Archeticture: Ecstasies of Space, Time, and the Human Body [Paperback]

David Farrell Krell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2, 1997

In this book, David Farrell Krell challenges contemporary and traditional theories of architecture with archeticture-spelling it new, by design. The thesis of the book is that the heart of the word architecture, the Greek root tec-, can be traced back to an earlier and more pervasive root, tic-. The verb tiktein means "to love", "to engender", "to reproduce". In the course of Western history, however, that older root disappeared under the debris of discarded techniques, technologies, architectonics, and architectures, all of them insisting on technical mastery, technological power, and architectonic solidarity. Yet what would happen to the confidence we place in technique if we realized that its dominion is based on a kind of oblivion-an oblivion of the materials, places, situations, and human bodies that not even the mightiest technician can thoroughly dominate, but that he or she must love? The opening chapter of Archeticture proposes a new reading of Plato's Timaeus, the seminal work in Western philosophy on the architecture of the universe and the human body. It pays close attention to the figures of Chaos, Necessity, and khora in Timaeus, arguing that the Demiurge is less a divine craftsman or technician than a lover and a father-admittedly, a father of an awkward and forgetful sort. Among the things the Demiurge forgets to acknowledge are the elements, spaces, and places, the materiality and the spatiality, in which he finds himself-but which he does not master. Chapter 2 moves from Plato to the modern and contemporary philosophers Kant, Hegel, and Heidegger. It sees in the projects of these thinkers a growing liberation of choric space from time, culminating in an ecstatic interpretation of human spatiality. Yet ecstatic spatiality is anything but familiar; it is essentially unhomelike and uncanny. Chapter 3 offers a series of archetictural sections-as opposed to architectural plans or elevations-of Fre

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

David Farrell Krell has published eight scholarly books; SUNY Press has published his two works of fiction, Nietzsche: A Novel and Son of Spirit: A Novel. He is Professor of Philosophy at DePaul University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 246 pages
• Publisher: State University of New York Press (October 2, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0791434109
• ISBN-13: 978-0791434109
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,036,907 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars frustrating, August 27, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Archeticture: Ecstasies of Space, Time, and the Human Body (Paperback)

This book held out such interesting possibilities. Many a philosopher is exasperated by the etymological speculations used by Heidegger particularly in his latter writings - in a sense using etymology as an epistemological tool. Krell attempts the same, but the book seemed for the most part more difficult to read than Heidegger. Heidegger was known for leading his audience along a hermeneutic path, but he never insulted them like Krell does. The book also tries to be like Derrida's book GLAS, but he hasn't got the style to bring it off. I agree with the previious reviewer, that Krell should be thanked for simply being a translator of Heidegger's work, not a commentator.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars deeply embarrassing, April 17, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Archeticture: Ecstasies of Space, Time, and the Human Body (Paperback)

There are flashes of genuine talent in some of Krell's earliest works, but things are going downhill fast. This book seemingly exists only because the author thought that arche-ticture was a clever etymological reversal of the common word archi-tecture (it is humorously appropriate that amazon.com overlooked the witticism in its catalog); this allows him to play with the Greek words arkhe and tiktein *ad nauseum*. Such a technique would be insufferable enough at a cocktail party or in a university seminar. In a published book, it's a living nightmare.

Not surprisingly, the speculation on tiktein goes nowhere, and the style is pretentious even by the standards of this author, who is reminiscent of a gifted but lazy basketball star who begins to freelance and coast his way out of the league. The book probably should not have been released in its current form, and the head of the Indiana series really ought to avoid publishing so many books by the members of his own editorial board, since this only gives the appearance of favoritism.

Any charitable reader can see that Krell is capable of doing so much better than this (see his quirky but dazzling biography of Nietzsche in the handsomely produced _The Good European_).

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Courageous and Elegant, June 13, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Archeticture: Ecstasies of Space, Time, and the Human Body (Paperback)

Krell's "Archeticture" takes up a question that still resonates for many contemporary philosophers as much as it did for Plato: How to think nature, or, more specifically, (in Irigaray's words) how to think nature as "at least two?" He does so quite elegantly in terms of a discussion of arche(tec/tic)ture (though, in response to the other reviewers, Krell never claims competence in architecture). Certainly the juxtaposition of texts by Irigaray, Derrida, et al with his own text fails in terms of letting multiple voices speak (as does the diptych of his "Recalcitrant Art"), but isn't that precisely the point? One does begin to wonder at times what a critical engagement of Irigaray's texts would be on Krell's terms, but from the looks of this book such a critique would be well worth the wait. As in his translations, Krell shows remarkable courage without sacrificing rigor, and the reader is all the better for his failures.