Eduard Fuehr

Heidegger’s functionalist mediation of space, location, material and work of art¹

Introduction

I would like to explore whether and to what extent Heidegger’s philosophical perception of building and dwelling has been fertile for architectural theory. In doing so let me emphasize that I read Heidegger’s texts from the point of view of architectural theory. In other words I look at Heidegger from an architectural point of view and not at architecture from Heidegger’s position; I perceive Heidegger’s texts as part of an architectural discourse.

It has always been difficult to lead a discourse across the boundaries of specific individual sciences. The reasons for this lie in the differences in scientific-theoretical approaches to reality, corresponding differences in fact-finding methods and differences in concept. The latter can be especially confusing when the concept is not clarified in the individual subjects and names are given which are used in other sciences and for other concepts as well.

Such a word is ‘function’.
In philosophy and sociology it signifies that elements exist in relation to other elements, or rather are conditional upon their location within a structural scheme.²
In contrast, in architecture the practical purpose of a building is labeled function, however precisely the term may be perceived; as in the function of a kitchen is to cook or the function of a dining room is to dine. Thereby, the term function in architecture is de-functionalised, from a philosophical and sociological point of view.

The term function does not signify the fundamental relative nature of one thing to another, like that of eating to cooking but a property, a nature, or the meaning of an individual element.
In architecture itself the term function is fuzzy and historically fickle.
In the nineteenth century one spoke of "functionalism" to claim presentation, representation or depiction of an intrinsic value on the outside facade – be it purpose, applied technology or practical organization.
In the first decades of the twentieth century function was perceived as a typological existential force (Sullivan), a socially founded cultural pattern (Muthesius), the essence of an object beyond history (Gropius) or a supra-individual scheme of action and architectural pattern of order (Bruno Taut).
In the nineteen hundred fifties and sixties, at the time of Heidegger’s lecture on ‘Building-Dwelling-Thinking,’ a planning approach in architecture had taken hold that was commonly regarded as an ‘economic building functionalism’. This functionalism was not a theoretically reflected position of the architects, like previous functionalisms had been, but a label given by the critics for building activities solely oriented toward technical and economic efficiency.³
During the nineteenth century, through attempts to include it in the aesthetic formula for architecture, function was considered to be art; based on the perception of architecture as an art form, the role of art became questionable with a turn towards function as the base of architecture during the nineteen-twenties. On one hand the functionalists viewed art as part of function (like the late Bruno Taut who understood proportion, traditionally perceived as inherent in art, as function in the sense of successfully organizing primary needs and art as a fortunate realization of function. On the other hand function lost, at least in theory, its architectural task (as in the works of Hannes Meyer).

Partly in hindsight to the architectural perception of the nineteenth century, an opposition developed among architects and architectural scientists who saw in functionalism the destruction of art in architecture. Architects attempted to realize architecture as the art of building and are still explicitly doing so today, in distinct refusal to execute practical functions in architecture. During the nineteen-twenties, architectural theorists and art historians who assumed responsibility for the science of architecture, made the accusation that architecture was devoid of art, that it had pushed out and destroyed art in architecture through its orientation to practical goals. Later, in the nineteen sixties, the critique by philosophy and social psychology joined in; Wolf Jobst Siedler, Alexander Mitscherlich, Theodor W. Adorno and many others condemned functional architecture, now in the form of economic building functionalism, for humanist reasons. In the sole technical orientation of building and in the abstract geometry of city planning, in homogeneity, loss of individuality and animosity towards sensuality they saw a demeaning, still fascist attitude at work that could be overcome through art only, regardless of how it was perceived.

Heidegger and his philosophy were drawn into this discussion and whenever it concerned economic building functionalism they were placed, rightfully so, on the side of humanist ideals and art and against the anti-humane, anti-artistic architecture, then labeled as functionalism.

However, the notion of Heidegger’s anti-functionalism to me is highly questionable; there seems to be a proximity to functionalism when one considers the concept of the term during the nineteen-twenties, especially if one follows Bruno Taut’s perception of function as a set of everyday activities and of functionalism as having the goal of organizing everyday activities in the best way, by readily offering adequate spaces with respective interiors.
Therefore, in reading Heidegger’s texts, I will be especially interested in his understanding of art, everyday life, and in his view of how these two relate to each other.

Material and Work of Art
Already in ‘Being and Time’ Heidegger has occupied himself with an analysis of material (German: Zeug) as something encountered as existing in the environment (SuZ, paragraph 15). In ‘Being and Time’ Heidegger defines the existential nature of material as in-handedness (Zuhandenheit), as distinguished from theoretical, only glimpsed before- handedness (Vorhandenheit). Material does not reveal itself genuinely, solely through its way of behaving;⁴ it is revealed only in use.⁵ In its use the material points to 1) ‘what for’ in its application, 2) ‘what is it made out of’- its material, and 3) the user.

"In the pathways, streets, bridges and buildings, through provision nature is discovered in a distinct direction. A covered platform corresponds to the rainstorm, public lights correspond to darkness, that is, the specific change of presence and absence of daylight, the ‘position of the sun’…" (Time and Being/SuZ, p 71)⁶

Material is essentially tied into a wider material context (material as a whole).

In the essay, ‘The Origin of Art’, whose first version is dated 1931-32
(Herrmann, 1994, p 8) and whose content was introduced as a lecture in Freiburg in 1935 as well as in Frankfurt a.M. in 1936 and which was published in the compilation ‘Ways made of wood’ (Holzwege) and appeared as such—regarding Heidegger’s publication strategy and the perception context, shortly before his lecture ‘Building – Dwelling – Thinking’ and which therefore I will read in the context of ‘Building – Dwelling – Thinking’—Heidegger, in trying to define what art may be, again writes extensively about the term material. In this essay art is not traced back to the artist, rather it is unfolded from the work of art itself; Heiddegger therefore deems it necessary to take up the object character of a work of art (KW, p 9).

Using the example of a granite block he exposes classical perceptions of the nature of being a thing, as follows:

- a collection of characteristics, that is a substance with accidental properties,
- a unity of great diversity given to the senses
- a unity of material and form

The fact that it applies to each and every being and not only for the thing itself speaks against the first definition, according to Heidegger, hence it does not sharply separate and thereby does not register its specifically intrinsic and resting-in-itself nature (KW p 14). Immediate experience speaks against the second definition because we don’t take in singular sensory data out of which we then construct our actual perception, rather we have direct sensory and worldly perception at all times:
"We never hear… musical notes and noises, but we hear the storm blowing through the chimney…we hear the Mercedes in immediate distinction to the Adler automobile." (KW, p 15)

The third concept originates, according to Heidegger, in the characteristic of material, in its usefulness, because in it, unity of material and form is entailed. This holds true for a thing in nature, like the granite block, but for a pitcher or an axe as well, artificial things whose form determines the kind and selection of material; as the pitcher needs to be impermeable so the axe needs sufficient hardness.
In defining the term material Heidegger emphasizes the distinction between usefulness and purpose. To his understanding the purpose would be something attributed afterwards or suspended somewhere above the object whereas usefulness is a fundamental trait of all that exists (KW, p 18). Usefulness is characterized by an element of reference; it contains an ‘in order to’ and therefore points to other material. Material never ever is material only, it needs something other to point out its usefulness. Material in itself has no equilibrium.

Aside from usefulness, material has another destination for being: its reliability.
If usefulness signifies functionality (architectural-theoretical term) then reliability signifies the "silent call of the earth" (KW, p 23). In Heidegger’s writing call of the earth does not mean call of the soil, it signifies the ability of the leather, the workmanship and the shape of the shoe in relation to the foot, to work in the field and in relation to the field etc.⁷ Both usefulness and reliability, universe and earth only exist in material, according to Heidegger (KW p 23). Without reliability a material would be nothing but material (KW p 24) it would go to pot, wear out and become ordinary.
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To take up the characteristics of the material further, Heidegger then gives the notorious example of the peasant shoes taken out of a painting by Van Gogh, ‘to teach an extra lesson through the use of this depiction’. ⁸
He states that the material characteristic of the material cannot be grasped quite rightly through usefulness; in the end it would be a matter of its concrete service, of its use.
"The peasant in the field wears these shoes. Here they are what they are. The less the peasant thinks of them while working, the more genuine they are." (KW, p 29)
If they were just standing somewhere else they actually would be no longer shoes. Even in Van Gogh’s painting they are so isolated that one couldn’t really say where they are at all.

"Nothing surrounds this pair of peasant shoes indicating what for or where to they belong, there is undefined space, only…A pair of peasant shoes and nothing more. Yet (KW, p22) these very ‘peasant shoes’ by Van Gogh show their genuine purpose and object characteristic:

The shoes contain two things, universe and earth. They reveal the universe of the peasant’s working world, the worry over the sureness of bread, birth and death. They reveal earth as ‘the coarse patina weighing down the shoe material’ and ‘as wind-swept furrows of the field, the ripe wheat and the inexplicable refusal of the field in winter.’

Universe and earth are the two opposing, yet interdependent dimensions of being. Heidegger emphasizes this in many other examples. For a better understanding I would like to include here Heidegger’s example of the remains of a Greek temple about which he remarks immediately that its universe meanwhile has collapsed (KW, p 30).

In becoming a medium the temple in Paestum created a world in those days, which realized a god, and in this realization it produced and organized orbits and relations. The god not only produced the organized expanse of a specific space but also the organized expanse of a specific history. Because of him ‘all things (E. F.) receive their gravity and velocity, their distance and proximity, their width and narrowness (KW, p 34)

Universe collapses if the products are torn out of their reality, out of their essential context. If for instance a work of art is taken into a museum to be declared an object of the official art production or if history and culture have changed, as in the case of the temple in Paestum which we encounter today as ‘having been’, therefore as object, and no longer as a product in being.

Conversely, it must be concluded that work and universe never come about as long as a building is designed as an object and not as worldly material.
The architectural design⁹ cannot be just the designing of a building but has to design along with the building a ‘workshop,’ a universe in which this singular building as material has its purposeful relations, in which everything is organized in its own right. The design must not be directed towards a bare object but towards the use.

The shoe not only fits and does its duty; one also understands that it will fit and will fulfill its duty; one recognizes that this is due to the leather, which seems well suited. The shoe reveals that it is stable and made in such a manner that one also will be well shoed in the field. The shoe reveals about the leather what it is able to do in being a shoe.
The shoe reveals as well the nature of the field, its fertility, and its inexplicable refusal.

The work not only reveals the earth it produces it, too. Only through the peasant working the field, it proves to be fertile or inexplicable. Only the temple makes the rock a rock.

"…a rock gets to carry and rest and only then becomes a rock; the metals get to flash and to shimmer, the colors get to radiate, the sound gets to ring, the word gets to speak. All of this will appear only if the work puts itself back into the volume and weight of the stone, into the solidness and flexibility of the wood, into the hardness and the sheen of the ore, into the radiance and darkness of the color, into the resonance of the sound and into the naming power of the word." (KW, p35)

This is a key for the perception of Heidegger. In the passage quoted above he gives numerous examples of what it would mean for a work to reveal the matter at first. However, all examples illustrate but one single statement, which is that substance steps forward in the work, in so far as to carry and to rest is for the rock, to radiate is for the color, to resonate for the sound and to name for the word.
Considering the statement that the word gets to say and the sound gets to resonate, it becomes clear that the color that gets to radiate, means that paint comes to color. In other words that which one can at first define physically and mathematically then proceeds to its phenomenological existence.

The statement, ‘the substance of a rock gets to carry and to rest’ signifies that it is physically (with about 8.7 tons weight and a durability of 7.4) what makes it a rock. He (Heidegger)does not mean to say, that thus it will achieve an ideal rock state, the quintessence of being a rock for having arrived at a state of carrying and resting.¹⁰ Quintessence would signify that an idea is depicted; the work however, does not depict, rather it produces. The quintessence as an idea beyond time is completely in contradiction to Heidegger’s perception of art (see below) and to his understanding of earth as ‘being intrinsically obscure’ (KW, p 36). The rock as quintessence or as idea would be universe but not earth.

Given that, earth cannot present itself in a cognitive cliche, as that which always has been recognized clearly and distinctively and is self-understood. Indeed earth does not reveal itself in the ruggedness and majesty of Scandinavian mountains; because with ruggedness and majesty a mountain does not present itself in its obscurity. In this case it is mentally rather domesticated by two current aesthetic terms. Earth for Heidegger means ‘physis’ and not the packaging of nature in current terms and properties.

Any intrusion into earth, earth itself will shatter. (KW, p 36) Earth is the concept for something that presents itself as impenetrable. The term ‘earth’ is a figure of thought for something that, in opposition to universe, reveals itself as something impenetrable and, equally, carries itself.
Earth, for Heidegger, signifies a concept for and a definition of nature. It should have become apparent that nature does not signify the world of plants, the soil, neither forest nor ecological building material, not a material substance at all, or anything existing outside of human fabrication but a form of being (Sein) that steps in the way of the universe and equally carries itself, as something holding out against it and impenetrable.
Neither does earth present itself as a self-contained building material, aesthetically exposed by an architect.

At the material we learn that it is; about the work that it is (KW, p 53). A material stands amidst a universe and upon an earth; a work unlocks universe as well as earth. The shoes constitute the universe of the peasant on one hand and produce the earth on the other. (KW, p 35). In the fact of the temple standing there, truth unfolds (KW, p 44). A work unlocks the existing in its being to let truth happen (KW, p 27).

When Heidegger speaks of a work he implies a work of art.
In his text Heidegger does not look for the origin (Ursprung) that leads to a work of art rather for the origin that happens in a work of art; he is looking for the origin of truth in a work of art, the "founding leap into being" (KW, p 64)

With this perception Heidegger is in opposition to the classical perception of the concept of work in art history. However, Heidegger envisions always a single work of art while talking about the work character of a work of art, as the temple at Paestum or a painting by Van Gogh. Likewise, neither does his insight refer to a single work, nor to a work as an autonomous object.

The classical art historical concept of a work implies an autonomous work, of which neither anything can be taken away nor added. For something to become a work of art an ‘aesthetic borderline’ (Michalski, 1932) has to be drawn between the world in front of and the world inside of the work of art. The depicted world within has to be separated from its everyday-world model. That is why the picture then can be exposed wherever one wishes. Without danger, one can take it out of its ritualistic context inside a church and put it into a museum.

But Heidegger criticizes this art historical concept of work in criticizing the classical art scientist and the art business. For him, isolated from its context, the work is destroyed. Consequently the work itself is lost, along with the context, which it previously structured. It becomes merely a thing.

The classical art historical perception of architecture coincides with the art historical concept of a picture: architecture that is to be the art of building will have to free itself of the task of facilitating and organizing daily life; everyday functions are not capable of art. Art is not at all function. Material and a work of art have nothing to do with each other.
Heidegger speaks out against this concept of architecture; for him the work fits together and gathers orbits and relations. If it becomes autonomous, it will lose those along with its worldliness. The work collapses to become a thing.
Indeed, Heidegger does not speak out—in distinction from material, from the architectural function—for an autonomy of the work of art and thereby for an autonomy of art, quite the contrary, the work is always intrinsically material as well.

Heidegger does not intend an opposition of material and work. When Heidegger states that "…through the work and only in the work the material quality of the material comes to a life of its own (KW, p 25) it is clear that the work is more and something other than the material but that nevertheless it is and will have to be always material and that this material will have to come to life.

What a thing is, according to Heidegger, can only be found out from the concept of material; what a material is he attempts to understand through a work of art (Van Gogh’s shoes). The work cannot be grasped through the thing; however, the thing can be grasped through the work. A work can never be only a mere thing. The object character is mediated in the work through the material.

Through this perception it becomes clear that neither the object, nor the material or the work are autonomous entities, but extensions.

"The material, e.g. the shoe material as a finished state, rests in itself like the mere thing, but unlike the granite block it does not have this intrinsic quality. As far as it is produced by hand, the material reveals a relationship to the work of art. Notwithstanding the work of art, in its self- sufficient presence, it again equals the self generating and not imposed upon mere thing. Nevertheless, we don’t consider the works part of the mere things. Overall the objects of daily use are the nearest and most essential objects. Defined through the object character the material is half object yet it is more; at the same time half work of art and yet less, for it is without the work of art’s self-sufficiency. The material is characterized by a peculiar position in between object and work…"
(KW, p 18)

The mere object is material, theoretically disregarding its usefulness. The work of art is material, too and additionally at rest in itself. The material has an in-between characteristic, not in the sense of being neither one nor the other, but in the sense of being the foundation of one as well as the other and transcending itself in two ways.

Mediation of human being and universe through things
While in his essay on the work of art Heidegger presents the relation between object, material and work of art as well as the tension between universe and earth, and while he perceives a building as object and material that possibly distinguishes itself from a work in maintaining its self reference, all usefulness, reliability and referential nature aside, he examines in his lecture ‘Building-Dwelling-Thinking’ how a building mediates between human being and universe.
In doing so he first analyzes the existence of the human being and recognizes it as dwelling. Following that, he asks what is ‘space’ and then states that a genuine space is a field founded on the location of things, which then again founds further spaces, like orbital space and metric space. Based on these insights the relation of human being to space as dwelling field reveals itself.

Concretely Heidegger distinguishes three different perceptions of dwelling:
1. The most restrictive perception of dwelling is deduced from the idea of the apartment; it signifies that we ‘have access to a shelter’.
2. Apartments however, are only one particular segment of architecture; beyond that there are other buildings, like bridges, market halls or highways. We could dwell in these, too. Also to dwell means to be at home, because the truck driver can be at home on the highway and "the worker in the textile mill" and thus it extends to every identifying, true and tried and comforting form of appropriation. Thus dwelling as appropriation is distinct from building as production. Building is the means to an end to dwelling; the production is intended to facilitate appropriation. That is why building has to orient itself to dwelling. Thus building and dwelling are two fundamentally different activities that should relate to each other.
3. From the point of language Heidegger develops an even more encompassing perception of dwelling, which contains both: appropiation and production. ‘Already building in itself is to dwell’. In this case dwelling is ‘the way and manner in which we human beings are on earth’. In nature, being on earth means to be in caring support. To be on earth means for Heidegger to care for and about nature ( colere, cultura), to cultivate it, as well as to furnish and build it up (aedificare). Thus dwelling means to adapt to nature and to adapt nature to oneself.

The human being furnishes himself in building, the human being realizes himself in building, in so far as he dwells in building as well. Simultaneously, for Heidegger dwelling goes beyond realization into safeguarding. Dwelling in this case is not only ‘a stay among the things,’ it ‘safeguards’ the four quarters (das Geviert)¹¹ of human existence within the things. It brings these basic dimensions into truth (to safeguard – ‘ver-wahren’).

For Heidegger, then to dwell is not an architectural-scientific or social-psychological activity; it is an ontological event. Dwelling takes place only if the four quarters have been objectified and safeguarded. In addition, it is connected with a subjective ecstasy, because it places the human being outside of the every day life into this existential truth (Seinswahrheit).

To dwell in the first and second sense can only be a segment of dwelling, it can never mean to dwell in the third sense, in Heidegger’s sense. To dwell is the realization of the human existence. In the first and second sense I dwell in a location, in Heidegger’s sense I dwell a location. Building and thinking are integrated into dwelling.
In building the human being furnishes itself; in building the human being realizes itself in as much he dwells. Building, in this sense, does not precede dwelling but is a manner of dwelling, the realization of human existence. The same holds true for thinking.¹² The stay among the things, Heidegger does not perceive physically. For Heidegger it is also, always ‘thinking toward something,’¹³ even to a distant location.

If one can stay among the things through thinking toward them, what role then do object character and architecture play?
In order to dwell inside the things, I must let them come into being. Dwelling needs building for object character. Heidegger emphasizes the process of object character of the four quarters against theories, which want to distinguish between a rational substratum and an adhering meaning.

One believes, of course, that the bridge, at first and genuinely, is merely a bridge, that it may express various other things, after the fact and occasionally as well. That as such an expression it then would become a symbol, e.g. for all that was mentioned before. Only the bridge, if it is a true bridge, is never at first merely a bridge and afterwards a symbol. Just as the bridge is not a symbol at first, in the sense that it expresses something that in a strict way does not belong to it. If we take the bridge strictly, it will never reveal itself as an expression. The bridge is a thing and only that. Only? As this thing it gathers the fourfold. (BWD, p 40)

Along with the refusal to perceive the thing as a sign and symbol, floating above a banal material base, on one hand, goes the refusal, on the other, to perceive the object as a complex of sensual-material properties. This is quite explicitly exposed in the analysis of the thing in the work of art essay. It also becomes apparent in the lecture ‘Building Dwelling Thinking through the equating of "staying among things" with "thinking toward."

What has dwelling as staying among the things to do with space?
In his text Heidegger depicts four perceptions of space, a genuine one and three derived ones.

• Through the things the original space comes about in the dwelling of the human beings; it contains places and conditions, proximity and distance.
• In perceiving locations only as spots, that is, disregarding the functionally defined order, I can then preoccupy myself with distances and in-between spaces and measure them.

In a workshop for instance where the pliers are in their place and the hammer is in its place, it does not make sense to ask how far apart they are from each other in a quantitative way. They are just in their respective places and since they are there, they are also in a right place in relation to each other. Would one put them closer to each other, they would possibly lose their place and might be further than ever away from each other. In the moment of disregarding a functional perception when hammer and pliers are things, then it basically makes sense to define the distance between both of them quantitatively.
In this sense space is in-between space (spatium).

• I can also take the dimensions of this in-between space abstractly; it then is space as an extension (extensio).
• In addition I can formulate these dimensions through algebraic analyses; then it is a mathematical space.

The genuine space comes about in dwelling, in so far as it cannot be thought of as independent of the human being and its stay among the things; "neither is it an outer thing nor an inner experience". (BWD p 43)

Space is built through locations it receives its essence out of locations. Space cannot be shaped since there is no unshaped space preceding it, which then could take on a shape. Space can be planned only through planning locations and organizing them. Locations gather space they make space for it.

Locations come about from the position of the objects. Heidegger, using as an example a bridge, describes how they come about through the things in dwelling:¹⁴
"The bridge spans lightly and strongly above the stream. It not only connects already existing banks. In the crossing of the bridge the banks are first exposed as banks. The bridge lets them specifically lie across from each other. The bridge sets down one side from the other. Neither do the banks just follow the stream, like indifferent borders of the land. Together with the banks, the bridge brings one and the other expanse of the backwards-stretching river landscapes to the stream. It brings stream, banks and land into an interdependent neighborhood. The bridge gathers earth as landscape around the stream. Thus guiding the stream through the meadows. The pillars resting upon the river bed carry the momentum of the arches which let the waters of the stream take their course. May the waters wander away quietly and lightly, may the floods of the sky, during thunderstorm or melting snow, shoot around the arches in raging waves; the bridge is prepared for all of heaven’s fickle natured weather.
Even when covering the stream the bridge reveals its flow to the sky, through receiving it for moments in the arched gate, before releasing it again." (BWD, p 38)

There is not one, already existing space into which the things then are placed; there is no space independent of the things. The things, like the bridge, constitute space by producing first landscape and stream and finally space.

The things, the bridge for instance, are each concrete, "they guide in many-fold ways". They may be a city bridge, a river bridge, a creek crossing or a highway bridge, "always and ever differently guides the bridge." It serves a different vehicle each time, a horse- drawn wagon, a harvest trolley or the long distance traffic. It relates castle district to Cathedral Square, landscape to villages, farmland to hamlet or sets up a network of lines. It puts both banks in relation to each other even though presenting them as separate. It turns the riverbed to ravine or beds it homogeneously level to the fields. Its pillars define the river’s potential.

Out of whatever its usefulness may be the bridge constitutes particular, more or less distant locations and therefore definite spaces.

Heidegger’s objective in his lecture was a fundamental definition of existence in its primary sense. Things, materials, locations and spaces in their particularity play a basic role in this. Through this he makes statements about areas that are traditionally situated in architecture and architecture-theory.

But his issue is not the symbolic characteristic of architecture, neither the esoteric, nor the sensual pleasure of building materials.
Heidegger’s issue is his newly defined concept of dwelling. With this he focuses on a fundamental determination of the human being, which he understands as a stay among the things. The things found locations that organize themselves into spaces.
Heidegger coincides with some of the functionalists in defining the things by their usefulness and human beings by their actions. This classifies him in the sense of the architectural functionalism of the 1920s as a functionalist. He stands up against the building artists who view architecture as an aesthetic object.¹⁵
However, the functionalists saw the human being as a given set of needs and actions, thus perceiving the human being anthropologically. Thereby they do not perceive action as a plan, a plan of the self, they do not perceive subjectivity in action, basically they perceive it only as application of a given set; thus finally objectifying the human being.

The functionalists separated object character from usefulness; they rather perceived object character as burden and hindrance to the human being and his freedom. That is why they wanted to further reduce object character. They did not perceive object character as the core of usefulness, nor as the reliability of usefulness.
Heidegger goes beyond the functionalists in his perception of a particularity ( ‘always and ever different’) in building and dwelling. Heidegger is not an anthropologist to whom it matters whether the given human needs are realized, or if a humane architecture is produced or not; through this he stands against many critics of functionalism, against functionalism itself, as well.

Anmerkungen:
¹Deutsche Fassung: Bauen und Wohnen; Eduard Führ (Hg.); ISBN 3-89325-819-1