Yale School of Architecture

Postmortem Architecture: The Taste of Derrida Author(s): Mark Wigley Reviewed work(s): Source: Perspecta, Vol. 23 (1987), pp. 156-172 Published by: The MIT Press on behalf of Perspecta. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1567115 . Accessed: 05/11/2011 15:15
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Postmortem Architecture: TheTasteof Derrida MarkWigley

It is the violationof the livingvoice of expressionby the dead body of representation

156

CORPORIS

thatmakesexpressionpossible.Consequently, architecture cannotsimplybe detached

frombuilding.The ornamentis embedded the structure as muchas the foundain just

tions are embeddedin the ground.

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Postmortem Architecture

Any house is a far too complicated,clumsy,fussy,mechanicalcounterfeitof the humanbody. . . . The whole interioris a kind of stomachthat attemptsto digest objects. ... The whole life of the averagehouse, it seems,is a sort of indigestion.A body in ill repair, sufferingindisposition-constant tinkering and doctoring to keep it
I.

FrankLloyd Wright, "The Cardboard House," pp. I29-47 of TheFuture Architecture, (New York:Horizon, of I953), quote from p. I30.

alive. It is a marvel, we its infesters, do not go insane in it and with it. Perhaps it is a form of insanity we have to put in it. FrankLloydWright'
POSTMODERNISM S LACK OF TASTE

During the modern period architecture was treated as a subservient and somewhat suspect discipline among the arts, and early postmodern theory continued this practice. Later postmodern theory, however, raised the status of architectural discourse, to canonize it as the paradigm of the postmodern condition: "it is evidently architecture which is the privileged terrain of the struggle of post-modernism and the most strategic field in which this concept has been debated and its consequences explored."2 But this apparent revision unwittingly sustains the convoluted interdisciplinary politics of the very tradition postmodernism attempts to displace, a tradition carried down from the antique and explicitly expounded by Kant in the Critique of Judgement, the canon of the modern aesthetic tradition. Here, in the third critique, Kant described fine art as a form of expression in which the dead body of an object is given life by an artist, animated in a way that presents the artist's soul: "the soul of the artist furnishes a bodily expression for the substance and character of his thought, and makes the thing itself speak, as it were, in mimic language ... attributes to lifeless things a soul suitable to their form, and ... uses them as its
3. ImmanuelKant, trans.,James CreedMeridith, Critique Judgement, of (London: Oxford UniversityPress, I952), p. I88.

2.

FredricJameson, "The Politicsof Theory: IdeologicalPositionsin the Postmodernism Debate," New German no. Critique 33: 53-65, I984, P. 54.

mouthpiece."3 Fine art speaks. It is listened to rather than read. Aesthetic judgment depends on the belief that the internal "voice" attended to when confronted by a beautiful object is common to all mankind and is, therefore, the voice of nature rather than culture. Whereas cultural conventions organize signs that remain in the bodily realm detached from what they represent, aesthetic taste requires complete disinterest in the bodily existence of the object, its utility, function, or purpose. Taste is that encounter with an object where the object is not consumed, not mastered through appropriation, not used as a means to some independent end. Aesthetic "pleasure" is attained through the suspension of all bodily desire and its "gratification" in the "mere enjoyment of

4Ibid.,
p. I62.

sense found in eating and drinking."4 To taste is to spit out the object before it is consumed; it is to detach oneself from the object. In the third critique Kant specifically opposes aesthetic detachment to the consumption of an object in an economy. Fine art transcends the economic realm organized by exchange contracts by being "free" precisely "in a sense opposed to contract work." 5 This exclusion of the economic from aesthetics is the exclusion of the contractually organized substitution of signs for things, the exclusion of representation. The third critique is organized by the need to privilege expression over representation by

5-

Ibid., p. I85.

preventing the contamination of fine art by the bodily economy from which it detaches itself but on which it nevertheless depends. Kant established a hierarchy of the arts with poetry at the top because it most resembles speech, and architecture at the bottom because it remains in the contractual economy of consumption, representing

I58

Mark Wigley

thanpresenting soul: the rather bodilyfunction of form "thedetermining but ground whose[architecture's] is not nature an arbitrary
the end. ... In architecture chief point is a certainuse of the artisticobject to which, as the condition,the aestheticideas are limited. . . . adaptionof the productto a particular use is the essential element in a work of architecture."6 Postmodern theory effectively abandons the aesthetic by arguing that it cannot be detached from the economic, that taste cannot be detached from consumption. This rejection of aesthetic autonomy promotes architectural discourse for precisely the same reason that it is demoted in the third critique. As FredericJameson writes: "It is in the realm of architecture, however, that modifications in aesthetic production are most dramatically visible, and that their theoretical problems have been most centrally raised and articulated. . . . What has happened is that aesthetic production today has become integrated into commodity production generally. . . . Architecture is, however, of all the arts that closest constitutionally to the economic, with which, in the form of commissions and land values, it has a virtually unmediated relationship."7 In contrast with most postmodern theory, the deconstruction of Jacques Derrida produces a different kind of revision of the status of architecture, exploiting a subversive possibility within the aesthetic rather than simply abandoning it. Derrida's reading of the third critique argues that fine art detaches itself from the representational economy of material objects only in order to participate in a "divine economy" where the fine artist imitates God by transcending the world of products for that of pure productivity. The human artist's non-exchangeable productivity becomes exchangeable with that of God. This exchange takes place on the basis of what Kant describes as a "regular agreement," an "accordance," a "compact" sealed by the "trace" inscribed in nature that authorizes nature as a work of art. In the moment of transcending the realm of contracts, this divine economy constitutes itself on the basis of a contract sealed by the signature of the divine artist. The hidden contract provides the rules for fine art by organizing the expressive language, the "cypher in which nature speaks to us figuratively in its beautiful forms."8 The human artist is able to imitate the divine artist by speaking this language. Derrida examines the terms of the contract to see if it In his essay Economimesis, actually does sustain an economy of expression rather than of representation, taste rather than consumption. As fine art is a form of speech, the aesthetic turn away from bodily consumption towards taste does not leave the mouth, which is the site of both bodily consumption and ideal detachment. For Derrida, the privileging by philosophy of expression disguises an economy of secret consumption, of covert representation governed by desire. Everywhere it carries out its work of consumption behind the disguise of detachment, consuming what it detaches itself from. Detachment is but a disguised entrapment. Aesthetic detachment excludes bodily consumption only in order to master the object by consuming it ideally: "it passes through a certain mouth, . . . assimilates everything to itself by idealizing it within interiority,. . . refusing to touch it, to digest it naturally, but digests it ideally, consumes what it does not consume and vice versa,"9 The divine economy is an economy of consumption like the material economy it seeks to transcend.
6.

Ibid.,
p. I86.

7-

FredricJameson, or "Postmodernism, The CulturalLogic of Late Capitalism,"

New Left Review I46: 53-92, 1984, p. 54.

8. Critique of Judgement, p. I60.

9-

JacquesDerrida, "Economimesis," trans., R. Klein,

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Postmortem Architecture

Diacritics II (z): 3-Z5, I98, p. 2o.

This representational economy remainshidden within the third critiqueby the disguiseof detachment only as long as a distinctioncan be madebetweenthe "inside" and the "outside"of the artwork,betweenits internalmeaningand its externalcircumstances.Derrida argues that all philosophicaldiscourseon art (from Plato to Heidegger)attemptsto establishthis distinction,but find it disturbedby ornamentation [parergon],that which is neither simply inside nor simply outside the work
[ergon].'"10 For Kant, ornament is "only an adjunct, and not an intrinsic constituent." 11It is that which can be detached from the work, that which has been added to

I0.

JacquesDerrida, "The Parergon," trans., Craig Owens, October 9: 3- 40, p. 26.

II.

it, an external addition, a supplement subservient to the work in the service of the
work. The third critique authorizes ornament to enter the work it is attached to only inasmuch as it is "form" or "design." Inasmuch as the ornament is material, bodily, sensual, it is excluded from the interior, being seductive, an object of desire. In the fine arts, "the design is what is essential. Here it is not what gratifies in sensation which constitutes the basis of any disposition for taste, but solely what pleases through its form." In this way, the third critique employs the same form/matter distinction that
1

of Critique Judgement, p. 68.

z2.

Critique Judgement, of p. 67.

organizes the metaphysical tradition. As the application of metaphysics to art, aesthetics is subservient to metaphysics. But what Kant's three examples of ornament (the frame on a painting, drapery on a statue, and the colonnade on a palace) share is that they cannot be detached without destroying the work. There is a lack, a gap, in the structure of the work which is filled by the ornament. The work not only admits the external ornament into its interior, it is constituted by that entry, made possible by that which appears to be excluded from it, that which serves it, that which it masters. The ornament is an outsider that "always already" inhabits the inside as an intrinsic constituent. The third critique attempts to exclude the sensual as "positively subversive of the judgement of taste.... it is only where taste is still weak and untrained that, like aliens, they are admitted as a favour,

I3.

Critique Judgement, of p. 67.

and only on terms that they do not violate that beautiful form." 13 Derrida deconstructs aesthetics by demonstrating that the constitutional possibility of form is precisely its violation by a subversive alien, a foreign body that already inhabits the interior and cannot be expelled without destroying its host.

THE CONTRACT

The philosophical tradition inaugurated by Plato describes metaphysics as an "edifice" erected on secure foundations laid on the most stable ground. Kant's first critiqueThe Critique of Pure Reason-participates in this tradition by criticizing philosophers for their tendency to "complete its speculative structures as speedily as may be, and only
I4.

ImmanuelKant, trans., Norman KempSmith, Critique PureReason, of (London:Macmillan, 19z9), p. 47.

I5

afterwards to enquire whether these foundations are reliable."14 The edifice of metaphysics is falling apart, Kant said, because it has been erected on "groundless assertions" unquestioningly inherited from the philosophical tradition. To restore a secure ground, the first critique starts the "thorough preparation of the ground." 15 with the "clearing, as it were, and levelling of what has hitherto been wasteground."'16 To

Ibid., p. 608.
i6.

Ibid.,
p. 14.
i7.

"build upon this foundation,"Kant will reassessits load bearingcapacityand "lay down the completearchitectonic plan"17 of a new philosophy.The edificewill be redesigned. The third critique introduces itself in terms of this design project: "For if such a system is some day worked out under the general name of Metaphysic

Ibid., p. 60.

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Mark Wigley

... the critical examination the ground thisedifice of for musthavebeenpreviously

carrieddown to the very depths of the foundationsof the faculty of principlesindependentof experience,lest in some quarterit might give way, and, sinkinginevitably bringwithit theruin of all."8

tiue Critique dgement ofJudgement, p. 5-

Aesthetic on it judgement depends rulesbut,unlikemetaphysics, cannotmakethem.

It is only the presumeduniversality the voice heardwhen faced with the art object of that establishesthe rationalityof aestheticjudgements-a presumption that cannot be confirmedwithout contaminatingtaste with reason. Aesthetic judgementis recognized"apriorias a law for everyonewithoutbeingableto groundit upon proofs,"1 without beingable to identifyits "determining aestheticscanground."Consequently

Ib9 d

P-I59

not be constructed the groundlike metaphysics. facilitate on To between exchange

their respectivetheoreticaland practicalrealms,the thirdcritiqueis constructedas a over the "abyss"separating firsttwo critiques.It is from this bridgethat the "bridge" the groundat the bottom of the abyss,on which the projectedmetaphysics stand, will can be surveyed. The thirdcritiqueis constructed producea groundplan, a plan for to

of the foundations metaphysics. is onlya temporary It structure which,likescaffolding, precedesthe buildingthen becomes an ornamentwhich must be detached.But the convolutedlogic of ornamentensuresa certaindifficulty detachingart from the in interiorof philosophy,a difficulty which binds architectural discourseto philosophy.

In describing as Kantorganizes in metaphysics an edifice, philosophy termsof a certain account of architecturebefore the architecturalobject has been examined in aesthetics.

"Kant proposes a metaphorborrowedfrom art, which has not yet been discussed, from the techniqueof architecture, from the architectonic: pure philosopher,the the will haveto proceedlike a good architect,like a good technitesof edimetaphysician, ficationhe will be a kind of artist.He mustfirstsecurethe ground,the foundation,the fundamentals.. . . the architect of reason excavates, sounds, preparesthe terrain, in searchof a solid foundation,the ultimateGrund which all metaphysics on may be erected. . . . Here philosophy,which in this book [the third critique]must conceive art-art in generaland fine art-as part of its field or its edifice,represents as part itself of its part, as an art of Architecture. re-presents It itself, detachesitself, dispatchesan emissary,one part of itself outside itself to bind the whole, to fill up or to heal the whole which has suffereddetachment.. . . [Metaphysics]representsits own desire . . . the desireof reasonas desirefor a groundedstructure.Edifyingdesirewould be <o. producedas the art of philosophising,"20 "Parergon,"
P-.7.

itself as a work of art, metaphysics subjectto its own analysisof art. is By representing Just as it admits ornamentinto the artworkinasmuchas it is "design,"it admits its ornament-aesthetics-into its own interiorinasmuchas it is architecture. Architecture is admittedinto metaphysicsto make up for, to cover over, some kind of lack within metaphysics. entersby virtueof its claimon "design."The "trace"that is the It signatureof the divine artistis design,and fine art is only able to give life to the dead

I6I

Postmortem Architecture

2II.

Critique ofJudgement, part z,

P-33-

body of an object becauseit is authorizedby that signature:"no one would ascribe Fine design, in the propersense of the term, to a lifeless material."21 art imitatesthe productivityof the divine artist by presentingdesign ratherthan imitatinghis products by representing specificdesigns. It must have the appearanceof design and yet
"must have the appearance of being undesigned and a spontaneous occurrence."22In

22.

Ibid.,
p. I85?

this way, the third critiqueproducesits famous formulationof the beautifulas the without the representation a specificpurpose, like of presentationof purposiveness "naturewhich displaysitself in its beautifulproducts as art, not merelyby chance, in with a regularagreementas purposiveness but, as it were, designedly, accordance
without purpose."23The third critique depends on the traditional argument that the

23-

Ibid.,
p. i60.
24.

of the appearance designin the worldpresupposes presenceof a designer,an architect,

a "supreme Architect."24

Ibid.,
part z, p. 67.

The statusof architecture a disciplinewas negotiatedby the firsttexts of archias

tectural theory in the Renaissance, which drew on the canons of the philosophical tradition to identify the proper concern of the newly constituted figure of the architect as being with the kind of 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, the architectural drawing, is neither simply a mechanical art bound to the bodily realm of utility nor a liberal art operating in the realm of ideas, it is their reconciliation, the bridge between them. Architectural theory constructed architecture as a bridge between the dominant oppositions of metaphysics. To do so it exploited a contractual possibility written into the philosophical tradition when it describes itself as architecture. The philosophical economy is underwritten by a constitutional complicity, contract, a divine-contract, a design-contract between philosophy and architecture drawn upon by architectural theory in order to establish itself. By virtue of its claim in this contract, architectural discourse cannot simply be detached from philosophy. The architectural metaphor is not simply a metaphor among others. More than the metaphor of foundation, it is the foundational metaphor. It is not simply one other metaphor. As this design-contract is hidden and the parties to it are unaware of having signed it, architecture's special status is hidden within modern philosophy. Overtly subordinated by philosophy in the third critique, architecture is covertly admitted into subordinated by philosophy in the third critique, architecture is covertly admitted into its very structure in the first critique. This is done by forming the modern distinction between building as expression of structure or function and architecture as the representation of building. Just as ornament splits into form and matter, architecture, the design contract, the bridge, the draw-bridge, splits into building and architecture. The first critique promotes building and the third critique demotes architecture. Metaphysics constitutes itself by employing building as a privileged metaphor, an expression of its own condition, while regarding architecture as merely representation. Everywhere metaphysics represents itself in terms of ground-foundationsuperstructure and confirms the necessity of excluding all ornament. As aesthetics is

aestheticstoo attemptsto excludeornament,organizingitgovernedby metaphysics,

selfin termsof building, building a bridge. the of Theserelationships, as architecture is however,are complicated in aesthetics
itself from metaprivilegedover building.The thirdcritiquebeginsby distinguishing

i6z

Mark Wigley

physicsby forminga distinctionbetweenthe rustichut and the palace,betweenbuildThe to ing and architecture. modernpossibilityof a philosophyof art supplementary to supplementary building,of metaphysicsis the modern possibilityof architecture to ornamentsupplementary structure.So while Kantprivilegesbuildingin metaphysthat ics, it is architecture he privilegesin aesthetics: "If any one asks me whetherI considerthat the palace I see before me is beautiful,I may,perhaps,replythat I do not carefor thingsof thatsort that are merelymadeto be who said that gaped at. Or I may reply in the same strain as that Iroquois sachem I nothing in Parispleasedhim betterthan the eating-houses. may even go a step further and inveighwith the vigor of a Rousseau againstthe vanityof the greatwho spend the sweat of the people on such superfluous things.Or, in time, I may quite easilypersuade myself that if I found myself on an uninhabitedisland without hope of ever again coming among men, and could conjuresuch a palace into existenceby a mere wish, I should still not troubleto do so, as long as I had a hut therethat was comfortable for me. All this may be admittedand approved;only it is not the point now at issue."25 So Kant contraststhe utilitarianinterestin bodily consumptionof the primitivewith of thatrequires added an the aestheticdisinterest the cultivated, explainingthat:"Taste element of charm and emotion for its delight . . . has not yet emergedfrom barbais rism."26 To become cultivated to "raiseourselves above the level of the senses," 27 to move from the bodily to the ideal, from gratification pleasure,from the utilitarian to to rustichut to the house which is superfluous utility,the house of the aristocracy: the the palace.The desireto transcend body by adorningit beginswith the desirefor language: "Withno one to take into accountbut himselfa man abandonedon a desert islandwould not adorn eitherhimselfor his hut. .. ."28 The degeneration of taste into fromthe house detachedfromconsumption(the palconsumptionis the degeneration The thirdcritiqueprivilegesthe ace) to the house of consumption(the eating-house). of verything that Rousseaucondemns:fine art basedon a transcendence bodily funcand availableonly to the aristocracy. tion, For Rousseau,architecture a corruptionof the purity,the innocenceof buildis ing. The primitivehut occupiesthe privilegedplace betweennatureand its substitution by language,a substitutionfirstmade at the weaningof the child, as a substitute for mother'smilk,the voice of mothernature.Language, therefore,is a necessaryform of expression,and is organizedby a "social contract."With the rise of luxury,however, Rousseauargued,came "the easinessof exciting and gratifyingour sensualappetites,the too exquisitefoods of the wealthywhich overheatand fill them with indi29 gestion,"upsettingthe "good constitutionof the savages." The excessesthat caused this indigestionalso producedart throughthe adornmentof the hut and the naked detachedfrom the purityof natureand, therebody of the primitive,representations a from expressionto representafore, a form of perversion, "vice."This degeneration from tion, from the livingvoice of natureto the dead body of a sign, is a degeneration building to architecture,from the unadornedrustic hut to the ornamentedtemple: "Thencamethe heightof degeneration, vice has neverbeencarriedso far as it was and seen, to speakfiguratively, supportedby marblecolumnsand engravedon Corinthian 30 capitals."

15-

Ibid., P-. 43-

z6.

Ibid.,
p. 65.
27.

Ibid.,
p. 151.

28.

Ibid.,
P- I55-

29.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques trans., G. D. H. Cole, A Discourseon the Originof Inequality,

p. 27-I14, The Social Contractand Discourses, (London: Dent, 1973), p. 50.

30.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques

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Postmortem Architecture

trans., G. D. H. Cole, A Discourseon the Moral Effectsof the Arts and Sciences, p. i-z6, TheSocialContract Discourses, and (London: Dent, I973) P. I8. 3I. Joseph Rykwert, in The House Paradise: Ideaof thePrimiOnAdam's tiveHut in Architectural History. (Cambridge:MIT, i98I.)

32. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques trans., G. D. H. Cole, "The Social Contract," p. I64-z78, TheSocialContract Discourses, and (London: Dent, I973), P. I97. 33. Daniel Cottom, "Tasteand the CivilizedImagination," British Journalof Aesthetics39(4): 367- 80, I98I. 34. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques trans.,John H. Morgan, on Essay theOrigin Languages, of (New York:Frederick Ungar, I966), p. 53. 35. Critique Judgement, of p. 123.

WhereasRousseauprovidesthe foundationof the fundamentalist projectof modernismin architecture, attemptto recoverthe uncorrupted the essenceof buildingby and ornament,31 Kant'sthird critique exorcising the perversionsof representation formsthe foundationof the formalistprojectof modernism the other arts-his aesin thetics attemptsto restorethe divine contract, cultivatingfine art based on excess. Rousseauattemptsto removethe excessesof fineart by restoringthe social contract,a restorationwhich, like metaphysics,is a buildingproject: "As, before putting up a large building, the architectsurveys and sounds the site to see if it will bear the But of condemnation it veil of weight. . ."32 Kant'sprivileging fineart and Rousseau's
a complicity between them, a complicity which organizes modernism. The third critique remains bound to Rousseau's account of the primitive. It employs the metaphor of taste for its links with the mother's breast-it is the mother's voice that is listened to when appreciating fine art.33 Equally, Rousseau's account

maintains the same aesthetic as Kant-the subordination of color to design as "purely a pleasure of the sense."34Both modernisms argue that expression has been "violated
and rendered impure"35 by the sensuality of representation, and attempt to restore its purity, its innocence, its primacy. In so doing they sustain the tradition on which aesthetics is governed by metaphysics, a tradition which represses the threat aesthetics poses to metaphysics-the danger that lurks within it-by excluding it, like ornament, as "other." But the very gesture of excluding ornament as its other, its own other,

consumes it. This repression through disguised consumption practiced by modernism is the very mechanism of metaphysics. The account of architecture (as building) that is
implicated in metaphysics is necessarily implicated in this repression. Rousseau notes that "The word Economy, or Oeconomy, is derived from oikos, house, and nomos, law, and meant originally only the wise and legitimate government of the house for the
36. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques trans., G. D. H. Cole, "A Discourseon Political Economy,"p. II 5- 54 of TheSocialContract Discourses, and (London: Dent, I973), p. II7.

common good of the whole family."36 The philosophical economy of disguised consumption is a domestic economy, the economy of the domestic, the family house. To

deconstruct that economy is to locate a certain domestic violence within it. Rousseau's rejection of slavery is based on a horror of the domestication of man.
Implicitly this establishes the necessity of the domestication of man's other, woman, as

slave. The house is the mechanism of this mastery. With the origin of the primitive hut, man and woman ceased to be equal: "The sexes, whose manner of life had hitherto been the same, began to adopt different ways of living. The women became more sedentary, and accustomed themselves to mind the hut and their children, while the men
37. Discourseon the Originof Inequality, p. 80.
37 went abroadin searchof theircommon subsistence."

of is Themastery philosophy thatof the master thehouse,thepatriarchal of authority which makes his other a slave within the house, a domestic servant. The phallocentrism of metaphysics is not that of the construction of a tower which excludes, but that of a house which includes: "although we had contemplated building a tower

38. Critique PureReason, of P. 573.

which should reach the heavens, the supply of materials suffices only for a dwelling house ... building a secure home for ourselves.. . "38 The edifice of metaphysics is a house. Within every appeal by philosophy for the necessity of stable construction, is

an appeal for the necessity of a secure house. Architecture is bound to metaphysics because of its capacity to domesticate. It is not simply a question of the solidity of its foundations. Rather, it is the solidity of its walls, the security of its enclosure, its definition of space, its production of place. Deconstruction threatens the tradition of

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Mark Wigley

the by metaphysics disturbing abilityof its constructionto put thingsin theirplace. It by producesthis displacement identifyingthe seriesof double figures,which like that

domestication. theircovert are of womanandornament, repressed through or and too Butarchitecture has a doublecondition, is domesticated, repressed,
it by the verymechanism makespossible.This can be seenin the demotionof architec-

to aesthetafter tureby thethird metaphor define critique beingusedas theprivileged it because is boundto the bodilyrealmof function. is ics. Architecture subordinated
that Kantprohibitsit from transcending realm.Its body,like that of the primitive,can

of of with representations its function.Representations the nononly be adorned a ornaments building and are functional excluded anynon-representational maybe
are adornedwith ("the sole functionof which is to be looked at"39) assignedto the privilegedart of paintingin orderto maintainbetweenexpressionand representation
39Critique ofJudgement, p. 188.

the cleargapthatconstitutes metaphysics. the that to be "Much please eye,wereit not might added a building wouldimmediately
intendedfor a church.A figuremight be beautifiedwith all mannerof flourishesand with theirtattooing,werewe light but regularlines, as is done by the New Zealanders dealingwith anythingbut the figureof a humanbeing.And hereis one whose rugged featuresmight be softenedand given a more pleasingaspect, only he has got to be a

that a man,or is, perhaps, warrior hasto havea warlike appearance."40

architecture building)and prohibiting (as Metaphysicsis sustainedby subordinating is Deconstruction This prohibitionmarksa repression. otheraccountsof architecture. discoursebecauseit can identify the threatthat architecof interestto architectural

40.

Ibid., P. 73-

tradition is contracted the threatwhichcauses it tureposesto the metaphysical to,

of makes Suchan appropriation deconstruction that traditionto repressarchitecture. that are prohibitedunder the terms of an ancient availableaccountsof architecture

contract.

DECONSTRUCTION:

THE INDIGESTION

OF PHILOSOPHY

The house of metaphysicsis deconstructed locatingthat which resistsdomesticaby tion by resistingthe economyof consumption,the masteryof the mouth. Derridainterrogatesthe limits of both the overt bodily economy and the covertideal economy by looking closelyinto the mouth they sharefor that which resistsconsumptionsince

be or it is neither bodilynor ideal:thatwhich"cannot eateneithersensibly ideally musttherefore causeitselfto be andwhich... by neverlettingitselfbe swallowed
The vomited."41 third critiqueidentifiesthis inconsumableother which removesthe as and distinctionbetweenrepresentation presentation the "disgusting:" "One kind of uglinessalone is incapableof being represented conformablyto nature artisticbeauty,namely,that all without destroying aestheticdelight,and consequently which excites disgust.For, as in this strangesensation,which dependspurelyon the
imagination, the object is represented
as insisting, as it were, upon our enjoying it,
41?

"Economimesis," 21. p.

while we still set our face against it, the artificial representation of the object is no longer distinguishable from the nature of the object itself in our sensation, and so it cannot possibly be regarded as beautiful."42

42.

Critique of Judgement, p. 173.

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Postmortem Architecture

43. ImmanuelKant, trans.,John T. Goldthwait, and on Observations theFeeling theBeautiful of Sublime, (Berkeley:Universityof CaliforniaPress, I965), p. 80. 44. Pierre Bourdieu, trans., RichardNice, Distinction: SocialCritique the A of Judgement of Taste, and KeganPaul, 1979), (London, Routledge p. 488. 45"Economimesis,"p. z5.

46. Ibid., p. 25.

Aesthetics is defined by its exclusion of the disgusting ("Nothing is so much set againstthe beautifulas disgust"43), its disgust for the sensualitywhich imposesenjoyment,enslavingthe subjectby seducingit, reversingthe masteryof the ideal over the bodilydictatedby metaphysics, "Disgustis the paradoxical violatingmetaphysics: 44 which arouseshorror." extortedby violence,an enjoyment experienceof enjoyment In namingthe disgustingas that which cannotbe consumed,thatwhich belongs"outit, side," the economy appropriates consumesit as its "other."As the other of this is economywhich consumeswhateverit represents that which cannotbe represented, do wordslike disgusting not nameit: "Thewordvomit... is then for philosophystill, of an elixer,even in the veryquintessence its bad taste."45The expulsionof any threat to the "outside"repressesthe horrorof that which violates, but cannot detachitself alien which inhabitsthe verymouth from, the philosophicaleconomy,the subversive obscene other which forces enjoymentand that repressesit, the "unassimiliable, of violencewould undo the hierarchizing whose irrepressible authority"46 metaphysics. The enslavingviolenceof the visceralis not outsidethe economy,it inhabitstaste, makingtaste possible. Derridadoes not identifythis distastefulalien in orderto escapethe pure realm for of metaphysics the corruptrealmof aesthetics.To simplygo "outside"metaphysics to is to remaininsideit: "Thestep 'outsidephilosophy'is muchmoredifficult conceive than is generallyimagined by those who think they made it long ago with cavalier ease, and who in generalare swallowedup in metaphysicsin the entirebody of
that discourse which they claim to have disengaged from
it."47

47. JacquesDerrida, trans., Alan Bass, "Structure, Signand Play," pp. 278-93, and Writing Difference, (Chicago:Universityof Chicago, 1978) p. z84. 48. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques trans., BarbaraFoxley, Emile, (New York:Dent, 1911), p. i0o.

Derrida locates the

49. Jacques Derrida, trans.,GayatriChakravorty Spivak, Of Grammatology, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1976), p. z97.

itself. In maintainingthe traditionaleconomyof concorruptionwithin metaphysics sumption,the modernisttexts of Rousseauand Kant privilegethe scene where "inRather than attemptingto escape from that tradition, digestion is unknown."48 deconstructiondisturbsits authorityby tracing the effects of an indigestibleother and irresistible within it, philosophy'sindigestion,the irreducible foreignnesswithin philosophy that disseminatesitself crypticallythroughout philosophic practice. It that each of the binaryoppositionswhich organizemetadoes so by demonstrating etc.) is madepossibleby a doublefigurethateffaces physics(soul/body,inside/outside, is that metaphysics made possible by that which viothe opposition.It demonstrates lates it by resistingconsumptionand givingit indigestion. that "The system of Derrida'sreadingof Rousseau,for example, demonstrates social contract,which founds itself on the existenceof a momentanteriorto writing and representation, can, however,not avoid allowing itself to be threatenedby the violates,the expressions letter."'49 inhabits,and therefore organizedby Representation the contract.But it cannot be expelled.It is the violationof the livingvoice of expresthat sion by the deadbody of representation makesexpressionpossible.Consequently, cannot simplybe detachedfrom building.The ornamentis embeddedin architecture the structurejust as much as the foundationsare embeddedin the ground.Just as ornament,which is admittedinto the artworkonly inasmuchas it is design,contamiown ornament,whichis admittedonly natesthe artworkwith sensuality, metaphysics' Architecture with architecture. inasmuchas it is building,contaminates metaphysics from as a degeninhabitsand organizesthe veryphilosophicaltraditionit is excluded

"vice." erate is frommetaphysics inherited that The idealof stableconstruction modernism

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Mark Wigley

For that of an innocent origin, an originalpurity,from which we have degenerated.

to the Kant, claimthatthereis no suchorigin"refuses admitas firstor as a beginning

anythingthat could serve as a foundationfor building,a completeedificeof knowl-

for an Likewise, Rousseau, altogether impossible."50 edgeis, on suchassumptions, on "couldnot serveas a foundation whichto build.... [Being] violation originary foundedon violence... the politicalstate... was continually beingpatchedup,
when the first task should have been to get the site clearedand all the materialsreDerrida disturbs the moved... if a stableand lastingedificewas to be erected."s1

50.

Critique PureReason, of P- 429-

of that fromthe retradition demonstrating the apparent purity the originresults by Far that of the is innocent, origin "always pression theviolation madeit possible. from
it already" corrupted; is not original.Violation is the very possibilityof metaphysics

51-? A Discourseon the Originof Inequality, p.9I.

fromit. Consequently, is rather thana deviation almetaphysics alwaysgroundless, aesthetics. harbors the Building waysfractured theabyssthatpassesunder by always secretof its corruption architecture. by
Deconstructionundermines foundationsof the edificeof metaphysicsby lothe
cating inside the house that which is excluded from it, the "sickness of the outside,"

which is actuallythe "sicknessof the homeland,a homesickness," the hiddensource 52

and of boththe stability the ruinof the house.In so doing,Derrida followsFreud's whichbeginsby notingthat the word of [unheimlich] investigation the "uncanny" as to "heimlich" defined both "belonging the house,not strange, is familiar, tame,
intimate, friendly,etc." but also the opposite: "concealed,kept from sight, so that others do not get to know of or about it, withheld from others."53 Through this "double"gesture,the familiarbecomesuncannyand frightening. Withinthe security of the house is an impropriety that is horrifyingif it is exposed preciselybecauseit
does not befall an innocent subject. Indeed, it constitutes the subject, being "in reality
nothing new or alien, but, rather, something which is familiar and old-established in the mind and which has become alienated from it only through the process of repression." 54 The secret of this constitutional violation haunts the house in the same way as the "residues" and "traces" of primitive man haunt the civilized man and those of the child haunt the adult. For Freud, the passage from child to adult is that from primitive to civilized. Rather than a passage from innocence to violation (as in Rousseau's account), it is a passage from violation to repression. The uncanny horrifies because it exposes an originary violation that has been repressed. Freud argues that the gesture of the "double" originates as a means of the primitive to resist the fear of death by dividing the world into body and soul. But, he says, this primitive fear returns in civilization when the distinction between imagination (representation) and reality (presentation), which is based on the original division between body and soul, is "effaced." The double reverses to become the "uncanny harbinger of death,"s55 returning the civilized subject to the primitive condition, and the adult to the childhood scene of violation. This return to the primal scene, this "return of the repressed," horrifies in a way that activates "the urge towards defence which has caused the ego to project the material outward as something foreign to itself."56 Else-

52. Of Grammatology, p. 3I3.

53SigmundFreud, TheUncanny, StandardEdition, vol. I 7: z 17- 56,

p. zzz.

54Ibid., p. 24I.

55Ibid., p. z35-

where, Freud argues that this defensive mechanism is erected during the "latency" period in which the child/primitive is trained to sublimate its original perversion with feelings of "disgust, feelings of shame, and the claims of aesthetics and moral ideas." 57 In these terms, aesthetics is a defensive mechanism of repression which excludes that

56. Ibid., p. z36.

57SigmundFreud, on Three of Essays theTheory Sexuality, StandardEdition, vol. 7: Iz5-z43, p. 177.

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Postmortem Architecture

which disgusts by forcing the effacement of the distinction between presentation and
representation. As aesthetics operates in the service of metaphysics, which maintains

that distinction, it is not surprising that Freud finds:

"As good as nothing is to be found upon this subject [the uncanny] in comprehensive treatises on aesthetics, which in general prefer to concern themselves with what is beautiful, attractive and sublime-that is, with feelings of a positive nature-and with the circumstances and the objects that call these forth, rather than with the opposite
p. z19.

ncann,

of feelings repulsionand distress."58

The aestheticexclusionof the disgustingresiststhe primitivefearof deathrevivedby the uncanny.It is a certain coming to terms with death. Aestheticpleasureis like mourning,which derives from systematicallydetaching and taking within oneself all ("introjecting") the partsof oneselfcontainedin what has beenlost: "theego, confrontedas it were with the questionwhetherit shall share [the] fate [of the lost object], is persuadedby the sum of the narcissisticsatisfactionsit derivesfrom being alive to severits attachmentto the object that has been abolished."59 the detachAs ment of all interest,all desire,from the object, mourningis the paradigmof aesthetic pleasure.That which forces one to desireto vomit is that which preventsmourning: "Letit be understoodthatin all senseswhat the word disgustingde-nominates what is one cannot resignonself to mourn."60 A detailed account of the disgustingcan be found in Derrida'sreadingof the Nicholas Abrahamand Maria Torok of the refusalto study by the psychoanalysts mourn.They arguethat its pathologicalconditionis a fantasyof "incorporation"-of taking into the body the lost object itself, of consumingthe object but doing so precisely to preserveit, to deny its loss: "it is to avoid "swallowing"the loss, that one imaginesswallowing,or havingswallowed,what is lost, in the form of an object."61 The object is appropriated keep it as other,as foreign,as a foreignbody within the to the body,takeninto the body to stop it fromcontaminating body,to keep it in indefinite quarantine:"retainingthe object within itself but as somethingexcluded, as a
foreign body which is impossible to assimilate and must be rejected. .. .62 Unable to

59SigmundFreud, and Mourning Melancholia, StandardEdition,vol. I4: P. z5 5.

60. "Economimesis," z3. p.

61. Nicolas Abrahamand Maria Torok, "Introjection-Incorporatiorr: Mourningor Melancholia,"pp. 3- I6, SergeLeboviciand Daniel Widlander(eds.), in PsychoanalysisFrance, New York,I980, p. 5.
6z.

Jacques Derrida, trans., SamuelWeber,"LimitedInc.,"Glyph z,

(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, I977), p. 218. 63.

Jacques Derrida, trans., Barbara Johnson,"Fors," TheGeorgia Review

31 ():64-116, I977, p. I02.

64.

Ibid., p. I03.

65. Ibid., p. 68.

simplyexpel the object, "thefantasyinvolveseatingthe object (throughthe mouthor 63 otherwise)in ordernot to introjectit, in orderto vomit it, in a way, into the inside," Such a fantasy is necessarywhen normal mourningwould expose and destroy the with an indispensible this pleasureof a shamefulexperience object.To preserve secret pleasure,the subjectpreservesand protectsthe object. The fantasyof incorporation maintainsa hiddenpsychictopographyin the face of the realityof a loss that, if acknowledged,would makethis topographyvisibleand compelit to change. This "act of vomitingto the inside"64 definesa secretvault within the subject,a constructedby the libidinal forces of the traumaticscene which "through "crypt" their contradiction,throughtheir very opposition supportthe internalresistanceof the vault like pillars,beams,studs, and retainingwalls, leaningthe powersof intolerable pain against an ineffable,forbiddenpleasure."65 both the hiding of a secret As and the hidingof that hiding,the cryptcannotsimplytake its placein the topography it preserves. The demarcations betweeninside and outside, the closureestablishedby
the drawing of a line, the division of a space by a wall, is disturbed by the internal fracturing of the walls by the crypt. The crypt organizes the space in which it cannot

I68

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ovoa

A~~
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Postmortem Architecture

66. "Introjection-Incorporation," 6. p.

67. Ibid., p. 6.

68. Fors," p. Io8.

69.

Ibid.,
p. 107.

70. Ibid., p. 83.

71.

Ibid., p. 68.

simplybe placed, and sustainsthe topographyit fractures.These fractures,however, are not new. They have been presentin the topographyever since the originaltraumatic scene, organizingthe self and makingpossiblethe illusion that the scene never maintainsa cryptthat was alreadythere. occurred.The fantasyof incorporation disturbsthe operationof By resistingconsumption,this cryptic "architecture" languageacquiredthroughmourning-the substitutionof signs for the absenceof obThis is a subpresence."66 jects, which "makesup for that absenceby representing stitution that had begun with the departureof the mother'sbreastfrom the mouth: "Firstthe emptymouth,then the absenceof objectsbecomewords,and finallyexperiThe crypt is conences with words themselvesare convertedinto other words."67 of structedbecauseof the impossibility usinglanguagein the normalway,by exchanging words for a certainobject in voicing grief, without revealinga shamefulsecret: it of 68 "theimpossibility expressing,of placingwordsonto the market." Nevertheless, as hides itself within the marketplace anotherkind of contract,organizingan-other operationof language.Evenwhile keepingits secret,the cryptleaks.It does so through of convolutedmanipulations the word as object;these displacewords that cannot be spoken without revealingthe secret with words that can be safely uttered: "Crypone tonymywould thus not consistin representing-hiding word by another,one thing by another,a thing by a word or a word by a thing, but in pickingout from the exis tendedseriesof allosemes,a usagewhich then (in a seconddegreedistancing) transin lated into a synonym."69 Throughthese displacements, which "a certainforeign the body is here working over our household words,"70 crypt is secretedinside the house. But This crypticlanguagecan be decodedin psychoanalysis. as the crypt(de)conarchitectural structsitselfin a way thatdisplacestraditional thinking,this analysiscan neithersimply enter nor violently fracturethe crypt to find its secret. Rather,it involves a doubleplay,firstto locate the cracksthroughwhich the cryptleaks and then to force entry. In this way, the analyst violates that which is alreadyviolated, that which is "builtby violence."71 "To track down the path to the tomb, then to violate a sepulcher:that is what the is analysisof a crypticincorporation like. The idea of violationmightimplysome kind of of transgression a right, the forced entry of a penetrating,digging, force, but the itself was never"legal."It is the tombstoneof the illicit, and marks violatedsepulcher the spot of an extremepleasure,a pleasureentirelyrealthoughwalledup, buriedalive in its own prohibition."72 It is through this double play that deconstructionlocates the improprietyhidden The within the edificeof metaphysics. sensethat such a gestureis foreign,improper, if not in bad taste, in architectural discourseis the sense that the discourseis a field enclosed by some kind of strategicborderoutside which such acts belong. But the distastefullogic of deconstruction locates the corpus that is "Derrida" within architectural discourse. Unable to either stomach or expel this foreign body, the discourse confronts the limits of its constitution: its digestive tract and the political contract that authorizes it.

72. Ibid., P-. 97-

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Mark Wigley

THE INDIGESTION

OF DERRIDA IN ARCHITECTURAL

DISCOURSE

The metaphysicaltraditionthat philosophicaldiscoursemaintains,and with which

architectural discourse has such an intimate relationship, does not reside exclusively in the texts of philosophy. The covert violence of that tradition occupies and organizes all transactions in our culture. To displace this pervasive mastery of metaphysics, the indigestible alien within metaphysics has to be exhumed from each of the cultural formations in which it is buried. Such an analysis is both necessary and difficult in an architectural discourse that maintains its object as a guarantee of metaphysics. Derrida operates within the discourse of metaphysics and, by virtue of the contract, already inhabits architectural discourse, appearing to locate the indigestible other within it by way of a displacement from oikosto oikesis, from houseto crypt.This displacement locates the crypt hidden within the ground-foundation-superstructureornament tradition. To maintain that tradition, Kant argues that the edifice of metaphysics is "in ruins" because philosophers unwittingly undermine the secure ground they seek, producing the catacombs into which their edifice collapses. ". . . we must meantime occupy ourselves with a less resplendent, but still meritorious
task, namely, to level the ground, and to render it sufficiently secure for moral edifices of these majestic dimensions. For this ground has been honeycombed by subterranean workings which reason, in its confident but fruitless search for hidden treasures has carried out in all directions, and which threaten the security of the superstructures." 73 But these cryptic fractures are not flaws in the construction of metaphysics that can be repaired, they are the very possibility of its authority. The ground on which the foundations for the house are laid is necessarily unsafe, undermined by the crypt: "the terrain is slippery and shifting, mined and undermined. And this ground is, by essence, an underground."74 Metaphysics is erected on the insecurity of an absence rather than the security of a presence, on death rather than life, on the tomb of a violation rather than an innocent, unmarked ground. Its edifice is always already inhabited by a crypt that violates it while making it possible: "erected by its very ruin, held up by what never stops eating away at its foundations."75 The crypt is neither building nor architecture but the uncanny effacement of the distinction between them, the distinction that is at once the contractual possibility of architectural discourse and the means of repression of the threat posed by that discourse. The location of the crypt within the house, as the possibility of the house, threatens the terms of the contract which postmodernism observes inasmuch as it keeps architecture detached from building, and ornament detached from structure. Rather than simply privileging ornament, the crypt locates ornament within the structure itself, not by integrating it in some classical synthetic gesture, but by locating ornament's violation of structure, a violation that cannot be exorcised, a constitutional violation that can only be repressed. Derrida's analysis of the indigestion of metaphysics is itself an encrypting of a traumatic scene, a violation which is a source of both excruciating pain and forbidden pleasure. To appropriate deconstruction without consuming it is to indigest it by inquiring into architecture's presence in this violent scene. This can only be done by interrogating its texts in a way that locates their cracks in order to identify the repres73-

Critique PureReason, of
p. 3I4?

74.

"LimitedInc.," p. I68.

75.

"Fors,"p. 40.

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Postmortem Architecture

itself possible.This requiresan extendedanalysisthat sion that makesdeconstruction or would attemptto establishwhetherthe texts disturbthe design-contract whether they covertlyhonor its conditionsas anotheragent of the repressionof the constitutional violenceof architecture. Suchan interrogation would not simplyestablishthe masteryof architectural disof course as masterycannot be thoughtoutside the very subservience that discourse. Insteadit would displacemasteryitself by displacingthe condition of the architectural object that guaranteesmetaphysics.Ratherthan authorizingyet anotherpractice purporting violate traditionalarchitectural to theory,the accountof architecture sustainsan architectural producedby the indigestionof deconstruction practicethat locatesand exploitsthe violationwithin architecture which allows it to fulfillits most traditionalcontractualobligationsto metaphysics. This is a practicethat is otherthan postmodern.

I7z