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sort of way: Part II

Andrew Ballantyne in conversation with stefan koller

Part I of  this interview appeared in Vol. 1, No. 1 of  
Architecture Philosophy. 

Question: There seems to be something important 
to you at the level of  pure methodology, regardless of  the 
philosophical content engaged. Is that something that you 
think is peculiar to philosophy or is philosophy one of  the 
disciplines that might bring method to architecture? Why is 
method not already inherent to architecture as an academic 
discipline? Why is the methodological stringing together of  
content not already inherent to architecture as an academic 
discipline?

Answer: It’s not that thinking is especially isolated 
in philosophy, or in architecture, or in anywhere 
else. I don’t think that thinking in architecture is 
necessarily less rigorous than in other places. I 
think thinking in architecture is very rigorous about 
certain sorts of  things, but equally rather lax, or 
typically rather lax, in some other ways. 

That’s probably true of  all disciplines, but we 
have different ways of  making use of  information, 
different ways of  thinking about things, or coming 
close to thinking about things. I put things on a 
scale ranging from common sense at one end of  the 
scale to perhaps something more like logic thought 
at the other. When you’re dealing with common 
sense, it’s not philosophical thinking, you’re 
recognizing a pattern of  events and assuming that 
that pattern of  events will repeat itself  the way it 
did when you encountered it the last time. Most of  
the time, that kind of  recognition works. 

So with everyday activities we can deal with 
common sense and yesterday and today and 

thinking in 
architecture is 

very rigorous 
about certain 

sorts of things, 
but equally 

rather lax, or 
typically rather 

lax, in some other 
ways.

“

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tomorrow, are fairly similar and we can go through them in a similar way. 
Not by thinking out the situation afresh but by remembering what we 
did yesterday and the day before, and in fact we stop thinking about it, 
we just go through our routine, habitual patterns, and everything is fine 
and everything continues the way it did. But if  we want to change things 
or we’re faced with a fresh problem, then we have to do a different sort 
of  thinking, which may involve an element of  recognizing patterns from 
what we did before. Also, you need to make some sort of  analysis, maybe 
have some sort of  creative response to what it is. Maybe it’s a matter of  
logical deduction, but there’s a different kind of  thinking that goes on. 
That’s the kind of  thinking that it’s important for me to engage with when 
I’m writing. 

I don’t have to do that every day in every way. I wouldn’t get through 
the day if  I did. A lot of  things I just do as routine. When it’s a matter of  
academic work, academic thinking, then you do have to think. Philosophy 
is good at prioritizing that sort of  thinking discipline. Actually Michel 
Tournier described philosophers as the professionals of  thought. He 
studied philosophy as a student alongside Deleuze, and it took him 
completely by surprise when he failed the exams that Deleuze passed. He 
went on to become a novelist and won the Prix Goncourt, but there’s a 
wistful tone when he talks about philosophers. Thinking is their business 
and they show you how to do it. There’s other ways of  doing it, but 
philosophy is good, it’s rigorous, and it really makes you think. The other 
person I really like on that subject is David Hume, who describes himself  
being sent into depression by the isolation that comes with rigorous 
philosophical thinking. He says that if  he needs a remedy for that, it’s easy 
to find. He just seeks out company – a game of  backgammon – and all his 
philosophical problems disappear. He regains the will to live or whatever 
it is. He was a sociable person. We’re all sociable people, and we feel good 
and comfortable with the world if  we’re engaged with conversation and 
so on. That doesn’t get you thinking philosophically. In order to think 
rigorously and logically, you do have to withdraw and internalize. It’s 
quite an isolated process. Maybe there are philosophers who can conduct 
Socratic dialogues with others, but for me that kind of  conversation makes 
best sense if  you think of  it as articulating the different voices in your own 
head. Maybe I haven’t met the right people. But I recognize what I do as 
feeling like what Hume describes. So you need to be able to do that and 
then to function as a human being, you need to come out of  it.

Hume’s punch line is his remedy for the depression that comes with 
philosophical work is carelessness and inattention. He says, “for this 
reason I rely entirely upon them.” His method is a method of  carelessness 



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and inattention, but that’s a method for living, not a 
method for doing philosophy.

Q: How extraordinary to bring out the contribution of  
philosophy in that light when it’s philosophy that kind of  
temporarily puts ordinary life and common sense on hold, 
as in Hume. Nothing ultimately, if  you narrowly attend to 
it, even the collision of  billiard balls, makes sense anymore 
and you have to relapse into custom to even be able to get by. 
It makes philosophy pull away from common, ordinary life.

In one of  your most recent works, “Architecture, Life, 
and Habit” you use the work of  some philosophers, or 
your own philosophical thought, to reorient thinking about 
architecture from this remote disengaged aesthetic touristic 
contemplation. Towards an understanding that, in dealing 
with building, we deal with the people that inhabit them, and 
the life that shapes around them. The work becomes a new 
pragmatist aesthetics of  architecture which looked as if  the 
philosophy pulled a customary architectural historian back 
into engaging with the life that surrounds these buildings – 
the common life.

A: Of  habits that become so habitual that you’ve 
lost sight of  them, which become the things that 
shape your world.

Q: It seems to run in the opposite direction of  the 
Humean relation to philosophy, where philosophy is 
something that pulls you out of  ordinary life. Then there’s 
the Wittgensteinian way of  pulling you back in and enabling 
you to engage with it. In a sense that is not everyday in the 
sense of  being common or habitual, but in reconnecting you 
to something that maybe through habit or academic study or 
even a design attitude to the built object has removed it from 
its built, lived reality.

A: Yes. I’d hoped that one could find a way to 
aestheticize the everyday activity and find value in 
it. And enjoy doing everyday things by waking up to 
them. It may be going against that idea of  thinking 
through withdrawal. It’s withdrawn thinking but 
turned in on the activity of  living and perhaps being 
more sociable. 

What lies at the heart of  that article, is that 

In order 
to think 

rigorously 
and logically, 

you do have to 
withdraw and 

internalize. 
It’s quite an 

isolated 
process.

“

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architectural discussion ought to begin with ordinary things and daily life 
and branch out from there. I think too much of  the time we’re faced 
with architectural discussion that begins with an admiration of  form or 
something. These things can be quite demanding or difficult or even get in 
the way of  ordinary life. They stand apart from it. They’re special in some 
way and it’s nice that they’re special, they’re challenging in that sort of  way. 
But for sanity’s sake, there just has to be a way of  valorizing things that 
you have to do anyway. Why not make that the substance of  what you do 
rather than something that has to be awkwardly fitted in afterwards?

Q: Does that also entail that you would not follow the distinction that many other 
writers have tried to make between architecture with a capital “A” on the one hand 
and mere building (in German, bauen as opposed to Baukunst) on the other hand?

The second is the vernacular, or the ordinary utilitarian domestic-level but 
culturally significant building. On the other hand, you’ve got some things that are much 
closer to the fine arts or architecture at least tries to align itself  with the lofty ambitions 
of  the artistic. Would you not want to draw a distinction precisely to avoid us having 
this split attitude?

A: I really don’t want there to be that separation. I want it to be a 
sliding scale – if  anything – where you begin with the ordinary things 
that you have to do and then find special intensifications of  those things 
that makes them out of  the ordinary, that makes them more pleasurable, 
or dramatic, or whatever it is. They’re rooted in something meaningful. 
They’re not separated. Otherwise, you get this split and it starts feeling 
like there’s a separation between everyday activity and aesthetic sensibility. 
I really want them to be connected. I want my life to be full of  wonderful 
aesthetic experiences.

Q: Everything you say is the complete opposite of  Schopenhauer. The reason for 
that is that you strike me as someone who is very optimistic and cheerful and that 
means also for you that these aesthetic experiences, especially when they are of  buildings, 
ought to be life-affirming in a broader sense than just having an uplifting experience of  
contemplation.

For Schopenhauer the idea is that life is full of  woe and suffering and then aesthetic 
experience of  architecture is one of  the very few things that enable us to pull out of  this 
life of  suffering. So I’m also wondering to what extent these very fundamental decisions 
and your attitude towards how to approach architecture and ordinary building relates 
to a larger understanding of  human life? Because in your work that emerges clearly 
at several junctures, but where exactly does that come from for you? What’s the entry 
point of  that? Is it already the reality of  how you encounter the buildings, or is there an 
independent philosophical view that brought you to this?

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do think that a lot of  aesthetic experience is 
unconscious. A lot of  what we do all the time is 
unconscious and of  course philosophical reflection 
is conscious. If  you’re trying to think about 
everyday experiences and why you feel good about 
having done something one way or another, what is 
it you’re dealing with?

A lot of  the time you’re dealing with something 
that’s unconscious, at the moment of  your 
decision-making. You’re deciding to sit at this table 
rather than on that sofa, but why are you deciding 
that? What are the issues that you’re rehearsing? 
You’re not entirely conscious of  what they are but 
somehow one is more comfortable, the other feels 
better adapted to the task at hand.

There’s a big element of  unconscious stuff  
going on and what is that? There’s all kinds of  things 
we’ve got to get right before we can start worrying 
about aesthetic issues in a conscious sort of  way. 
For example, things like heating and lighting, they 
just have to be dealt with in some way. If  you’re in a 
house that’s too cold to be comfortable then there’s 
no way you’re going to be dwelling on the elegance 
of  its proportionsfor too long, you’ll be moving on 
or wrapping yourself  up.

Q: So, it would be like addressing, or talking about 
concrete building considerations as heating, lighting, and 
construction more broadly. To what extent do you think 
philosophy could contribute to our understanding of  such 
things?

A: Nothing at all. I think that they’re more or 
less preconditions. If  we can’t get enough food to 
survive, we don’t worry about the meaning of  life. 
The meaning of  life becomes very clear: it’s to get 
food. I don’t think that philosophy would help us 
to find food in that sort of  emergency, but with 
more leisure and forethought – well, if  your job is 
to teach philosophy then it would be philosophy 
that was putting food on your table. And then in the 
most ambitious restaurants there’s certainly room 
for a philosophy of  food, which has quite a lot of  

it is 
astounding 

just how 
uninformed 

they are about 
the actual 

details, say, of 
a painting, a 

piece of music, 
or a building.

“

”



aesthetic content and very little discussion about nutrition.
Q: What do you think authors, especially young authors, going into architecture 

philosophy right now should be aware of ? What can they learn from what is currently less 
than perfect, or just plain bad?

A: On the one hand you have philosophers, even aesthetic philosophers 
whose very business it is to write about art, where it is astounding just how 
uninformed they are about the actual details, say, of  a painting, a piece of  
music, or a building. On the other hand, you have architecture historians who 
are greatly accomplished in mopping up every last detail about a work of  art, 
but fall flat when they raise more general issues. Admittedly, I have painted 
the extreme end points on a wide spectrum – but there is a lot of  room in 
between these that is still left unexplored. And that is where I think a great 
deal of  interesting work remains to be done.

Andrew Ballantyne’s books include

Key Buildings From Prehistory to the Present: Plans, Sections and Elevations, 2012

Architecture in the Space of  Flows, 2012 (co-edited by C. Smith)

Deleuze and Guattari for Architects, 2007

Architecture Theory: A Reader in Philosophy and Culture, 2005

Architecture and Experience: Radical Change in Spatial Practice, 2004

Architectures: Modernism and After, 2004

Architecture: A Very Short Introduction, 2002

What is Architecture?, 2002

Architecture, Landscape and Liberty: Richard Payne Knight and the Picturesque, 1997

Andrew Ballantyne and Stefan  koller


