Heidegger's Architecture: An Analysis

In order to understand Heidegger's view of architecture and its role in society, it is important first of all to understand what Heidegger has to say about technology as well as his talismanic approach to construction. This ôconstructionö needs to be recognized not so much as a literal constructing of objects in the physical world but rather as a way of looking at that worldùand as a way of using that world so that human beings become part of the world rather than attempting to dominate it or tame it or simply use it for their own ends. At the same time, Heidegger seems to be indicating that we cannot be other than what we are, i.e. we cannot escape modernity and the quest for a rational explanation for the universe because it is what we are and what we have built for ourselves.

In this paper, what Heidegger means by ôbuilding,ö ôdwellingö and ôthinkingö will be examined. It is hoped that these conceptsùas complex as they are when handled by Heidegger and filtered through his holistic world viewùcan result in an understandable analysis of Heidegger's approach to architecture. However, it is to be understood that the term ôarchitectureö would have for Heidegger much more of an encompassing meaning than what, for example, an architect would mean by it. It is hoped that the essay can dig away at these deeper meanings in order to connect architecture (what humans build as a way of creating homes and roots, shelter and

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rrounding "developed" and "undeveloped" environs. In short, the office park opens something of a small "world" in and around the physical and social spaces it occupies. Such a "world" does not emerge ex nihilo, however, but arises within a network of relations it both adopts and refracts. Now, an Ursprache [the original languageùpoetry] engages and determines the Wesen or essence of beings (i.e., how they enter into and persist through disclosure), and thus it involves the furthest reaches of significance, a final network of relations surrounding the emergence of all "worlds" (p. 529). This needs to be placed in the context of Heidegger's ôBuilding Dwelling Thinkingö essay and his foundational theory that ôdwellingö is the characteristic that most basically and fundamentally defines what a human being is, ôthe way in which mortals are upon the earth à the fundamental relation of being according to which mortals areö (1977, p. 142, 155). It is clear from these statements that Heidegger placed a tremendous amount of weight on this concept of ôdwellingö (again keeping in mind that it goes beyond the dictionary definition of ôdwellingö). In fact, according to Lysaker (2001): ô '[D]welling' names the way in which human beings un
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 5253
Approximate Pages = 21 (250 words per page)