The Primacy of Perplexion. Working Architecture through a Distracted Order of Experience. Part II

Abstract

The first part of this article was published in NA 1995:1 and discusses the notion of "distracted perception" as an adequate way of describing the present condition of architectural experience. The argument is drawn from a reading of texts by Walter Benjamin, Martin Heidegger and Gianni Vattimo, in which the work of art, and in this text architecture, is given the specific role of penetrating this "veil of distraction" to make meaningful communication possible. An analysis of the fictional space in Virginia Woolf's novel Jacob's Room indicates the role of the imagination in understanding and interpreting the physical traces of an absent subject. In this second part the focal point is shifted to the creation of architectural space today, keeping in mind the established interdependence and difference between selves and realities, imagined inhabitants and architectural spaces.