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Deconstructing the Kimbell: An Essay on Meaning and Architecture,
by Michael Benedikt.
In 1991 - the heyday's of architecture's
borrowing of themes from Jacques Derrida's Deconstruction
and early 20th-century Constructivism - Benedikt published
a long form essay deciphering some of the philosopher's
ideas and interpreting and applying them towards architecture.
But instead of looking at projects by architects most overtly
influenced by Derrida (Peter Eisenman, Daniel Libeskind,
Bernard Tschumi), the author steps back and applies Deconstruction
to Louis I. Kahn's Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas.
By doing this, he attempts to see if the philosophy is a
valid method for extracting meaning from architecture. Opting
for this seminal late-Modern building over, say, Tschumi's
Parc de la Villette, he also sets a precedent for a deeper
reading and application of Deconstruction over a more direct,
surface reading. Benedikt acknowledges that Derrida's text,
albeit difficult, is ripe with physical metaphors that make
its application to architecture understandable, but he goes
beyond these metaphors to define four ideas present in the
late philosopher's writings: différance,
hierarchy reversal, marginality and centrality, and iterability
and meaning.
At the halfway point of the essay
Benedikt has done an admiral job of making these ideas somewhat
understandable (to the consternation of many Derrida scholars
who see the difficulty of his writings as a necessary trait),
then applying them to the Kimbell in the last half. While
the application of, say, hierarchy reversal isn't explicit
in the latter half, the description of the building - from
its siting to the geometrical construction of the vaults
to the location of the library - is fascinating and illuminating.
Even though Benedikt is describing, and finding meaning
in, a building few architects would not admit to like or
love, his "reading" of the building increases
that appreciation. The novel idea of applying Deconstruction
to a building that coincides with or even predates that
philosophy yields not only a strong argument for finding
meaning in architecture, but a pleasurable read as well.
While this book includes images and
drawings of the Kimbell, they are a wee bit small, so Light
is the Theme is a handy companion to Benedikt's
essay, especially for those unfamiliar with the building.
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