Baustellen Der Zerstörung Literatur, Architektur Und Dekonstruktion
BAUSTELLEN DER ZERSTÖRUNG LITERATUR, ARCHITEKTUR UND DEKONSTRUKTION CONSTRUCTION SITES OF DESTRUCTION LITERATURE, ARCHITECTURE, AND DECONSTRUCTION by Johannes Birke A dissertation submitted to Johns Hopkins University in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Baltimore, Maryland October, 2014 © 2014 Johannes Birke All Rights Reserved Intented to be blank ii Abstract My dissertation Construction Sites of Destruction. Literature, Architecture, and Deconstruction analyzes representational and epistemological modes of architectural destruction in literature, theory, and film since the 1960s. I argue in my thesis that architectural destruction challenges the limits of writing, building, and memory, and that this is integral to the production and understanding of architecture and literature in the late twentieth century. I take a decidedly transmedial perspective toward the relationship between architecture and literature, and include examples of painting, photography, and film. As a program of dismantling the ‘architecture’ of Western philosophical thought, the rise of deconstruction in the late 1960s found immediate resonance among the architects of the period. Deconstruction pervades their theoretical work no less than their actual processes of designing and building. I argue that deconstruction is central to not only the displacement of the system of architectural metaphors (in philosophy), but also with the concrete materiality of architecture itself. My thesis links the metaphorical and material aspects of architectural destruction in order to establish a new theoretical framework for the construction, representation, and reception of architecture in literature and cinema. Close readings of Thomas Bernhard’s novels Das Kalkwerk and Korrektur set up a ‘poetology of construction sites of destruction.’ With Bernhard, I show how architecture becomes an agent in both the processes of writing and destroying (itself, among other things).
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