Understanding Deconstruction

Arch. Ronald John Dalmacio, uap m_archHD

Premise• Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant• Causality

• NOTE: spelled C-A-U-S-A-L-I-T-Y

Two mathematical riddles that ‘might’ defy causalitya.) 1-1+1-1+1-1+….∞ = ?

b.) 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+… ∞ = ?

Deconstruction is a critical outlook concerned with the relationship between text and meaning.

EtymologyDerrida's original use of the word "deconstruction" was a translation of Destruktion, a concept from the work of Martin Heidegger that Derrida sought to apply to textual reading.

Heidegger's term referred to a process of exploring the categories and concepts that tradition has imposed on a word, and the history behind them.

Derrida opted for deconstruction over the literal translation destruction to suggest precision rather than violence.

Basic philosophical concernsDerrida's concerns flow from a consideration of several issues:• A desire to contribute to the re-valuation of all western

values, built on the 18th century Kantian critique of reason, and carried forward to the 19th century, in its more radical implications, by Kierkegaard and Nietzsche.• An assertion that texts outlive their authors, and become part

of a set of cultural habits equal to, if not surpassing, the importance of authorial intent.• A re-valuation of certain classic western dialectics: poetry vs.

philosophy, reason vs. revelation, structure vs. creativity, episteme vs. techne, etc.

Basic philosophical concernsTo this end, Derrida follows a long line of modern philosophers, who look backwards to Plato and his influence on the western metaphysical tradition.

Like Nietzsche, Derrida suspects Plato of dissimulation in the service of a political project, namely the education, through critical reflections, of a class of citizens more strategically positioned to influence the polis. However, like Nietzsche, Derrida is not satisfied merely with such a political interpretation of Plato, because of the particular dilemma modern humans find themselves stuck in.

His Platonic reflections are inseparably part of his critique of modernity, hence the attempt to be something beyond the modern, because of this Nietzschian sense that the modern has lost its way and become mired in nihilism

Deconstructivism attempts to move away from the supposedly constricting 'rules' of modernism such as "form follows

function," "purity of form," and "truth to materials.

Metaphysics of presenceThe concept of the metaphysics of presence is an important consideration in deconstruction. Deconstructive interpretation holds that the entire history of Western philosophy with its language and traditions has emphasized the desire for immediate access to meaning, and thus built a metaphysics or ontotheology based on privileging presence over absence.

“Fountain”• Marcel Duchamp, 1917• voted the most influential artwork of the 20th century

House IV by Peter Eisenman

House IV diagrams

House IV Interiors

Phenomenology“Originally means knowledge of appearance. For Husserl, it meant knowledge of appearances as they present themselves to human consciousness. (Klassen, 1994)”

Bruder Klaus Field Chapel

Goethe

“Speak to me you stones!”

“Architecture of the past is not used to sooth us, to entertain us and make us feel good. It is there to tap into our deeper emotions, to move us in ways that common objects and common images have not moved us before.” The Architecture of the City

Aldo Rossi, 1966

Philosophy and Architecture: Phenomenology Hermeneutics

DeconstructionWinand Klassen, 1994

God-centered worldMan-centered world

Nothing-centered world

Martin Heidegger• Das Nischts (The Nothing)• We forget that all beings

are connected.• We forget to be free.• “Geworfenheit” or

Thorwness

Metaphysics of presenceIn Being and Time (1927), Martin Heidegger argues that the concept of time prevalent in all Western thought has largely remained unchanged since the definition offered by Aristotle in the Physics.

Heidegger says, "Aristotle's essay on time is the first detailed Interpretation of this phenomenon [time] which has come down to us. Every subsequent account of time, including Henri Bergson's, has been essentially determined by it."

Aristotle defined time as "the number of movement in respect of before and after".

By defining time in this way Aristotle privileges what is present-at-hand, namely the "presence" of time. Heidegger argues in response that "entities are grasped in their Being as 'presence'; this means that they are understood with regard to a definite mode of time – the 'Present'“.

Central to Heidegger's own philosophical project is the attempt to gain a more authentic understanding of time. Heidegger considers time to be the unity of three ecstases, the past, the present and the future.

Metaphysics of presenceDeconstructive thinkers, like Jacques Derrida, describe their task as the questioning or deconstruction of this metaphysical tendency in Western philosophy.

Derrida writes, "Without a doubt, Aristotle thinks of time on the basis of ousia as parousia, on the basis of the now, the point, etc.

And yet an entire reading could be organized that would repeat in Aristotle's text both this limitation and its opposite.“ This argument is largely based on the earlier work of Heidegger, who in Being and Time claimed that the theoretical attitude of pure presence is parasitical upon a more originary involvement with the world in concepts such as the ready-to-hand and being-with. Friedrich Nietzsche is a more distant, but clear, influence as well.

The presence to which Heidegger refers is both a presence as in a "now" and also a presence as in an eternal present, as one might associate with God or the "eternal" laws of science. This hypostatized (underlying) belief in presence is undermined by novel phenomenological ideas, such that presence itself does not subsist, but comes about primordially through the action of our futural projection, our realization of finitude and the reception or rejection of the traditions of our time.

Modernism

Post-Modernism

Deconstructivism

Phenomenology

Critical Regionalism

Critical RegionalismKenneth Frampton

Critical RegionalismThe difference between criticality in deconstructivism and criticality in critical regionalism, is that critical regionalism reduces the overall level of complexity involved and maintains a clearer analysis while attempting to reconcile modernist architecture with local differences. In effect, this leads to a modernist "vernacular."

Critical regionalism displays a lack of self-criticism and a utopianism of place. Deconstructivism, meanwhile, maintains a level of self-criticism, as well as external criticism and tends towards maintaining a level of complexity.

Criticism to DeconstructivismCritics of deconstructivism see it as a purely formal exercise with little social significance. Kenneth Frampton finds it "elitist and detached“.

Nikos Salingaros calls deconstructivism a "viral expression" that invades design thinking in order to build destroyed forms; while curiously similar to both Derrida's and Philip Johnson's descriptions, this is meant as a harsh condemnation of the entire movement.

Other criticisms are similar to those of deconstructivist philosophy—that since the act of deconstructivism is not an empirical process, it can result in whatever an architect wishes, and it thus suffers from a lack of consistency. Today there is a sense that the philosophical underpinnings of the beginning of the movement have been lost, and all that is left is the aesthetic of deconstructivism.

Other criticisms reject the premise that architecture is a language capable of being the subject of linguistic philosophy, or, if it was a language in the past, critics claim it is no longer.

Others question the wisdom and impact on future generations of an architecture that rejects the past and presents no clear values as replacements and which often pursues strategies that are intentionally aggressive to human senses.

Critical Regionalists thus hold that both modern and post-modern architecture are "deeply problematic“.

Phenomenology-Critical Regionalism• Church of light by Tadao Ando

Church on the water by tadao ando

“Slippage”

Wexner Center for the Arts by Peter Eisenman

Question holds:What does the future lies ahead of us?

Just remember two things• Western Architecture is an architecture of form. Eastern Architecture

(including Philippines) is an architecture of space.

• Western architects wants to identify everything using scientific method of designing their forms. Eastern architects on the other hand uses instincts on designing space, we also call it kutob.