metaphora cagliari

Next week I'll present a paper on metaphor and architecture at the International Conference Metaphor and Communication, that will be held at Cagliari University. This is the abstract.

Donner lieu : Architecture as metaphor

Metaphor always takes advantage of lateral ways, circuitous roads, labyrinthine paths. So does architecture. Metaphor suggests ideas without making them present, reigns in the realm of insinuation and uncertainty, always operates a transfer between what is present and what not, elusively retreats itself and discloses its “meaning” and reason in never-ending meanders and translations… So does architecture, although it will seem the opposite. Architecture is metaphorically oriented, looks for the sun at its naissance, makes understandable through a movement of transference what otherwise will remain undisclosed… and in doing so erases its own tracks, trapped itself in the double genitive of proper meaning, of its own meaning.

Of course, in any metaphysics of presence the figure of metaphor is looked at with suspicion, the real thing is what is present, what could be recognized, in its image, as being truly in front of us, apprehended as such through reason, no malignant genius confusing my clear and distinct ideas... but at the same time only in metaphysics metaphor could find its pace (as Heidegger pointed out). Nevertheless, things are not that clear. Every philosophical concept (and Begriff maybe is the best example) has its etymological roots in sensible world, but at some extent this direct relation has been forgotten. And this very oblivion is what deconstructs even the possibility of a meta-metaphorical meaning.

True, architecture is metaphor. And if it sounds a little bit provocative, this is just the idea. Take labyrinths, for example. If metaphor is labyrinthine, certainly architecture is labyrinthine from its very beginning—the mythical Daedalus being the first architect, the one that designed the Minotaur labyrinth, and at the same time, the one that designed the monstrous artifact that allowed queen Pasifae real (not “metaphorical”) coupling with her beloved bull. Architecture suspended always between being real and being metaphorical, having a right meaning and a figured one at the same time. In fact, architecture (as metaphor) has only one meaning. Its ever and ever flee.

Metaphor always is caught in the economy of the proper meaning as opposed to the un-proper one. Metaphor is translation, motion between the right place and the metaphorical one. In this sense, again, architecture is metaphor, or maybe architecture destroys the possibility of metaphor. Because architecture annihilates the right place, the “concept” of true place, of real and right one. Architecture (nevertheless the common interpretations and common explanations usually offered), is not about place, but about the void, the cutting, the interruption, the no-place. If architecture is to have any sense, it will appear in its cutting, in the articulation of time in space, in the destruction of the lieu in order to allow a donner lieu. Its espacement. Architecture must retire itself in order to donner lieu (“give place”, dar lugar in Spanish), just as metaphor does…

If deconstruction (the word) is metaphorical, maybe architecture is its (im)proper meaning?

This paper will explore this very possibility. Its (im)possible possibility.

José Vela Castillo