GS1002 Basic Philosophy - Term ProjectName: Bui Viet Kien – ID: 5135180

Deconstruction & ArchitectureFrom Deconstruction theory to Deconstructive Architecture

“Architecture is understood as a representation of deconstruction, the materialrepresentation of an abstract idea” – Mark Wigley

In the late 1960s, a French philosopher name Derrida established a term of philosophy which now has many influences on Literature, Art and Architecture. That school of thought is DECONSTRUCTION. This theory has overturned the traditional thoughts on metaphysics of Western Philosophy. Basically, this brand of philosophy examines the nature of reality and the relationship between mind and matter. Deconstructivism is also one style in Post-structuralism - distrusts the very notion of reason, and the idea of the human being as an independent entity. The individual is seen as a composite of social and linguistic forces, thus being ‘constructed’. Deconstruction represents a complex response to a variety of theoretical and philosophical movements of the 20th century, most notably Husserlian phenomenology, Saussurean and French structuralism,

and Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis. The term “deconstruction” itself derives directly from German philosopher Martin Heidegger’s Destruktion and Abbau. The major foundations that Heidegger developed became major assumptions of post-structuralist thinkers, such as Derrida. In Derrida’s own words, it is literally a “translation” of those terms, and what is translated is architectural. For Derrida, Destruktion means “not a destruction but precisely a destructuring that dismantles the structural layers in the system” and Abbau means “to take apart an edifice in order to see how it is constituted or deconstituted”.

The theory of deconstructivism has most readily been applied to literature as a method of criticism and a mode of analytical inquiry. According to theorist Jacques Derrida, a deconstructive reading:

must always aim at a certain relationship, unperceived by the writer, between what he commands and what he does not command of the patterns of language that he uses…[It] attempts to make the not-seen accessible to sight.

(Derrida, Of Grammatology, pp.158 and 163)

In her book The Critical Difference (1980), Barbara Johnson clarifies the term:

Deconstruction is not synonymous with ‘destruction.' It is in fact much closer to the original meaning of the word 'analysis’, which etymologically means ‘to undo’ … The deconstruction of a text does not proceed by random doubt or arbitrary subversion, but by the careful teasing out of warring forces of signification within the text.

(Johnson, The Critical Difference, p. 5)

Deconstruction of a text is a process by which the reader must decipher meaning through textual oppositions (binaries): contradictions/paradoxes, shifts/breaks, conflicts, absences/omissions, linguistic quirks, and ‘aporia’ (impasse). The main effect of a deconstructive reading is to show textual disunity. A deconstructivist demonstrates that what appears to be unified and coherent actually contains contradictions and conflicts which the text cannot stabilize and contain.

The starting point of post-structuralism (deconstruction) is argued to have been Derrida’s 1966 lecture “Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences.” In this paper, Derrida sees in modern times a particular intellectual ‘event’ which constitutes a radical break from past ways of thought, loosely associating this break with the philosophy of Nietzsche and Heidegger and the psychoanalysis of Freud. Here, Derrida disassociates himself from past discourse with his notion of the ‘decentring’ of our universe. Prior to this event the existence of a norm or center was constituted as man. This provided a center against which “deviations, aberrations, variations could be detected and identified as ‘Other’ and marginal”. Western civilization was built in relation to the center. Derrida argues that the twentieth century destroyed these centers, resulting in no absolutes or fixed points. The universe that we inhabit is ‘decentred’ or inherently relativistic. Derrida expresses his philosophy in relation to structure:

The function of this center was not only to orient, balance, and organize the structure – one cannot in fact conceive of an unorganized structure – but above all to make sure that the organizing principle of the structure would limit what we might call the play of the structure…The concept of centered structure is in fact the concept of a play based on a fundamental ground, a play constituted on the basis of a fundamental immobility and a reassuring certitude, which itself is beyond the reach of play.

(Derrida, “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences”)

Here, the inherent relationship between philosophical thought and architecture becomes prevalent. “Architecture and philosophy are effects of the same transaction, effects that can never be separated…The sense that they are separate is actually an effect of the very contract that binds them according to complicated folds, twists, and turns that defy the institutional practices of both discourses”. The interplay between philosophy and architecture is evident not only in Derrida’s writings but also demonstrated through his collaborations with architects such as Bernard Tschumi and Peter Eisenman in the Parc la Villete in Paris. The deconstructive ideas of Jacques Derrida can readily be applied to architecture.

Deconstruction is a recent school of thought in architecture that draws its philosophical bases from the literary movement Deconstruction. Its name also derives from the Russian Constructivism movement of the 1920s from which it drew some of its formal inspirations. It is a contemporary style that primarily counters the ordered rationality of Modern Architecture. Deconstructive thought questions conventional ways of perceiving form and space. Architecture that appears fragmented, non-linear, with bent/uneven outlines and incomplete forms are indicative of this theory. The final appearances of buildings in this style are characterized by a stimulating unpredictability and a controlled chaos. The buildings of the deconstructivists of the 1980s and 1990s are inconceivable without both the influence of the Modernists of the 1920s, and the art of the Russian Constructivists. The deconstructivists first received international recognition through the exhibition “Deconstructivist Architecture.” This exhibition took place at the Museum of Modern Art in 1988 and was organized by Philip Johnson and Mark Wigley. It displayed work by Frank Gehry, and also buildings and projects by Peter Eisenman, COOP Himmelbau, and Bernhard Tschimi. This exhibition launched the beginning of the worldwide stylistic movement of Deconstructivism.

Deconstruction questions solidarity, uniformity, and cohesion. To deconstruct architecture a person must first question the entire “architectural rhetoric of foundation, construction, architectonics, and so on…” We must begin by questioning our idea of a building, and in doing so, we inherently question tradition. As we do, we see that this idea is aligned with the questioning of ‘institutional authority.’ This relates back to Derrida’s notion of ‘centre.’ This so-called ‘centre’ or ‘institutional authority’ has been the basis of Western thought – the ‘episteme.’ The process of ‘decentring’ ourselves/our architecture from an imposed

system is the dominating principle in deconstructivism. Our disassociation or breaking away from the ‘episteme’ which consumes us is desirable. In an attempt to break away from the politics of traditional thinking, traditional relationships are disturbed and as a result, the basic elements of architecture are dismantled. Deconstructivist buildings may seem to have no visual logic or coherence. They may appear to be made up of unrelated, disharmonious abstract forms. But in fact, these forms demonstrate cohesion through the underlying principles of deconstruction. Derrida poses the question, what justifies the distinction between inside and outside, intelligible and physical, speech and writing? This question is the very essence of his theory. Deconstructivist architecture aims to break down or rearrange the typified notion of a building, exposing its inside to previously unseen aspects of its outside, reconstructing different accommodations of space, forcing different means of access, reworking its principles of what it contains.

Attachment: Deconstruction Architecture Examples

Peter Eisenman - Max Reinhardts Haus project, Berlin Germany.

Daniel Libeskind – Jewish Museum, Berlin Germany.

Frank Gehry – Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao Spain.

Coop Himme(l)au - UFA CINEMA CENTER, Dresden Germany.