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What is architecture for?
Citation
Malpas, J, What is architecture for?, International Journal of Architectural Theory, 22, (36) pp. 117-126. ISSN 1434-0984 (2017) [Refereed Article]
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Abstract
"What is it to build?" (Was ist zu bauen?), asks Martin Heidegger in ‘Building
Dwelling Thinking’. The question is one whose echoes can be heard in the title,
as well as the text, of Karsten Harries’ The Ethical Function of Architecture,
though as the title has it, the question at issue is not so much immediately directed
at building, but at the closely related practice of architecture—"what is
architecture for?"—and Harries’ answer is that what architecture is for (it’s
"for the sake of which", to use the language of Heidegger’s Being and Time) is
something ethical, which also means something concerned with the human.
In this, Harries rejects, or at least treats as secondary, the idea of architecture’s
function as primarily aesthetic—and even as primarily utilitarian (assuming
that the ethical and the utilitarian are indeed distinct). Although he
never makes the point himself, the way Harries connects architecture, and so
also building, to the ethical seems implicitly to involve a reading of the question
of ‘Building Dwelling Thinking’ that draws it into close proximity with
Heidegger’s earlier ‘Letter on "Humanism’".
Item Details
Item Type: | Refereed Article |
---|---|
Keywords: | architecture, Heidegger |
Research Division: | Philosophy and Religious Studies |
Research Group: | Philosophy |
Research Field: | Philosophy not elsewhere classified |
Objective Division: | Expanding Knowledge |
Objective Group: | Expanding knowledge |
Objective Field: | Expanding knowledge in philosophy and religious studies |
UTAS Author: | Malpas, J (Professor Jeff Malpas) |
ID Code: | 120083 |
Year Published: | 2017 |
Deposited By: | Office of the School of Humanities |
Deposited On: | 2017-08-09 |
Last Modified: | 2018-05-07 |
Downloads: | 1 View Download Statistics |
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