The Translation of Architecture, the Production of Babel Author(s): Mark Wigley Reviewed work(s): Source: Assemblage, No. 8 (Feb.

, 1989), pp. 6-21 Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3171012 . Accessed: 18/03/2012 15:41
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Mark

Wigley
Translation of

The

of Babel

Architecture, the
Production

Mark theory Wigleyteachesarchitectural anddesignat Princeton He University. wasthe associate of curator the show,and of coeditor the catalogue, Deconstructivist Art. Museumof Modern Architecture,

How then to translatedeconstructionin architecturaldiscourse? Perhapsit is too late to ask this preliminaryquestion. What is left to translate?Or, more important, what is always left by translation?Not just left behind but left specifically for architecture.What remains of deconstruction for architecture?What are the remains that can be located only in architecture, the last resting place of deconstruction? The question of translationis, after all, a question of survival. Can deconstructionsurvive architecture?

1.
It is now over twenty years since Derrida'sfirst books were published. Suddenly his work has startedto surface in architecturaldiscourse. This appearsto be the last discourse to invoke the name of Derrida. Its reading seems the most distant from the original texts, the final addition to a colossal stack of readings, an addition that marksin some way the beginning of the end of deconstruction, its limit if not its closure. After such a long delay - a hesitation whose strategicneccessity must be examined - there is now such haste to read Derrida in architecture. But it is a readingthat seems at once obvious and suspect. Suspect in its very obviousness. Deconstruction is understoodto be unproblematically architectural.There seems to be no translation,but just a application of theory metaphoric transfer,a straightforward from outside architectureto the practicaldomain of the architecturalobject. The hesitation does not seem to have
7

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assemblage 8

been produced by some kind of internal resistanceon the part of that object. On the contrary,there is no evidence of work, no task for the translator,no translation.Just a literal application, a transliteration.Architectureis understood as a representationof deconstruction, the material representationof an abstractidea. The recent reception of Derrida'swork follows the classical teleology from idea to material form, from initial theory to final practice, from presence to representation.Architecture,the most material of the discourses, seems the most detached from the original work, the most suspect of the applications, the last ornament that cannot application, the representational influence the tradition it is added to, a veneer maskingas much as it reveals of the structurebeneath. The last layer, just an addition, no translation. Yet. But how to translate?Deconstruction is no more than a subversionof the architecturallogic of addition which sets into play a certain thought of translation.But one cannot simply consider translationoutside and above either deconstruction or architecture. The question immediately becomes complicated. There is no hygienic startingpoint, no superior logic to apply. There are no principlesto be found in some domain that governs both deconstructive discourse and architecturaldiscourse. Nevertheless, certain exchanges are alreadyoccurring between them. Architecture, translationand deconstructionare alreadybound together, alreadydefining an economy whose pathological symptoms can be studied. It is a matterof identifyingthe logic of translationthat is alreadyin operation. Since there is no safe place to begin, one can only enter the economy and trace its convoluted geometry in order to describethis scene of translation. This can be done by locating that moment in each discourse where the other is made thematic, where the other comes to the surface. The line of argumentthat surfaces there can then be folded back on the rest of the discourse to locate other layers of relations. These hidden layersare not simply below the surface. They are within the surface itself, knotted together to form the surface. To locate them involves slippage along faultlines ratherthan excavation. As there are no principles above or below the convoluted folds of this surface, it is a matterof following some circu-

lar line of inquiry, of circulating within the economy, within the surface itself.

2.
Translationsurfacesin deconstructivediscoursewhen Derrida, following Walter Benjamin'sThe Taskof the Translator, arguesthat translationis not the transference, reproduction,or image of an original. The original only survivesin translation.The translationconstitutesthe original it is added to. The original calls for a translation which establishesa nostalgiafor the innocence and the life it never had. To answerthis call, the translationabuses the original, transformingit. we . . . andforthe notionof translation, wouldhaveto substia regulated of transformation one tute a notionof transformation: of We by language another, one textby another. neverwill have, and in factneverhavehad, a 'transport' puresignifieds of from or one language another, withinone andthe samelanguage, to wouldleavevirginand untouched. thatthe signifying instrument There is some kind of gap in the original which the translation is called in to cover over. The original is not some organic whole, a unity. It is alreadycorrupted,alreadyfissured. The translationis not simply a departurefrom the original, as the original is alreadyexiled from itself. Language is necessarilyimpure. Alwaysdivided, it remains foreign to itself. It is the translationthat producesthe myth of purity and, in so doing, subordinatesitself as impure. In constructingthe original as original, the translationconstructsitself as secondary,exiled. The supplementarytranslation which appearsas a violation of the purity of the work is actually the possibilityof that very purity. Its violence to the original is a violent fidelity, a violence called for by the original preciselyto construct itself as pure. The abuse of the text is called for by an abuse alreadywithin the text. Translationexploits the conflict within the original to present the original as unified. Consequently, in translation,the text neither lives nor dies, it neither has its original life-giving intention revived (presentation)nor is it displaced by a dead sign (representation). Rather, it just lives on, it survives.This survivalis organizedby a contractthat ensures that translationis nei8

Wigley

ther completed nor completely frustrated.2 The contract is the necessarilyunfulfilled promise of translation. It defines a scene of incomplete translation,an incompletion that binds the languages of the original and the translation together in a strangeknot, a double bind. This constitutional bond is neither a social contract nor a transcendental contract above both languages. Neither cultural nor acultural, it is other than cultural without being outside culture. The negotiable social contractswithin which language operatespresupposethis non-negotiable contract which makes language possible, establishingthe difference between languages while making certain exchanges between them possible. This translationcontract is not independent of the languages whose economy it organizes. It is inscribedwithin both languages. Not only is the original alreadycorrupt, alreadydivided, but translationis alreadyoccurringacross those divisions. The gap between languagespasses through each language. Because language is always alreadydivided, inhabited by the other, and constantly negotiatedwith it, translationis possible.' The translationwithin a language makes possible translationoutside it. Which is to say that one language is not simply outside the other. Translation occurs across a gap folded within ratherthan between each language. It is these folds that constitute language. The contract is no more than the geometry of these folds, the organizationof the gaps. Consequently, any translationbetween architectureand deconstruction does not occur between the texts of architectural discourse and those of philosophical discourse.4 Rather, it occupies and organizes both discourses. Within each there is an architecturaltranslationof philosophy and a philosophical translationof architecture.To translate deconstruction in architecturaldiscourse is not, therefore, to faithfully recover some original, undivided sense of deconstruction.5Rather, it is one of the abuses of the texts signed by Derrida that constitutes them as originals. To translatedeconstruction in architecturaldiscourse is to examine the gaps in deconstructivewriting that demand an architecturaltranslationin order that those texts be constituted as deconstructive. The architecturaltranslationof deconstruction is literally the production of deconstruction.

This production must be organizedby the terms of a contract between architectureand philosophy which is inscribed within the structureof both in a way that defines a unique scene of translation.

3.
A preliminarysketch of this scene can be drawn by developing Heidegger'saccount of the relationshipbetween architectureand philosophy. Heidegger examines the way in which philosophy describesitself as architecture. Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, for example, describesmetaphysics as an "edifice"erected on secure foundationslaid on the most stable ground. Kant criticizes previous philosophers for their tendency to "complete its speculative structo tures as speedily as may be, and only afterwards enquire whether these foundations are reliable."6The edifice of metaphysicshas fallen apartand is "in ruins"because it has been erected on "groundlessassertions" unquestioningly inherited from the philosophical tradition. To restore a secure foundation, the critique startsthe "thoroughpreparation of the ground"'with the "clearing,as it were, and The levelling of what has hitherto been wasteground."8 edifice of metaphysics is understoodas a grounded structure. Heidegger argues that Kant'sattempt to lay the foundations is the necessarytask of all metaphysics. The question of metaphysics has always been that of the ground (grund) on which things stand even though it has been explicitly formulated in these terms only in the modern period inaugurated by Descartes. Metaphysicsis no more than the attempt to locate the ground. Its history is that of a succession of differentnames (logos, ratio, arche, etc.) for the ground. Each of them designates"Being,"which is understood as presence. Metaphysics is the identification of the ground as "supporting presence"for an edifice. It searches for "thatupon which everythingrests, what For is always there for every being as its support."9 metaphysics is no more than the determination Heidegger, of ground-as-support. Metaphysics is the question of what the ground will withstand, of what can stand on the ground. The motif of the edifice, the grounded structure, is that of standingup.
9

assemblage 8

Philosophy is the construction of propositionsthat stand up. The ability of its constructsto stand is determined by the condition of the ground, its supportingpresence. Heidegger repeatedlyidentifies presence with standing. The "fundamental" question of metaphysics(why there are ratherthan nothing) asks of a being "on what does beings it stand?"'1 Standing up through construction makes visible the condition of the ground. But in Heidegger'sreading, constructiondoes not simply make visible a ground that precedes it. The kind of ground clearing Kant attempts does not simply precede that construction of the edifice. The ground is not simply independent of the edifice. The edifice is not simply added to the ground; it is not simply an addition. For Heidegger,a building does not stand on a ground that precededit and on which it depends. Rather, it is the erection of the building that establishesthe fundamentalcondition of the ground. Its structuremakes the ground possible." The ground is constituted ratherthan revealedby that which appearsto be added to it. To locate the ground is necessarily to construct an edifice. Consequently, philosophy'ssuccessive relayingsof the foundation do not preservea single, defined edifice.12 Rather, it is a matterof abandoningthe traditionalstructureby removing its foundation.I3The form of the edifice changes as the ground changes. Having cleared the ground, Kant must reassessits loadbearing capacity and "lay down the complete architectonic plan" of a new philosophy in order to "build upon this foundation."14 The edifice must be redesigned. Relaying the foundations establishesthe possibilityof a different edifice. For Heidegger, the laying of the foundation is the "projectionof the intrinsic possibilityof metaphysics"'5 through an interrogationof the condition of the ground. This interrogationis the projection of a plan, the tracingof an outline, the drawing, the designing of an edifice, the the drawingof the design out of the ground. Interrogating condition of the ground defines certain architectoniclimits, certain structuralconstraintswithin which the philosopher must work as a designer. The philosopher is an architect, endlessly attemptingto produce a grounded structure.

In these terms, the historyof philosophy is that of a series of substitutionsfor structure.Every referenceto structureis a referenceto an edifice erected on a ground, an edifice from which the ground cannot simply be removed. The motif of the edifice is that of a structurewhose free play is constrainedby the ground. The play of representations is limited, controlled, by presence:"The concept of centered structureis in fact the concept of a play based on a fundamental ground, a play constitutedon the basis of a fundamental immobility and a reassuringcertitude, which itself is beyond the reach of play.16Philosophyis the attemptto restrainthe free play of representation establishingthe by architectonic limits providedby the ground. It searchesfor the most stable ground in orderto exercise the greatest control over representation. The metaphorof groundedstructuredesignatesthe fundamental project of metaphysicsto produce a universallanguage that controls representation,a logos. Heidegger identifies the original sense of the word logos as "gathering" in a way that lets things stand, the standingof construction. The link between structureand presence organizes traditionalaccounts of language. The means by which language is grounded is always identifiedwith structure. Metaphysicsmaintains its protocol of presence/presentawith an account of languagethat privition/representation over writing. While speech is promotedas leges speech presentationof pure thought, writing is subordinatedas of representation speech. Speech is identified with structure which makes visible the condition of the ground it is bonded to. Phonetic writing, as the representation of is identified with ornament that representsthe speech, structureit is added to. If writing ceases to be phonetic, if it loses its bond with speech, it becomes representation detached from pure presence, attachedto the structurelike an ornament referringaway from the structure.The protocol of metaphysicssustainedby the traditionalaccount of language as thought/speech/phoneticwriting/nonphonetic writing is establishedby the architecturalmotif of ground/ structure/ornament. Metaphysicsis dependent on an architecturallogic of support. Architectureis the figure of the addition, the structurallayer, one element supportedby another.
10

Wigley

Metaphysics'sdeterminationof the ground-as-support presupposes a vertical hierarchyfrom ground through structure to ornament. The idea of support, of structure, is dependent on a certain view of architecturewhich defines a range of relationshipsfrom fundamental (foundational)to supplementary(ornamental). With each additionallayer, the bond is weaker. The structureis bonded to the ground more securely than the ornament is bonded to the structure. But as the distance from the ground becomes greater, the threat to the overall structurediminishes. The vertical hierarchyis a mechanism of control that makes available the thought of the ground-as-support which is metaphysics. Structuremakes present the ground. Structureis grounding, submission to the authorityof presence. Ornament either representsthe grounding of structureor deviates from the line of support, detaching itself from the ground in order to representthat which is other than the structure. Philosophy attempts to tame ornament in the name of the ground, to control representationin the name of presence. The philosophical economy turns on the status of ornament. It is the structure/ornament relationshipthat enables us to think of support, and thereby, to think of the ground.

tional ornament of art. It subordinatesthe arts, and therefore architecture,by employing the verticalhierarchy dependent on a certain understandingof architecture.Art is subordinatedby being located furthestfrom the ground. Architecture, then, plays a curious strategicrole. It is able to pass between philosophy and art in a unique way. It is involved in a kind of translation.The metaphorcirculates between and within the two systems, complicating them as it folds back on itself. A convoluted economy is sustained by the descriptionof architectureas ornamentedstructure, which enables art to be subordinatedto philosophy, even while philosophy describes itself as architecture.Philosophy describesitself in terms of that thing which it subordinates. to Heidegger argues that art is actually "foundational" the philosophical traditionthat subordinatesit to the level of ornament. This convolution is doubled in the case of architectureitself. Metaphysicsorganizes itself around an account of the object as grounded structure.It projectsan account of architectureoutside itself which it then appeals to as an outside authority. It literally producesan architecture. As Derrida argues, in reading Kant'suse of the architectural metaphor, philosophy "represents itself as part of its as an art of Architecture. It re-presentsitself, detaches part, itself, dispatches an emissary,one part of itself outside itself to bind the whole, to fill up or to heal the whole which has suffereddetachment."'8It does so to cover up some kind of gap, some internal division. Metaphysicsproduces the architecturalobject as the paradigmof ground-assupportin order to veil its own lack of support, its ungrounded condition. Philosophy representsitself as architecture, it translatesitself as architecture,producing itself in the translation.The limits of philosophy are establishedby the metaphoricalstatus of architecture. Philosophy drawsan edifice, ratherthan drawson an edifice. It produces an architectureof groundedstructure which it then uses for support, leaning on it, restingwithin it. The edifice is constructed to make theory possible, then subordinatedas a metaphor in order to defer to some higher, non-material truth. Architectureis constructedas a material reality in order to liberate some higher domain. As material, it is but a metaphor. The most materialcon11

4.
The strategicimportance of the architecturalmetaphordiscussed above emerges when Heideggerexamines the status of art. Metaphysics'sdeterminationof ground-as-support also determines art as a merely representative "addition" to a utilitarianobject, a "superstructure" added to the "substructure" which, in turn, is added to the ground. The architecturalmetaphor organizes this relationship:"It seems almost as though the thingly element in the art work is like the substructureinto and upon which the other, to authentic element is built."" It is the "support" which the artworkis added, the presentationof the ground to which the artworkis added as a representation. But it is not just the internal structureof the art object that is understoodin these architecturalterms, it is also the status of art as a discourse. Heidegger notes that metaphysadded to the substrucics treatsart itself as a superstructure ture of philosophy. Metaphysicsunderstandsitself as a grounded structureto which is attached the representa-

assemblage 8

dition is used to establish the most ideal order, which is then bound to reject it as merely material. The statusof material oscillates. The metaphor of the ground, the bedrock, the base, the fundamental, invertsto become base in the sense of degraded, material, less than ideal. The vertical hierarchy inverts itself. In this inversion, architecture flips from privilegedorigin to gratuitoussupplement, from foundation to ornament. Philosophy treats its architecturalmotif as but a metaphor that can and should be discardedas superfluous.The figure of the grounded structureis but an illustration,a useful metaphor that illustratesthe nature of metaphysicsbut outlives its usefulness and must be abandonedin the final form of metaphysics, a representationto be separatedfrom the fundamental presentation,a kind of scaffoldingto be discardedwhen the project is complete, a frame that traces the outline of the building, a trace that lacks substancebut is structurallynecessary, an open frame that is the very possibilityof a closed structureto which it then becomes an unnecessaryappendage. Scaffoldingis that piece of structurewhich becomes ornamental. When philosophy reflects upon its own completion, it defines architectureas metaphorical. Metaphysicsis the determinationof architecture as metaphor. But can architecturebe so simply discarded? The use of the figure of structure"is only metaphorical, it will be said. Certainly. But metaphor is never innocent. It orients researchand fixes results. When the spatialmodel is hit upon, when it functions, critical reflection restswithin it."'9 The very attempt to abandon metaphorinvolves metaphors. Even the concept that the metaphoricalcan be detached from the fundamental is itself metaphorical. Metaphysicsgrounds itself in the metaphorsit claims to have abandoned. Metaphor "is the essential weight which anchors discourse in metaphysics"20 ratherthan a superfluous ornament. Metaphor is fundamental. The metaphorof the grounded structurein particularcannot be discardedin order to reveal the ground itself. The "fundamental" an is architecturalmetaphor, so architecturecannot be abandoned in favor of the fundamental. for of Thus, the criteria a classification philosophical metaphors areborrowed froma derivative discourse philosophical .... They

are metaphorical, the everymeta-metaphorics, valuesof resisting a concept,foundation, theory.. . . Whatis fundamental and to for a corresponds the desire a firmand ultimate ground, terrain to buildon, the earthas the support an artificial for structure.2' Philosophy can define only a part of itself as nonmetaphoricalby employing the architectural metaphor. This metaphororganizesthe statusof metaphor.In so doing, it organizesthe traditionof philosophy that claims to be able to discardit. Architecturalfigurescannot be detached from philosophicaldiscourse. The architectural metaphor is not simply one metaphoramong others. More than the metaphorof foundation, it is the foundational metaphor. It is thereforenot simply a metaphor. The architecturalmotif is bound to philosophy. The bond is contractual, not in the sense of an agreementsigned by two parties, but a logical knot of which the two partiesare but a side effect. More than the terms of exchange within and between these discourses, it produceseach discourseas a discourse. The translationcontractbetween architecture and philosophy worksboth ways. Each constructsthe other as an origin from which they are detached. Each identifies the other as other. The other is constructedas a privileged origin which must then be discarded.In each there is this moment of inversion. This primal contract, which is neither a contingent, cultural artifactnor an atemporal, aculturalprinciple, establishes the possibilityof a social contractthat separates architectureand philosophyand constitutesthem as discourses. The eventual status of architectureas a discipline began to be negotiatedby the first texts of architectural theory, which drew on the canons of the philosophical tradition to identify the properconcern of the newly constituted figure of the architectwith drawing(disegno)that mediates between the idea and the building, the formal and the material, the soul and the body, the theoretical and the practical.Architecture- architecturaldrawingis neither simply a mechanical art bound to the bodily realm of utility, nor a liberal art operatingin the realm of ideas, but is their reconciliation, the bridgebetween the two. Architecturaltheory thus constructsarchitectureas a bridge between the dominant oppositionsof metaphysics and constitutes itself by exploiting the contractualpossibil12

Wigley

ity alreadywritten into the philosophical traditionwherein it describesitself as architecture. It is not simply that architecturehas some familiar unambiguous material reality that is drawn upon by philosophy. Rather, philosophy drawsan architecture,presentsa certain understanding,a certain theory, of architecture.The terms of the contract are the prohibition of a different description of the architecturalobject, or rather,the dissimulation of the object. To describe the privilegedrole of architecturein philosophy is not to identify architectureas the origin from which philosophy derives, but ratherto show that the condition effected when philosophy infects itself from outside by drawing on architectureis internal to architectureitself. Architectureis cut from within, and philosophy unwittingly appeals to architectureprecisely for this internal torment. The concern here is to locate certain discursivepractices repressedwithin the pathological mechanisms of this economy, to trace the impact of another account of architecture hidden within the tradition. Deconstruction is not outside the tradition. It achieves its force precisely by inhabiting the tradition, and thereby operatingin terms of the contract. The question is, what relationshipdoes deconstruction assume with the account of architecturerepressedby that tradition? The translationof deconstructionin architecturedoes not divide. It is simply occur across the philosophy/architecture occurring within each discourse. It is not a matterof simply generatinga new descriptionof the architecturalobject in architecturaldiscourse but ratherof locating the account of architecturealreadyoperativewithin deconstructivewriting. It is the difference between this account and that of traditionalphilosophy that marksthe precise nature of deconstruction'sinhabitation of philosophy. The limits of deconstructionare establishedby the account of architecture it unwittingly produces.

itself. Inasmuch as deconstructiontamperswith the philosophical ideal of translation, it tamperswith the ideal of architecture. Derrida'saccount of translationis organizedaround an architecturalfigure:the tower of Babel. The failure of the tower marksthe necessity for translation,the multiplicity of languages, the free play of representation,which is to say the necessity for controlling representation.The collapse of the tower marksthe necessity for a certain construction. The figure of the tower acts as the strategic intersection of philosophy, architecture,deconstruction, and translation. The tower is the figure of philosophy because the dream of Philosophy is the philosophy is that of translatability.23 ideal of translation. But the univocal language of the builders of the tower is not the language of philosophy;it is an imposed order, a violent imposition of a single language.24The necessity of philosophy is defined in the collapse ratherthan in the project itself. As the desire for translationproduced by the incompletion of the tower is never completely frustrated,the edifice is never simply demolished. The building project of philosophy continues but its completion is foreverdeferred. The tower is also the figure of deconstruction. Since deconstructioninhabits philosophy, subvertingit from within, it also inhabits the figure of the tower. It is lodged in the tower, transformingthe representationof its construction. Inasmuch as philosophy is the ideal of translaThat tion, deconstruction is the subversionof translation.25 subversionis found within the conditions for philosophy, the incompletion of the tower:"The deconstructionof the Tower of Babel, moreover, gives a good idea of what deconstruction is: an unfinished edifice whose halfcompleted structuresare visible, letting one guess at the scaffoldingbehind them."26Deconstruction identifies the inability of philosophy to establish the stable ground, the deferralof the origin which preventsthe completion of the edifice by locating the untranslatable,that which lies between the original and the translation. But the tower is also the figure of architecture.The necessity of translationis the failure of building that demands a
13

5.
As architectureis bound up into language,22this account can be located precisely in the discussion of translation

assemblage 8

supplementation by architecture. Just as it is the precondition for philosophy, understoodas building (presentation), translationalso marksthe necessity for architecture(representation), but as a representationthat speaksof the essence of building, an architecturethat representsthe ground in its absence: "If the tower had been completed there would be no architecture. Only the incompletion of the tower makes it possible for architectureas well as the The possibility multitude of languages to have a history."27 of architectureis bound up with the foreverincomplete project of philosophy. Philosophy requiresthe account of building as grounded and architectureas detached precisely because of this incompletion. Structuralfailure produces the need for a supplement, the need for a building/architecture distinction, the need for architecture.Architecture is the translationof building that representsbuilding to itself as complete, secure, undivided. Since the tower is the figure of deconstruction, architecture, and translation, the question shifts from identifying the common ground between them, the identity, to locating the difference. The once discrete domains become entangled to the extent that the task becomes to identify the convoluted mechanism of translationthat producesthe sense of separateidentities. This mechanism must be embedded in the scene of translationwhich bears on the status of structure. Translation between the discoursesis made possible by a breakdownin the sense of structurethat is the currency within them. Derrida argues that the incompletion of the tower is the very structureof the tower. The tower is deconstructedby establishingthat "the structureof the original is markedby the requirementto be translated"28 and that it "in no way suffersfrom not being satisfied, at least it does not suffer insofar as it is the very structureof the work."29 There is a gap in the structurethat cannot be a gap that can only be covered over. The tower is filled, always already markedby a flaw inasmuch as it is a tower. This is a displacement of the traditionalidea of structure. Structureis no longer simply grounding. It is no longer a vertical hierarchy, but a convoluted line. The structureis no longer simply standing on the ground. The building stands on an abyss.

This argument follows Heidegger'sattemptto dismantle the edifice of metaphysicsin order to reveal the condition of the ground on which it stood. In doing so, he raisesthe possibilitythat the ground (grund) might actually be a concealed "abyss" (abgrund)so that metaphysicsis constructed in ignorance of the instabilityof the terrainon which it is erected:"we move over this ground as over a flimsily covered abyss."3' Metaphysicsbecomes the veiling of the ground ratherthan the interrogationof it. Heidegger'slater work developed this possibilityinto a principle. He argues that philosophy has been in a state of ever "groundlessness" since the translationof the ancient Greek terms into the language of metaphysics.This translation substitutedthe original sense of ground with that of the sense of ground as support, ground as supportingpresence to which the world is added.31For Heidegger,metaphysics is groundlesspreciselybecause it determines the ground as support.The original sense of logos has been lost. With metaphysics,the origin is seen as a stable crisis, the ground ratherthan an abyss. The "modern" of the age of technology, is producedby groundlessness philosophy'sancient determinationof the ground as supare port for a structureto which representations added.32 The crisis of representation producedby the very attempt is in to remove representations order to reveal the supporting presence of the ground. Man is alienated from the ground preciselyby thinking of it as secure. Because of the very familiarityof the principle of groundas-support,"we misjudge most readilyand persistentlythe deceitful form of its violence." Metaphysicsconceals this violence. The architecturalmotif of the groundedstructure is articulatedin a way that effects this concealment. The vertical hierarchyis a mechanism of control that veils its own violence. Heideggerattemptsto subvertthis mechanism by rereading the status of the architecturalmotif. He arguesthat the thought of architectureas a simple addition to building actually makes possible the thought of the naked ground as support. Undermining the division between building and architecturedisplaces the traditionalsense of the ground: "But the nature of the erecting of buildingscannot be understoodadequatelyin terms either of architectureor of
14

Wigley

2. Hani Rashid,The Late 19C,1986 15

assemblage 8

engineering construction, nor in terms of a mere combination of the two."34 The thought of that which is neither nor architecturemakes possible the original building ground that precedes the ground as support.The linear logic of addition is confused. The building is not simply added to the ground, the ornament is not simply added to the structure, art is not simply added to philosophy. The is vertical hierachy of ground/structure/ornament convoluted. The architecturalmotif undermines itself. But while certain Heideggerianmoves subvertthe logic of addition by displacing the traditionalaccount of architecture, Heidegger ultimately contradictsthat possibility, confirming the traditionallogic by looking for a stable structure. Derrida argues that Heidegger is unable to abandon the tradition of ground-as-support. Indeed, he retains it in the very account of translationhe uses to identify its emergence.

6.
Derrida departsfrom Heideggerpreciselyby following him. He takes the Heideggerianline furtheruntil it folds back on itself, transformingitself. "Deconstruction" a "translais tion" of two of Heidegger'sterms:Destruktion, meaning that dis"not a destructionbut preciselya destructuring mantles the structurallayers in the system,"and Abbau, meaning "to take apartan edifice in orderto see how it is constituted or deconstituted."38 Derridafollows Heidegger's or disturbs argument that this "destructuring" "unbuilding" a traditionby inhabiting its structurein a way that exploits its metaphoric resourcesagainstitself.

The movements deconstruction not destroy of do structures from the outside.Theyarenot possible effective, can theytake and nor accurate thosestructures. aim, exceptby inhabiting Inhabiting them in a certainway, because always one and inhabits, all the morewhenone doesnot suspect Operating it. necessarily fromthe inside,borrowing the strategic economic all and of resources subversion fromthe old structure, them borrowing At the verymomentwhen Heidegger denouncing is translation .. structurally. .39 into LatinWords,at the momentwhen, at any rate,he declares The concern here is with the way deconstructioninhabits Greekspeechto be lost, he also makesuse of a 'metaphor.' at Of leastone metaphor, of the foundation the ground. that and the structureof the edifice, that is, the structureof strucThe in groundof the Greekexperience he says,lacking this'trans- ture. Deconstruction is neither unbuilding nor demolition. is, lation.'WhatI havejusttoo hastily called'metaphor' concenof Rather, it is the "soliciting" the edifice of metaphysics, trates the difficulties come:doesone speak all to 'metaphorically' the soliciting of structure"in the sense that Sollicitare, in of the groundfor justanything?35 old Latin means to shake as a whole, to make tremble in Solicitation is a form of interrogationwhich entirety."40 The thought of ground-as-support not just producedby a is shakes structurein order to identify structuralweaknesses, mistranslation.It is itself no more than a certain account weaknessesthat are structural. of translation. Translation is understoodas presentationof Derridadestabilizesthe edifice by arguingthat its fundathe ground, and mistranslationis understoodas loss of supmental condition, its structuralpossibility,is the concealport, detachment from ground. The collapse of the tower ment of an abyss. The edifice of metaphysicsclaims to be establishesthe necessity of translationas one of reconstrucstable because it is founded on the bedrockexposed when tion, edification.36Heidegger'saccount of translation all the sedimentarylayershave been removed. Deconstrucundermines itself when dealing with the translationof the tion destabilizesmetaphysicsby locating in the bedrockthe into the idea of the edifice. Heidegger original ground fracturesthat undermine its structure.The threatto metaappearsto employ an account of translationsimilar to Derrida'sinasmuch as he argues that the violation of the physics is underground.The subversionof presence is an is alreadythere in the Greek original. But original ground undergroundoperation. Deconstructionsubvertsthe edifice then he attemptsto go beneath this sense in order to erase it inhabits by demonstratingthat the ground on which it is the violation, and, in so doing, restoresa traditional erected is insecure:"the terrainis slipperyand shifting, mined and undermined. And this ground is, by essence, account of translation.37 rebuildsthe edifice he appears He an underground."4' the fissuresin the ground that But to have undermined.
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crack the structureare not flaws that can be repaired. There is no more stable ground to be found. There is no unflawed bedrock. Consequently, deconstructionappearsto locate in metaphysics the fatal flaw that causes its collapse. It appearsto be a form of analysis that dismantles or demolishes structures. It appearsto be an undoing of construction. It is in this sense that it is most obviously architectural.But this obvious sense misses the force of deconstruction. Deconstruction is not simply architectural.Rather, it is a displacement of traditionalthought about architecture. Now the conceptof de-construction resembles architecan itself turalmetaphor. is oftensaidto havea negative It attitude. Somea a tradition, a has been constructed, philosophical thing system, and it culture,and alongcomesa de-constructor destroys stone and the it. by stone,analyses structure dissolves Oftenenough this is the case. One looksat a system Platonic/Hegelian and examines how it wasbuilt, whichkeystone, whichangleof of visionsupports authority the system.It seemsto me, howthe It ever,thatthis is not the essenceof deconstruction. is not simwho knowshow to de-construct the techniqueof an architect ply whathas been constructed, a probing but whichtouchesupon of metathe techniqueitself,uponthe authority the architectural rhetoric. Deconstitutes own architectural its phorand thereby construction not simply- as its nameseemsto indicate the is of whenit is able to conceive construction technique a reversed for itselfthe ideaof construction. couldsaythatthereis One but than nothingmorearchitectural de-construction, also nothing lessarchitectural.42 Deconstruction leads to a complete rethinkingof the supplemental relationshiporganized by the architecturalmotif To of ground/structure/ornament. disruptmetaphysicsin this way is to disruptthe status of architecture.But it is not to simply abandon the traditionalarchitectonic. Rather, it demonstratesthat each of its divisions are radicallyconvoluted. Each distinction is made possible by that which is neither one nor the other. The architecturallogic of addition is subvertedby demonstratingthat it is made possible by precisely that which frustratesit. This subversionof structuredoes not lead to a new structure. Flaws are identified in the structurebut do not lead to its collapse. On the contrary,they are the very source of its strength. Derrida identifies the constitutionalforce of

the weaknessof a structure, that is, the strengthof a certain weakness. Ratherthan abandoninga structurebecause its weaknesshas been found (which would be to remain in complicity with the ideal of a grounded structure),Derrida displaces the architecturalmotif. Structurebecomes "erectedby its very ruin, held up by what never stops eatDeconstruction is a form of ing away at its foundations."43 interrogationthat shakes structurein order to identify structuralflaws, flaws that are structural.It is not the demolition of particularstructures.It displaces the concept of structureitself by locating that which is neither support nor collapse. is Structure perceived the through incidenceof menace,at the momentwhen imminentdanger our concentrates visionon the of the both keystone an institution, stonewhichencapsulates the and the fragility its existence.Structure of then can be possibility threatened order be comprehended to more in methodically but clearlyand to revealnot only its supports also thatsecret nor placein whichit is neitherconstruction ruinbut lability. This operation called(fromthe Latin)soliciting.44 is The edifice is erected by concealing the abysson which it stands. This repressionproduces the appearanceof solid ground. The structuredoes not simply collapse because it is erected on, and fracturedby, an abyss. Far from causing its collapse, the fracturingof the ground is the very possibility of the edifice. Derrida identifies the "structural necessity"of the abyss: And we shallsee thatthisabyssis not a happy unhappy or accident. An entiretheoryof the structural of will necessity the abyss in of be gradually the constituted our reading; indefinite process . has infiltrated already supplementarity always presence. . . Representation the abyssof presence not an accident presis of in bornfromthe ence;the desireof presence on the contrary, is, of from abyss(the indefinite multiplication) representation, the of etc.45 representation the representation, The abyss is not simply the fracturingof the ground under the edifice. It is the internal fracturingof the edifice, the convolution of the distinction between building and architecture, structureand ornament, presentationand representation. Architecturealways already inhabits and underpins the building it is supposedlyattachedto. It is this convolution that makes possible the thought of a ground that precedes the edifice, a thought that subordi17

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nates architectureas merely an addition. Architecture makes possible its own subordinationto building. Deconstruction is concerned with the untranslatable,the remainderthat belongs neither to the original nor to the translation, but neverthelessresideswithin both. Deconstruction marksthe structuralnecessity of a certain failure of translation. That is to say, the structuralneccessity of architecture. Architecturebecomes the possibilityof building ratherthan a simple addition to it. Inasmuch as translation is neither completed nor completely frustrated,the edifice of metaphysics is neither building nor architecture, neither presentationof the ground nor detachment from it, but the uncanny effacement of the distinction between them, the distinction that is at once the contractualpossibility of architecturaldiscourse and the means by which to repressthe threat posed by that discourse. Deconstruction traces architecture'ssubversionof building, a subversion that cannot be resistedbecause architectureis the structural possibility of building. Building always harborsthe secret of its constitutional violation by architecture.Deconstruction is the location of that violation. It locates ornament within the structureitself, not by integratingit in some classical synthetic gesture, but, on the contrary,by locating ornament'sviolation of structure,a violation that cannot be exorcised, a constitutional violation that can only be repressed.

The repressionof certain constitutionalenigmas is the basis of the social contractthat organizesthe discourse. Ratherthan offeringa new account of the architectural object, deconstructionunearthsthe repressivemechanisms by which that figure of architectureoperates. Hidden within the traditionalarchitecturalfigure is another:the architecturalmotif is requiredby philosophy not simply because it is a paradigmof stable structure; is also it for its instability. requiredprecisely For this reason, to translatedeconstructionin architecture is not simply to transformthe condition of the architectural object. As metaphysicsis the definition of architecture as metaphor, the disruptionof architecture's metaphoric condition is a disruptionof metaphysics.But this is not to say that this disruptionoccurs outside the realm of objects. The telologies of theory/practice,ideal/ material, etc. do not disappear.Rather, there is a series of nonlinear exchanges within and between these domains, exchanges which problematize, but do not abandon, the difference. It is thereby possible to operatewithin the traditional descriptionof architectureas the representation of structurein order to produce objects that make these enigmas thematic. Such gesturesare neither simply theoretical, nor simply practical. They are neither a new way of readingfamiliar architecture,nor the means of producinga new architecture. Objects are alreadybisected into theory and practice. To translatedeconstructionin architecturedoes not lead of simply to a formal reconfiguration the object. Rather, it calls into question the condition of the object, its objecthood; it problematizesthe condition of the object without simply abandoning it. Deconstruction is a concern with theoretical objects, objects whose theoreticalstatusand objecthood are problematic, slipperyobjects that make thematic the theoretical condition of objects and the objecthood of theory. Such gesturesdo not simply inhabit the prescribed domains of philosophy and architecture.While philosophical discourse and architecturaldiscoursedepend on an explicit account of architecture,they have no unique claim on that account. The translationcontract on which those discoursesare based underpin a multiplicity of cul18

7.
Such a gesture does not constitute a method, a critique, an analysis, or a source of legitimation.46It is not strategic.It has no prescribedaim. Which is not to say that it is aimless. It moves very precisely, but not to some end. It is not a project. It is neither an application of something nor an addition to something. It is, at best, a strangestructural condition, an event. It is a displacement of structurethat cannot be evaluated in traditionalterms because it frustratesthe logic of grounding or testing. It is preciselythat which is neccessaryto structurebut evades structuralanalit ysis (and all analysis is structural); is the breakdownin structurethat is the possibilityof structure.

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tural exchanges. The concern becomes the strategicplay of the architecturalmotif in these exchanges. This cultural production of architecturedoes not take the form specified in the architecturaldiscourse;architecturedoes not occupy the domain alloted to it. Ratherthan the object of a specific discourse, architectureis a series of discursivemechanisms whose operationscan be traced in ways that are unfamiliar to architecturaldiscourse. Consequently, the status of the translationof deconstruction in architectureneeds to be rethought. A more agressive reading is required, an architecturaltransformation of deconstruction that drawson the gaps in deconstruction that demand such an abuse, sites that alreadyoperatewith a kind of architecturalviolence. There is a need for a strong reading which locates that which deconstruction cannot handle of architecture. Possibilitiesemerge within architecturaldiscourse that go beyond the displacement of architectureimplicit in deconstructivewriting. To locate these possibilitiesis to (re)producedeconstructionby transformingit. Such a transformationmust operate on the hesitation deconstruction has about architecture, a hesitation that surfacesprecisely within its most confident claims about architecture. Derrida writes: The 'Tower Babel'doesnot merelyfigurethe irreducible of mulof it an the tiplicity tongues; exhibits incompletion, impossibility of finishing,of totalizing, saturating, completing of of something on the orderof edification, architectural and construction, system architectonics. Whatthe multiplicity idiomsactually of limitsis not only a 'true' a and intertranslation, transparent adequate it a of expression, is also a structural order, coherence construct. Thereis then (let us translate) like limitto something an internal an of It formalization, incompleteness the constructure. wouldbe to easyand up to a certainpointjustified see therethe translation of a systemin deconstruction.47 This passageculminates symptomaticallyin a sentence that performsthe classical philosophical gesture. Architectureis at once given constitutive power and has that power frustratedby returningits status to mere metaphor. Here the tower, the figure of translation, is itself understoodas a translation, the architecturaltranslationof deconstruction. Which, in Derridean terms, is to say a figure that does not

simply representdeconstruction, but is its possibility.But an inquiry needs to focus on why an architecturalreading of deconstructionis "easy"and what is the "certainpoint" beyond which it becomes unjustified, improper.A patient reading needs to force the convoluted surface of deconstructivewriting and expose the architecturalmotif within it. But perhapseven such an abusive reading of Derrida is insufficient. Inasmuch as deconstructionis abused in architecturaldiscourse, its theory of translation,which is to say its theory of abuse, needs to be rethought. Because of architecture'sunique relationshipto translation, it cannot simply translatedeconstruction. It is so implicated in the economy of translationthat it threatensdeconstruction. There is an implicit identity between the untranslatable remainderlocated by deconstructionand that part of architecture that causes deconstructionto hesitate - the architecture it resists. Consequently, deconstructiondoes not simply survive architecture. Notes
This is the first part of a two-part study. The second part will be published in a subsequent issue of Assemblage. 1. Jacques Derrida, Positions, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Nicolas Abraham,"trans. Richard Klein, Diacritics (Spring 1979). 4. Deconstruction is considered here in the context of philosophy. While Derrida repeatedlyargues that deconstruction is not philosophy, he also notes that it is not nonphilosophy either. To simply claim that deconstruction is not philosophy is to maintain philosophy by appealing to its own definition of its other. It is to participate in the dominant reading of Derrida that resiststhe force of deconstruction. That force is produced by identifying the complicity of the apparentlynonphilosophical within the philosophical tradition. Deconstruction occupies the texts of philosophy in order to identify a nonphilosophical site within them. Deconstruction cannot be considered outside the texts of philosophy it inhabits, even as a foreigner. 5. "For if the difficulties of translation can be anticipated . . . one should not begin by naively believ-

20. Press, 1981), Chicago

2. "Atextlivesonly if it liveson
[sur-vit], and it lives on only if it is at once translatableand untranslatable. . . . Totally translatable,it

as as disappears a text,as writing, a

body of language [langue]. Totally untranslatable,even within what is believed to be one language, it dies immediately. Thus triumphant translationis neither the life nor the death of the text, only or alreadyits living on, its life after life, its life after death." Jacques Derrida, "Living On: Border Lines," trans. James Hulbert, in Deconstructionand Criticism (New York:SeaburyPress,

102. 1979),

3. Cf. Jacques Derrida, "Me An Psychoanalysis: Introductionto 'The Shell and ithe Kernel' by

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ing that the word 'deconstruction' correspondsin French to some clear and univocal signification. There is already in 'my' language a serious ('somber')problem of translation between what here or there can be envisaged for the word, and the usage itself, the reservesof the word." Jacques Derrida, "Letterto a JapaneseFriend," in Derrida and Differance, ed. David Wood and Robert Bernasconi (Coventry: ParousiaPress, 1985), 1. 6. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (London: MacMillan and Co., 1929), 47. 7. Ibid., 608. 8. Ibid., 14. 9. Ibid., 219. 10. Martin Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. John Macquarrieand Edward Robinson (New York:Harperand Row, 1962), 2. 11. Cf. the Greek temple in "The Origin of the Work of Art":"Truth happens in the temple's standing where it is. This does not mean that something is correctly represented and renderedthere, but that what is as a whole is brought into unconcealedness and held therein." Martin Heidegger, "The Origin of the Work of Art," in Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter(New York:Harperand Row, 1971). The edifice is neither a representationof the ground, nor even a presentation, but is the production of the world. 12. "[I]tis precisely the idea that it is a matter of providinga foundation for an edifice alreadyconstructedthat must be avoided." Martin Heidegger, Kant and the Problemof Metaphysics, trans. James S. Churchill (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1962), 4.

13. "[T]he foundation of traditional metaphysicsis shaken and the edifice . . . begins to totter."Heidegger, Kant and the Problemof Metaphysics, 129. 14. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 60. 15. Heidegger, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, 5. 16. Jacques Derrida, "Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences," in Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1978), 279. 17. Heidegger, "The Origin of the Work of Art," 19. 18. Jacques Derrida, "The Parergon," trans. Craig Owens, October 9 (1979): 7. 19. Jacques Derrida, "Force and Signification,"in Writing and Difference, 17.

imposed by violence, by force. It would not have been a universal language - for example in the Leibnizian sense - a transparent language to which everyone would have access." Jacque Derrida, The Ear of the Other, ed. Christie V. McDonald (New York:Schocken Books, 1985), 101. Cf. Jacques and the InstiDerrida, "Languages et tutions of Philosophy,"Recherche Semiotique/Semiotic Inquiry4, no. 2 (1984): 91-154. 25. "[A]ndthe question of deconstruction is also through and through the question of translation. . . ." Derrida, "Letterto a Japanese Friend," 6. 26. Derrida, The Ear of the Other,

But it should be said in passing that even within Greek philosophy a narrowingof the word set in forthwith, although the original meaning did not vanish from the experience, knowledge, and orientationof Greek philosophy."Heidegger,An Introductionto Metaphysics, 13. 32. "The perfection of technology is only the echo of the claim to the . . . completeness of the foundation. . .. Thus, the characteristic domination of the principle of ground then determines the essence of our modern technology age." Martin Heidegger,"The Principle of Ground," trans. Keith Hoeller, Man and World7 (1974): 213.

33. Ibid.,204.
34. Martin Heidegger, "Building, Dwelling, Thinking," in Poetry, Language, Thought, 159. 35. JacquesDerrida, "Restitutions of the Truth in Pointing," in The Truth in Painting, trans. Geoff Bennington and Ian McLeod (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press,

102.
27. JacquesDerrida, "Architecture Where the Desire May Live,"

25. Domus671 (1986):

28. JacquesDerrida, "Des Tours de Babel," trans. Joseph F. Graham, in Differencein Translation, ed. Joseph F. Graham (Ithaca:Cornell UniversityPress, 1985), 184.

20. Ibid., 27.

21. Jacques Derrida, "White Mythology:Metaphor in the Text of Philosophy,"in Margins of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1982),

1987),290.
36. Note how Derrida argues that the universityis "built"on the ideal of translation(Derrida, Living On: BorderLines, 93-94) in the same way that he argues that it is "built" on the ideal of ground as support (Jacques Derrida, "Principleof Reason:The Universityin the Eyes of Its Pupils," Diacritics [Fall 1983]:

29. Ibid., 182.

30. Heidegger,An Introductionto Metaphysics,93. 31. This degeneratetranslationis based on a degenerationthat alreadyoccurredwithin the original Greek, requiringa returnto a more primordialorigin: "Butwith this Latin translationthe original meaning of the Greek word is destroyed, this is true not only of the Latin translationof this word but of all other Roman translationsof the Greek philosophical language. What happened in this translation from the Greek into the Latin is not accidental and harmless;it marks the firststage in the processby which we cut ourselves off and alienated ourselvesfrom the original essence of Greek philosophy. ...

224.
22. Not in the sense of the structuralistconcern for architectureas a kind of language, a system of objects to which language theory can be applied, but as the possibility of thought about language. 23. "With this problem of translation we will thus be dealing with nothing less than the problem of the very passageinto philosophy." Jacques Derrida, Dissemination, trans. BarbaraJohnson (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1981),

11-20).
37. "Beneaththe seemingly literal and thus faithful translationthere is concealed . . . a trans-lationwithout a corresponding,equally authentic experience of what they say. The rootlessnessof Western thought begins with this translation." Heidegger,"The Origin of the Work of Art," 23 (emphasis added). "We are not merely taking refuge in a more literal translation

72.
24. "Had their enterprisesucceeded, the universaltongue would have been a particularlanguage

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of a Greek word. We are reminding ourselves of what, unexperienced and unthought, underliesour familiar and therefore outworn essence of truth. .... Ibid., 52 (emphasis added). 38. Jacques Derrida, "Roundtable on Autobiography," trans. Peggy Damuf, in The Ear of the Other, 86. Of the word "deconstruction": "Among other things I wished to translateand adapt to my own ends the Heideggerianword Destruktion or Abbau. Each signified in this context an operation bearing on the structureor traditionalarchitecture of the fundamental concepts of ontology or of Western metaphysics." Derrida, "Letterto a Japanese Friend," 1. 39. Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. GayatriChakravorty Spivak(Baltimore:Johns Hopkins Press, 1976), 24. 40. Jacques Derrida, "Difference," in Margins of Philosophy, 21. 41. Jacques Derrida, Limited Inc. (Baltimore:Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977), 168. where 42. Derrida, "Architecture the Desire May Live," 18. 43. Jacques Derrida, "Fors,"trans. Barbara Johnson, The Georgia Review 31, no. 1 (1977): 40. 44. Derrida, "Force and Signification," 6. 45. Derrida, Of Grammatology, 163. 46. "[I]nspite of appearance, deconstruction is neither an analysis nor a critiqueand its translation would have to take that into consideration, it is not an analysis in particular because the dismantling of a structureis not a regressiontoward a simple element, towardan indissoluble origin. These values, like that of analysis, are themselves phi-

losophemes subject to deconstruction." Derrida, "Letterto a Japanese Friend," 4. 47. Derrida, "Des Tours de Babel," 165.

Figure Credits
1. Max Ernst, Reve d'une petite fille qui voulut entrerau carmel, English trans. Dorothea Tanning, A Little Girl Dreams of Taking the Veil (New York:George Braziller, 1982). 2. Courtesy of the artist.

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