UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI _____________ , 20 _____ I,______________________________________________, hereby submit this as part of the requirements for the degree of: ________________________________________________ in: ________________________________________________ It is entitled: ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ Approved by: ________________________ ________________________ ________________________ ________________________ ________________________ HERMENEUTICS OF ARCHITECTURAL INTERPRETATION: THE WORK IN THE BARCELONA PAVILION A thesis submitted to the Division of Research and Advanced Studies of the University of Cincinnati In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE In the Department of Architecture and Interior Design of the College of Design, Art, Architecture and Planning 2002 By Maroun Ghassan Kassab B Arch, Lebanese American University Jbeil, Lebanon 1999 Committee: Professor John E. Hancock (Chair) James Bradford, Adj. Instructor Aarati Kanekar, Assistant Professor ABSTRACT Architectural interpretation has always been infiltrated by the metaphysics of Presence. This is due to the interpreter’s own background that uses the vocabulary of metaphysics, and due to the predetermined set of presuppositions the interpreter inherited from the metaphysical tradition itself. As a consequence what is to be interpreted has constantly been taken as an “object” present-at-hand. Through this objectification, the architectural work has always been missed in the process of interpretation, and has never been allowed to “work” in the sense opened up by Martin Heidegger. This thesis questions the traditional methodologies of architectural interpretation, first through revealing the discourse’s general dependence on the presuppositions at the heart of the metaphysical tradition, and second by adopting a hermeneutic approach towards interpretation. Hermeneutics is the only approach that questions the structure of its own operation, does not utilize the vocabulary of metaphysics, and is aware of its inherited presuppositions. Taking the Barcelona Pavilion as a case study, this thesis reviews the principal interpretive writings on the building, in order to uncover the presuppositions upon which they depend. Terminology and procedures adopted from Heidegger’s “Origin of the Work of Art” with complementary essays from Jacques Derrida, are employed to analyze and critique these texts, and to suggest a reading of the Pavilion beyond “form” and “matter”, “function” or “Presence”. These allow the “working” of the “work” to come forth, as in the fields of phenomenological hermeneutics. Through this re-situating of the Pavilion, as a “work” of architecture, the metaphysics of Presence is challenged. The Barcelona Pavilion offers a particularly strong opportunity for such an investigation because of two main characteristics: The first is that the Pavilion was built, dismantled, and after 35 years rebuilt. The second characteristic is that it didn’t have a proper function. These two features challenge the physicality of the architectural object and its functionality, both essential for the metaphysics of Presence. i AKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like first and foremost to thank my family for their support and help; this thesis wouldn’t have been realized without them. I also would like to express my deep gratitude to Dr. Elie Haddad, whose guidance initiated my care for theory, and whose direction steered me towards the University of Cincinnati. My thanks to my committee members, Professor John E. Hancock for his advice and careful chiseling that helped shape my understanding, Professor James Bradford for opening up the wonderful discourse of Hermeneutics and guiding me through it, and for Professor Aarati Kanekar for her helpful advice and constructive criticism. ii A beginning always contains the undisclosed abundance of the awesome. Martin Heidegger iii Table of Contents 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents 1 Introduction: The Re-Moved Object 2 Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 10 1:1 Bigraphy of Mies van der Rohe Till 1929 10 1:2 Mies and the Pavilion 35 1:3 The Writings of Mies Before 1929 40 Chapter 2: Different Interpretations of the Pavilion 48 2:1 Juan Pablo Bonta 48 2:2 Robin Evans 57 2:3 Jose Quetglas 66 Chapter 3: Hermeneutics and the History of Interpretation 77 3:1 Etymology of Hermeneutics 77 3:2 Tradition and the Interpretive Methods 83 3:3 The Anticipatory Fore-Structures 89 Chapter 4: Deconstructing the Texts 93 4:1 Robin Evans’ Paradoxical Symmetries 93 4:2 The Anatomy of Bonta’s Interpretation 104 4:3 The Theater of Cruelty 112 Chapter 5: Closure!!! 120 Bibliography 132 Introduction: The Re-Moved Object 2 Introduction: The Re/Moved Object It seems that architectural interpretation requires an interpretation. The curious circularity of this statement seems to suggest a flaw in its structure. Surely here we have anticipated the meaning and the mode of operation of interpretation. The sense of interpretation was predetermined as a vehicle for communication, for translation from one medium into another. This means that there was already something guiding our understanding, something that we were presupposing, yet it remained hidden, undisclosed. So it is with all interpretation. Adding to the process a locus for interpretation, such as “architecture”, adds complexity to an already intricate situation. This problem of interpreting interpretation remains one that is rooted in the past, and is intensified by its persistent continuity. Interpretation, on one hand, has been articulated by a problematic tradition, and architecture on the other, by confusion. Any attempt to bring the whole situation to a closure, whether by bringing a resolution or by ending the confusion, is merely a myth. But isn’t already what has been said, a way to interpretation? In the search for a beginning, we have already begun, and our anticipations and presuppositions came forward, ahead of us. Since we already began, then let us continue. The adherence of the basic understanding of architecture to the weight of the history of metaphysics is evident throughout. The archē, or the origin always appears and reappears when summoned, and it is always anticipated in the form of “Presence”. It is Introduction: The Re-Moved Object 3 embedded within the etymological structure of “architecture”, and comes to the fore whenever the word is pronounced, or even renounced. Since any act of architectural interpretation supposes or specifies a locus for interpretation, we are bound to think in a manner that anticipates the existence of an architectural artifact, a building, or an architectural object to interpret. This means that there must be an architectural object that we can direct interpretation towards. Through this objectification we already presupposed Presence, since the presence of the object becomes necessary for interpretation. This has always been the case in architectural theory and interpretation. It seems that throughout the history of architecture, architectural interpretation moved side by side with the inexhaustible tendency of architecture to define and redefine itself, always reshaping its basic understanding, what it is, or perhaps what it ought to be. This tendency describes the history of architectural interpretation and the destruction of the history of architectural interpretation. It traces the manner through which the consecutive approaches towards architecture through history destroyed the previous ones and were destroyed by succeeding views. Yet this loop of destruction remains unified within the metaphysical domain of Presence. The task nevertheless, as paradoxical as it might seem, is to introduce a mode of interpretation that eludes the endless loop of redefinition and destruction. This attempt will be made by way of interpretation. In Heideggerian terms, this is neither a makeshift nor a defect.1 1 Martin Heidegger, The Origin of the Work of Art, from Basic Writing (New York: Harper and Row, 1993), p. 144. Introduction: The Re-Moved Object 4 The road leading to architectural interpretation requires that the architectural object be re/moved. This re/moval is not merely a physical attempt. On one hand, it challenges the presence of a physical entity, or the physicality of an entity to denote the entity itself. On the other hand it opens a space for investigation, shaking the metaphysics of “Presence”, not by referring to the architectural object as being “absent”, since this would directly bring its powerful “Presence” to the fore, but rather by dislocating it. Dislocation does not sustain absence, as does Presence, but it sustains re/moval. The idea of dislocation implies that something has been moved from its “proper place”, moved away from “home”. As we know, “home” and “hearth” in Greek mean ousia, the word for Being as Presence. This issue of metaphysical Presence, and its dialectical counterpart absence, has not appeared throughout architectural theory except in some fragmented pieces of thought, especially in the recent work of Peter Eisenman, and in his published correspondance with Jacques Derrida. Peter Eisenman realizes the importance of dislocation as opening a way for architecture to revitalize its purpose through challenging its own metaphysic.2 Eisenman’s strategy for challenging the metaphysics of presence in architecture