Architecture and Philosophy: The Failure of Translation

Abstract

In the connection between architecture and philosophy, the “and” connects and separates at the same time. In classical rhetoric, the concept and technique of ekphrasis stands for this. Ekphrasis means transfer from the medium of sensual experience into the medium of language and back into the realm of sensual imagination. As will be shown here, however, the “and” unfolds its full functionality only in the failure of ekphrasis. Only in failure does the “and” become the medium of intellectuality and sensuality, that is, when the “and” no longer designates a center and a place of symmetry, but when it describes a marginal condition, when it shifts the discourse toward the margins, when it clears the space and gives freedom a place. An example of the creative failure of ekphrasis is the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin by Peter Eisenman. In the failed translation of sensory and cognitive experience, Eisenman forces architecture and philosophy into a unity that cannot be resolved into a dialectical third. Thus, the memorial creates a void in the center of Berlin that becomes a trigger of sensual and intellectual imagination for the unimaginable of the Holocaust.