GEORGE L. CLAFLEN, JR.
Temple University
FRANKFURT LABORATORIES:
DECONSTRUCTIVE REPRESENTATION
In his description of how his architectural process is influenced by deconstruction, published after the Lab project, Eisenman makes an astoundingly un-Derridian claim of authority for deconstruction:
"...it is possible to propose an architecture that embraces the instabilities and dislocations that are today in fact the truth, not merely a dream of a lost truth."6
This unvarnished zeitgeist argument is an inauspicious starting point for the application of a theory which undermines the very idea of truth. It does reveal (perhaps, inadvertently) the rhetorical technique of dismissal by means of a straw man. In this case the rest of architecture is dismissed as concerned with a search for the "lost truth".
That this project was widely understood by others as concerned with deconstruction is further demonstrated by its presence in the MOMA exhibition "Deconstructivist Architecture" and in Mark Wigley's comment about it: "the Frankfurt Project similarly attempts to undermine presence..."7 Wigley reveals implicitly the deconstructive aesthetic project: to design an object which demands to be categorized, and simultaneously resists that categorization and therefore throws any foundation or assumption upon which it might appear to be based into question.8
Eisenman's claims for the project itself are epitomized in the following:
"As biology today dislocates the traditions of science, so the architecture of the biology center dislocates the traditions of architecture."9
The implicit symmetry raises several problems. Is a "dislocating" architecture only appropriate for a "dislocating" science? What then of other sciences, or non-dislocating activities, if there are any? The tendency toward iso-morphism is
both clear and un-apologetic. If we assume that this is merely an excess of rhetorical zeal, and that we can indeed build "deconstructive" buildings for other than dislocating sciences, the statement is still problematic. Which traditions are dislocated? Some? All? Deconstruction comes from a tradition of thought that is traced to Hegel by virtually all of its proponents, presumably that tradition is
privileged. Deconstruction is indeed concerned with the dominance of one term of an opposition at the expense of the other. It often seeks to find and rehabilitate the suppressed element, the "other," but also to avoid the trap of simply reversing the roles of dominance and suppression.
The focus upon the translation of biological and architectural ideas to geometric analogues is both central to Eisenman's project and the problems it creates.
Temple University
FRANKFURT LABORATORIES:
DECONSTRUCTIVE REPRESENTATION
In his description of how his architectural process is influenced by deconstruction, published after the Lab project, Eisenman makes an astoundingly un-Derridian claim of authority for deconstruction:
"...it is possible to propose an architecture that embraces the instabilities and dislocations that are today in fact the truth, not merely a dream of a lost truth."6
This unvarnished zeitgeist argument is an inauspicious starting point for the application of a theory which undermines the very idea of truth. It does reveal (perhaps, inadvertently) the rhetorical technique of dismissal by means of a straw man. In this case the rest of architecture is dismissed as concerned with a search for the "lost truth".
That this project was widely understood by others as concerned with deconstruction is further demonstrated by its presence in the MOMA exhibition "Deconstructivist Architecture" and in Mark Wigley's comment about it: "the Frankfurt Project similarly attempts to undermine presence..."7 Wigley reveals implicitly the deconstructive aesthetic project: to design an object which demands to be categorized, and simultaneously resists that categorization and therefore throws any foundation or assumption upon which it might appear to be based into question.8
Eisenman's claims for the project itself are epitomized in the following:
"As biology today dislocates the traditions of science, so the architecture of the biology center dislocates the traditions of architecture."9
The implicit symmetry raises several problems. Is a "dislocating" architecture only appropriate for a "dislocating" science? What then of other sciences, or non-dislocating activities, if there are any? The tendency toward iso-morphism is
both clear and un-apologetic. If we assume that this is merely an excess of rhetorical zeal, and that we can indeed build "deconstructive" buildings for other than dislocating sciences, the statement is still problematic. Which traditions are dislocated? Some? All? Deconstruction comes from a tradition of thought that is traced to Hegel by virtually all of its proponents, presumably that tradition is
privileged. Deconstruction is indeed concerned with the dominance of one term of an opposition at the expense of the other. It often seeks to find and rehabilitate the suppressed element, the "other," but also to avoid the trap of simply reversing the roles of dominance and suppression.
The focus upon the translation of biological and architectural ideas to geometric analogues is both central to Eisenman's project and the problems it creates.
