CASTILLO, J, Re-search Studio or Do Search Twice, It's All Right

RE-SEARCH STUDIO

OR DO SEARCH TWICE,

ITS ALL RIGHTAn understanding of design processes in the studio through the work of Jacques Derrida

and Giorgio Agamben

Vela Castillo Jos

IE UNIVERSITY, ARCHITECTURE, SPAIN

On. Say on. Be said on. Somehow on. Till nohow on. Said nohow on.

Say for be said. Missaid. From now say for be missaid.

Say a body. Where none. No mind. Where none. That at least. A place. Where none. For the body. To be in.

Move in. Out of. Back into. No. No out. No back. Only in. Stay in. On in. Still.

All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again.

Fail again. Fail better.

SAMUEL BECKETT, WORSTWARD HO

(fig. 1)

This paper will address the question of designing architecture through the vantage point of the praxis

in the design studio understood as a space of research. I use the word praxis here, as I hope it will be

clear at the end, not addressing a simple practice devoid of any theoretical relection neither as an

operation of a mere technical making. Instead, I refer with praxis to a kind of facere (the Latin word

that in some ways translates the Greek poiesis) akin to integrate both thinking and doing, or better

saying, thinking by doing. And this doing is no other thing that the dis-position of a paradigm. The

main theoretical frame is provided by the work of Jacques Derrida, some of whose key notions will be

worked out through the paper (Iteration, grafting, example), but I will also delve into the work of

Giorgio Agamben on the notion of paradigm.

To begin with, since the point is trying to unveil how research appears in the process of teaching (and

learning) in design studio, a irst glance at the word research is needed: research, re-search, as is

stated in the title, implies repetition. Then, in the irst place I will tackle this topic, the re- of the re-

search through the concept of iteration.

References Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, The

Basic Works of Aristotle (1941). New

York: Random House

Badiou, A. (2005). Ininite Thought,

London: Continuum

Brown, J.R. (2005). Naturalism, Pictures,

and Platonic Intuitions. In Mancosu, P.,

Jrgensen, K.F. & Pedersen, S. (Eds.),

Visualization, Explanation and

Reasoning Styles In Mathematics (pp.

57-72). Springer, Netherlands

Cross, N. (1999). Design Issues, Vol. 15,

No. 2, Design Research, MIT Press, pp.

3-10

Cross, N. (2010). Designerly Ways of

Knowing, London: Springer

Frascati Manual (2002). OSCD, Paris,

France

Frayling, C. (1993/1994). Research in Art

and Design, Royal College of Arts,

Research papers, Vol. I, Number 1,

London

Gadamer, H.G. (2001). Beginnings of

Philosophy, New York: Continuum

Glanville, R. (1999). Design Issues, Vol.

15, No. 2, Design Research, MIT Press,

pp. 80-91

Grassi, E. (1962). Die Theorie des

Shnen in der Antike, Kln: Schauberg,

Serbian transl. by Klajn, I. (1974).

Belgrade: SKZ

Liddell, H.G. & Scott, R. (1940). A

Greek-English Lexicon, Oxford

O Driscoll, Y. (2012). How does

ambiguity afect the meaning of a

building? (Unpublished graduate paper).

Department of Architecture, Waterford

Institute of Technology, Ireland

Panofsky, E. (1939, 1967 reprint) Studies

in Iconology: Neoplatonic Movement

and Michelangelo, Oxford University

Press

Pausanias, Description of Greece, transl.

by Jones, W.H.S. Litt.D. & Ormerod, H.A.

M.A. (1918). Cambridge, MA, Harvard

University Press; London: William

Heinemann

Plato, Euthydemus, transl. by Lamb,

W.R.M. (1967). Cambridge, MA, Harvard


Heinemann

Plato, Meno, transl. by Lamb, W.R.M.

(1967). Cambridge, MA, Harvard


Heinemann

Plato. Phaedo, transl. by Fowler, H.N.



Heinemann

Plato, Protagoras, transl. by Lamb,

W.R.M. (1967). Cambridge, MA, Harvard


Heinemann

Plato. Republic, transl. by Shorey, P.



Heinemann

Plato. Sophist, transl. by White, N.P.

(1997). Complete works, Cooper, J.M.

(Ed.), Hackett Publishing, Indianapolis

Plato, Theaetetus, transl. by Shorey, P.



Heinemann

Ryle, G. (1949). The Concept of Mind.

60th Anniversary Ed. (2009) New York:

Routledge

Notes

1 The diiculties for the inspired educator in

relation to this paradox seem obvious: 1) What is

the purpose of education if we cannot be sure

what knowledge really is and 2) How can we

teach anything if we ourselves have no possession

of this knowledge?

2 Virtue is discussed in Meno (96c), Protagoras

(319b) and Euthydemus (274e). At one point in

Protagoras, Socrates claims that virtue is

knowledge (361b).

3 This tacit way of knowing things should not be

confused with phronesis (), what we

would today call the intelligence or practical

wisdom, which Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics

(Book VI: Ch.4 1140b5) separated from wisdom

() as it does not lead to true knowledge.

4 One of the most entertaining examples of tacit

knowledge is probably the one presented by

Brown, J. R. (2005):

Expert chicken sexers are remarkable people.

They can classify day old chicks into male and

female with 98% accuracy, and they can do this

at a rate of about 1000 per hour...The skill is

considered economically important if you want

to feed those chicks who will eventually become

egg-layers, but not the others. How do

chicken-sexers do it? The ability to correctly

classify is so diicult that it takes years of training

in order to achieve the rare expert level; this

training largely consists of repeated trials... It

seems that expert chicken sexers were not aware

of the fact that they had learned the contrasting

features, nor were they aware of the exact

location of the distinguishing information... The

crucial thing to note is that the experts had some

sort of tacit understanding of where to look and

what to look for. It may seem that chicken-sexing

is similar to riding a bicycle. We may all know

how to do it, but we cant say what it is that we

know. These two diferent types of knowing are

usually called knowing how and knowing

that. (p.63)

5 When considering unlearning as the consolida-

tion of the brain function psychologists refer to it

as reverse learning

6 Research and experimental development

(R&D) comprise creative work undertaken on a

systematic basis in order to increase the stock of

knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture

and society, and the use of this stock of

knowledge to devise new applications.

(FRASCATI MANUAL, OECD 2002, p. 30)

7 Dilemma () = An ambiguous

proposition (Liddell, H.G. & Scott, R.,1940)

8 Aporia () = No passage, diiculty,

puzzlement (Liddell et.al., 1940)

9 For example: I do not see how normal works of

practice can be regarded as works of research

(Cross, 1999, p.9)

10 An extract from the chapter of students thesis

aimed at relecting on the learning experience.

(All photos and drawings by Yvonne O Driscoll.)

11 According to Pausanias (Book 10. 24) seven wise

man have dedicated to the god Apollo famous

words at the temple in Delphi: know thyself

( )

37

THEORY BY DESIGN

36

THEORY BY DESIGN CONFERENCE / OCTOBER 2012 ANTWERP

narratives and

philosophy

In the second place I will approach how this work of research is not something made in a void, in the

immaculate space of the Academia, but it has implications into the real space of life and city where

architecture is projected. The key word here is graft, which implies con-text. (fig. 2)

Finally, Ill go through the main topic of this paper: the question of the paradigm and how and why

building a paradigm is in some ways synonymous of designing. Paradigm: both process and object

distinct from theory that implies researching and doing, the paradigm follows the double logic of ex-

emplarity, proposing a model that only appears as such in the very act of its producing and that op-

erates a double translation between particular and general.

I will illustrate the article with images that came from

the design studio I have been teaching those past years

under the heading teaching (re)iteration, in which

the students were confronted precisely with this topic

of iteration and with the building, physically, of some-

thing like a paradigm (and in which the present theo-

retical relection was irst articulated). Images are from

the work of two diferent students, and try to show the

work in the studio in its constant retracing. They do

not show a inal stage of the design, and if this is a con-

scious decision on my part, it nevertheless relects

closely the development of the work and its fundamen-

tal instability. The whole process allows a particular

paradigm to appear in each design. The paradigm,

then, is an individual one that informs a personal way

of approaching design (through line, through drawing,

through diagrams, models and so on) and emerges

from the process as a virtual dispositive that not be-

ing ixed in a speciic form, nevertheless seems per-

fectly recognizable. There is no direct correspond-

ence, nevertheless, between the low of written and

graphic discourse, both trying to frame the other in an

impossible closed re-trait. (fig. 3)

Iteration

Fail more, fail again, fail better. Jacques Derrida in-

troduces iterability in his thinking as one of the key

features of any given text (together with inscription,

absence of referent and spacing), charging the word

with a precise meaning in the context of his dialogue

with Austin and the problem of performativity1. In any

case, beyond that polemical relationship, the impor-

tant trait that sustains iterability is, for Derrida, its ca-

pacity of introducing the notion of alterity inside the

question of the repetition. Iterability is, for one side,

the necessary capacity of signs in general of being re-

peated in any given situation, opening hence the pos-

sibility of meaning2. The recognition of this or that

sign in diferent contexts calls for the possibility of (its)

understanding. But, on the other side, as Derrida says,

iterability introduces alterity. Linking the preix iter,

that designates repetition, with Sanskrit itara that

means other (Derrida, 1982, 315), Derrida can cope

with the necessary diferentiation that is always at the

4

5

4

City/London. Author:

Pablo Romn. Building

of paradigm as model.

Grafting into place.

5



the paradigm: iteration.

Section/cut 1.

1


Pablo Romn. Full

paradigm.

2


Pablo Romn. Grafting

into the city 1.

3



into the city 2.

2

3

1

38 39

THEORY BY DESIGNTHEORY BY DESIGN CONFERENCE / OCTOBER 2012 ANTWERP

Grafting, the operation of the graft, is one of the diferent textual traits that Derrida works out in Dis-

semination, but more in general it is a key word in his vocabulary and his thought. Grafting describes

the operation of (general) writing through which a sign/chain text is inserted into another, and per-

forms the general condition of meaning: To write means to graft. Its the same word says Derrida

(Derrida, 1981, 355).

The process of writing for Derrida implies always a certain incision into a text and the grafting of an-

other text (and its grafting onto diferent contexts). But more in general, this is the process of signii-

cation, and is also the process through which architecture is constructed, both in design and in real-

ity. Because always happens that build architecture is inserted into the existing architecture of what

is given, into the dense network of a city or the loose ield of nature, but also into an economic and

political context4. And at the same time, in the moment of design, and as in any text, the irst trait of a

graph(ical) sign is always inserted into a previous context (even the white sheet of paper deines a

previous context), and from that point on develops itself in its iteration, triggering the beginning of a

new process that nobody knows how will evolve5. (fig. 8)

Of course, this incision, this cutting that grafting demands, implies a certain violence exercised upon

the scion (the receiver) but also implies the caressing of a constant gardener. Grafting implies both

the in-corporation of a strange body and the extraterritorial inference of the grafter. Who is who in

the design studio? In the design/project? There is a paradoxical symmetry in this operation: for one

side, the design, the project of architecture in the studio acts as an observation point, as an added

paragraph that comments on (and limits) the space of built architecture; and at the same time the

real space of architecture, the space of the city and of community, the political space in which archi-

tecture necessarily operates, undermines the purity of the academic space and grefes through a deep

cut unto the design studio (from the proposed program to be developed by the students to the re-

search the students must make in real space site, plot, building codes, political systems etc. and

its eventual interventions in the form of performances,

direct activism and so on). So grafting behaves both

ways, illuminating both contexts. The work of the stu-

dent, then, is a double work, that comes back and

forth from graph to graft6 in a continuous

process.(fig.9)

The graft then sets the design in motion, allows reality

be introduced as con-text into the process of design,

disjoints the initial graph and displaces and disjoints

any given and pre-existing order, generating, through

repetition/iteration, its own order.

Paradigm

Third point: the paradigm. In his book The Signa-

ture of All Things, Giorgio Agamben develops some

insights about methodological questions, some of

them of special relevance here. In the irst chapter,

What is a Paradigm?, he lays out a certain genealogy

of the paradigm that is of interest in our context of

praxis, and in fact seems to explain the operation of

what happens in the studio. In that reading, the para-

digm ceases to be the immobile and transcendent ig-

ure the divine architect translates7 into sensible world

as the usual understanding states, and turns to be a

mobile and productive igure of knowledge, a disposi-

9

10

9

Pine Tree Forest

(homage to Ponge).

Author: Marta Nez.

Second trait,

topography/canopy.

10

Pine Tree Forest

(homage to Ponge).

Author: Marta Nez.

Third trait, building the

model.

6




Section/cut 2.

7


Pablo Romn. Retracing


Section/cut 3.

8

Pine Tree Forest

(homage to Ponge).

Author: Marta Nez.

First trait of the

paradigm: the

individuals and the net.

6

7

8

core of any repetition, given that, inally, the meaning of a sign is determined by its context, and the

context, by deinition, changes in every circumstance. Then, the grafting of any chain text into anoth-

er, which is for Derrida the general process of writing, cant be enclosed by any context, and any pre-

vious understanding is modiied by the present context in which the sign appears. Iterability, then,

calls for repetition and variation. (fig. 4)

What is of interest for this paper is the general applicability of iteration in the process of design, in

which every sign as drawing trait is constantly oscillating between these poles: repetition of the same,

appearing of the new.

Trait/re-trait/erasure/trait, this constant process designates always the sign of an absence (of a given

meaning), marks the failure of any origin as origin and sets in motion the possibility of meaning in its

breaking with any given context, in its spacing as emergence of the mark (Derrida, 1982, 317). This

process of iteration opens the very possibility of the pro-jection of the (architectural) project, of the

repeated trait of the drawing. Iterability implies constant transformation, the acknowledgement of the

previous experience but also the discovering of the new. Design is

then conigured as an open process that develops its own internal

logic through repetition and that goes forward through a spiralling

movement from the initial sign or graph, one that tries to give a

irst answer to the proposed problem, to a never ending inal state3.

The studio provides the environment to experience this consum-

ing process and allows relection through time to guide its con-

struction. (fig. 5)

In its ininite but de-inite deferral and diferentiation, in its difer-

ance, the process of design is always on the move, constantly os-

cillating between what is new and what is known. The construc-

tion of the inal design is not only the repetition of a previous

architectural project, an iteration of a proposed architecture idea

(or style) that is grafted into diferent contexts, but the arbitrary

cut that gives sense to the process precisely because it leaves open

the possibility of its continuous reworking (the process will never

end, even if eventually it is built). Building a project, building the

project as one builds his/her own subjectivity (Bildung) is, then,

the task of the student. As many times as necessary (ventriloquist

and repetiteur). Not only to get it right, until the impossible ex-

haustion of its possibilities, until inally the magic cloth, the al-

ways retraced tapestry of Penelope will show, wonderful mirror,

the image of Ulysses returned, but to get it meaningful inside the

limits the circumstances of the project (the context) set. (fig. 6)

Graft

The space of the design studio is a space in continuous transfor-

mation, submerged in the submarine light of the deferral/diferen-

tiation open process. But it is also a political space: a critical one.

A space of resistance. Design studio is not the segregated outcome

of an elaborate theory apart from practice and apart from the po-

litical and economical frame in which (architecture) is immersed.

Apart from the Real. Because it provides its contexts, necessarily.

Design studio elaborates a deformed parasite tactic, implodes into

the Real (an extended lacanian concept that tries to grasp what is

beyond any signiication, what is outside the symbolic order and

hence is only accessible through an extended pragmatic operation,

like the one is done in the studio) through the igure of the graft.

(fig. 7)

40 41


14 15

14

Pine Tree Forest

(homage to Ponge).

Author: Marta Nez.

Building the model 2.

15



before the city 1.

Paradigm so understood is neither universal nor particular, but moves from singularity to singularity

(Agamben, 2009, 31). That relationship between singularities (between part and whole as part) shows

a direct relation with the result of a project of architecture. In that sense, paradigm implies iteration,

the mobile rhythm of a weaving that goes back and forth and is somehow the igure that operates the

grafting of one architecture into another as exemplar ones. (fig. 12)

The paradigm proceeds following the double logic of the example, the one that considers at the same

time the singularity of the exemplar and the multiplicity of the examples. An example that is paradig-

matic, according to Agamben, deines the intelligibility of the set to which it belongs and at the same

which it constitutes (Agamben, 2002). This kind of logic can be traced to Kants Critic of Judgement

and his use of the example in the deinition of the aesthetical judgement as the example of a general

rule that nevertheless one cant produce (See Agamben, 2009, 20-21 and Derrida, 1988). As Derrida

will stress, an example is always singular, one example and hence something exemplar (that sets a

kind of rule of behaviour) and something general, another example, relating then singularities be-

tween them and not necessarily to a universality. This is important, because design proceeds in this

way: it proposes an answer to a given set of problem, one that is singular, but one that is always built

upon a logic of multiplicity relating diferent singularities without being universal. The work of the

students, hence, will always oscillate between these two poles. (fig. 13)

What inally emerges in the research of the project at the studio, in the production of the diferent ex-

amples or models as response to any given reality, is something like a contingent rule, but a rule that is

deduced or airmed in the deployment of the paradigmatic or exemplar case: ... the paradigm is not

already given, but instead the singularity becomes a paradigm (Agamben, 2002). And that happens

at the level of the individual (the design process of each student as the search for an answer proceed-

ing through the construction of diferent models and its testing on

reality) and at the level of the whole studio, where the produc-

tion of diferent design answers the original question (program)

through the proposal of as many rules as designs that nevertheless

can be considered as singular examples and general answers to that

(un)common rule that emerges in the collective process of design.

(fig. 14)

tive that is the result of a production as production, one that is developed in its very deployment and,

specially an hybrid igure that consistently ills the gap between theory and practice as separate spaces.

(fig. 10)

As is known, Plato in the Timaeus makes Timaeus say that heaven was created after the pattern of

the Eternal Nature8; and the word he uses for pattern is paradeigma. The whole world, then, is

constructed by a demiourgos according a paradigm, one that acts as a transcendental and eternal

model. This model is beyond the world of common experience, and is only accessible through con-

templation (or theoria), being a given set of rules that the craftsmen or architect only have to copy,

and in fact, that can only copy, because it is beyond any possible modiication. (fig. 11)

Nevertheless, at least two remarks must be done. For one side, the Greek word paradeigma can be

understood not only in the sense that seems to use Plato in the Timaeus, but also as a mutable

rhythm governing a pattern of movement, as I. Kagis McEwen (McEwen, 1993, 42) shows; which

implies that the paradigm is something that must be build and rebuild, that is in constant motion and

is not given beforehand. For the other, as Agamben quotes (Agamben, 2009, 22), the same Plato says

in the Statesmen (278c) that a paradigm is generated when an entity, which is found in something

other and separated in another entity, is judged and correctly recognized as the same, and having

been reconnected together generates a true and unique option concerning each and both. Hence,

and just from the beginning, the very concept of paradigm not only oscillates between the eternal and

the contingent, the given and the constructed, but in fact seems to be connected with a praxis that re-

lates both worlds beyond the contemplation of any higher truth, demanding a productive intervention

on the part of the craftsman.

11

Pine Tree Forest

(homage to Ponge).

Author: Marta Nez.

Grafting into

the forest 1.

12

Pine Tree Forest

(homage to Ponge).

Author: Marta Nez.

Grafting into the forest

2, detail.

13

Pine Tree Forest

(homage to Ponge).

Author: Marta Nez.

Grafting into the forest

3. Section/cut.

11

12

13

42 43


POST-COLONIAL TEXTUAL

NARRATIVE AS A PROGRAMME

FOR DESIGNING

LOCAL SPATIAL NARRATIONS

Tseng Ching-pin

SHU-TE UNIVERSITY, DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR DESIGN, TAIWAN

In the process of architectural design, the setting of a design programme is important for design di-

rection and the thinking of designers. From the viewpoint of creative design, this paper argues that

design programme may stem from knowledge of other disciplines or narratives about places and peo-

ple that are related to the project. As John Hejduk states that the nature of programme may project

the potential course of forming the spatial identity of our living environment and the re-presentation

of our times, or in Hejduks words, representing certain aspects of the time.1 In other words, the

new programme can be a philosophic programme and something more than the functional concerns.2

As textual narrative is a composition of a series of events related to certain places or to the experience

of actors, or it is a story associated with a description of locations and so on, the paper would discuss

the utilisation of textual narratives as an architectural programme and would argue that literary brief

can be thought of as the forming of a masque in that something more than its sign is implied.

The narrative sequences and written language utilised in textual narratives play a role in transmitting

the events and their implications to the reader. In terms of post-colonial textual narrative, voices of

anti-colonisation and the writers experiences of being colonised are presented in association with

various colonial languages and the mother tongues of native people. Posed against the eradication of

cultural diversity of other, the innovation of post-colonial textual narratives by writers from formerly

colonised countries has been applied to express local and heterogeneous viewpoints, as well as to con-

vey the events or political happenings which the writers might have experienced. The discussion of

post-colonial textual narratives is interrelated with the autonomy of formerly colonised countries

along with the awareness of the importance of local cultures, in which the cultural heterogeneity and

References Agamben, G. (2009). The Signature of

All Things. On Method. New York: Zone

Books.

Agamben, G. (2006). Che cos un

dispositivo? Roma: Nottetempo.

Agamben, G. (2002). What is a

Paradigm? Lecture at European

Graduate School. Retrieved August 20,

2012, from http://www.egs.edu/faculty/

giorgio-agamben/articles/

what-is-a-paradigm/

Beckett, S. (1983). Worstward Ho.

Deleuze, G. (1991). What is a dispositif?

In Michel Foucault Philosopher. New

York: Routledge.

Derrida, J. (1978). Writing and

Diference. London: Routledge and

Kegan Paul Ltd.

Derrida, J. (1981). Dissemination.

Chicago and London: The University of

Chicago Press.

Derrida, J. (1982). Signature, Event,

Context. In Margins of Philosophy.


Chicago Press.

Derrida, J. (1988). Limited Inc. Evanston

(IL): Northwestern University Press.

Derrida, J. (1987). Truth in Painting.


Chicago Press.

Eisenman, P. (2004). The End of the

Classical. The End of the Beginning, the

End of the End. In Eisenman Inside Out.

Selected Writings 1963-1988. New

Haven and London: Yale University

Press.

Hays, K. M. (2005). Architecture by

Numbers. Praxis 7: Untittled Number

Seven, pp. 88-99. Reprinted in Sykes, A.

K., Ed (2010). Constructing a New

Agenda. Architectural Theory

1993-2009 (pp.334-345). New York:

Princeton Architectural Press.

McEwen, I.K. (1993). Socrates Ancestor.

An Essay on Architectural Beginnings.

Cambridge, Mass. and London: MIT

Press.

Wigley, M. (1989). The Translation of

Architecture, the Production of Babel.

Assemblage 8. Reprinted in Hays, K. M.,

Ed. (1998). Architecture Theory Since

1968 (pp. 660-675). Cambridge, Mass.

and London: MIT Press.

Notes

1 See the essay Signature, Event, Context, that

irst appeared in Margins of Philosophy the and

later was reprinted, in the context of a polemical

dialogue with J. Searle, in Limited Inc.

2 As soon as a sign emerges, it begins by repeating

itself. Without this, it would not be a sign, would

not be what it is, that is to say, the non-self

identity which regularly refers to the same.

(Derrida, 1978, 375).

3 That is the frame in which K. Michael Hays sets

himself when says, talking about the architecture

of Preston Scott Cohen but as a general

statement that to architect is necessarily to

repeat; the repetition of certain geometric

procedures contains experience, and experience

accumulates as architecture demonstrates its

present capacity for transformation, elaboration

and reconnection with other cultural materials

(Hays, 2010, 339). It is interesting to note the use

of the verb to architect, that is intended to

translate the Italian progettare (c.f. Note 1).

4 As Derrida would say, There is nothing before

the text; there is no pretext that is not already a

text (Derrida, 1981, 328).

5 Peter Eisenman discusses precisely this question

of the triggering of a new architectural process in

terms of grafting in The End of the Classical.

The End of the Beginning, the End of the End.

In the broad context of the deinition of a

non-classical architecture, he deals with the

problem of origin and beginning, and of how to

begin in the present apart from the mythical

and value-laden origin of classical architecture.

In that context, grafting allows him to think this

beginning in terms of a new starting point

without value. Although his interest in the

graft is diferent from mine, it nevertheless points

to one important characteristic of the graft: its

being a site that contains motivation for an

action (Eisenman, 2004, 161).

6 Relationship between the incision (on paper) of

the graph and that (on reality) of the graft is

clearly recognized by Derrida: [...] graft and

graph (both from graphion: writing implement,

stylus) (Derrida, 1981, 202).

7 The question of translation poses also a very

interesting thread to follow; one that leads to

Benjamins concept of translation (as articulated

in The Task of Translator). Benjamins

remarks on the relationship between the

original text and the translated one as part

of some pure language seem to pose another way

of understanding the paradigm. Translation is

not a simple reproduction of (the content) of

some original into another language (so to say,

the translation in another media of an existing

paradigm), but the construction (or survival) of

this original as original. Hence, the paradigmatic

condition of the original is deconstructed and

called into question. This, of course, is

developed by Jacques Derrida, and also

expanded by Mark Wigley in relation with

architecture in his 1988 text The Translation of

Architecture, the Production of Babel.

8 Plato, Timaeus, 38b.

45

THEORY BY DESIGN

44

THEORY BY DESIGN CONFERENCE / OCTOBER 2012 ANTWERP

narratives and

philosophy

CASTILLO, J, Re-search Studio or Do Search Twice, It's All Right

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