary thinkers: in the Introduction to her book on Zionism, Parting Ways, Judith Butler
proposes that when we think of what it means to dwell in today’s world, “we cannot assume a
single, continuous and stable geographic ground” (Butler 2012: 8); this non-assumption has spatial
and temporal consequences, too, since Butler’s project proceeds “only through a series of
displacements and transpositions” (Ibid.,) in space and time. Butler associates the forms of dwelling
instantiated by the modern Israeli state with those notions of origin, essence and rootedness present
in Bauman’s depiction of premodern dwelling: hence, her project is aimed at departing from
dwellings which can “assume a single, continuous and stable geographic ground”. As such, like
Agamben, Butler does not develop what it means to dwell without the assumption of a “single,
continuous [or] stable geographic ground”: her project is aimed at critically departing from those
premodern, rooted traditions of dwelling described by Bauman, and instantiated – in her view – by
modern Israel. There is no examination or depiction, therefore, of what it actually means to dwell
without a single, continuous or stable ground; Butler is not required to unpack what is required by
dwelling in a series of displacements and transpositions. Butler’s project consists only in the
departure – the critical or theoretical negation – from those modes of dwelling associated with roots,
origins and essence.

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From the accounts given by Agamben and Butler, among others, one might assume that we do not
dwell at all; rather, we exist without place or time, atopically and atemporally. In order to delivery
us from the evil of ideologies from advocate for rooted belonging, it appears to have become
necessary to dispense with dwelling entirely; if we dwell at all, we dwell in placelessness, in exile,
in atopia, in atemporality. And yet we do dwell. We dwell in close confinement, tightly within the
walls of our homes; we dwell with and can meet with others far away, in virtual spaces; we dwell
with the thought of homes past and future; we dwell when we invite guests over for a meal, and we
dwell when we are guests in others’ homes.
When we think about what it means to dwell today, then, we cannot simply shift the dial from
rootedness to rootlessness, from place to non-place, to origin to nowhere. It does not suffice, when
it comes to thinking of dwelling, to dwell in negativity. This is not to say that there is not an
experience of dwelling in placelessness, or of dwelling ‘out of joint’ with the time of another, or of
exilic dwelling. All of these experiences are experiences of dwelling.
To be precise, what I suggest is lacking in accounts given by the likes of Agamben and Butler is a
recognition that, even if we are in exile, or between places, or homeless, or in confinement, yet we
dwell. Bauman’s narrative of uprooted modernity does not inevitably lead to the disappearance of
dwelling; no longer rooted, nor longer originary, dwelling remains. If Celan does not recall ever
having escaped Egypt, this does not mean that he is ‘outside’ dwelling, that he does not dwell;
rather it means that his dwelling is ‘before’ exodus. It would be necessary, therefore, not to abandon
dwelling but to ask what it means to dwell ‘before’ – before Exodus, before escape, before arrival,
before stepping over the threshold of the home, before becoming rooted, and so on. Similarly, if we
dwelling today occurs through a series of displacements and transpositions, it will be unnecessary to
understand what takes place or what is given by dwelling as displacement. How and where does
displacement take place, and what kind of dwelling is made possible by displacement?
These questions are demanded by today’s dwelling: certainly, it is no longer possible to think of
originary, rooted dwelling; nor is it sufficient to theorise what it means to dwell today by simple
negations of rootedness. The three texts examined in this paper present what I understand to be a
‘third way’ between or beyond, on the one hand, rootedness and dwelling in origins, and on the
other hand, negative dwelling.

I.

Martin Heidegger’s description of dwelling, as it appears in the ‘Letter on Humanism’, might be

understood as representative of – or perhaps nostalgic for – the modes of dwelling described by

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Bauman243. Heidegger’s thinking, especially in the period in which the ‘Letter’ was written244, was
concerned with the originary dwelling place of being: the proper activity of existence, for
Heidegger, is dwelling in that which belongs to its essence. In a sense, Heidegger is an archetypal
anti-modern: modern ways of thinking, according to Heidegger, conceal the proper essence of
things. Modern thinking conceals the essence of things and has left us unable to think – to dwell –
on things in the way proper way. A key aspiration of Heidegger’s thinking, then, is to ‘un-conceal’
the essence of things from the way they appear to be today and to dwell on what is essential and
original. The unconcealment of the essence of things will, subsequently, lead us to understanding
that – the central statement of the ‘Letter’ - “Language is the house of being. In its home man
dwells. Those who think and those who create with words are the guardians of the home”
(Heidegger 1993, 189).
These three sentences are not immediately inviting: the dense cluster of words does not invite
immediate comprehension. It appears that “the house” (das Haus”) is the proper place in which we
find language (“die Sprach”); we also find man (“der Mensch”) dwelling in the house; finally, there
are guardians or ‘watchers’ (“die Wächter”). If man dwells in the house of being, he thinks in the
proper way; conversely, if he fails to think in the proper way, he fails to dwell, and as such, he is
homeless.
Approaching the Heideggerian house from the outside, we first discover or encounter the watchmen
– who think and create – before entering the dwelling place of the ‘Mensch’. Do the guardians stand
outside of the house? What is the spatiality of their preservation? Do they guard the house as
watchmen, standing at a vantage point? Perhaps they stand before the house, guarding against the
forces of concealment, preserving the essence behind them, within. Perhaps they stand on the
threshold, half in half out, governing the flow of language. Perhaps the guardians constitute the
threshold insofar as they protect what is within against the dangers of that which is without. Perhaps
they stand before those who would enter: they are the threshold appearing before all those who
would enter. This would make sense if we take the threshold to be that which governs flow: all
things – be they men, women, guests, strangers, gods or animals – which arrive or depart must cross
the threshold. Arrivals and departure may be barred from entry by the guardians: this barring would
happen at the threshold.

243Heidegger – his thought and himself – is frequently associated with conceptions of dwelling which privilege
‘rootedness’ and belonging; for examinations of this interpretation, see Edith Wyschogrod ‘Autochthony and welcome:
discourses of welcome in Levinas and Derrida’ (Derrida and Religion: Other Testaments (2005): 53-61), and
Samuel Moyn ‘Judaism against Paganism’ (History and Memory 10, no. 1 (1998): 25-58.)
244The ‘Letter’, written in 1945, sits at the crossroads of Heidegger’s thinking in many ways, incorporating elements
from the lectures on Nietzsche and Hölderlin he had been giving in the late 1930s, and anticipating the works on the
task of thinking which would appear in the 1950s (see John Caputo’s, Demythologizing Heidegger (1993; see especially
p170-185) for the ‘Letter’s place within Heidegger’s own work, and Ethan Kleinberg’s Generation Existential:
Heidegger’s Philosophy in France 1927-1961 (2018; see especially 157-206) for the ‘Letter’s place in contemporary
French and German philosophy.

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On the one hand, we might consider the ‘Letter’ to be exemplary of Heidegger’s nostalgic aspiration
to return to the simple dwelling of the premodern period: the task at hand, then, is to depart in order
to construct a rigorous border between all things essential and original, and all things inessential and
non-originary. On the other hand, we might recognise the essential ambiguity at play in Heidegger’s
description of the dwelling place. Is there a fixed threshold which governs the flow of traffic? Or do
the guardians occupy an unclear inside-outside threshold border location245?
In order to begin to answer these questions, and get on our way to understanding what Heidegger
thinks it means to dwell, we need to focus on crossing the threshold. What happens, what or who
comes, at the threshold? That is to say, who or what dwells outside of the house of language? We
know that ‘man’ – the “Mensch” – dwells inside the house; but what dwells outside, beyond the
border, beyond the threshold of the house? What is foreign to the house of language? Who or what
comes, in such a way that their coming requires guardsmen to watch the threshold?
Perhaps the foreign – the foreign man – is linguistically foreign: perhaps he doesn’t speak German.
He doesn’t dwell in the German language. The German language is not his home, nor does it
welcome him into the fold. This would certainly be consistent with the text: writing in German246,
Heidegger claims that “Language is the house of Being”. Does this mean that the foreigner is
foreign to language as such, or merely to the German language? If the foreigner does not dwell in
the Heideggerian house of being, this could mean that there are other houses in which one can dwell
properly. The foreigner may be foreign to the German language, but at home in, say the French
language. French is in the family, at home, in the Romantic languages; German is a Germanic
language. They are foreign by virtue of being of different families. This unfamiliarity would
constitute an essential distance: that which is foreign to the house of being is essentially unrelated.
So, what are the watchmen for? Why do they guard the threshold?
Perhaps the man who is foreign by virtue of his language is not one simply foreign to German, or to
the family of Germanic language. Perhaps the man is most foreign to the German language is not he
who is unfamiliar, but he who is close by; as Heidegger frequently remarks, we should not accept
everyday definitions of what is ‘near’ and ‘far’. What is essential is nearby, but far from everyday
human being (1993: 252). What is essential is nearby, and so perhaps what is essentially foreign
will not simply be distant, vague or unknown, but nearby. This, then, explains the necessity of the
245A reading, according to which Heideggerian dwelling is not, or not exclusively, nostalgic and exclusive, but rather
contains fundamental ambiguities, has achieved more widespread acceptance in recent years, especially following the
publication of Remembrance (see, for example, Eliot Wolfson’s Heidegger and Kabbalah: Hidden Gnosis and the Path
of Poiesis (2019: see especially p338-352) and Elad Lapidot’s Jews Out of the Question: A Critique of Anti-Anti-
Semitism (2020: see especially p293-297). To a greater extent than the ‘Letter’, Heidegger’s lectures on the poetry of
Hölderlin, present Heideggerian dwelling in a light which excludes simple originariness in favour of the ambiguities
posed by notions of ‘threshold’, ‘departure’ and ‘homecoming’. This paper focusses on the notion of threshold as it
appears in the ‘Letter’; a further examination would demonstrate more explicitly the continuity between the threshold in
the ‘Letter’ and the threshold in the Hölderlin lectures.
246At another stage, it would be necessary to consider the original languages, and the language of translation, in which
the ‘Letter’ appears (French quotes, originally a French letter, read in English, interspersed with Greek and Latin)

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watchmen. They need not guard against that which is inessentially distant and far off; instead, they
guard against the nearby, the neighborly. What or who, then, is essentially foreign in his linguistic
dwelling is one who dwells nearby. The foreign language will not simply be ‘unfamiliar’; the
language will be essentially ‘familiar’ – of the same family as, or related to German. Perhaps a kind
of hybrid. A kind of Creole, or perhaps even Yiddish247.

II .

Having thrown this highly speculative remark into the Heideggerian dwelling, it will be necessary
to focus even more closely on the threshold. What does it mean to cross the threshold, either in
arrival or departure? To go over to the other’s house, or to invite the other over: what does this
require? What is demanded of the threshold such that it make hospitality or departure possible? In
order to answer these questions, I turn to Jacques Derrida’s ‘No (Point of) Madness – Maintaining
Architecture’. My reading begins with a few descriptive remarks. I’m reading Derrida’s ‘No (Point
of Madness) – Maintaining Architecture’, published in a collection of texts entitled ‘Psyche.
Inventions of the Other. Volume II’ in 2008. This is a text which was originally published in (the
words of the editors, Peggy Kamuf and Elisabeth Rottenberg) “[devotion] to the work of the
architect Bernard Tschumi, and more precisely to the Folies project, which was then [which refers
to the year 1986] under construction at the Parc de la Villette in Paris. It was first published in a
bilingual edition in Bernard Tschumi’s La case vide: La Villette” (Kamuf & Rottenberg 2008:
87n1). This is a text whose author is an Algerian-French Jewish man who lived in France and the
United States, writing on the work of a Swiss-French man, who also lives in Paris and New York.
This is a text written in French and English. Finally, this is a text which begins “Maintenant: this
French word will not be translated” (Ibid.).
The text begins with what appears to be a ‘stop’248. The very first sentence takes the appearance of
negation: Derrida refuses to translate the word – ‘now’ – which begins the text. It would appear,
then, that this text, which will deal with the originary relation between architecture and dwelling,
will take the same direction as that taken by the likes of Agamben and Butler, by outlining a
negative project. This appearance is easily complicated if we pay attention to the second feature of
247The extent of Heidegger’s hospitality toward the Yiddish language is, perhaps, measured by his host-age of Paul
Celan in 1967 – did Celan receive the words (of welcome) he expected?; we might also think of the hospitality shown
by Jewish languages to Heidegger and his work (see, for example, Daniel Herskowitz’s ‘Heidegger in Hebrew:
Translation, Politics, Reconciliation’ (2018) for a little known history of Shlomo Zemach’s translation and publication
(in Israel) of the Origin of the Work of Art into Hebrew; in addition, we might think of Martin Buber’s rejection (from
Israel) of Heidegger’s hospitality at a conference scheduled to be held in Germany in 1958 (for more on Heidegger’s
personal and intellectual relationship with Martin Buber, see Paul Mendes-Flohr’s ‘Martin Heidegger and Martin Buber
in Dialogue’ (2014).
248In a number of texts (including Of Hospitality, Aporias, and indeed, ‘No (Point of) Madness – Maintaining
Architecture’), Derrida highlights the identity of the French ‘not’ (‘pas’) and ‘step’ (‘pas’); although the text begins with
a not, a negation, this does not – as we will see – mean that Derrida describes dwelling in negative terms.

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the start-stop sentence: translation. The text was, as editors note, “first published in a bilingual
edition”: as such, “Maintenant: this French word will not be translated” remains in an ambiguous
time and place. The linguistic field of the sentence proliferates unclarities: does Derrida mean that
‘this French word’ will not be translated ‘now’ (‘maintenant’), but perhaps later? Will Derrida
explain, not now but in a moment, why it won’t be translated? The bilinguality of the original
edition adduces further difficulties: does the word ‘Maintenant’ gain a kind of guest status in the
English language (like so many other French and Old-French words: maintain, maintenance, host,
hospitality, refuge, refugee, etc)? Does Derrida’s refusal to translate the word mean that it becomes
a guest in English, or perhaps that ‘maintenant’ refuses to be entirely accommodated by the English
language? All of this remains undecided.
Derrida’s text starts with a stop. To give an analogy, one might say that Derrida’s text begins like a
camping trip which begins with a disaster. We arrive at the campsite, and start to unfurl the tent only
to realise that the cables are entirely tangled. They are mixed up in a knot of such a complex nature
that even though they are the wires and fabric and hands fingers are mixed up together, some lines
will be tangled with others with which they make no contact. They are inextricable from eachother
but not actually connected to each other. The binding is so complex and inextricable that the wires
remain tied together but not actually together.
This tangle of knots resembles – to some extent – the structure of which Derrida speaks: Bernard
Tschumi’s construction in Parc de la Villette in north-east Paris. A great jumble of bright red
structures, towers, struts, walls and stairs. Derrida speaks of a fabric, or better a ‘weaving’. The
architect – and it’s not impossible that (in one way or another) speaks of himself at this moment in
this text – “weaves, twining the threads of the warp; his writing holds out” (Ibid., p98). Derrida
describes Tschumi’s work as the work of a weaver; this work is a weaving.
But what does the weaving hold out for? What fabrications are held out in Parc de la Villette?
Posing the possibility that Tschumi’s work can be considered a deconstruction of architecture, and
of dwelling in general – via a dislocation or displacement of the system, or systematicity – Derrida
dismisses or brackets such a possibility, claiming that “no work249 can result from a simple

249Following a thread which leads beyond the confines of this paper, Derrida’s ‘No (Point of) Madness – Maintaining
Architecture’ is – besides being an examination of translation, architecture and the work of Martin Heidegger – also
represents a return to the early work of Michel Foucault. Derrida’s original, and most widely read, engagement with
Foucault’s work on madness appeared in Writing and Difference in which Derrida did not, as some scholars (see,
example, Jean Khalfa’s introduction to History of Madness (2013: xiv)) assume, dismiss Foucault’s project, but rather
considered it to be “impossible”. It is precisely this ‘impossible’ work – the work, or oeuvre of madness – to which
Derrida returns in ‘No (Point of) Madness – Maintaining Architecture’ in order to reconsider Foucault’s charge (laid out,
as a response to Derrida’s Writing and Difference, in ‘My Body, This Paper, This Fire’) that Derrida’s entire
philosophical project depends upon the ‘elision of events’ (2013: 573), and thus amounts to the same metaphysics
which Derrida aims to criticize. It is in response to this charge, then, that Derrida poses the primary question of ‘No
(Point of) Madness – Maintaining Architecture’ which allows him to gather those threads which constitute the essay –
his concern for architecture, his confrontation with the work of Martin Heidegger, the possibility of translation, and a
return of Foucauldian madness: namely, “Is an architecture of the event possible?” (2008: 88).

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displacement or dislocation alone. One must thus invent. One must clear a passage to another
writing… this writing maintains the dis-jointed as such” (Ibid., p99). The questions presented here
will not be resolved by means of a series of displacements and transpositions alone; more will be
demanded.
Here we find Derrida writing about a certain writing which cannot be alone. A being which cannot,
or must not, isolate itself. Not only, then, can we identify, here, a disavowal of those modes of
dwelling which would insulate themselves in the (false) security of origins, belonging and
birthplace: this mode of dwelling would be an impossible existence. It would be – literally –
unworkable250; the “thinking and speaking” in Heidegger’s dwelling is not enough to make it work.
The Heideggerian man, who dwells alone with his thoughts and speech, lacks the capacity to dwell.
Derrida does not, however, advocate leaping and throwing oneself into the world; one must
translate oneself, but this does not consist forcing one language into another, but rather “clearing a
passage for another writing”. Neither can we dwell alone, nor can we throw or force ourselves onto
others.
I recall that Derrida’s text begins with a stop: “Maintenant, this French word will not be translated”.
No translation arrives. This is not a simple translation of French to German, or German to Hebrew.
One must translate oneself, certainly, but no translation is guaranteed safe arrival. Derrida disavows
the possibility of living apart, but he also appears to leave open the question of how to approach the
Other.
Derrida writes that we must “clear a passage to another writing” (Ibid.). This directs us beyond a
“simple displacement or dislocation alone”. A simple displacement or dislocation will not “clear a
passage to another”. Writing, dwelling, translating: neither can these things be achieved the lonely
Heideggerian thinker and speaker who keeps watch over the German language, nor can they be
achieved, as Butler proposes, by “a series of displacements and transpositions”.
Here, I find the answer to the questions with which I begin my reading of Derrida’s text: why does
‘maintenant’ remain untranslated? Following what I interpret to be a disavowal of both
Heideggerian dwelling (understood as the lonely maintenance of the originarily essential German
dwelling) and also of the kinds of negative dwelling described by Butler and Agamben, Derrida
gives his answer in strikingly programmatic terms: he writes “… this writing maintains the dis-
jointed as such; it joins the dis- by maintaining the gap” (Ibid.,). This word will not be translated
because it will maintain a gap; the word will dwell in maintaining a gap. This is not a home which

250Here, for example, I interpret Derrida as making a clear return to Foucault and the ‘impossible’ work of madness.
However, the reader might also detect an engagement with the work of Maurice Blanchot (in particular, his The Space
of Literature (2015)) and, hence, Blanchot’s dialogue with Jean-Luc Nancy (in The Inoperative Community (1991)) and
Giorgio Agamben (in The Coming Community (1993)) on the notion of ‘work’, ‘unworking’ in the context of the debate
on ‘community’; for Agamben and Nancy, in particular, the notion of the threshold is at the centre of their
understanding of community.

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needs to be protected; not a joint which gathers together the walls of the home; not a departure from
place, or a negation of dwelling in any place. Instead, this dwelling is the maintenance of a gap,
which remains cleared for a passage.
How can we described this cleared passage? It seems appropriate to recognise the place in which
Derrida’s text begins: the tangle of structures, cables and wires which constitute Tschumi’s
architecture. Tangled, jangled and jumbled, weaved. Perhaps what we have here is not a roadmap
for going out to the Other, but rather the tangle of cables and wires which provide, provisionally, a
gap for passage.
This tangle of cables and wires resembles, I think, an eruv: a construction originating in halakhic
law, which simultaneously constructs and conceptually erases a series of borders, consequently
delimiting a space of passage. An eruv is an area, demarcated by a number of cables or wires tied
between poles, made for the purpose of allowing items to be carried on the Sabbath which would
otherwise be prohibited. This is achieved by conceptually erasing the border between house-
thresholds, thus allowing Jews to carry things between houses without disobeying Sabbath laws.
This erasure does not, of course, erase the physical borders of the homes. In this way, the
construction of the eruv simultaneously retains existing borders (the walls and thresholds of the
homes remain in place), while erasing conceptual borders (allowing Jews to pass between homes),
and creating new borders (a new threshold is created between the inside and the outside of the
eruv).
The cables which demarcate the area of the eruv do not designate the path by which Jews must
carry things across the demarcated space, merely the limits within which the passage must pass; of
course, Jews may also leave the eruv space, provided they do not carry anything over the border.
Furthermore, since the eruv originates in Jewish law and only applies to Jews, non-Jews may cross
and carry whatever they like within the eruv borders; the eruv border is not guarded or policed,
merely maintained by the local rabbi.
The eruv space, therefore, achieves something quite comparable with the Derrida’s thinking on
dwelling: a number of threads – is Derrida really talking about dwelling, or writing, or architecture,
or translation, or something entirely other, or are these all tangled and weaved together? – which
intends to allow for a passage, which might be a sharing of common property251 without designating
the precise means, direction or language by which this sharing is to be achieved. Sharing is
required, because a single work is insufficient for dwelling; but this sharing will amount to nothing
more than the clearing of a passage for another work. Rather than dictate the proper passage,
dwelling will simply consist of the maintenance of the gap: perhaps this is performed by that most

251Here, again, Derrida is in dialogue with Jean-Luc Nancy’s work on community: like Derrida, and perhaps even
more than Derrida, Nancy’s The Inoperative Community situates the ‘sharing’ – ‘partage’ – of the common at the centre
and the limit of the community.

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quotidien activity of opening the door in order to sweep the threshold with a brush.

III.

Before closing, we need to visit Emmanuel Levinas’ home, and read his book ‘Difficult Freedom’.
Where do we place Levinas’ ‘Difficult Freedom’? It is a collection of texts which are neither
exclusively philosophical, nor religious. That is to say, it’s a collection which does not conform to
the pattern in which all of Levinas’ ‘philosophical’ texts were published at a separate publishing
house from all of the ‘Talmudic’ texts. It’s something of a halfway house, in that respect.
In my reading of Heidegger’s ‘Letter’, I identify, on the hand, an exemplarily anti-modernist,
nostalgic conceptualisation of dwelling, founded on origins and essence; on the other hand, by
looking particularly at the guards who keep watch over the house of language, I locate a certain
ambiguity with regard to the location of the threshold. It wasn’t clear what requires the guards to
keep watch over the threshold; nor where the guardians stand with regard to the threshold, and that
which crosses it.
In my reading of Derrida’s ‘Maintenant’, I identify something which has the appearance of being a
description of dwelling – or perhaps writing, or translation, or architecture – consonant with what I
term the negative dwelling described by figures such as Agamben and Butler; however, on closer
inspection, I suggest, we find a rejection of simple displacements alone. One must translate oneself
over to the other (rather than insulate oneself within one’s own), but translation is no guaranteed
arrival. In this regard, then, Derrida at once distances himself from Heidegger – dwelling cannot be
achieved alone; and yet returns to Heideggerian dwelling, and the ambiguity of the threshold.
Certainly, Heidegger and Derrida think of the threshold differently – for Heidegger, a danger zone
which mandates protection; for Derrida, a gap which needs to be maintained for others – but it is
clear that the threshold is a key term in their thinking on dwelling.
Levinas’ contribution to this rethinking of dwelling otherwise than Heideggerian-origins can be
identified with what I have termed ‘negative dwelling’: in ‘Heidegger, Gargarin and Us’, he writes
that “Judaism has always been free with regard to place” (1990: 233). This phrase is cited by
scholars such as Sarah Hammerschlag, supporting a claim that, unlike Heidegger who thinks of
origins rooted in the German language and soil, Levinasian dwelling begins with “rootlessness”
(Hammerschlag 2010: 137): understood in this way, Levinas would be understood as a thinker of
negative dwelling. As in my reading of Derrida’s ‘No (Point of) Madness – Maintaining
Architecture’, I detect, in Levinas’ thinking a conceptualisation of dwelling which differs from
Heideggerian dwelling, while remaining irreducible to negativity.
In ‘A Religion for Adults’, Levinas writes: “The Jewish man discovers man before discovering

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landscapes and towns. He is at home in a society before being so in a house… He is in a sense
exiled on this earth… Man begins in the desert where he dwells in tents” (Levinas 1990, 22).
«L’homme juif découvre l’homme avant de découvrir les paysages et les villes. Il est chez soi dans
une société, avant de l’être dans une maison … L’homme commence dans le désert où il habite de
les tentes»
In this first sentence, Levinas recites the ‘before’ which has been a key term of this paper: the
Jewish man discovers man before landscapes and towns. Between the discovery of man and of
landscapes and towns, there is a threshold. The Jewish man approaches, from afar, and crosses the
border or threshold into an encounter with man before crossing into a landscape or town.
How should we understand this ‘before’? Understood temporally, we would read that the Jew
discovers man before subsequently going on to discover landscapes and towns. He meets man prior
to the town. Understood spatially, the Jew meets man in one location and further down the line he
discovers landscapes and towns. Perhaps the man and the town are connected: the man is like a
lookout or watchman, outside the town, at a vantage point – ‘a vantage’ – on the edge. Perhaps the
men confront each other with hostility, asking ‘what have you come here for?’. Or perhaps the man
is discovered ‘before’ the landscape and town because he is ‘outside’, without shelter or a place to
dwell. Or perhaps the Other man welcomes the Jew across the threshold252,253.
Perhaps – what seems most likely – is that Levinas is gesturing at is a humanity or humanism – or
Judaism, or even a ‘Jewish humanism’254– which privileges its relations with Other men over its
relations with buildings. That is, Levinas wants to privilege human to human relations over and
before human to architecture relations. Architecture, thus, is an obstacle to human relations. Man’s
existence is “free with regard to architecture” (Ibid.). Perhaps it gets in the way. It’s a barrier to
meeting Other men. Or perhaps architecture is a threshold over which man must step to reach the
Other man.
The man is at home in society before he is at home in the house. Man’s most natural state – where
he is before being anywhere else; the most homely belonging-place for man; the place he is most
properly chez ‘nous’, ‘chez soi’ – is among other men. The building comes afterwards.
The exemplary dwelling – where, Levinas writes, “man begins” – is in the desert. He “dwells in
tents” in the desert. What does this mean?
252It is these possibilities, among many others, which are effaced by Agamben’s playful “before or anyway outside of
Exodus” (deployed in order to situate Celan in atopia).
253In this regard, Levinas’ work, too, stands in dialogue with Agamben’s thinking on dwelling and the threshold; given,
however, Agamben’s effacement of the condition of being ‘before’ exodus’ in favour of being outside exodus (hence,
without place – no place, nothing place), it is perhaps unsurprising that his work on the threshold does not consider the
threshold to be a place for hospitality or welcome, but a border onto ‘nothing’ (see, especially, The Coming Community,
Section XVI).
254Although delivered in a different tone – primarily historical, rather than philosophical – Levinas explicitly calls “For
a Jewish Humanism” later in Difficult Freedom; however, this second text retains little of the analysis of architecture –
in particular, a humanism which privileges interhuman relationships over and before human-building relationships –
which is present in ‘A Religion for Adults’ and the focus of this paper.

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That man begins in the desert in a tent serves as a clarification for the previous sentences’
declaration that “Man is, in a sense, exiled on this earth”; such a declaration, if left unqualified,
would suggest that Levinas negates those kinds of place-based descriptions of dwelling of which
Butler and Agamben are so critical. Since, however, the declaration is followed by what appears to
be an explanation (that his exile, in a sense, mirrors or bears an analogy with Israelite desert-
dwelling), we can see that Levinas is neither a thinker of place and origin-based dwelling – unlike, I
suggest, Heidegger – nor is he a thinker of simple negative dwelling – unlike, therefore, Agamben
or Butler. Instead, Levinas claims that man begins by dwelling in tents in the desert.
To be more precise, the kind of desert-dwelling to which Levinas refers255 is the kind remembered
and commemoratively practised in the Jewish festival of Sukkot; the festival which recalls man’s
primal dwelling place, in tents in the desert: a dwelling of the most fragile, insecure, vulnerable,
precarious kind. A construction barely standing upright. A structure tied down by the thinnest of
threads. The loosest of connections with the ground, the soil, beneath our feet. Connection of the
most provisional kind: perhaps we could say that the tent pegs form a kind of provisional root. A
root which allows he who puts down roots to pick them up again and be on his way with only a
moment’s notice. An enrootedness which privileges and facilitates movement.
Levinas does not, therefore, retain a theory of dwelling which places origin and identity in essential
correlation; nor, however, does this lead him to a theorisation of negative dwelling. Man most
certainly dwells: his originary dwelling place ‘begins’ in the moment of, or perhaps immediately
following, exile; the dwelling place itself is precarious, but this precarity is not a negative condition
but one which privileges movement. The sukkah, for Levinas, should not be understood as a critical
or negative counterexample to the landscape or the town. Instead, Levinas finds in sukkot an
articulation of what is fundamental to dwelling, and fundamental even to human being: that being
human is provisional256.

III.

Conclusion

Beginning with Heidegger and arriving at Levinas, I trace a shift away from those modes of
dwelling which begin with a return to roots and a move toward dwellings which prioritises others,

255That Levinas is referring to Sukkot is made, a few lines later, in the reference to “the festival of cabins” (1990: 23).
256Not only is ‘provisional’ used with reference to the temporariness of dwelling in the tents – the Israelites dwell there
between exile and arrival in the Promised Land, but also because when Jews celebrate Sukkot, it is a time of hospitality
and therefore the provision of foods. Sukkot immediately follows Yom Kippur, which includes the practice of fasting;
not only this, but Sukkot is coincides with the harvest season: the celebration of Sukkot, then, is a celebration of food,
hospitality and the possibilities of provision – being provided for by the fruits of the earth, providing for others, be they
friends or strangers, and ultimately the provisionality of dwelling on this earth.

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other people, other languages, other modes of dwelling. To some extent, these readings indicate the
distance Levinas and Derrida take from Heidegger – I attempt to show that Levinasian and
Derridean dwelling certainly do not privilege rooting oneself in a place and dwelling on the proper.
However, this distance taking is incomplete, insofar as I claim that both Levinas and Derrida remain
concerned with the notion of ‘threshold’. It is perhaps this incomplete distance taking which marks
Levinas and Derrida as thinkers ‘in step’ with the narrators of modernity, such as Zygmunt Bauman:
it is part of what makes their thinking instructive that, unlike Heidegger, they are committed to
thinking about what it means to dwell today, rather than in (a real or imagined) yesterday. Yet, this
commitment does not lead them, as it does Butler and Agamben, toward a negation or negative
theories of dwelling. It will not be sufficient, today, to theorise dwelling by means of a simple
displacement or disjointure, or by means of departure into atopia.
It might have been possible to show that, as is particularly clear in Heidegger’s readings of
Hölderlin which deal extensively with the threshold257, Heidegger is not only concerned with
dwelling in essence, but also with departure and return258; on this basis, the distance-taking
performing by Levinas and Derrida would have been even narrower than I estimate it to be in this
paper. Indeed, such a reading has become increasingly widespread among certain scholars: it
remains unclear from this literature, however, the extent to which Heidegger can theorise dwelling
as provisional in the sense that Levinas and Derrida do259. Would those who think and speak in the
guardianship of the dwelling of language also be the man discovered before landscapes and towns?
Would these men be willing or able to offer hospitality? Would their thinking and speaking pay
homage to the essentially provisionality of human existence?
While these questions might provide food for thought, I propose that leading Heidegger’s texts in
this direction might demand such a degree of hermeneutic force (or even violence), that the purpose
of such a reading is unclear; put more simply, while it might be possible to force Heidegger to think
about hospitality or sharing, it’s not yet clear to me whether Heidegger himself has anything to give
when it comes to dwelling today. Instead, in the texts provided by Levinas and Derrida, we find a
much clearer answer to the question of what dwelling means today. This is an answer, on my
readings, which passes beyond Heidegger without entirely departing from his thinking, insofar as
there is a disavowal of dwelling in proper roots, and yet retention of the notion of the threshold; this
departing retention does not, however, conclude with simply negative theorisations of dwelling.
257See, for example, Hölderlin’s Hymns: “Germania” and “The Rhine” (2014: especially p152-156)
258This is the focal point of Robert Mugerauer’s Heidegger and Homecoming: The Leitmotif in the Later Writings
(2018) and reflects the aforementioned trend, among certain scholars, to represent Heideggerian dwelling as concerned
with more simple essence and property.
259This paper is limited in the sense that, although it does not present Levinas and Derrida as proposing the same
theorization of post-Heideggerian dwelling, nor does it characterize the precise differences between Levinas and
Derrida with regard to Heidegger or each other – differences which were clear right from the beginning, as early as
‘Violence and Metaphysics’, in which Derrida casts doubt on the extent to which Levinas’ Judaism allows him to
radically depart from the Oddysean return (see ‘Writing and Difference’, p412, footnote 92)

252
Instead, Levinas and Derrida provide the reader with complex and ongoing thoughts on the
necessity of hospitality, and of providing for others when we share our dwelling spaces with them.
When Derrida claims that we must “clear a passage to another writing”, this “clearing” does not
wipe away the dwelling; nor, when he writes that this “writing maintains the dis-jointed as such” is
the question settled with simple disjointedness. Dwelling, for Derrida, is the maintenance of this
passage to another writing. When Levinas claims that “Man begins in the desert where he dwells in
tents”, this does not mean that we simply dwell in exile or atopia; rather, wherever we dwell, it
remains provisional. Certainly, both Levinas and Derrida take a certain distance from Heidegger’s
theory of dwelling; but this does not prevent them from providing their own understandings of what
it means to dwell.
Alongside these readings, I identify two pieces of what might be termed ‘Jewish architecture’ which
– insofar as they privilege provisional crossing (the eruv allows Jews to carry and share items, for
example food, across borders which would usually be prohibited on Sabbath, while the sukkah
provides man with a dwelling place while remaining provisional with regard to place) – instantiate
what I find to be most instructive in Levinas and Derrida’s work: a theorisation of dwelling which
moves beyond the high privilege Heidegger gives to property and place, without simply falling into
negativity.
I find this to be instructive because it allows us to think, today, about what it means to dwell. For we
do dwell. We may dwell in different places; we may dwell on the move; we may have our dwelling
places removed. Today’s dwelling places may not remain static and secure; they remain in motion.
None of this, however, constitutes a negation of dwelling. Thus, when it becomes necessary to think
about dwelling today, we need more than a negative theorisation of dwelling.

References

Agamben, G. (2020). The fire and the tale. California: Stanford University Press.

Bachmann, I., Celan, P., & Badiou, B. (2010). Correspondence: Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul
Celan: with the Correspondences Between Paul Celan and Max Frisch and Between Ingeborg
Bachmann and Gisèle Celan-Lestrange. London: Seagull Books.

Bauman, Z. Community: (2000). Seeking safety in an insecure world. Cambridge: Polity.

253
Judith. B. (2012) Parting ways: Jewishness and the critique of Zionism. New York: Columbia
University Press.

Heidegger, M. (1993) Basic writings. Oxford: Routledge

Kamuf, G., and Rottenberg. E. (2008) "Psyche: Inventions of the Other, Volume Ii." Stanford:
Stanford University Press

Levinas, E. (1990). Difficult freedom: essays on Judaism. London: Athlone

254
BIOACADEMICS

255
 DIOGO FERRER

Professor of Philosophy at Coimbra University, Portugal. His main research subject is German
Classical Philosophy and its resonances in the 20 th and 21st Century, regarding especially topics in
Metaphysics, Philosophy of Architecture and other issues in the Philosophy of Art.
Some of his books are:
Transparencies: Language and Reflection from Cicero to Pessoa, Coimbra, 2018 [in Portuguese];
The Genesis of Meaning: Introduction to Hegel’s Thought, Porto, 2016 [in Portuguese];
The System of Incompleteness: Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre from 1794 to 1804, Coimbra, 2014 [in
Portuguese];
Logic and Reality in Hegel: The Science of Logic and the the Problem of Grounding the System,
Lisboa, 2006 [in Portuguese].
Some recent publications:
“O Ceticismo, entre Maimon, Fichte e Hegel”, in Problemata: International Journal of Philosophy,
11. n. 4 (2020), pp. 10-29.
“«Uma Terceira Coisa»: O Papel do Espaço e do Tempo na Crítica ao Funcionalismo
Arquitetónico” in Revista Filosófica de Coimbra 58 (2020), pp. 321-336.
“O Singular como Imediato na Lógica de Hegel”, in D. Ferrer - F. Orsini - M. Bordignon - A.
Bavaresco - C. Iber (Eds.), A Autobiografia do Pensamento: A Ciência da Lógica de Hegel,
Fundação Fênix, Porto Alegre, 2020, pp. 299-314.
“Teoria do Conhecimento e Experiência Dialéctica na Introdução à Fenomenologia do Espírito de
Hegel” [versão extensa], in Ricardo Pereira Tassinari, Agemir Bavaresco, Marcelo Marconato
Magalhães (Orgs.), Hegel e a Contemporaneidade, Fundação Fênix, Porto Alegre, 2020, pp. 81-
102.

Full CV at: Diogo Falcão Ferrer (4316-1536-E81F) | CIÊNCIAVITAE (cienciavitae.pt).

256
 DANIEL PACHECO

Doctoral researcher in philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy of the NOVA University of Lisbon,
writing a thesis on the relationship between evolutionary biology, psychology and values in the
work of Friedrich Nietzsche. He holds a distinction MA in Philosophy from the University of
Warwick, a distinction MLitt in Political Theory from the University of St. Andrews and a honors
BA in Political Science from the NOVA University of Lisbon. His historical focus is 19th century
post-Kantian philosophy, especially Nietzsche, and focusing on various issues in moral philosophy,
moral psychology, and philosophy of mind

257
 MARCO DAMONTE

Marco Damonte has obtained a degree in Theology (2002) and a PhD in Philosophy at Università di
Genova (2008) where he teaches History of Contemporary Thought. He researches in epistemology
(Wittgenstein, Tommaso e la cura dell’intenzionalità, Firenze 2009) as well as in analytic
philosophy of religion (Una nuova teologia naturale, Roma 2011). More informations on
https://cpc-prod.csita.unige.it/output_cv/UkNAX15q/cv_it.pdf.t2011).

258
 ANGELOS SOFOCLEOUS

PhD Researcher in Philosophy at the University of York (UK). He works towards a thesis titled: The
notion of spectatorship in experiences of depression under the supervision of Prof Keith Allen and
Prof Matthew Ratcliffe. He holds a BA in Philosophy and Psychology and an MA in Philosophy,
both from Durham University (UK). He is a Graduate Teaching Assistant at the University of York,
where he tutors subjects such as Logic, Ethics, and Ancient Philosophy. In 2021, he was one of the
recipients of the University of York Vice-Chancellor’s Teaching Award. Research interests include
phenomenology, existentialism, philosophy of mind - particularly in relation to mental health,
interpersonal relationships, and shared experiences.

259
 JOAQUIM BRAGA

Joaquim Braga é, actualmente, investigador do Instituto de Estudos Filosóficos e professor da

Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Coimbra (FLUC). Licenciado em Filosofia pela FLUC,
obteve o seu doutoramento pela Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, em 2010. Publicou, entre outros
textos, Die symbolische Prägnanz des Bildes. Zu einer Kritik des Bildbegriffs nach der Philosophie
Ernst Cassirers (Freiburg, 2012), Símbolo e Cultura (Coimbra, 2014), Teoria das Formas
Imagéticas. Ensaios sobre Arte, Estética, Tecnologia (Coimbra, 2020) e editou Rethinking Culture
and Cultural Analysis – Neudenken von Kultur und Kulturanalyse (Berlin, 2013), Leituras da
Sociedade Moderna. Media, Política, Sentido (Coimbra, 2013), Bernard de Mandeville's Tropology
of Paradoxes: Morals, Politics, Economics, and Therapy (New York/London, 2015), Antropologia
da Individuação. Estudos sobre o Pensamento de Ernst Cassirer (Porto Alegre, 2017), Conceiving
Virtuality: From Art to Technology (New York/Cham, 2019), Sensibilidade e Matéria no
Pensamento de Denis Diderot (Coimbra, 2020).

260
 SUSANA VIEGAS

Researcher in Philosophy of Film and a full member of IFILNOVA, FCSH – Universidade Nova de Lisboa.
She received her Ph.D. in Philosophy (Aesthetics) from the Universidade Nova de Lisboa in 2013 with a
doctoral thesis on Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy of film, and a FCT Ph.D. Studentship during the years 2007
through 2011. She was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Dundee and Deakin University
with the project “Rethinking the Moving Image and Time in Gilles Deleuze’s Philosophy” (2014-2019). She is
currently working on philosophy’s relation to painting and film. She has published articles in academic
journals such as Colóquio-Letras, Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia, Kriterion, Early Popular Visual Culture,
and Journal of Aesthetic Education. This work is funded by national funds through the FCT-Fundação para a
Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., under the Norma Transitória-DL 57/2016/CP1453/CT0031 and project
PTDC/FER-FIL/32042/2017.

261
 PAULO ALEXANDRE E CASTRO

Membro integrado do IEF-Instituto de Estudos Filosóficos (Universidade de Coimbra). Doutorado

em Filosofia (Universidade do Minho), Mestre em Fenomenologia e Hermenêutica (Faculdade de
Letras -Universidade de Lisboa), licenciado em Filosofia (Faculdade de Letras -Universidade de
Lisboa). Realizou um Pós-Doc em Arte Digital (na Universidade Fernando Pessoa). Tem diversos
livros publicados (do ensaio à poesia) e dezenas de ensaios em livros e revistas internacionais. Para
mais informações do autor consultar:pauloalexandreecastro.webs.com/

262
 VITOR ALVES

Vítor Alves (Vila Nova de Gaia, 1980), is an architect and

combines the professional practice of the project with
independent research in architecture. He has a degree in
architecture at FA-ULP (2003) and attended the master of
Philosophy-Aesthetics at FCSH- UNL (2006/2007). He holds a
PhD (2021) from FA-UP with his thesis entitle Mirror Shards: the
Jornal Arquitectos (1981-2015) as the territory of the architect’s
construction. Since 2001, he has developed professional practice
exploring different programs and scales, mostly built, and some
awarded. In 2015 he was a researcher in the R&D project The
Site of Discourse, financed by FCT and, since then, his
research, dedicated to analysing the relationship between the
specialized media and the construction of the architect’s
figure, has been presented in essays, debates and
communications in Portugal and abroad.

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 SUSANA VENTURA
Architect who graduated from Coimbra University (FCTUC, 2003), holding a PhD in Philosophy
from the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences of Nova University Lisbon (FCSH-UNL, 2013)
with the thesis "Architecture's Body without Organs" under the scientific supervision of José Gil.
The PhD project included research residences at the architecture studios of Diller Scofidio + Renfro
(New York), Lacaton & Vassal (Paris) and Peter Zumthor (Haldenstein), for which she received a
four-year doctoral grant provided by FCT, Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology
(2007-2011). Currently, she is an Integrated Researcher at the Centre of Studies of Architecture and
Urbanism of The Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto (CEAU-FAUP) and Invited
Assistant Professor at the School of Architecture of the University of Minho. She was an Invited
Assistant Professor at the School of Architecture of the University of Évora (2019-20; 2020-21).
Within her postdoctoral project, she was awarded the Fernando Távora Prize in 2014 to realise an
expedition to Japan, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Sweden, and Norway. She is also a
research member of two scientific funded projects: "Visual spaces of change in the Porto
Metropolitan Area: crossing borders and shifting boundaries" (Principal Researcher: PhD Pedro
Leão Neto), Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-030605)
and "Fragmentation and reconfiguration: experiencing the city between art and philosophy"
(Principal Researcher: PhD Maria Filomena Molder), Nova University of Lisbon, for which she
contributes with a transversal knowledge (crossing architecture and philosophy). Simultaneously,
she's developing a research-based curatorial practice, writing about architecture, philosophy, and
art.

264
 ANNA PONTES

PhD Student, Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon. Historian, with a Master's degree in
Architecture, from the Postgraduate Programme in Architecture and Urbanism at the Federal
University of Paraíba (2010). History teacher for the State Education Department of Ceará, Brazil,
since 2010, and member of the International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS-Brazil),
since 2019. Currently, a PhD Student in History, by the Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon.
Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8712-5871
Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/5129690547873824

265
 INÊS VIEIRA RODRIGUES
Master’s degree in Architecture at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto (2012) with
the dissertation entitled Rabo de Peixe - society and urban form. It was published as a book in 2016
by Caleidoscópio Editor, followed by three public presentations (Porto, Lisbon and Ribeira
Grande). She attended the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (2010-2011).
She started her professional career at M-Arquitectos (Ponta Delgada, 2013-2014), followed by Feld
architecture office (Paris, 2015). Still in the French capital, she joined the team of DDA architectes
(2015-2016) where she worked on the rehabilitation and conservation of Villa E-1027, by Eileen
Gray and Jean Badovici; and in the maintenance of the Unités de Camping, by Le Corbusier, two
modernist masterpieces which integrate the 20th century French heritage (Roquebrune-Cap-Martin,
France). In the same office, she developed the project and monitored the site construction work for
a house in Meudon, France, awarded in 2017 with the French Archinovo Prize. Back in Portugal,
she was part of the Summary team (Porto, 2017-2020), as an architect and project manager.
She is currently a PhD candidate and an Integrated Researcher at the Center for Studies in
Architecture and Urbanism (CEAU-FAUP), belonging to the Territory Dynamics and Morphologies
(MDT). As a grantee of the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT-MCTES), she
develops her study on the territory of the Azores.

266
 LEONARDO OLIVEIRA

Arquiteto e urbanista (Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul – PUCRS, 2013),
mestre em Arquitetura e Urbanismo (Universidade de Brasília – UnB, 2017) e doutorando em
Arquitetura (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul – UFRGS), na área de concentração de
Teoria, História e Crítica. Foi membro do Núcleo de Estética, Hermenêutica e Semiótica (UnB),
grupo de pesquisa vinculado ao CNPq, entre 2015 e 2017. É membro da Associação Brasileira de
Estudos Cemiteriais (ABEC), do grupo de pesquisa CIDADE [IN] PENSADA (UFRGS) e docente
nos cursos de Arquitetura e Urbanismo e Design de Interiores da Universidade Paulista (UNIP).
Possui interesse de pesquisa em arquitetura cemiterial e desdobramentos gerais do tema da morte.

267
 CONSTANTINOS PROIMOS

Constantinos V. Proimos received a Ph.D. from the New School for Social Research, NY, NY, USA
in 2001, after studying sociology, art history and philosophy in Athens, Paris and in New York. He
has been twice awarded a state scholarship, once for his graduate studies and a second time for his
postdoctoral research and he was a Helena Rubinstein Fellow at the Whitney Museum of American
Art in New York. He has published one book and several articles in Greek, English and French and
has worked for Nancy Spector at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York for the
retrospective exhibition of Rebecca Horn. He has taught at Reid Hall in Paris, at the universities of
Crete and Cyprus, at the Technical University of Crete and at the Cyprus University of Technology.
He currently teaches at the Hellenic Open University. He is a member of AICA-Hellas and an
independent art critic and curator.

268
 CARLO DEREGIBUS

Architect, PhD in Architecture and Building Design, is adjunct professor of Architectural and Urban
Design and researcher, team and project manager at the Masterplan Team – the strategic design
division of the Politecnico di Torino. His writings include Intention & Responsibility. Ethical
Consistency in Contemporary Architecture (2016), TURNS. Dialoghi tra architettura e filosofia
(with A. Giustiniano, 2018), Spatializing strategies. The Masterplan of Politecnico di Torino. 2016-
2020 (with A. De Rossi et. al., 2021), as well as chapters and articles on many edited books and
journals like The IASS Journal, Construction History, aut aut, Il Giornale dell’Architettura, Rivista
di Estetica, Philosophy Kitchen. In 2008, he won the International Hangai Prize for young
researchers. In 2018, his architectural firm, Bottega di Architettura, was prized among the ten best
emerging architectural firms of Italy.

269
 DAVID ÁLVAREZ

Political philosopher currently working at the University of Vigo and Corresponding Fellow at the
Yale Global Justice Program. Research interests include critical theories of cosmopolitanism, social
movements, global resource governance, and metropolitan theory.

270
 THOMAS FROY

Doctoral student at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. His research is in the notion of dwelling in
contemporary French and German philosophy, with a particular focus on the work of Martin Buber,
Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida. He is interested in the conjunction and dialogue between
Jewish Studies and philosophy.

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Porto, Novembro de 2021

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