PROBLEMATIZING EXISTING PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHTS

MERTINS, Detlef. The shells of architectural thought (1996)

IGNACIO TORRES CANDIA
Detlef Mertins claims that Hejduks architectural projects/objects embody thoughts
rethink how architecture can serve as a communicative art in the public domain today
1) linking what Hejduk says about his projects
(thoughts) with detailed observations of the actual projects
2) situating Hejduks work
within a historical framework of philosophy.
arguing the existence of form and expression in Hejduks work, Mertins discusses Claude-Nicolas Ledouxs architecture
distortions of classicism
early versions of twentieth-century
functionalism, formalism, and expressionism
absorbed and exorcised
When discussing schematic versus symbolic elaboration in Hejduks work, Mertins refers to
Peter Behrens theoretical constructs as one new-Kantian, the other derived from the scientific
study of vision
When discussing the body-feeling relationship in Hejduks work, Mertins reviews the historical precursors of the emotionally
charged formalism of the Bauhaus within the psychology of architecture and the theory of
empathy
Mertins contrasted literal
versus phenomenal transparency.
Mertins points out how the idea of transparency is
problematized in Bernstein houses, in which elements of the interior are placed on the
outside and obscure the representational device of the faade.
Mertins provides a
glimpse of
the medium-specific way
of discussing the archi-
tectural concept.