Architecture as Metaphor: Language, Number, Money (Writing Architecture)

124 Pages·1995·5.24 MB·English

by  Kojin Karatani

mbridge, Masachusens London, England
Writing Architecture
A project of the Anyone Corporation
Earth Moves: The Furnishing of Territories
Bernard Cache, 1991r
Architecture as Metaphor: Language, Number, Money
Kojin Karatani, 1991r
Number, Money
Second printing, 1997 Introduction: A Map of Cvises,
by Arata Zsozaki ...................... vii
O 1995 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Tvanslator's Remarks ...........................
Introduction to the English Edition ......... .XXX'
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in
any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including Part One: Making
photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) one
The Will to Architecture ............
without permission in writing from the publisher. two
The Status of Form ................ 15
three
Architecture and Poetry ............ 23
Translation from the Japanese was made possible by a grant fiur
The Natural City .................... 29
from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine five
Structure and Zem .................... 37
Arts. six
Natural Numben ................... 47
Part Two: Becoming
This book was printed and bound in the United States of seven
Natural Language... ........ 61
America. eight
Money.. ....................... 67
nine
Natural Intelligence. . . . . 73
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data ten
khismogenesls ....................... 81
elmen
Belng ............................... 93
Karatani, KGjin, 1941- twelve
The Fonnaliotion of Philosophy. ..... .l"l
[In'yii to shite no kenchiku. English] Part Three: Teaching and Selling
Architecture as metaphor : language, number, money / Kojin thilteen
Solipsism ............................ ,109
Karatani ; translated by Sabu Kohso ; edited by Michael foulteen The Standpoint of Teaching .... IIX
Speaks.
fifteen Architecture as Metaphor .........I 2F
p. cm. - (Writing architecture) sixteen On Rules . . . . . . ..........I 33
Includes bibliographical references. seventeen
Society and Community ........, 143
ISBN 0-262-61 113-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) eighteen
The LlngulstlcT urn and Cogno ..., 149
1. Speaks, Michael. 11. Title. 111. Series. nineteen
Selling ................................ If9
AC146.K32131 3 1995 mlenty
Merchant Capital ................... ,169
895.6'45-dc2O 95-18602 twenty-one
Credit ............................. 177
CIP
Aftmuord ..................... 185
Notes ........................I 89
Illt~rt~atioCnr edits ................. ,200
Kojin Karatani began his career as a literary critic in
Japan; both of his works so far translated into
English, Origins of Modern Japanese Literature and
the present volume, Architecture as Metaphor,
were originally published in literary journals.
Karatani once told me with a wry smile that
the first editions of this book were dis-
played in the science/engineering section
of some bookstores and took a while to
be relocated into the literature/philos-
ophy section. Even though his offi-
cial status is "literary critic," he
tackles issues from a broad spec- Introduction: A Map of Crises
trum of domains including
philosophy, logic, political
economy, cultural anthro-
pology, sociology, and
urban studies. I assume
that bookshops having trou-
ble categorizing Architectzlre as
Metaphor might have placed it
according to the title; architec-
ture is often included in the
science/engineering (rather than cul-
ture) section in Japan.
In a roundabout way this episode
sheds light on Karatani's idiosyncratic
stance. He is totally indifferent to the terri-
torialities of today's scholastic subjects, which,
though categorized arbitrarily, nevertheless
have ended up constructing their own ivory tow-
ers and forming immutable and untrespassable
boundaries; his writing traverses these boundaries as
if they never existed. Unlike many multidisciplinary
generalists who travel the horizontal strata, he trans-
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gresses categories by using his questioning to dig verti- form the procedure, enter Godel and Wittgenstein to
cally through each domain while at the same time play the role of conceptual device for dismemberment.
remaining within it. His procedure is consistent to the In the end, Plato and Marx are extracted and stripped
point of being violent; it is like a practice of pure radi- bare: Plato, who is obsessed with the "will to architec-
calism. I cannot help but believe that he has a faith that ture, . . . attributed as it is to the weak," and Marx, in
some sort of original exists deep down. In Origins of love with commodities that endlessly repeat their "fatal
Modem Japanese Literature, he attempts to reveal how leap." Here I detect Karatani's deep sympathy for beings
the modern nation-state called Japan has been con- who are continuously compelled to engage in desperate
structed as an aesthetic fiction by way of literature; he communications with the other. This aspect of Karatani
unearths "Japan" by elaborating conceptual devices such seems to me to be related to Gianni Vattimo's "weak
as landscape, interiority, confession, illness, childhood, thought" and Massimo Cacciari's "negative thought."
and composition. Likewise, in Architecture as Metaphor When the architectural discourse distilled from this con-
he excavates architecture down to the depths where the nection is introduced into the context of the worldwide
original resides. This "architecture" of Karatani is irrel- crises of architecture, I believe it will begin to play an
evant to the building-as-concrete-edifice that concerns important role.
architects and it cannot be located in the science/engi- It is not so much that architecture is now in crisis,
neering section, despite the title. However, I believe but rather that ever since it came to be named "modern
that because of this very uncategorizability, Karatani's architecture" it has been in constant crisis. My observa-
architecture will become an incentive for architects to tion has been that crises recur in large waves at hundred-
rethink architecture in an alternative manner and will year intervals, and we are now at the beginning of the
establish a strong rapport with architects themselves, third wave. The first appeared in the late eighteenth
particularly in today's climate where architectural dis- century. Until then, all architectural discourses had
courses are confronting serious crises on all fronts. In revolved around Vitmvius's Ten Books on Architecture,
this introduction I shall attempt to map the crises, and and it is not too much to say that the work of the archi-
by so doing I hope to map how the role of architecture tect was meant to fill the margins of this Vitruvian writ-
that Karatani extracts might be further contextualized. ing, which assumed the status of a Book. It was believed
Karatani treats architecture as a metaphor-that is, to offer a foundation for architectural thought in the
the will to construct-and as a system where various language of classicism-a role similar to that played by
formalizations take place. In this sense architecture is the Bible for religious thought.
the name of the mechanism through which the meta- The beginning of the crisis was signaled when
physics that ground Western thought inevitably came architects' belief in the Book began to waver. The age of
into existence. In order to access this concept residing at world travel had arrived, and knowledge about the dif-
the bottom he proceeds to critique Platonism and ferent architectural styles of different civilizations-such
Marxism, to dismantle and tear apart the vulgarized as the Orient-had been introduced. As archaeological
"isms" into their original fragments of events. To per- knowledge expanded, the features of prehistoric archi-
tecture gradually came into view. What shocked the practice wherein artists incessantly project their work
architects of the time most was that the actual architec- into the vacant position was newly established in the
ture of ancient Greece was different from the one modern period. In Karatani's speculation, this conceptu-
described and regarded as the prototype in Vitruvius's al movement of art is similar to the movement of capital:
Book. It became apparent that the classical world had it survives only by indefinitely postponing its end/settle-
actually been an enclosed entity and that numerous ment. And all of this is, after all, only an attempt to
worlds with different senses of time and space had exist- avoid the large wave by producing and manipulating
ed external to it. This also meant that the architectural small ones.
norm presented by Vitruvius had not really been the The concept of Art that supports architects' proj-
one and only universal principle, but only one of many ects, however, was frail, and the Book of Vitruvius had
architectures; in this manner classical architectural lan- to be constantly invoked. Furthermore, after the concept
guage was inevitably relativized. To deal with this situa- of Art became a state institution, it began to be oppres-
tion, architects dislodged the Book from the place it had sive. It was at this moment that utopia was summoned to
once occupied, leaving a vacant position. Then, by pick- inspire a positive prospect for the vacant position.
ing up various architectural languages, they constructed Utopia is literally a place of nowhere; however, ideal
a new paradigm of "projectsv-both design and theo- images and progressive movements can be projected
ry-which were to rewrite the margins of the Book and onto it. In order to induce utopia to ascend to the vacant
in effect form a "supplement." This supplement-what position, Art, the erstwhile occupant, had to be
might be called "architectural writingv-produced as removed: this marked the advent of the second crisis of
many "one and only" images as there were projects to architecture in the late nineteenth century. Gottfried
fill the vacant position; however, no single image Semper, Otto Wagner, and Adolf Loos proposed a new
became the definitive one. And paradoxically, only upon strategy to overcome the crisis-to attack the institution
the fulfillment of such a project could one qualify as an of art with architectural discourses and end the marriage
Architect. Later, this vacant position was institutional- of art and architecture. In their methodological proce-
ized and came to be called Art. In the nineteenth centu- dure, building is analytically decomposed into four
ry this institution was guaranteed by the state. Hegel elements that are then reorganized according to "neces-
called architecture the mother of all arts; architecture sity." This process deprives architecture of all excess
was deemed autonomous and inclusive of all other fields decoration and reduces it to a skeletal structure, stating
such as music, fine art, and theater performance. On the above all else that architecture has nothing to do with
other hand, this Art that was being constituted with art and should only be construction. The problematic of
state support virtually formed a meta-concept beyond "Architecture as Construction" was thus acknowledged
these divisions and became a superior social institution. as the orientation to overcome the second crisis.
Thereafter every single architect's project had to be Architects reread this necessity-oriented methodol-
acknowledged by reference to the concept of art; archi- ogy as the way to construct a utopia. Here, architectural
tecture became "Architecture as Art." The pattern of writings as projects were focused on constructing archi-
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tecture as utilitarian entities and accelerating the progres-
was encouraged to join. Thus in the West the tweArt
sive movement toward utopia. There was a logical
and Architecture-were once closely identified, but it
contradiction inherent in this avant-garde movement:
subsequently became apparent that Architecture as
although utopia technically exists nowhere, only projects
Construction-the utopian project-had supplanted
that presented a concrete image of utopia were approved.
Architecture as Art. In contrast, in Japan architectural
Moreover, as soon as a visualized image is presented it
problematics could never have arisen in the same way. A
becomes socially actual and should no longer, by defini-
firmly rooted tradition regards art as no more than a
tion, be called utopia, and yet it is still "utopian" because
decoration of everyday life. The modern belief that a
it is unrealizable inasmuch as it contains socially unbuild-
building is constructed as a "project" has never been
able conditions. After the mid-twentieth century, mod-
acknowledged. It is precisely this tendency that allowed
ernism began to encircle the world and the architectural
the sudden blossoming of the peculiar postmodernism of
and urban images once projected as utopian began to fill
the 1980s. There was (and still is) a lack of criticality;
real space. In the 1960s this reached a saturation point;
buildings and cities were composed recklessly only by a
utopia was, ironically, realized. That is to say that the
textuality without subject. In Japan, from the beginning,
original utopia vanished and the avant-garde movements
Architecture with a capital A never existed.
progressing toward it were inevitably terminated. The
When Karatani's Architecture as Metaphor was pub-
cultural revolutions in 1968 marked the date; since then,
lished in Japan, I was extremely interested in the fact
architects have been left with a "loss of subjectn-the dis-
that this book located the place of Architecture, the
appearance of the grand narrative. This should be
presence I felt behind textuality; and then I was struck
deemed a new kind of crisis, the one in which we are liv-
by the procedures it uses to deconstruct the processes
ing today-the third wave.
through which architecture is employed as metaphor. I
My book The Dissolution of Architecttlre (1975) was
think that Architecture as Metaphor, rather than remain-
an attempt to survey these crises; it was planned as I
ing just a title, will begin to function as a double
sensed the commencement of this latest one. It scruti-
metaphor for architecture today: while it is still
nized the syndrome in which, after the disappearance of
burdened with its old metaphorical power, it is now con-
utopia, architects would lose the telos that had provided
fronting the new crisis and oriented toward an unfore-
their subjects, and proposed that the real subject should
seen problematic formation. In this book, the logical
be "the absence of subject." Thus, while I began to
scheme of how Architecture with a capital A can collapse
restructure architectural design as a fabric of quotations,
is breathtakingly staged.
I also began to think that the concept of Architecture
The work named "Kojin Karatani" continues to be
with a capital A still existed somewhere behind the tex-
produced in Japan, on a solitary island, by this figure of
tuality that allowed the quotation and that it was neces-
singular being, der Einzige. The place is always enclosed
sary to locate its binding power. In the West, where the
by its peculiar conditions, which are totally different
concept of Art with a capital A had already been placed
from those of the West. In Japan, as Karatani himself
in the central category of cultural domains, Architecture
claims, one has to play a double role to be fully critical;
this situation is not unfamiliar to me, as my work is On the English Edition of Architecture as Metaphor
framed by a double set of constraints as well. We have Architecture as Metaphor is Karatani's most resolute
to engage in the critique of Japan, and also of the world attempt to confront the metaphysical mechanism
outside. If one cannot fully consmct the double-faceted that has tacitly normalized the intellectual prac-
stance, one's work will never escape the confines of the tices of the West ever since Plato's time. By an
solitary island. In this work of Karatani, one of the key exhaustive analysis of the ways in which
concepts is the intercourse with the exterior space, architecture as metaphor pervades our
which, I believe, derives from his decision to engage in a thinking in various domains-philosophy,
permanent struggle with the enclosure called Japan. literature, city planning, linguistics, cul-
As the twentieth century comes to a close, the tural anthropology, political economy,
whereabouts of the architectural crisis are becoming psychoanalysis, and mathematics-
clearer. That is to say that after the disappearance of this book means to undermine the
utopia, architecture stripped bare is being rediscovered overcharged and even perverse Translator's Remarks
in the place utopia used to be. Now the postutopian cri- constraining power of the figure
tique of architecture is paving the way for the extension of "architecture as metaphor."
of problematics into different dimensions. As for recent There are five major essays
works confronting this new phase, I can think of Denis that follow the same line
Hollier's Against Architecture and Mark Wigley's of pursuit: "Marx: The
Den-idalr Haunt: The Architecture of Deconstruction. The Center of His Possibilities"
former criticizes Architecture as an anthropomorphic (1974); "Introspection and
system with reference to Bataille, and the latter dissects Retrospection" (1980); "Archi-
the concept of Architecture hiding behind quotidian tecture as Metaphor" (1 98 1);
thinking through the analysis of Derrida. Karatani's "Language, Number, Money"
Architecture as Metaphor, though it descends from a (1983); and "Researches" (1985-
totally different lineage, attempts to directly grasp the present); all were later published in
core of the same crisis by a tireless retrospection of the collections of essays of the same title,
origin. After weathering the first two waves that have except for "Language, Number,
arrived in hundred-year cycles-first with Architecture Money," which was included in
as Art and then with Architecture as Construction-it Introspection and Retrospection (1985), and
seems to me that Architecture as Metaphor points out a "Researches," which was published in two
way to overcome our present crisis. parts (Researches I [I9861 and I1 [1989]).
In his essay published as a postscript to
Arata Isozaki Introspection and Retrospection, Akira Asada spoke
of the three central essays in this series in terms of
"A Document of Wars" or, more particularly, "a
wi
-
wii
document of battles lost." According to Asada, this work This double-bind caused me a great deal of difficulty;
is an attempt to "escape the enclosed sphere of meta- however, I voluntarily chose this severely restricted and mini-
physics, . . . but not by relying on a specific rhetoric malist path in order to give the coup de gr8ce to ambiguous and
within a restricted domain, like, for instance, the strate- inconsistent discourses once and for all. Consequently, at least I
gy of Derrida." Instead it is executed "in a more general can now acknowledge to myself that I have done everything
field which opens itself up by penetrating through every possible by methods that were initiated by "introspection."
discipline." Asada continues: Language, Number, Money was supposed to encompass all my
attempts of the previous decade, but the crisis this produced
[It would be] unlikely if such a reckless, direct confrontation was so serious-it struck me so severely, both mentally and
with the largest and strongest enemy would win an immediate physically-that I had to give it up.
success; on the contrary, the march is full of obstacles-no
sooner does it seem to progress than a moment of stagnation Indicated as it is in the subtitle for the present book,
arrives. The same approach is repeated time and again with something radical of "Language, Number, Money" is
only slight strategical shifts in nuance; as soon as a new escape inscribed herein. Indeed, the book absorbs some aspects
route is discovered, it has to be abandoned. Repeating these of all the aforementioned essays: parts one and two cor-
countless flights, the author tirelessly restarts his assault from respond to the works previous to "Researches," and part
ever-changing positions, and it is this incredible endurance three embodies some aspects of Researches I.
that gives the book an almost tragic shine. By Karatani's own admission, "Researches" marked
a decisive turn. It functions as a fundamental critique of
Indeed, Karatani's decade-long struggle cannot be ade- his previous work. Nevertheless, it should not be seen as
quately described in terms of the autonomous performance something conclusive, because in a sense it is a reexami-
of text as such, but more as relentless waves of battle that nation of the views that were already presented, albeit
record their own strategic displacements and weave them- rather more intuitively, in the first work of the group,
selves into a production. Karatani himself has spoken Mam: The Center ofHis Possibilities. In this sense, notions
about the nature of his approach during this period: of "development" or "synthesis" might not elucidate the
actual intertextual movements that occur.
I deliberately attempted to entrap myself "within." In this Finally, in a number of ways, this edition is a totally
process, I strictly forbade myself to assume either of two atti- new book that has its own peculiar integrity, indepen-
tudes: on one hand, I determined not to presuppose exteriority dent of any of the above, and it is unique in that it
as something that exists substantively, because exteriority, once bridges the work prior to and including "Researches."
grasped as such, is already internal. . . . At the same time I
decided not to deal with this issue "poetically," because it is the Karatani's Critique
last possible recourse-a common and indulgent trick. I tried Ever since he published his first work in 1969 at the age
to speak as rigorously as I could in order to block every possi- of 27, Karatani has operated in a domain that can provi-
ble way of sneaking out of formalization. sionally be called "criticism." In Japan he is known as a
miii
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xix
literary critic, and with the publication in English of into the homogeneous black hole. This distantiation of
Origins of Modem Japanese Literature (Duke University his voice might not have come about so deliberately if it
Press, 1993), he has been officially introduced as a schol- had been totally detached from the geopolitical condi-
ar of literature in the American context. However, as tions emphatically witnessed in Japan, yet it is clear that
one might notice in his approach in Origins, "literature" his work cannot be illuminated merely by scrutinizing its
(bungaku) for Karatani amounts to the critique of the "Japan-ness" either.
philosophical problematics that reside at the core of dis- Rather than constructing an alternative "communi-
cursive events; his role in Japan's contemporary intellec- ty" model for a better future as such, Karatani's tactic is
tual scene in fact extends beyond the literary circle. He to concentrate on the critical practices that attempt to
calls himself a critic-but not in the sense of one who reveal what one might call a bare eventuality in the
judges the value of oeuvres in a specific genre; it is more "social" problematics, which-though repressed within
as an independent critical mind that engages "transcen- the inversive nature of discourse-can never be dissolved
dentally" in the mechanisms of discursive historicity, or sublated. Rather, it is this very eventuality, which is
penetrating a multitude of domains. Karatani's approach omitted from the foundation of knowledge, that forms
corresponds to Paul de Man's "language-centered" the most ubiquitous condition of our communication; it
assessment of philosophy in its concentrated formaliza- is something that we live with (though without being
tion, yet he also persists in the will to expand the cri- aware of) and hence cannot touch upon; it is an absolute
tique of formalization to the larger power field (of exteriority that nevertheless binds our mode of existence
discours) to detect the omnipresent nexus of architecture (from within). Karatani's work unfolds-though only for
as a metaphor. an instant as sharp and intense as a lightning strike-the
In the introduction to this book, Arata Isozaki men- possibility of a consciousness of this impossible mecha-
tions Karatani's idiosyncratic tendency to traverse vari- nism that constantly swerves away from ideational and
ous academic genres: "He transgresses categories by structural encoding.
using his questioning to dig vertically through each Karatani approaches the aporia in the entangled
domain while at the same time remaining within it." rapport between the eventuality and the becoming of
The fragmentary nature of this book is attributable to our discourses in a number of ways. His analytical pro-
this approach: each chapter deals with a different disci- cedure somewhat approximates the Nietzschean geneal-
plinary framework, yet separately and together they are ogy that reveals the perversity inherent in causality, but
all devised to detect the mechanism of the metaphor. the idiosyncrasy of Karatani's "genealogy" lies in its tra-
Karatani's voice refuses to be directed toward and jectory along the phenomenological critique of
consumed by a circle of specialists. In his practice the Znexistenz. Inasmuch as any cognitive process actually
identity of the intended reader is itself questioned and begins with (and proceeds along with) our conscious-
radically dislodged as he attempts to undo the entrap- ness, regardless of whether in the end the consciousness
ping mechanisms of the normative coding that fosters an discovers itself as an effect or an agent for something
enclosed communality where voices tend to be absorbed else, the analysis has no other choice than to be primari-
- --
a I '3 Translator's Remarks
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