On phenomenology …deconstruction …architecture.

-Or what is this all about.-

For each of the above terms a philosopher, an architect and any other person, each may have their particular interpretation of them. With the isolation of the disciplines, to a certain degree, the development of particular technobabble will hinder or prevent mutual understanding, especially for the non-initiated. Having in mind that well-versed scholars may find the following discourse as absolutely preposterous, I excuse myself on the grounds of, firstly, needing a plain lexicon for the ordinary reader and, secondly, my keeping the strength of my ratio to more specific topics.

Phenomenology, from ancient Greek φαινόμενoν (phainómenon, “that which appears") and λόγος (logos, “study”), is thus roughly the study of the structure of experience. Although long present as a philosophical term, it was redefined as a method and movement in itself by Edmund Husserl (1859-1938). In Husserl’s conception, phenomenology is the systematic reflection and study of the structures of consciousness and the phenomena that appear (are experienced). The main point of this idea is the understanding of a world as related to a point of origin of all experience -oneself. Thus, as opposed to a Cartesian interpretation of the world, space for instance is not an infinite and abstract frame but rather an experience of our being, built since the first grasping of a newborn; limited, with different empathic values according to differently experienced places.

This connotation has gained popularity in architecture, roughly opposing the hypothetical conception of a Cartesian building, responding to given, abstract ideals of beauty, answering only to its own logic, to a phenomenological one, in which a building is experienced from the point of view of a human being and its materials, form and dispositions are anticipated as experienced from this observer.

As a philosophical term it was adopted and transformed, especially by Heidegger, who converted it into a methodology in charge of redefining the essence of being. The main goal of phenomenology is to overcome traditions. The whole human culture is based on learned behavior, with a reason to exist. In time we forgot those reasons and if they are still applicable. Heidegger calls for the ‘Destruktion’ of these constrains so we reach the essence; for that, we have to go back in history step by step, in a process of ‘de-building’ (Abau) with which we can see the essence of what we study according to each moment in history and today.

Derrida took the concept of ‘Abau’ and translated it into French ‘déconstruction’, which was loosely adopted by an architectural discourse in crisis and hungry for ideals to seize. Unfortunatelly, this Abau is often applied to architectural objects, not to the essence of architecture, which seems still veiled.