Friday 23 October 2015
Building, Dwelling, thinking from Poetry, Language,
Thought by M. Heidegger
Heidegger for architects by Sharr, Adam
The author Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) was a German
philosopher and exponent of existentialism. He focuses and interested in
ontology (the philosophical study of being or existence) and metaphysics. The author
of the book Heidegger for architects, is a Professor of Architecture at
Newcastle University.
Two major questions at the beginning of the seminar are
1. What is it to dwell?
2. How
does building belong to dwelling?
According to Heidegger
we attain to dwelling so it seems only by means of buildings. The latter,
building has the former, dwelling as its goals. Still not every building is a
dwelling. For example bridges and hangers, stadiums, power stations are
buildings but not dwelling. Railway stations and highways, dams and markets
halls are built and are also not dwelling places. Heidegger explained in one of
the chapters the origins and meaning of the words neighbor, to built and dwell.
Bauen (old English & high German word of building, means to dwell) this
signifies: to remain, to stay in a place.
Towards, the answer of the second question Heidegger
clarified to us what building understood by what way of the nature of dwelling
really is. We limit our selves to building in the sense of constructing things
(example in the book with the bridge).
Things which, as location, allow a site we know in
anticipation call buildings. They are so called because they are made by a
process of building construction. The relationship between location and space
lies in the nature of these things qua location, but so does the relation of
the location to the man who lives at the location. According to this world
Heidegger analyse the below questions
• What
is the relation between location and space?
• What
is the relation between man and space?
Regarding the first
point Buildings produces locations, the joining of the spaces of these
locations necessarily brings with it space, as spatium and as extensio , into
the thingly structure of buildings. But building never shapes pure ‘space’ as a
single entity. Neither directly nor indirectly. The answer to the second point
is that, man’s relation to locations and through location to spaces inheres in
this dwelling. The relationship between man and space is none other than
dwelling, strictly through and spoken.Heidegger believed that building
accomplishes its nature in the raising of locations by the joining of their
spaces. Only if we are capable of dwelling, only then can we build (example
with the Black Forest Building, dwelling, thinking. M Heidegger pg 156-158 ).A
building does belong to dwelling when memories are been created. When you fell
nostalgia perhaps where your routs are, which also identify and influence you
as person.
This two questions raise in the classroom for
conversation:
• What
is the difference between a house and a home?
• What
do you think makes a house a home?
Home can be wherever you feel comfortable as
Heidegger notes. Homes can be a positive place or a negative space. For example
when your house is not well ventilated, or when there is abuse or luck of privacy.
Heidegger’s Fourfold
1. Earth:
an elusive element
2. Sky :
spiritual component related to eternity
3. Mortals
4. Divinities
Fourfold term: earth and sky are the first
conditions that make your character. People should well know their self’s in
order to connect with a place.
The two colleagues (Urvi and Japheth) that
present the two books choose to make a game with the five senses. Everybody
took one piece of paper with one sense on it and from that you should draw
something that comes to your mind. The sense that I pick was smell and I choose
to draw a cap of hot coffee as near my house in my home town is a coffee
factory. The sense of smell is connect to my memory as from a young age I remember
myself walking out of the house to go to school and the first thing I smell in
the air is coffee. Resulting of this exercise is to make us realise that the
five senses are well connected with our memories.
Research
methods
Secondary
research: grounded theory
• Research approach that tests concepts
and propositions against new data (iterative) to produce new theories.
• Grounded theory can be applied to
quantitative and qualitative data
• Grounded theory extracts themes from phenomenological
data and undergoes continuous refinement narrowing down to a central theme.
Phenomenology
is the interpretive study of human experience. The aim is to examine and to
clarify human situations, events, meanings, and experiences as they are known
in everyday life but typically unnoticed beneath the level of conscious
awareness (Seamon 2000).
During my study I found
very interesting an article written by Elisa Garcia on Jul 12 15 in Fresh
Trends with the title ‘The best ways to apply Environmental Psychology’
What public spaces
consider successful?
Architects must
evaluate how successful a place is and the reason for its success.
Environmental
Psychology is a holistic perspective developed in the 1960s around a key
statement: People experiment and have an effect on the environment, while the
environment influences people through the different senses.
Environmental
Psychology Encourage Social Life and Community Identity: The effectiveness of a
public place is closely connected with its ability to satisfy its social
function. William H. Whyte, who studies human behavior in the urban
environment, determined the main factors that influence the social success of
places (book ‘The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, 1980’) he indicated that some of the aspects that
make a place more attractive are: the amount of seating, flexible management,
connection to the street, user’s ability to make decisions, encouragement of people’s appropriation of
the space, location of urban elements in groups of three (triangular), presence
of natural elements, food to ear and chances for meeting people as if they were
not strangers (Garcia, E).
Reference:
Encyclopedia Britannica, 2015 Martin Heidegger | German philosopher [online] Google Available at:
http://www.britannica.com/biography/Martin-Heidegger-German-philosopher
[Accessed 21.10.15]
Heidegger, Martin (1971) Building, dwelling,
thinking from Poetry, Language, Thought, translated by Albert Hofstadter
Landscape Architects Network, 2015 How to Use Environmental Psychology[online]
Google Available at: http://landarchs.com/the-best-ways-to-apply-environmental-psychology/
[Accessed 31.1.2016]
Sharr, Adam, Heidegger For Architects, ed.
Routledge, 2007
