In my last blog post, I addressed how language affects society’s unconscious views on the gender binary. With Heidegger, he also went into nuances of language affecting how dwelling and building are related and affecting design. He goes into language history and how time, translations, connections and interpretations have changed “the proper meaning of the verb bauen, namely to dwell, has been lost to us” (Heidegger 1971, 348) completely changing how people even approach design. This reminded me of Keith Chen’s Ted Talk about the effects of futureless languages. Chen compared pockets of futureless language speakers to statistics related to how they save money because of how they approach the concept of the future and time differently. Heidegger said that “Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact language remains the master of man. Perhaps it is before all else man’s subversion of this relation of dominance that drives his essential being into alienation” (Heidegger 1971, 348). Many architects and theorists have identified and attempted to tackle this problem. Christopher Alexander attempted to completely rewrite architectural language with “A Pattern Language.” Kevin Lynch created the word, “imageability” to change the approach to design, and Aldo Rossi similarly chose to focus on his own idea of the “urban artifact” in relation to city design. Across disciplines and time, language has been a limiting factor to people that we have yet to fully understand and work past.
Chen, Keith. “Could Your Language Affect Your Ability to Save Money?” TED. TED, June 2012. https://www.ted.com/talks/keith_chen_could_your_language_affect_your_ability_to_save_money?utm_campaign=tedspread.
Heidegger, Martin. Building Dwelling Thinking, 1971.
Fun and relevant post as always Mia. I’m quite curious to hear of any critiques you may have with this approach, and how it may or may not relate to ‘design’ as the term is casually used in architecture, the discipline, and its education. Interestingly, I think Heidegger and Norberg-Schulz would have issue with how language is being analyzed in your linked video!