







































isparchitecture.com

Editorial
Stefan Koller & Tom Spector

The 2014 conference of  the International 
Society for the Philosophy of  Architecture 
and its twin themes of  autonomy and morality 
continue to furnish our journal pages with 
productive discussion. Graham Owen’s opening 
essay “Whatever Happened to Semi-Autonomy?” 
traces a strand of  recent architectural discourse by 
reminding us that architecture theory was not long 
ago engaged in a serious search for an architectural 
mode of  production existing midway between pure 
formal autonomy and dissolution in social science. 
He looks for evidence that such a position is still 
possible in such efforts as activist architecture. 
The writings of  Sarah Whiting and Robert Somol 
make a prominent appearance in this essay, as well 
as in Pauline Lefebvre’s “Varieties of  Pragmatism: 
Architectural Objects Made Moral.” Rather than 
dissect the discourse, as Owen does, Lefebvre 
elects to dissect the concept of  autonomous 
architectural objects against the concepts provided 
by American Pragmatism—especially as outlined 
by John Dewey and Richard Shusterman. She finds 
promising avenues of  exploration made possible 
by the pragmatist tradition but no clear solution to 
the problem of  seeking agency within architecture 
itself. Finding the pragmatist orientation towards 
placing opposing tendencies along continuums 
more useful than isolating them into clear-cut 
categories, she seeks to discredit a stultifying pre-
delineated moral domain “where some things are 
included while others are excluded.”

A similar conclusion is reached by Diana 
Aurenque in her essay on Heidegger’s late ethics, 



AP . vol 2 . No 1 . 2016

2

ED
IT

OR
IA

L
“Heidegger on Thinking about Ethos and Man’s Dwelling”: “To dwell 
poetically one has to forfeit the very domain of  the moral, a domain in 
which good and evil have already been decided upon.” While no one 
would accuse such Heidegger early and middle work mainstays as Being and 

Time, “The Origin of  the Work of  Art,” or “Building Dwelling Thinking,” 
of  being breezy reads, Aurenque and Architecture Philosophy hope to initiate 
a correction to the neglect of  Heidegger’s later works by architectural 
audiences enthralled with BT, “OWA,” and “BDT,” due in no small part 
to the later works’ reputation for impenetrability, by mapping a wide 
range of  Heidegger’s works characteristic of  the late period—above all, 
his commentaries on Hölderlin’s poetry. To substantiate these assertions 
about both the accessibility and resonance for architectural audiences of  
Heidegger’s later work, a piece of  that later work, 1970’s “Man’s Dwelling,” 
is included here as a companion to Aurenque’s exegetical study.  Although 
nine of  its companion essays in volume 13 of  Heidegger’s Complete 

Works have been rendered in English before, “Man’s Dwelling” is here 
translated, by Cesar A. Cruz,  for the first time.1 Aurenque herself  stays 
focused on textual interpretation. She deliberately eschews all attempt 
to deploy her readings of  the later Heidegger in the service of  wider-
ranging reflections, such as those found in the more explorative, at times 
speculative, readings of  Heidegger’s mid-to-late works offered by, say, the 
scholarship of  Rodolphe Gasché, Hubert Dreyfus, or Philippe Lacoue-
Labarthe, scholarship that rarely if  ever reckons with “Man’s Dwelling.”2

“Man’s Dwelling” finds Heidegger continuing to explore fundamental 
questions of  building and dwelling raised in 1954’s “Building Dwelling 
Thinking.” Heidegger writes in his nearly-trademarked strategic mode of  
initially beguiling the reader into following him into a meticulous, even 
affectionate, examination of  a work (or even a single word) from the past 
for the purpose of  providing the necessary critical distance to abruptly 
turn the reader around to face the existential questions of  our time. Here 
Hölderlin’s poem “The Archipelago,” as its variations unfolded for the 
poet in the process of  writing, serves as his launchpad to tease-out the 
ideas to which he wants us to attend. But, uncharacteristic for Heidegger, 
in this essay he actually projects the reader towards the future as well as the 
present and the past. Heidegger’s suggestion “that man of  the present age 
too dwells poetically in his own way – namely […] unpoetically,” certainly 
presages similar assertions by such post-humanist-minded architects as 
Peter Eisenman against Christopher Alexander’s nostalgic holism.

With “Man’s Dwelling” and its careful contextualization by Aurenque 
now available to an English speaking audience, many questions open up, 



3

isparchitecture.com

especially for readers and future contributors to this 
journal: How does the reading of  this additional text 
change or inflect existing discourses on Heidegger 
in relation to architecture? What does it tell us about 
his analyses of  dwelling and other foundational 
concerns in architecture philosophy? What does 
“Man’s Dwelling” add to the discourse or to the 
understanding of  architecture more broadly? By 
expanding the textual material to be reckoned with, 
of  which “Man’s Dwelling” is one piece, Aurenque 
has laid a useful beginning for such inquiries, even if  
her own concerns are largely propaedeutic to them. 
We hope that future contributors feel sufficiently 
encouraged (or provoked) to join a debate on this 
work, and furnish us with critical commentary and 
elaborations of  their own.

Aurenque and Lefebvre stake out a common 
ground of  phenomenology and pragmatism: 
the eschewing of  a pre-established domain of  
the moral itself. Thus, where others have sought 
to bring ethics to architecture, both Lefebvre’s 
Dewey and Aurenque’s Heidegger seek to rescue 
architecture, and dwelling, from a too-prescriptive 
conception of  ethics. They thus subvert and redraw 
the questions behind the 2014 ISPA conference, 
just as that conference’s Call for Papers hoped 
contributors would.3 A similar contestation of  
architecture ethics resurfaces in the present issue’s 
final two essays.

While Dewey, famously, sought to embed 
aesthetics more fully in life, Adorno’s contrary 
insistence that art maintain a privileged existence 
beyond the clutches of  capitalism informs Alberto 
Rubio-Garrido’s “Autonomy and Expression in 
Architecture.” Rubio-Garrido sees autonomy not 
as an established concept, but rather as a struggle 
unleashed in the Enlightenment that begins with 
Kant, gains gravity with Schiller, and gets a much-
needed reinterpretation with Adorno. Adorno’s 
conception of  autonomy and emancipation as 

Adorno’s 
liminal 

presence 
in these 

essays [is] a 
fascinating 

development

“

”



AP . vol 2 . No 1 . 2016

4

ED
IT

OR
IA

L
dialectical, counteracting poles presents the prospect of  a more complete 
understanding of  the workings of  aesthetics and ethics emerging out of—
even thriving on—their limits. 

While Christian Illies and Nick Ray’s concluding essay, “Obliged to 
Beauty: An Aesthetic Deontology of  Architecture” implicitly opposes— 
and is greatly challenged by—Rubio-Garrido’s argument for an enigmatic 
architecture that preserves a fenced-off  aesthetic realm in Adorno’s mold, 
the idea of  thriving on limits would seem to operate in the background 
here as well. The authors call into question the autonomy of  the aesthetic 
realm by exploring the possibilities of  an obligation to beauty that is itself  
moral. If  such an interpretation holds, it promises to make the familiar tug 
between function and aesthetics in the design of  architectural works no 
longer incommensurable. Thus, a different kind of  freedom can emerge 
by acknowledging a lack of  full autonomy. In conjunction with their essay, 
Illies and Ray’s new book Philosophy of  Architecture is reviewed, and some of  
its arguments are examined.

We find Adorno’s liminal presence in these essays a fascinating 
development that we hope inaugurates more exploration of  the relation 
of  his thought to architecture. More generally, we hope these concerted 
investigations continue further discussion, and not conclude it, on the 
subject of  autonomy.

2015 saw several developments of  importance for ISPA. First, the 
society’s 2016 conference in Bamberg, Germany was announced. In a 
purportedly post-modern, post-humanist age, the conference’s focus 
on the human holds promise for bringing forth refreshingly contrarian 
thinking. The conference’s announcement and call for papers is reprinted 
in this issue’s concluding pages. As always with ISPA’s biennial conferences, 
readers of  Architecture Philosophy will be able to read a selection of  premier 
conference papers in an upcoming issue. With the strong growth of  society 
membership in the past two years, ISPA was able to sponsor two smaller 
events in the conference off-year 2015 to enable more frequent personal 
interaction among members. Thus, August 2015 saw the inauguration of  
an annual ISPA symposium series at the Wittgenstein House in Vienna, 
the next installment of  which is announced in this issue. Moreover, 
readers can look forward to reading the fruits of  that event in Architecture 

Philosophy’s first themed issue, forthcoming spring 2016, to be edited by 
Carolyn Fahey. In the second ISPA event, marking the first in North 
America, an intimate workshop in Taos, New Mexico convened in August. 
Though the workshop had no stated theme, it was clear that the function 
of  aesthetics as life-expression was either an explicit or implicit topic for 



5

isparchitecture.com

all participants. This event links this issue’s cover with its centerpiece. It 
feels unavoidable to speculate that if  ever there was an architecture apart 
from his beloved Greek temples that Heidegger would find emblematic of  
true dwelling in the Fourfold of  gods and men, earth and sky, it would be 
in something like the Taos Pueblo.

ENDNOTES

1. Thomas Sheehan maintains an up-to-date document as to which 
parts of  Heidegger’s Complete Works have been translated into English 
(and where). See Thomas Sheehan, “Heidegger’s Gesamtausgabe Texts 
and their English Translations,” Stanford Academia: Thomas Sheehan, 
last modified October 2014, https://www.academia.edu/9830630/
Heidegger_S_Gesamtausgabe_texts_and_their_English_translations_as_
of_October_2014_.

2. For a thorough overview of  Heidegger’s relevance to architects, see 
Adam Sharr, Heidegger for Architects (New York: Routledge, 2007) and 
for a recent review of  Heidegger’s reception, especially in relation to 
architecture, see Glen Hill, “Poetic Measure of  Architecture: Martin 
Heidegger’s ‘…Poetically Man Dwells...,’” Architecture Research Quarterly 18, 
no. 2 (2014): 145-154.
3. Carolyn Fahey and Stefan Koller, June 27, 2013, “Autonomy 
Reconsidered,” International Society for the Philosophy of  Architecture, http://
isparchitecture.com/events/call-for-papers/. Reprinted in Architecture 

Philosophy 1, no. 2 (2015): 135-6.


