Waiting

I am still waiting for my new books (Auge) but until they show up I have been keeping busy with bus stops and some other reading. Today I started reading Norberg-Schulz's "The Phenomenon of Place" where he talks about place, dwelling, and phenomenology as it directly pertains to architecture. I am only a few pages into the reading but is much less challenging than Heidegger. He uses Heidegger as a strong resource so it is nice to have some interpretation of the readings I have been doing, as well as some insight on his other writings (which I think would illuminate quite a bit). I will be commenting on this reading soon.. I might have a chance to finish it tomorrow.

The bus observations have been very simple. . I am considering doing some gesture drawings of people as they create spaces to wait among. I took pictures one day but people got a little tense and I felt bad. . I am not sure if drawing would be less intrusive or not. I think it is pretty obvious when someone is drawing you. I guess I could always ask for their permission first but then I feel like they wouldn't be as natural. Maybe I can just be inconspicuous. 

I hope Chicago is a blast! 

I have been waiting for some more feedback but I think you may be on your Chicago trip? Possibly? Or just busy. Either way I think, while I wait for the Auge books to arrive and such, I have figured out how I am going to document these bus stop observations. I am going to attempt to note where each person is sitting and what they are doing while they wait for the bus and then note where they sit on the bus and what they do on the bus as well. Distinguishing whether someone preoccupies themselves with a news paper or their cell phone, whether they sit in a seat open to the bus and strangers or closed off and private, noting where they create boundaries and territories for themselves, ect. More on that to come. I think it will develop as I go through the process. Any suggestions to how I should go about these observations are VERY welcome. 

Cheers

Clarification.. maybe.

There are two questions I was struggling with last night.. 

The first was that I was having trouble clearly outlining actions and reactions. 

Our need to dwell is the force, building is the reaction. 

But what creates our need to Dwell? Our desire to be true to our own nature? 

So human nature is the force and creating the fourfold, or the oneness between the fourfold, is the reaction. 

But then what forces act upon us to desire to exist in any particular way? Is that an ethical question? Maybe? Or maybe it is like defining a point for the purposes of geometry where "We can describe intuitively their characteristics, but there is no set definition for them: they, along with the plane, are the undefined terms of geometry. All other geometric definitions and concepts are built on the undefined ideas of the point, line and plane." Maybe those forces and desires just are what they are? Maybe we just are what we are? 

Heidegger would argue that we are defined by our nature. Since to be Mortal is to Dwell, those are not forces, it is just, in essence, what we are. 

We are defined by Dwelling in itself. 

The second issue I was having was what differentiates a genuine dwelling from a building? 

If I understand what it is to dwell, at least according to Heidegger, and I am not sure that I completely do yet, shouldn't I also understand what defines a Dwelling?

This is about the time I started going back through his essay, again, and pulling those excerpts. This told me that:

1. Only if we are capable of dwelling, can we build. 

2. That we search again and again for the nature of dwelling

3. Most importantly that "This they accomplish [building dwellings] when they build out of dwelling, and think for the sake of dwelling"

So, all buildings belong to dwelling, but not all buildings are dwellings. A dwelling can only be created by someone who is capable of dwelling [which implies that we are not all capable of it and, despite that it defines us as mortals, have lost the ability to?] and by someone who builds in order to dwell and thinks for the sake of dwelling. Basically, Heidegger is arguing that it is all a matter of intention. If you intend to dwell, if you understand and have a desire to dwell [consciously or not may or may not matter] and allow yourself to do so, and then desire to create a dwelling and do so, it is a dwelling? I don't buy it. 

Perhaps breaking down the fourfold will help me understand what creates a dwelling. In the reading he talks about the farmhouse, which is very good and all, but it seems very simple. And maybe it is very simple, but I think breaking down the fourfold and then applying it to the bridge and the farm house might bring a little more clarity? 

My computer is dying. All for now. Hope this helps.

::Sigh::

I think a break from Heidegger, at least for the moment, is a good idea. I have read/discussed Semper's Four Elements of Architecture but only briefly as part of a History/Theory/Crit class. Your response asked a few questions I am not entirely sure how to answer yet, but I think breaking down the four elements of the fourfold will help a lot.. and then taking a break and letting all of those ideas breath/absorb while I take a look at some other sources. I took pictures at the bus stop yesterday while I was waiting... this particular stop is also a transfer point so there are a good number of people coming and going. I will upload them later today or first thing tomorrow [which will allow me to take a second look today on my way into work]. I will see if I can't take the bus to this stop an hour early on the days I work evenings so I can spend some time just watching. I am not sure about a second stop yet, maybe the transit center? It would have a much higher volume which could be good and bad. It also has a more developed place for people to wait which I think would be a nice comparison.. I wish I were in Cincinnati for this bit. Cincinnati bus stops are always full of interesting things... haha.. 

P.S. I am almost relieved that I am not the only one confused. haha. But I do apologize for what may have been a very convoluted post. 

On the bus...

I am too tired right now to write everything I wrote earlier.. I didn't get off work until midnight and it was a crazy night.. but I will say this. .

If everything is the result of action and reactions then in terms of dwelling, the act of building is a reaction.. but that does not mean that the fourfold is the action. Maybe it is, but not necessarily..

OK. If 'things' are simply the result of a number of forces (actions) and reactions so is the act of Dwelling. 

Consider the shape of the land in the southwest, the natural arches/bridges and canyons that have been formed through thousands of years of forces acting upon them. They have been shaped by natural and unnatural forces alike. . . of the wind, rain, drought, vegetation, lack of vegetation, animals, travelers, settlers, roads, the quality of air, the contents of the rain. . . the shape of that location of land at any given time is a result of countless factors, and as those forces change the shape of the land changes with it. 

So, then, what is the force of dwelling? Dwelling is the manner of which we exist on earth, Dwelling is the equilibrium. . . Dwelling is the act of bringing together the fourfold, therefore the oneness of the four is the reaction? Our nature, as mortals, create the forces [in addition to culture/environment/ect] and our reaction is building in order to create the oneness of the four [which is dwelling, is the equilibrium, is the lands shape at any point in time].  

I think there is much to part II I am still not following. I understand that we bring the fourfold together by building. Those 'things' create a space for the fourfold to exist. But, certainly, not any built thing can be considered a "dwelling". But if a dwelling is anything that creates this oneness then can't anything we build be a dwelling? Heidegger says:

Building takes over from the fourfold the standard for all the traversing and measuring of the spaces that in each case are provided for by the locations that have been founded. The edifices guard the fourfold. They are things that in their own way preserve the fourfold. To preserve the fourfold, to save the earth, to receive the sky, to await the divinities, to escort mortals-this fourfold preserving is the simple nature, the presencing, of dwelling. In this way, then, do genuine buildings give form to dwelling in its presencing and house this presence.

But he also states that:

Only if we are capable of dwelling, only then can we build. 

This is when things seem a LITTLE more clear to me. 

building belongs to dwelling and how it receives its nature from dwelling

And Finally...

what is the state of dwelling in our precarious age?

The real plight of dwelling is indeed older than the world wars with their destruction, older also than the increase of the earth's population and the condition of the industrial workers. The real dwelling plight lies in this, that mortals ever search anew for the nature of dwelling, that they must ever learn to dwell. 

But how else can mortals answer this summons than by trying on their part, on their own, to bring dwelling to the fullness of its nature? This they accomplish when they build out of dwelling, and think for the sake of dwelling.

I need to sleep before I keep trying to respond to this. I feel like I have gone in one large circle.  .

More tomorrow 

Out of time

I have been writing my responses in my journal/sketch book as opposed to typing them immediately. This always helps me process and think more clearly. I have worked back through the first part of heidegger as well as outlined the various questions and points you have made but will not have time to type them and post them now. If I get back from work early enough and have any energy left I will try to post some of it tonight but for now I will only write this short note..

Just a small bit of clarification.. 

"Dwelling is the manner in which mortals are on the earth". We are Dwellers. It can not be helped. To achomplish this we stay in place, we are at peace, to be preserved from harm and to be in ones own nature. That nature is described by the fourfold. The fourfold can not exist without mortals. We are the simple oneness of the four. The fourfold only exists through us, in us, we bring the oneness. (Like location/space/place and the bridge?) 

"Dwelling itself is always a staying with things" Dwelling, as preserving, keps the fourfold in that which mortals stay - in things. Building cultivating, constructing, is how we preserve, how we keep it (the fourfold). 

"But things themselves only secure the fourfold when they themselves AS things are let be in their own precensing"

To Dwell, according to Heidegger  requires  an involvement and engagement with place and contentment.. familiarity and caring for place. 

His thoughts and ideas are an attempt to articulate a "Place of Being"

My question is would he argue that we succeed in this attempt in a modern world. Would Heidegger see how we have constructed our lives through technology, cities, livelihoods, culture, ect as preserving that fourfold? Or would he merit our constant struggle as evidence of not being able to exist in the manner/nature that we are meant to exist? 

More later. I am going to miss my bus! 

Please Elaborate

I am going through all of your recent comments and questions and trying to understand and respond to each of them, but in this process there is something I would really like you to elaborate on for me. In response to Part One you said:

"I know that when I was going through some of this - which was a while ago - I used the spatial operators outlined by a person whom I have forgotten. That individual identified seven spatial operators, and the bridge was one. The others were: hotel, prison, well, labrynth, tower (inverse well?) and death. Each of these is considered as a function (operation) given form. It is a way of decoding some of the ideas. Each has a different way of engaging the four-fold. (I never really bought into the death one - it never made sense to me)."

I tried to google search these seven spacial operators to find the author and gain more understanding of them but was unsucessful. I think I understand, to some extent, what you are getting at but knowing how one or each of these were applied would be very helpful. They are a very interesting collection of spaces..  and I agree, the death doesn't seem to fit but maybe if I could read the argument for it I could have a more educated opinion of it. Thanks, More to come this afternoon, Jess

after thought

"As a recap - observe the behaviors of people in the places you are exploring - and the architectural character that facilitates those behaviors rather than the formal qualities of building versus non-building."

Perhaps a way to compensate for my lack of traveling would be to spend an hour each day observing people in a different environment. Tomorrow it could be the roasting company I tend to work at, the next it could be the bus stop, the next it could be... well.. i don't know. The choice of places is just as important as the observations themselves.. but it could be interesting. I can go to various places in Park City, which is full of different environments that attract different people, and then to Salt Lake.. if I can find a way there. This could be a time I continue as I travel back to california and to cincinnati.. giving vastly different cultural lifestyles as well as environments..

Any ideas you have on this or other ways I can compensate toward this research would be very helpful. Thank you, Jess

Update

As a note I must approve your comments before they post. Once they appear I have read them, at least once, and have approved them. If they don't show up right away it is because I have been too busy to get online and check for new comments. Sorry for any delay or confusion. 

I am very bummed about the trip. Depending on what the mechanic says about my car it may just be postponed. If I have a car functioning I will take an extended trip in the end of August. Unfortunately this will be the tail end of my research so I may need to find something to compensate for now toward the project. Luckily for me I am a young ignorant student yet, and if I can take a trip on my way back to Cincinnati it can still be recorded and such, it will simply be part of my own perspective and not a driving force for the body of this work.

I am very open to suggestions as to what this compensation might be. 

I ordered a few books today, they should arrive Monday or Tuesday. I ordered a book I mentioned two weeks ago called Shelter by L. Kahn which will be a good reference for different kinds of shelters all over the world. I also got Non-Places as you suggested by Auge as well as The Poetics of Space just for my personal curiosity. 

I plan on spending a good part of my morning/afternoon tomorrow reading and responding to your comments as well as going through Heidegger one more time to bring my own responses to a more focused and concrete point. I realize that I tend to look at everything around the path as much as the path itself, which is a hindrance as much as it is a strength, but hopefully tomorrow I will be able to bring things back into a direction of sorts. 

One thing I think I should mention is that I think my research has left tent cities to some extent. I still find them important and to some extent pertinent, but I also think they might be flimsy as environments. The focus, I think, should be the idea of dwelling, living, and human nature/needs/ect and the environments by which those aspects exist, or by which we create them/allow them perhaps(?), should be second. My initial reaction to the tent cities was that their nature as communities and structures would be a strong medium in which to see these characteristics of dwelling, but now I am sort of on the fence. However I also think that the formality of these things should not matter, that if this is something truly natural to us I should find it everywhere.. perhaps in different quantities? or qualities rather.. but I shouldn't need to seek it out.

Then, I think of Josef Albers and realize that certain things seem more clear in contrast with something else. . . 

There is very little about my mind that is decisive. Questions I have to no end, but making conclusions is something I tend to struggle with. Things always seem far more complex than anyone else is willing to admit. This is what appeals to me about the tangents, they are all part of the truth of something.. they are all forces that act upon it which, in my mind, can not be ignored if you wish to see something for what it is. In the end, if I do come to a conclusion that I am very strong about, it is usual one of a very genuine and thought out nature. . the problem is getting that far before the timer goes off. 

Car Problems Suck

So on my way home from SLC I hit a tire on the highway yesterday. It dislodged my fan shroud which is why it started overheating SO MUCH WORSE as I was trying to get home. Luckily my insurance might cover the damages. . on a less enthusiastic note the problems with my car might not be worth investing in.. bottom line I have no car for at least a week.. Which is going to cause significant trouble. =( 

Love life. 

Update

So I got about two hours from home and my car started overheating. There was no way I would make it to Vegas and through Southern Utah with it overheating before I even hit the redrock.. SO trip is a bust. I have had a long day of trying to get my car back home but tomorrow I will be focusing on working through your responses and reformulating my ideas.. I will also be trying to get that book. I am excited to read it =D 

Thanks for the time you set aside today. 

Jessica 

Questions

I decided to postpone my departure to Vegas so that I could get an actual nights sleep. I will be leaving the house here very shortly and arriving around 5pm. That probable means I will leave tomorrow later in the day and play the detour by ear. I wish I had more time. There is a book I have been reading through the past few days called The Little-Known Southwest, and I really want to see it all. It is such a different kind of world. I have driven through Southern Utah once but never with a thoughtful eye. . . so I guess if nothing else this drive and the stops I make will be a start. I can't do everything now. 

I was doing research on the Anasazi dwellings and ruins that are scattered throughout the four corners area and realized that how those shelters function as a dwelling seemed rather simple. There is such a clear connection between the culture of the Anasazi with the fourfold, if you will, and, at least as it appears to me, a harmony between intervention and nature. I think that is something we have lost the care for as our society has 'developed'. It seems easy to understand how dwellings function off the grid, how people who leave our societal norms behind can live in connection with the four fold, hand in hand with themselves, the earth, the sky and the divinities. I can even understand how places like Park City succeed in dwelling without leaving our norms behind, but Park City is not normal. There is a mindset and priority that brings nature to a high level of importance, it is ingrained in the lifestyle here. People live here so that they can run, bike, hike, backpack through the wild and untamed mountains. The autonomy that is talked about in Camps is almost found as a way of life here. The life is just different. What I do not understand is how we succeed to dwell in an urban environment. How we find that connection when the tempo of life has been turned up exponentially, when we have paved and removed ourselves from the natural life and left ourselves only with  man made parks and recreation centers? How do we dwell and find that harmony when every moment of life is about a task? How do we create environments that allow for us to step back and take that moment? I am sure it has a lot to do with choice, but I feel like it is utterly difficult in comparison to other ways of living even in a contemporary society. Urban environments bring focus to the manmade. . . to rules and challenges we have created for ourselves - not the ones we were given. But Urban environments are the ultimate 'location'. There are spaces and things all around to bring the fourfold together. It is not merely a bridge in nature that finds its difference from the mountainside and creates a location, it is a constant collection and layering of building. It seems that according to Heidegger it would be the ULTIMATE dwelling. "We do not dwell because we have built, we built because we dwell". Is there a point where that balance is breached? Have our cities been built so carelessly that we have blocked the other aspects of the fourfold completely? Or am I just missing the point? Maybe it is not all cities but some cities? Maybe it is just my perception? And for that, leaving the cities, what about suburbia? Places and communities that have lost their identity and have become paved landscapes of Wal-Marts and trimmed bushes that are not native to the land. What of these communities we have created where you can only build a certain type of fence and can only grow a particular species of grass and must keep it green and cut to a certain length or you will be in violation of someone rules? What of these places we have created for ourselves that strips us from the very nature of freedom? Of creation? Or creativity or the natural? Our nature and life's nature? Is that why we feel like we need so much more from life? Is that why we have created so many distractions? To fulfill a void we have forgotten to listen to? Even Heidegger said that we are forced to continue to relearn what it is to dwell. . . Have we lost that ability or knowledge of such a thing as it has washed away with our languages? But maybe I am wrong, maybe our form of dwelling has changed with the development of time... maybe now we are creating what we need in order to find that harmony. But I am not convinced. Especially since the things that are most natural to us don't really change.. 

Feedback is welcomed. I suppose these are good questions to have considering the variety of lifestyles I will be driving through in these next two days. 

:: Edit:: Perhaps this is why we are so attracted to the things that remind us of a more simple life? I compare it to sailing down the eastern sea board and taking a cruise liner where you will undoubtably spend more time in the spa, arcade, restaurant, and pool than enjoying the ocean. I just don't understand it..

Cheers 

Two Worlds, One Trip

So I leave for my trip in roughly 6 hours.. and it is going to be quite an interesting collection of stops. I only have until Thursday at 5pm to get back (as I have to be at work) so I can't do everything I want.. no surprise.. but maybe in September when I am no longer working and have a few weeks to make my way back to Cincinnati I can do a more in depth backpacking exploration of the four corners. 

I leave tomorrow and head through Southern Utah toward Vegas.. did I mention I was spending a day in Vegas? A friends birthday. Anyways. I will - hopefully - be arriving in Las Vegas before it gets too hot outside and spending the night there. I will be leaving - hopefully - early the next morning to head toward Escalante, UT. Along highway 12, the only all weather road in the area, I will spend the day exploring parts of the grand staircase and of anasazi ruins in the boulder area. Depending on how late I get there, what I find, and how the weather is I will either find a place to sleep (car, tent, motel or otherwise) or drive back to Park City that night (another 5-6 hours). If I leave the next morning hopefully I can make it fresh into work by 5pm. Ha. 

I have no idea what I am going to find but going from Never Never Land (AKA Park City) to Vegas (enough said) and into the last mapped region of the United States should at least bring some interesting questions to mind. I have my sketchbook, journal, maps, clothes, and lots of water packed and ready to go.. oh and I camera! Finally I have a camera. Again. That will come in handy. Talk to you in a few days. And don't worry, I am still reading parts of Camp and thoughts on Dwelling/Heidegger/ect. 

Wish me luck, my rear wheel drive Supra is not made for this adventure. HA.

Without looking over my notes or taking too long to contemplate anything I want to write what has stayed on my mind in regard to Heidegger's essay. 

While I was reading the paper one thing kept popping back into my head, and that was my previous though of 'refugee'. Heidegger talks about the need to dwell as finding a harmony between the fourfold through various means.. and I realize that this sentence is incomplete but for now will suffice. Especially when he spoke of freedom as being in ones own "presencing" or to preserve peace... to allow something to exist in it's own being. When I was considering the definition of refugee I realized it was truly anyone who fled to avoid prosecution or danger, or perceived prosecution or danger. A refugee was also referred to as an asylum seeker. An asylum is a place of retreat and security. 

My current roommates are the kind of people that might be stereotyped as hippies. We run a compost, we reuse our zip lock bags, and they cook a lot of vegan foods. Well for two years or so they lived off the grid, without electricity, in a community in the forest of N.Carolina. They created the plywood spheres I talked about previously (and will hopefully be able to scan the pictures of soon) and worked within this community to provide everything they needed. I think this structure is a very good example of a true modern dwelling. From what they have talked to me about, and from the pictures I have seen and the ideas I have gathered, it really seems like an environment where all of the characteristics Heidegger talks about come together. But it is much less about the structure and more about everything else... more about the community and the separation from what our society considers normal. The structure is needed to survive, and is an expression of our need to dwell, but the structure was only a very small piece of their ability to preserve peace and to cultivate. 

I mentioned that I was going to take a road trip.. I am driving from Park City to Vegas to meet a friend for her birthday for a night but then want to take a day or two to drive through some of the south west monuments and ruins. Hovenweep is near the four corners and would be a HUGE trip outside of the needed driving to and from vegas... but I think it might be worth it. I am not sure what I might find there or how it will pertain to what I am exploring but it feels  like it could be very impacting. There are also some sites near flagstaff that I could check out that would be along (or near) one of the routes I could take to get there. I will find out tomorrow when I work next week and how much time I can allow for this detour.. 

Taking a road trip

I worked 830 am - 1130 pm today but during my lunch i planned a trip to southern utah/northern arizona/nevada for next week! I am still not sure how much i can see but i want to get a little bit done first person. I have to go in that direction anyways so i am consolidating by taking a car an am eight hour detour. . lol. more on that tomorrow. g'night

Part Two: Notes

Thoughts on Dwelling [Heidegger] :

 

PART II

[More conclusive thoughts to come soon, these are notes I typed while reading]

The banks emerge as banks only as the bridge crosses the stream… It brings stream and bank and land into each other's neighborhood.

 

Thus the bridge does not first come to a location to stand in it; rather, a location comes into existence only by virtue of the bridge.

 

The bridge is a thing; it gathers the fourfold, but in such a way that it allows a site for the fourfold.

 

A boundary is not that at which something stops but, as the Greeks recognized, the boundary is that from which something begins its presencing. [Horizon is the boundry at which space starts]

 

[So Heidegger is arguing that because to dwell is to preserve and to free, to be in ones own presenceing, and because as mortals we are meant to die, to be on the earth and under the sky, we are also before the divinities. That is the conection? So to dwell is to be in ones own natural space… and as a mortal ours is the fourfold. So dwelling is the fourfold. The fourfold is harmony.]

 

I don’t know if I agree…? How?: The bridge is a location. As such a thing, it allows a space into which earth and heaven, divinities and mortals are admitted.

Basically he is arguing that a location does not exist until a ‘thing’ allows it to come into existence. You must have a location in order to gather the fourfold.. but wouldn’t the fourfold exist anyways? This is like arguing that a if a tree falls and no one is there to experience it, then it doesn’t make a sound. But sound is not subjective. . . sound is an existing reaction. . . can a location not be determined by a tree that is enjoyed for its shade? Or a raspberry bush that can be enjoyed for its berries? Or a large rock that can be sat on? Do these not give virtue to a location? It is not a location until it is experienced, acknowledged, and therefore man would have to make note of that location for it to exist.. a rock can be under the sky, before the divinities, and of the earth, but without man it is not a dwelling. Can it not be called a location because it is of the earth and therefore can not be third party to the fourfold? Is that the issue? But we build with materials from the earth… so is it the process of making it our own that makes it a thing? That virtues a location? That gathers the fourfold?

 

Space V.S Location:

 

            What these relations make room for is the possibility of the construction of manifolds with an arbitrary number of dimensions. [Totally lost on this entire thought process]

Spaces are determined by location.

By thinking of a space you are actually experiencing the space itself. Not merely a representation within your conscious but persisting to the location itself. Not an experience in the present, here, but an experience that belongs to the nature of thinking of the thing/location.

            What does “belong to the nature of thinking of the thing” mean? How is it different that a representational experience within the mind. I am thinking of a place, I am not in that place.. I owe those thoughts to that place? Maybe. I am somehow existentially connected to that place? Is that the argument? He says that “The thinking gets though to the distance of that location”. So, my mind travels to the location I am thinking of? In essence. I suppose without the location existing you could have no thought of that location but I don’t know if I quite understand his full argument or not..

 

 “When I go toward the door of the lecture hall, I am already there, and I could not go to it at all if I were not such that I am there. I am never here only, as this encapsulated body; rather, I am there, that is, I already pervade the room, and only thus can I go through it.”

[I suppose you could argue that is what is true in your mind is as true as anything can be. When he is talking about the lecture hall he says that he could not go to it if he were not there. Mentally, if you did not see or understand the nature of the door you would not experience it or be able to go to it. So by thinking of it you are experiencing it and therefore there. . . I think it is a battle of semantics more than anything but I am not sure.]

 

"Man's relation to locations, and through locations to spaces, inheres in bis dwelling. The relationship between man and space is none other than dwelling, strictly thought and spoken."

"To the Greeks techne means neither art nor handicraft but rather: to make something appear, within what is present, as this or that, in this way or that way."

The erecting of buildings would not be suitably defined even if we were to think of it in the sense of the original Greek techne as solely a letting-appear, which brings something made, as something present, among the things that are already present.

The nature of building is letting dwell. Building accomplishes its nature in the raising of locations by the joining of their spaces. Only if we are capable of dwelling, only then can we build.

 

Here the self-sufficiency of the power to let earth and heaven, divinities and mortals enter in simple oneness into things, ordered the house. It placed the farm on the wind-sheltered mountain slope looking south, among the meadows close to the spring. It gave it the wide overhanging shingle roof whose proper slope bears up under the burden of snow, and which, reaching deep down, shields the chambers against the storms of the long winter nights. It did not forget the altar corner behind the community table; it made room in its chamber for the hallowed places of childbed and the "tree of the dead"-for that is what they call a coffin there: the Totenbaum-and in this way it designed for the different generations under one roof the character of their journey through time. A craft which, itself sprung from dwelling, still uses its tools and frames as things, built the farmhouse

 

Need both thinking and building to belong to dwelling. Both limited. Singularly they are insufficient. 

[More conclusive thoughts to come soon, these are notes I typed while reading]

Not an Essay. .

I have come to the conclusion that I am working way, way, too much. I was hired at Easy Street on July 1st, started July 2nd, and have worked at least eight hours (and up to sixteen hours) a day since. My first day off will be Friday, July 17th. For these reasons I am not where I want to be, but that is ok. This week I am only working single shifts each day [which is how it should be from now on] so I will have three to four hours a day to work on this project. Right now I am about halfway through Martine Heidegger's Building Dwelling Thinking but no where close to 1,000 words on dwelling. For now I am just going to take excerpts  from my notes on the essay regarding part one on What it is to dwell. Tomorrow I will post on part two, and hopefully by the end of Friday I will have something to reflect on in a more holistic way [including images, drawings, ect]. We will see where it goes I guess though. 

 

Thoughts on Dwelling [Heidegger] :

 

First, I think it is important to take notice of Heidegger's introduction where he states, "This thinking about building does not presume to discover architectural ideas, let alone to give rules for building". I think understanding that this project, wherever it leads between now and September, or whenever, can not definitely tell me anything at all about architectural ideas. I am not sure what outcome or consequence this exploration will have on my perspective, but I can not expect anything at all. It is simply an exploration, an exploration which is meant to simply observe as much as possible. 

 

In part one Heidegger breaks down the history of the word 'dwell'. The intension of this is to resurrect the true meaning behind the word in its more essential state. He says that: 

 

Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact language remains the master of man… That we retain a concern for care in speaking is all to the good, but it is of no help to us as long as language still serves us even then only as a means of expression.

 

This begins a long explanation of the word Bauen, the Old English and High German work for building, which means to dwell. [I remember a lecture Denis Mann gave Fall quarter of our freshman year that started to get into the meaning of words, including the word Bauen and this paper by Heidegger, it was one of my favorite lectures.] It will do no good to retrace the steps Heidegger took, but in the end he concluded that the word dwell has many facets, and a true identity that has been lost to us. What he did establish is that to be a human being means to be on the earth as a mortal, which means to dwell. That it is our nature, in fact, to dwell. At the same time it means to cherish and protect, to preserve and care for, to cultivate. More importantly, in my experience of this essay, was that to dwell also means to be set at peace, to free. This is based from the Gothic wunjan which says more distinctly how this remaining is experienced. To free really means to spare, and that “the sparing itself consists not only in the fact that we do not harm the on whom we spare. Real sparing is something positive and takes place when we leave something beforehand in its own nature. Heidegger says that “the fundamental character of dwelling is this paring and preserving.

 

Once he breaks down the meaning of the word he speaks of a primal oneness, the four : earth and sky, mortals and divinities, and how they belong together. The connections he makes between the four are quite beautiful but he concludes by saying that :

 

In saving the earth, in receiving the sky, in awaiting the divinities, in initiating mortals, dwelling occurs as the fourfold preservation of the fourfold. To spare and preserve means: to take under our care, to look after the fourfold in its presencing. What we take under our care must be kept safe. But if dwelling preserves the fourfold, where does it keep the fourfold's nature? How do mortals make their dwelling such a preserving? Mortals would never be capable of it if dwelling were merely a staying on earth under the sky, before the divinities, among mortals. Rather, dwelling itself is always a staying with things. Dwelling, as preserving, keeps the fourfold in that with which mortals stay: in things.

The next section will discuss how building belongs to dwelling.

This is all sort of hard to absorb, but most of it, I believe, I understood. I reiterated only bits and pieces and I am sure it makes no sense, but that is ok, for now, as these are really only notes…

There are two things that I really enjoyed about the first section, well three I suppose. The first is that he says “We do not dwell because we have built, but we build and have build because we dwell, that is, because we are dwellers”. This, to some extent, reinforces my own assumption that these ‘ad-hoc structures’ may have some character of the desire to dwell. I also found his definition of ‘to set free’ very important. The idea of freedom creates a sense of severing control over something… I think it is much more appropriate that to be free is to preserve the true nature of something. To free is to return it specifically to its being. The third aspect of this section was his rather poetic thoughts on the four-fold. I am still not sure how I feel about it… the unity and connection is something beautiful but… well I am not sure. What I did take from it is a sense of what it is to be mortal. Not that this was something I previously misunderstood, but Heidegger phrases the connections of four essential things in a very specific manner. As I read the remainder of this essay I think I will have more to say on this.

Reading this has been a very slow process. I have taken the time to look up words to find their appropriate and distinct meaning and inserted them within the essay for my own benefit and reread many parts various times.

More tomorrow. I have to be at work in eight hours… Ugh.

 

 

 

 

 

Deadline

So I started a new job and I haven't had a day off since I got hired... for example, tomorrow I work 11am-12am. Super sweet... 

I have been working on the idea of 'dwelling' but not as quickly as I wanted to. I am going to have a solid draft up for comments early monday night and then will, if necessary, revise or develop from there. 

Have a good weekend.

How do you define Nomadic?

[I am working through Heidegger's Building Dwelling Thinking. Will post on it soon. In the meantime here is a conversation I had with my friend Chris]

Chris

nahh i snoop on ur blog, not ur FB

lol, curious to see what u post

4:17pmJessica

yeah about my blog. . lol i need to post something soon

4:18pmChris

yeahh

4:18pmJessica

i am working on going through heidegger's paper 'building dwelling thinking' now

4:18pmChris

ur 5 days over due

what is that about?

like what to consider when building?

4:18pmJessica

which will be the starting point for my understanding/definition of dwell

understanding what a dwelling is, how it is created, where it originates from.. our need for it

ect

4:19pmChris

ahh ok

i always just considered it natural.. since if u look at most animals, they all do dwellings of some sort

4:19pmJessica

i have just been busy.. and lazy.. lol

4:20pmChris

haha that's normal

4:20pmJessica

right. it is a very natural thing..

but if you are going to make decisions on something you have to have some sort of basis for how it is defined

4:20pmChris

yeahh

u can talk about time, how went from nomadic, to semi nomadic, to permanent settlements

dunno if that relates at all

4:21pmJessica

well it does

completely

4:21pmChris

cuz when i imagine tent camps, i would imagine more of a semi nomadic style

4:22pmJessica

exactly

and then you have to define nomadic

which isn't nearly as simple as you would presume

4:22pmChris

yeahh

4:22pmJessica

because if you think about it a nomad is considered to move from place to place, typically with seasons. . where the food is, where the weather is good ect

right? that is the conventional idea?

4:22pmChris

right

4:23pmJessica

but on the other hand someone who stays in one location endures various seasons

4:23pmChris

well i would put that with the semi nomadic if you say by seasons

4:23pmJessica

their environment is constantly changing because they are stationary

4:23pmChris

right

4:23pmJessica

while the environment of the 'nomad' is constant because they are moving with the environment

so, then, who is the true nomad?

4:24pmChris

i think they both are, just that one may be further advanced than the other

4:24pmJessica

how so?

4:24pmChris

cuz one has to be more advanced to deal with the constant changes in envrironment

4:24pmJessica

so then everyone is a nomad?

4:24pmChris

and food shortages and such

umm no

4:25pmJessica

who is not?

4:25pmChris

because we have established settlements

4:25pmJessica

right

but those settlements endure a constantly changing environment

4:25pmChris

i would say he who used to be a nomad and settles down in one area permanently is like in between

in between the nomad, and the settler

cuz it's when he can settle and sustain himself, that societies form around him

4:26pmJessica

can there be an in between? aren't you either one or the other. ? settled or nomadic?