Dalibor Vesely The Latent Ground of the Natural World: Introduction to the communicative role of architecture

--What books and written words are to our literacy

architecture is to our culture as a whole.

Any serious attempt to understand the true nature of architecture and its role in

culture depends on the understanding of the hierarchical structure of the natural

world, particularly in view of its corporeality, where architecture has its

foundations. The understanding of the natural world (lebenswelt - lived world) is

closely linked with the development of phenomenological thinking, which went

through several stages, first a stage based on the principles of transcendental

consciousness (Husserl), later on the fundamental ontology and question of

Being (Heidegger) and finally on the role of embodiment (Merleau-Ponty,

Patocka, et al.) In retrospect it is possible to see the problem of the natural world

as a problem of experience and articulation from the position of consciousness,

ontology and language, and finally from the position of the corporeality of the

natural world. It is the latest stage that is most relevant for architecture where

embodiment plays a decisive role. It is true that the body and corporeality of the

world were discussed already by Husserl (Idee II and III), however their nature

was determined in Husserl’s interpretation by the criteria of consciousness.

Heidegger also addressed the question of corporeality, but for him its presence is

only latent and not fully developed. The nature of Dasein, and being-in-the world

opened no doubt the issue of embodiment but did not discuss it any further. As

Heidegger himself acknowledged: “The nature of corporeality represents as a

whole a problematic of its kind, but we shall not discuss it here” As we know he

never returned to it. And yet in his later writings he developed a new

interpretation of Being, closely associated with the ontological structure of the

world, where embodiment, seen as earth played an important role. In the well

known diagram Being is crossed out with two diagonals, representing the

foursome (Geviert). The point of intersection of the diagonals is a place of

Ereignis, the common presence of man and world in the configuration and play of

the foursome. In a further development of this line of thought the most

conspicuous is the tension (streit) of world and earth. Does the tension lead to a

different appreciation of embodiment? H.G. Gadamer, who was probably more

familiar with Heidegger’s thinking than many, has this answer: “The philosophical

tradition to which I myself belong as a phenomenologist and as a disciple of

Husserl and Heidegger contributed very little to the clarification of the theme of

the body and corporeality and their specific mystery.”

It is not accidental that Heidegger himself was forced to acknowledge that he did

not reflect (address) the theme of corporeality and did not concentrate his

intellectual powers on it in the same way as he did on many other themes related

to human existence. In later years Gadamer returned to the problem of

corporeality, but the results of his investigations remained only partial,

(fragmentary) contributions to the understanding of the corporeality of the natural

world. As he himself writes as late as in 1986: “The phrase ‘the body and

embodiment’ like the ‘living body and life’ sounds almost like a play on words and

thus acquires for us an almost mysterious presence. It vividly presents the

absolute inseparability of the living body and life itself. We should perhaps even

ask ourselves whether questions concerning the existence of the soul , indeed

any talk of the soul at all, could ever arise if we did not experience the body both

as something living and as something subject to decay.” (The Enigma of Health,

pp. 70-71).

The latent history of the natural world leads inevitably to several questions: Is the

natural world a discovery of modern phenomenology? Is it not possible to speak

about the natural world (lebenswelt) before Husserl? Do not some historical

epochs show the characteristics of the natural world comparable with the

contemporary phenomenological understanding, and are they not also articulated

in a way that can tell us (in a certain sense) more about the nature of the natural

world than contemporary philosophy? These are questions we have not yet

raised. Why? Partly because it is generally assumed that our modern knowledge

is superior to any preceding one and the reference to European tradition in

Husserl and the notion of World in Heidegger opened the possibility of historical

reference, but such reference was seriously undermined by the problematic

understanding of European metaphysics and Heidegger’s doctrine of the

“forgetfulness of Being” extended back to Plato. It was among others, H.G.

Gadamer, who demonstrated very convincingly the impossibility of associating

the source of metaphysics with the philosophy of Plato. In one of his later texts Gadamer writes: “One thing is clear: the scheme ontotheology or metaphysics is,

as the word metaphysics itself tells us, totally inappropriate to apply to Plato,

(Gadamer, GW 7, p.280).

In a more specific interpretation of the question of metaphysics Gadamer has this

to say: “Is it the language of metaphysics alone that achieves the continual

coming-to-language of our Being-in-the-world? Certainly it is the language of

metaphysics, but further behind it is the language of the Indo-Germanic peoples,

which makes such thinking capable of being formulated. But can a language-or a

family of languages- ever properly be called the language of metaphysical

thinking, just because metaphysics was thought, or what would be more,

anticipated in it. Is not language always the language of the homeland and the

process of becoming-at-home in the world? And does this fact not mean that

language knows no restrictions and never breaks down, because it holds infinite

possibilities of utterance in readiness? It seems to me that the hermeneutical

dimension enters here and demonstrates its inner infinity in the speaking that

takes place in the dialogue.” In a similar way as Gadamer, Ernesto Grassi re-

emphasised the non-metaphysical nature of language mainly in the sphere of

poetry.

In the critique of Heidegger’s theses in the text On Humanism Grassi refers to an

authentic tradition of humanism, which in his view Heidegger “did not himself

know and misunderstood whenever he referred to it”. (p. 30). With a well

informed and critical understanding Grassi writes: “One of the central problems of

Humanism is not man , but the question of the original context, the horizon of

‘openness’ in which man and his world appear.” (p. 17). In a different context

Grassi continues: “In the humanist tradition, there was always a central concern

for the problem of the primacy of unhiddenness, openness, that in which

historical Dasein can first appear. For this reason we need to reassess and

revise the historical categories which still govern our thinking.” (p. 29). The most

interesting historical category, from our architectural point of view, is the

anticipation of the contemporary philosophical understanding of the natural world

in the structure and articulation of the world of earlier historical epochs.

Before we address the question of any preceding historical epoch we should

remember the development (changes) of architectural thinking and its current

form. We can follow this development in approximately three stages. The first, in

which architectural principles and order, proportions, symmetries, harmony etc.

were formed in the framework of cosmological thinking, culminated at the end of

the 17c and in some parts of Europe at the middle of 18c. The transformation of

cosmological into astronomical thinking, where the unity of celestial and

terrestrial phenomena was reduced to a narrow domain of celestial mechanics

(astrophysics), lost its ability to serve as a reference for the phenomena on earth,

where architecture itself is situated. The loss of cosmological reference was

gradually replaced by reference to history, focused primarily on the question of

origins (from Solomon’s temple to the primitive hut). The foundational role of

classical orders was replaced by historical precedents, genealogies, character

and finally by style. (Fischer von Erlach, Boffrand, J.F. Blondel, et al.) The

reference to history was inevitably more relative than cosmology. This led to the

well known historical arbitrariness of the 19c and as a result to a search for a new

objectivity of architectural principles and order. The most conspicuous in that

search was J.N.L. Durand’s selection of the most important buildings in history,

analysed and reduced to primary elements that would allow him to create a

universal 'mecanisme de la composition'. Durand’s work was motivated by the

assumption that history had run its course and reached a standstill at the end of

the 18c. History therefore could be transformed into a new form of understanding,

into a theory, which would be a recapitulation and consummation of its past as

well as the foundation of a new architectural order.

The fulfilment of Durand’s theoretical project is a process of which we are still a

part today. However, the theoretical positions and projects that dominate our

current situation have not eliminated the presence and role of natural (cosmic)

conditions and history in our life and creativity. In other words nature and history

were absorbed in theory, but their presence and power is still with us in the

deeper strata of our culture. In this situation, history and nature represent a latent

dimension (strata) of our world. One of the main purposes of architecture to

communicate with the rest of culture can be understood and restored by

overcoming the narrow theoretical reference to history and natural (cosmic)

conditions. In such an attempt it is important to see how our theoretical thinking is

rooted in the typicality of our situation(s). Typicality is constituted over a longer

period of time, and represents therefore a history. Not a history as past, but as

the depth of our present. It is perhaps not necessary to emphasise that a proper

understanding of history as a historicity of our existence leads inevitably to the

discovery (re-discovery) of the natural (cosmic) conditions, in which history is in

the end rooted. (Rain can change the outcome of a battle and the result can

change history.) The link between intentions, history and natural conditions in our

own field may be less explicit, but is absolutely vital for the place and role of

architecture in culture. What is vital for the coherence and meaning of culture is

the continuity of reference between the more articulated levels of culture and the

levels of its embodiment in natural conditions. The continuity of reference can be

seen as a reciprocity of articulation and embodiment or as an ongoing

communicative movement.

Communicative movement already takes place in its most elementary form on

the non-verbal level through gestures and significant movements, embodied in

rituals, drama, dance, but also in the corresponding configuration of space. This

leads to the discovery of similarities, metaphorical and analogical relations and

finally to the formation of the communicative space of the world and culture as a

whole. Just as all movements, the communicative movement has its inevitable

final referent, that to which it relates. “As moving beings, we are drawn to

something that is motionless, that is eternally the unshakable ground-the earth.”

(Husserl). “The earth is the referent of bodily movement as such, as that which is

not in motion, which is firm. At the same time, we experience the earth as a

power, as something that has no counterpart in our lived experience. It is a power

as the earth that feeds us, something that penetrates us globally. By our nature,

by the structuring of our life, we are earth-bound. The corporeality of what we

strive for in our life testifies to the power of the earth in us.” (Patocka). The close

link between architecture and earth can support the final conclusion, that

corporeality testifies also to the power of architecture in our life.