GEORGE L. CLAFLEN, JR.
Temple University
WHAT IS DECONSTRUCTION?
Is it a style, a theory, or a method? In the view of its foremost proponent, Jacques Derrida, deconstruction is none of these: "Deconstruction is not a method and cannot be transformed into one."3 It is rather to be considered a condition, a practice, a sensibility, a habit of looking for the ways in which formal structures undo themselves through the oppositions of their constituent and essential elements. It is a continuous process of framing and re-framing events. It derives from the traditions of semiotic analysis of meaning and represents a break with the practice of structural analysis (in fact some would say that deconstruction and poststructuralism are synonymous). Terry Eagleton has concisely described its tenets:
"Deconstruction...has grasped the point that the binary oppositions with which classical structuralism tends to work represents a way of seeing typical of ideologies. Ideologies like to draw rigid boundaries between what is acceptable and what is not, between self and non-self, truth and falsity,...reason and madness, central and marginal.... Such metaphysical thinking...cannot be simply eluded: we cannot catapult ourselves beyond this binary habit of thought into an ultra-metaphysical realm. But by a certain way of operating upon texts -- whether 'literary' or 'philosophical' -- we may begin to unravel these oppositions a little, demonstrate how one term of an antithesis secretly inheres within the other. Structuralism was generally satisfied if it could carve up a text into binary oppositions (high/low... Nature/Culture and so on) and expose the logic of their working. Deconstruction tries to show how such oppositions, in order to hold themselves in place, are sometimes betrayed into inverting or collapsing themselves, or need to banish to the text's margins certain niggling details which can be made to return and plague them. The tactic of deconstructive criticisms ...is to show how texts come to embarrass their own ruling systems of logic; and deconstruction shows this by fastening on the 'symptomatic' points, the aporia or impasses of meaning, where texts get
2
into trouble, come unstuck, offer to contradict themselves..."
"There is a continual flickering, spilling, and defusing of meaning ...which cannot be easily contained within the categories of the text's structure, or within the categories of a conventional critical approach to it. Writing, like any process of language, works by difference; but difference is not itself a concept, is not something that can be thought. A text may 'show' us something about the nature of meaning and signification which it is not able to formulate as a propositions, All language, for Derrida, displays this 'surplus' over exact meaning, is always threatening to outrun and escape the sense which tries to contain it ...The advent of the concept of writing, then is a challenge to the very ideal of structure: for a structure always presumes a center, a fixed principle, a hierarchy of meanings and a solid foundation, and it just these notions which the endless differing and deferring of writing throws into question."4
Deconstruction thus throws into question the assumptions of originary authority upon which, ultimately, our entire culture appears to rest. Another definition, this time from a critic of
deconstruction, Richard Rorty, further probes both its tactics and apparent differences from previous forms of analysis:
"It takes a lot of hard work to produce such special effects as 'presence is just a special case of absence' or 'use is but a special case of mentioning.' Nothing except ingenuity stands in the way of any such recontextualization, but there is no method involved, if a method is a procedure which can be taught by reference to rules. Deconstruction is not a novel procedure made possible by a recent philosophical discovery. Recontextualization in general, and inverting hierarchies in particular, has been going on for a long time."
"But why does it sound so shockingly different when Derrida does it, if it is just dialectical inversion all over again? Simply because Derrida makes use of the 'accidental' material features of words, whereas Hegel,...still stuck to the rule that you cannot put any weight on words' sounds and shapes.”5
Deconstruction and architecture could thus be expected to have an intense relationship, of interest to persons in both fields. Why? Because architecture, of all the arts, is a continuous tangible presence in the world, one which is of necessity constantly being recontextualized in many ways simultaneously both by our perception and by the processes of building and altering the environment. Architecture also has multiple systems of meaning, including both patterns of use and associational imagery. The Frankfurt Laboratory was designed and described in pursuit of this relationship.
Temple University
WHAT IS DECONSTRUCTION?
Is it a style, a theory, or a method? In the view of its foremost proponent, Jacques Derrida, deconstruction is none of these: "Deconstruction is not a method and cannot be transformed into one."3 It is rather to be considered a condition, a practice, a sensibility, a habit of looking for the ways in which formal structures undo themselves through the oppositions of their constituent and essential elements. It is a continuous process of framing and re-framing events. It derives from the traditions of semiotic analysis of meaning and represents a break with the practice of structural analysis (in fact some would say that deconstruction and poststructuralism are synonymous). Terry Eagleton has concisely described its tenets:
"Deconstruction...has grasped the point that the binary oppositions with which classical structuralism tends to work represents a way of seeing typical of ideologies. Ideologies like to draw rigid boundaries between what is acceptable and what is not, between self and non-self, truth and falsity,...reason and madness, central and marginal.... Such metaphysical thinking...cannot be simply eluded: we cannot catapult ourselves beyond this binary habit of thought into an ultra-metaphysical realm. But by a certain way of operating upon texts -- whether 'literary' or 'philosophical' -- we may begin to unravel these oppositions a little, demonstrate how one term of an antithesis secretly inheres within the other. Structuralism was generally satisfied if it could carve up a text into binary oppositions (high/low... Nature/Culture and so on) and expose the logic of their working. Deconstruction tries to show how such oppositions, in order to hold themselves in place, are sometimes betrayed into inverting or collapsing themselves, or need to banish to the text's margins certain niggling details which can be made to return and plague them. The tactic of deconstructive criticisms ...is to show how texts come to embarrass their own ruling systems of logic; and deconstruction shows this by fastening on the 'symptomatic' points, the aporia or impasses of meaning, where texts get
2
into trouble, come unstuck, offer to contradict themselves..."
"There is a continual flickering, spilling, and defusing of meaning ...which cannot be easily contained within the categories of the text's structure, or within the categories of a conventional critical approach to it. Writing, like any process of language, works by difference; but difference is not itself a concept, is not something that can be thought. A text may 'show' us something about the nature of meaning and signification which it is not able to formulate as a propositions, All language, for Derrida, displays this 'surplus' over exact meaning, is always threatening to outrun and escape the sense which tries to contain it ...The advent of the concept of writing, then is a challenge to the very ideal of structure: for a structure always presumes a center, a fixed principle, a hierarchy of meanings and a solid foundation, and it just these notions which the endless differing and deferring of writing throws into question."4
Deconstruction thus throws into question the assumptions of originary authority upon which, ultimately, our entire culture appears to rest. Another definition, this time from a critic of
deconstruction, Richard Rorty, further probes both its tactics and apparent differences from previous forms of analysis:
"It takes a lot of hard work to produce such special effects as 'presence is just a special case of absence' or 'use is but a special case of mentioning.' Nothing except ingenuity stands in the way of any such recontextualization, but there is no method involved, if a method is a procedure which can be taught by reference to rules. Deconstruction is not a novel procedure made possible by a recent philosophical discovery. Recontextualization in general, and inverting hierarchies in particular, has been going on for a long time."
"But why does it sound so shockingly different when Derrida does it, if it is just dialectical inversion all over again? Simply because Derrida makes use of the 'accidental' material features of words, whereas Hegel,...still stuck to the rule that you cannot put any weight on words' sounds and shapes.”5
Deconstruction and architecture could thus be expected to have an intense relationship, of interest to persons in both fields. Why? Because architecture, of all the arts, is a continuous tangible presence in the world, one which is of necessity constantly being recontextualized in many ways simultaneously both by our perception and by the processes of building and altering the environment. Architecture also has multiple systems of meaning, including both patterns of use and associational imagery. The Frankfurt Laboratory was designed and described in pursuit of this relationship.
