HEIDEGGER FOR ARCHITECTS Thinkers for Architects Series Editor: Adam Sharr, Cardiff University, UK Editorial Board Jonathan A. Hale, University of Nottingham, UK Hilde Heynen, KU Leuven, Netherlands David Leatherbarrow, University of Pennsylvania, USA Architects have often looked to philosophers and theorists from beyond the discipline for design inspiration or in search of a critical framework for practice. This original series offers quick, clear introductions to key thinkers who have written about architecture and whose work can yield insights for designers. Deleuze and Guattari for Architects Andrew Ballantyne Heidegger for Architects Adam Sharr Irigaray for Architects Peg Rawes THINKERS FOR ARCHITECTS Heidegger for Architects Adam Sharr First published 2007 1 by Routledge 2 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 3 Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 4 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 5 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007. 6 “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s 711 collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” 8 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business 9 © 2007 Adam Sharr 10 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or 1 utilised in any form or by an electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in 2 any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing 3 from the publishers. 4 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library 5 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data 6 Sharr, Adam. 7 Heidegger for architects / Adam Sharr. p. cm. – (Thinkers for architects series) 8 Includes bibliographical references and index. 9 1. Heidegger, Martin, 1889–1976. 2. Architecture – Philosophy. I. Title. 20 B3279.H49S423 2007 1 193 – dc22 2007013320 2 ISBN 0-203-93420-2 Master e-book ISBN 3 4 ISBN10: 0–415–41515–2 (hbk) 5 ISBN10: 0–415–41517–9 (pbk) 6 ISBN10: 0–203–93419–9 (ebk) 7 ISBN13: 978–0–415–41515–6 (hbk) 8 ISBN13: 978–0–415–41517–0 (pbk) ISBN13: 978–0–203–93419–7 (ebk) 9 30 1 2 3 4 511 For P. 1 2 3 4 5 6 711 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 1 2 3 4 511 Contents Series Editor’s Preface ix Illustration Credits xi Acknowledgements xiii 1 Introduction 1 2 A Mountain Walk 6 3 Placing Heidegger 15 4 Heidegger’s Thinking on Architecture 21 ‘The Thing’ 23 Nearness 24 So it seems 26 Thing and object 29 Fourfold: the preconditions of existence 30 Gathering 34 Being close to things 34 ‘Building Dwelling Thinking’ 36 Architecture is not enough 37 Building and dwelling 38 Building, dwelling and fourfold 43 The bridge 46 Defining place in German and in English 50 How a place happens 52 The edges of places 55 Valuing experience over mathematics 58 Projecting places 62 The Black Forest farmhouse 65 vii CONTENTS Romantic provincialism 72 1 ‘. Poetically, Man Dwells . .’ 75 2 Poetic measuring 76 3 Making sense 82 4 Authenticity 87 5 6 5 Heidegger and Architects 91 711 8 Steamy waters 91 9 Professional expertise 97 10 Another tradition of modern architecture 99 1 Representation and meaning 101 2 Regionalism 104 3 Choreographing experience 105 4 Phenomenology and politics 111 5 Imagination infected 114 6 7 Further Reading 115 8 Bibliography 117 9 Index 123 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 1 2 3 4 511 viii CONTENTS Series Editor’s Preface Adam Sharr Architects have often looked to thinkers in philosophy and theory for design ideas, or in search of a critical framework for practice. Yet architects and students of architecture can struggle to navigate thinkers’ writings. It can be daunting to approach original texts with little appreciation of their contexts and existing introductions seldom explore architectural material in any detail. This original series offers clear, quick and accurate introductions to key thinkers who have written about architecture. Each book summarizes what a thinker has to offer for architects. It locates their architectural thinking in the body of their work, introduces significant books and essays, helps decode terms and provides quick reference for further reading. If you find philosophical and theoretical writing about architecture difficult, or just don’t know where to begin, this series will be indispensable. Books in the Thinkers for Architects series come out of architecture. They pursue architectural modes of understanding, aiming to introduce a thinker to an architectural audience. Each thinker has a unique and distinctive ethos, and the structure of each book derives from the character at its focus. The thinkers explored are prodigious writers and any short introduction can only address a fraction of their work. Each author – an architect or an architectural critic – has focused on a selection of a thinker’s writings which they judge most relevant to designers and interpreters of architecture. Inevitably, much will be left out. These books will be the first point of reference, rather than the last word, about a particular thinker for architects. It is hoped that they will encourage you to read further; offering an incentive to delve deeper into the original writings of a particular thinker. The first three books in the series explore the work of: Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari; Martin Heidegger; and Luce Irigaray. Familiar cultural figures, these are thinkers whose writings have already influenced architectural designers and ix SERIES EDITOR’S PREFACE critics in distinctive and important ways. It is hoped that this series will expand 1 over time to cover a rich diversity of contemporary thinkers who have 2 something to say to architects. 3 4 Adam Sharr is Senior Lecturer at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff 5 University, and Principal of Adam Sharr Architects. He is author of 6 Heidegger’s Hut (MIT Press, 2006), Heidegger for Architects (Routledge, 711 2007), joint editor of Primitive: Original Matters in Architecture (Routledge, 8 2006) and Associate Editor of arq: Architectural Research Quarterly 9 (Cambridge University Press). 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 1 2 3 4 511 x SERIES EDITOR’S PREFACE Illustration Credits Peter Blundell-Jones, page 108; page 110. David Dernie, page 93; page 94; page 102. Digne Meller-Marcovicz, page xiv. Adam Sharr, page 15; page 16; page 18; page 65. xi ILLUSTRATION CREDITS 1 2 3 4 5 6 711 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 1 2 3 4 511 Acknowledgements Caroline Almond, Patrick Devlin, Mhairi McVicar and Joanne Sayner read drafts of this book and their comments were invaluable. Peter Blundell-Jones and David Dernie kindly provided photographs. Caroline Mallinder and Georgina Johnson from Routledge have generously supported both the book and the ‘Thinkers for Architects’ series. I’m indebted to friends, students and colleagues whose interested questions have reassured me that this has been a worthwhile project to pursue. xiii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 1 2 3 4 5 6 711 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 1 2 3 Martin Heidegger. 4 511 CHAPTER 1 Introduction Few famous philosophers have written specifically for an audience of architects. Martin Heidegger is one of them. He spoke to a gathering of professionals and academics at a conference in Darmstadt in 1951. Hans Scharoun – later architect of the Berlin Philharmonie and German National Library – marked up his programme with glowing comments, enthusing about Heidegger’s talk to friends and acquaintances (Blundell-Jones 1995, 136). The discussion, which so inspired Scharoun, was later printed as an essay called ‘Building Dwelling Thinking’. Republished to this day and translated into many languages, the text influenced more than one generation of architects, theorists and historians during the latter half of the twentieth century. When Peter Zumthor waxes lyrical about the atmospheric potential of spaces and materials; when Christian Norberg-Schulz wrote about the spirit of place; when Juhani Pallasmaa writes about The Eyes of the Skin; when Dalibor Vesely argues about the crisis of representation; when Karsten Harries claims ethical parameters for architecture; when Steven Holl discusses phenomena and paints watercolours evoking architectural experiences; all these establishment figures are responding in some way to Heidegger and his notions of dwelling and place. Not that the response to Heidegger has been overwhelmingly positive. Far from it. He remains perhaps the most controversial thinker among those who coloured the last deeply troubled century. Heidegger was a member of the Nazi party, triumphantly appointed rector of Freiburg University on the wave of terror and euphoria which brought the fascists to power in 1933. Whether the philosopher’s resignation of that appointment the following year was the end of his infatuation, or whether he remained a lifelong Nazi, seems to depend as much on individual commentators’ sympathy or antipathy for his philosophy as it does on the hotly contested facts of the case. Without doubt there are unpalatable moments in Heidegger’s biography which should be acknowledged and condemned. However, when eminent architectural critics dismiss the 1 INTRODUCTION philosopher in no uncertain terms – one has written an article titled ‘Forget 1 Heidegger’ (after Jean Baudrillard’s ‘Forget Foucault’) (Leach 2000) – they do so 2 as much from the battleground of architecture’s politics as they do from the 3 moral high ground.