The Architecture Of Deconstruction

By locatingthe architecture already hidden within deconstructive discourse, Wigley opens up more radical possibilities for both architectureand deconstruction.

Examines the relationship of Derrida’s writings on architecture to his methodology of deconstruction and to deconstrutivism in architecture. Between 1984 and 1994 Jacques Derrida wrote and spoke a great deal about architecture both in his academic work and in connection with a number of particular building projects around the world. He engaged significantly with the work of architects such as Bernard Tschumi, Peter Eisenman, and Daniel Libeskind. Derrida conceived of architecture as an example of the kind of multidimensional writing that he had theorized in Of Grammatology, identifying a rich common ground between architecture and philosophy in relation to ideas about political community and the concept of dwelling. In this book, Francesco Vitale analyzes Derrida’s writings and demonstrates how Derrida’s work on this topic provides a richer understanding of his approach to deconstruction, highlighting the connections and differences between philosophical deconstruction and architectural deconstructivism. Francesco Vitale is Professor of Aesthetics at the University of Salerno, Italy. He is the author of Biodeconstruction: Jacques Derrida and the Life Sciences, also published by SUNY Press, and the author and editor of several books in Italian on Derrida and contemporary French philosophy. Mauro Senatore is a British Academy Fellow at Durham University in the United Kingdom and Adjunct Professor of Contemporary French Philosophy at the Instituto de Humanidades, Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago, Chile. He is the author of Germs of Death: The Problem of Genesis in Jacques Derrida, also published by SUNY Press.

Features contributions from Peter Eisenman, Bernard Tschumi, Daniel Libeskind, Andrew Benjamin, Gunter Behnisch, Hiromi Fuji and Morphosis. In a seminal introductory text Jacques Derrida is in conversation with Christopher Norris, discussing Deconstruction as a philosophical idiom and critical methodology, and its role as the basis of the architectural and artistic aesthetic.

A clear-sighted look at the impact of Derrida and the deconstructionists on contemporary architecture. "A terrific piece. It is a pleasure to read, very perceptive, lucid, and well argued."--Kenneth Frampton "A fine appraisal of a great work of art. The advice here is to skip Derrida and get right to Benedikt."--ABR