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 sharedness) with Heidegger's primordial ôbuildingö and ôdwellingö. To quote Hailey (2002):
It makes sense that the words construct and construe share Latin derivations from a root meaning ôto pile up together.ö Both syntactic operations occur in an event's ôtaking place,ö and their intersection marks the beginnings of art. Thus, we ôpile upö and collect both bodily memory and remembrances of place and attempt to bring them ôtogetherö in an assem...