On Architecture
Benjamin’s writings on architecture – for instance the early essay "Eisenman and the Housing of Tradition" (Art, Mimesis and the Avant-Garde, 1991) – have started from the premise that architecture is a critical activity not a synonym for building, or as he argued in his book Architectural Philosophy (2000) a virtuality not merely an actuality. The theoretical basis for such a position is the so-called linguistic turn in philosophy, seeing language as constructing reality. “Philosophy can never be free of architecture”, so he argues, finding architectural metaphors pervading philosophy in terms of foundations and edifices. And just as Descartes, the father of modern philosophy, attempted to think of philosophy from first principles – from the cogito (the thinking subject) – so a critical architecture is seen to contest its tradition, if not fully succeeding in getting beyond notions such as shelter and dwelling. On the other hand, as a critical practice, architecture – in a similar way as the relationship between literary criticism and literature - is allowed to pursue its own hermetic, critical inquiry. In terms of architectural production, this sees the development of unbuilt (and even perhaps presently unbuildable) “architectural” models within cyberspace as having equal validity as implemented works, if not even more validity if one defines architecture as a critical activity. Such a position also, by definition, supports an avant-gardist approach to the architectural production.
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