Week 7: Phenomenology

In the first lecture when Professor Han asked us each “What is architecture?” I responded that architecture is defined by the character of the building. When reading Christian Norberg-Shulz’ “Kahn, Heidegger and the Language of Architecture,” I really appreciated his analysis of Louis Kahn as I agreed with a lot of the points. Kahn asks “What does the building want to be?” and “suggests that buildings possess an essence which determines the solution” (Norberg-Shulz 29). In my opinion, this idea of “essence” relates to my statement that architecture is inherently defined by the character of a building, whether that be character defined by physical aspects or how one feels when inside. Kahn is essentially anti-functionalism, similar to Rossi, because he believes that “architecture is an expression of man’s institutions” (Norberg-Shulz 31). I found the example of a school as an institution quite interesting because he was basically saying that you do not need a schoolhouse to be a school because learning started by being taught by someone and then “spaces were erected” to serve as a location for learning, in turn creating the first schools (Norberg-Shulz 31). This is similar to Heidegger’s ideas of the bridge in “Building Dwelling Thinking” because the locations around a stream are of no particular importance until a bridge is erected, thus providing context for the location of points along the stream. Heidegger says “the banks emerge as banks only as the bridge crosses the stream” because now they have definition and context as “the bridge gathers the earth as landscape around the stream” (Heidegger 354).

I also thought it was interesting that in Vesely’s seminar at the University of Houston, titled “On the Relevance of Phenomenology” he referenced Disneyland. I immediately thought back to Rowe and Koetter’s “Collage City” reference to Disney World. Vesely was asked the question of “How do you differentiate between reality and Disneyland?” and answered that “There is no abosolute reality, no ultimate norm which is authentic,” basically saying that depending on interpretation, Disneyland could be reality (Vesely 61). He continues by saying that “What matters is whether Disneyland can stand a confrontation with a broader reality than itself” (Vesely 61). This was similar to me to Rowe and Koetter’s analysis of Disney World through their comparison of it to a skyscraper in saying that there is more than meets the eye with Disney World because there are so many innerworkings and basically there are “two worlds of illusion and fact” within Disney World (Rowe and Koetter 45).

Citations:

Heidegger, Martin. Building Dwelling Thinking, 1954.

Norberg-Shulz, Christian. Kahn, Heidegger and the Language of Architecture, n.d.

Rowe, Colin, and Fred Koetter. Collage City. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: The MIT Press, 1978.

Vesely, Dalibor. On the Relevance of Phenomenology. Houston, Texas: University of Houston, 1984.