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Architectural Theory Review

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Christian Norberg-Schulz's Phenomenological Project In Architecture

Elie Haddad Available online: 30 Mar 2010

To cite this article: Elie Haddad (2010): Christian Norberg-Schulz's Phenomenological Project In Architecture, Architectural Theory Review, 15:1, 88-101 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13264821003629279

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ELIE HADDAD CHRISTIAN NORBERG-SCHULZS PHENOMENOLOGICAL PROJECT IN ARCHITECTURE

This paper will examine the theoretical work of one of the major proponents of a phenomenological approach in architecture, the historian-theoretician Christian NorbergSchulz, examining the development of his ideas across 30 years. While Norberg-Schulz started out with Intentions in Architecture (1963), a work that was clearly inuenced by structuralist studies, he soon shifted to a phenomenological approach with Existence, Space and Architecture (1971), and then with Genius Loci (1980) and The Concept of Dwelling (1985). He attempted through this trilogy to lay down the foundations of a phenomenological interpretation of architecture, with an underlying agenda that espoused certain directions in contemporary architecture. This paper will examine the major writings of Christian Norberg-Schulz, critically evaluating his interpretation of phenomenology in architecture in its ambiguous relation to the project of modernity.

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ISSN 1326-4826 print/ISSN 1755-0475 online 2010 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/13264821003629279

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CHRISTIAN NORBERG-SCHULZS PHENOMENOLOGICAL PROJECT IN ARCHITECTURE

It is paradoxical that the phenomenological discourse appeared on the architectural scene after the decline of structuralism and semiotics, while in philosophy and the humanities, it was the decline of phenomenology in the 1960s that prompted the development of structuralism. This ambiguous situation may be explained by the time-lapse between the moment philosophical ideas are articulated and their translation into the architectural eld. Phenomenology owes its main thrust to Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. Husserl launched the phenomenological movement in philosophy with the intent of developing it into a method of precise philosophical investigationthat is, a comprehensive new science, but it was his student Heidegger who took it into another direction and turned it into one of the major philosophical movements of the twentieth century, inuencing all subsequent developments in philosophy from Sartre to Foucault and Derrida. Heidegger transformed Phenomenology into a means for the questioning of philosophical traditions, a radical dismantling to be followed by a reconstruction, with the intent of founding a new fundamental ontology that looks at the way in which the structures of Being are revealed through the structures of human existence.1 The main thrust of Heideggers philosophy was developed in his major work, Being and Time (1927), which constitutes the basis of his phenomenological approach. Yet, as scholars of Heidegger remark, his later works, especially the series of essays The Origin of the Work of Art (1935), Building, Dwelling, Thinking (1952) and The Question concerning Technology (1949),2 reected a turn in his orientation from the earlier Being and Time towards a mythopoeic approach that privileges a direct reection on the nature of elements, common

to poetic or artistic practice.3 It was this later Heidegger who would become inuential among a number of architectural theorists, namely Christian Norberg-Schulz, who was among the rst to attempt to translate this phenomenological approach in architecture. Christian Norberg-Schulzs rst theoretical work was very much inuenced by the structuralist tendencies of the 1960s,4 without being specically anchored to any single source or reference. Intentions in Architecture appeared in 1963 and constituted an ambitious project to develop an overarching system that would account for the various poles of architectural activity. The framework for this study included a combination of scientic ideas derived from sociology, psychology and semiotics. Already at that time, he attributed the condition of crisis in architecture to the failure of modern architecture to take account of some of the essential factors that give signicance to the built environment, primary among those the role of perception, in addition to the importance of history as a source of meanings.5 Norberg-Schulzs discussion of perception was largely inuenced by Gestalt psychology, to which were also added the socialization of perception and the process of schematization, that is the way in which perception leads to the construction of an understanding of the world, based on the pioneering studies of Jean Piaget in child psychology. From this, he proceeded to outline a theoretical framework which would include all the semiotic dimensions. This theory, inuenced to a large extent by Charles Morriss interpretation of semiotics, constituted a similar attempt to develop a comprehensive structurethat is, an architectural totality that would account for all the dimensions of architecture: the technical

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structure, environment, context, scale and ornament.6 It is worth noting that this work did not list any single reference to Heidegger in its bibliography, only mentioning him in a single footnote.7 A few years later, Norberg-Schulz published a work with a very indicative title, Existence, Space and Architecture (1971), followed by Genius Loci (1980) and The Concept of Dwelling (1985) which constitute his phenomenological trilogy in architecture. Existence, Space and Architecture marked a turning point in NorbergSchulzs theoretical project. While his rst work was based on a structuralist approach blending semiotics and Gestalt theories, this work betrayed a shift which would be translated later into a move towards a phenomenological approach. In the foreword, Norberg-Schulz announced, in fact, a new approach to the problem of architectural space, attempting to develop the idea that architectural space may be understood as a concretization of environmental schemata or images, which form a necessary part of mans general orientation or being in the world.8 This reference to being in the world is indicative of this new shift, supported by several quotations from Heidegger. Still, in this transitional work, Norberg-Schulz stood on a middle ground between the structuralist positions of Piaget, Arnheim and others, and the phenomenological position represented by Heidegger and Bollnow.9 This attempt at reconciling structuralism with phenomenology may also be traced in his subsequent works and never seemed to pose any problems for Norberg-Schulz. The major concept in Existence, Space and Architecture is space. The discussion of space was motivated by what the author perceived as a reductive reading of that concept, rst

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given currency by Giedion and later used by others, particularly Bruno Zevi.10 NorbergSchulz qualied space as existential space, structured into schemata and centres, directions, paths, and domains; concepts that he illustrated by concrete examples derived from multiple sources, from Mircea Eliade to Otto Bollnow, Gaston Bachelard, Claude LeviStrauss and Kevin Lynch. The centre, for instance, was illustrated by the image drawn from Eliades discussion on mythology, a mythical origin traversed by a diagram of the axis mundi, which represents a connection between the different cosmic realms.11 Similarly, the path was related to the idea of departure and return home, and the division into the inner and outer domains of existence, as explained by Bollnow. NorbergSchulz also introduced a new concept that would be expanded later, that of genius loci, literally the spirit of a place.12 He identied four levels of existential space: geography and landscape, urban level, the house and the thing. In discussing the house, Norberg-Schulz referred to Heideggers essay on dwelling and the etymological roots of building which go back to dwelling, stressing the role of the house as the central place of human existence: The House, therefore, remains the central place of human existence, the place where the child learns to understand his being in the world, and the place from which man departs and to which he returns.13 The last chapter discussed the concept of architectural space which he dened as a concretization of existential space, illustrated by a historical survey of various architectural works, from villages and towns to specic architectural artefacts, subjected to a classication in terms of the spatial concepts of centre,

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path and domain, as well as a qualitative description in terms of their phenomenological attributes. Existential space was thus dened as a qualitative space, manifest in the monumental architecture of the Parthenon as well as that of the medieval towns, in the dynamic architecture of Borromini as well as in that of the Renaissance, in the work of Le Corbusier, La Tourette (Fig. 1) being a favoured example, as well as in Louis Kahns and Paolo Portoghesis works.

decient urban environments. In this respect, he joined Venturi, Jacobs, and Rossi in criticizing Modern Architecture for its shortcomings, especially at the level of the urban environment. As in the case of Venturi, but using a different approach, Norberg-Schulz returned to history in its wider sense to give comparative examples of buildings, towns and landscapes as examples that naturally incorporate these qualities of existential space, creating meaningful and wholistic environments. Norberg-Schulz reiterated the necessary recognition and understanding of the different levels of architectural space that form a structured totality which corresponds to the structure of existential space.14 This understanding of existential space, ignored by orthodox modernism reappeared, according to him, in the work of Louis Kahn, Robert

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For Norberg-Schulz, there exist multiple variations to the concept of architectural space, but its essential aspects had been obliterated by some modern works, especially at the level of urbanism. There, the gural quality of the street and its variations, the centrality of the town square and its existential role have all been ignored by architects, which led to

Figure 1. La Tourette. Photo: courtesy of David Rifkind.

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Figure 2. Vitorchiano. Photo: Author.

Venturi and Paolo Portoghesi. Portoghesi was singled out for his supposed mastery through the application of geometry of the interaction between different levels of space, resulting in a balanced relation between the building and its environment. Norberg-Schulz concluded with a quote from Heidegger: Mortals dwell in as much as they save the earth, as a conrmation of the necessity of re-appropriating the elements of existential space into the foundation of architecture.15

previous studies, this one was more explicitly concerned with the interpretation of phenomenology in architecture as its subtitle indicated, and as clearly stated in the introduction that acknowledged the debt to Heideggers ideas, particularly his essays gathered in Poetry, Language, Thought.17 The book cover was quite indicative as well; in clear contrast to the plain white cover of his rst book, it featured a panoramic photograph of the medieval Italian hill town of Vitorchiano, in the region of Latium (Fig. 2). In this photographic essay on architecture, with its illustrations ranging from the macroscopic scale of landscapes to the microscopic scale of architectural details, Norberg-Schulz proposed to elaborate the constituting elements of a phenomenology of place, using as a keynote the poem of Georg Trakl, A Winter Evening, quoted in one of Heideggers essays. The main lesson of this poem, as explained by the author, is the importance of concrete images that constitute our experiences, represented by poets, architects and artists. The phenomenological challenge lies therefore in reviving

Genius Loci Norberg-Schulz introduced his major opus, Genius Loci,16 as a sequel to his previous two works in architectural theory, despite the radically different direction that this work took in relation to the rst. Genius Loci was perhaps the most inuential of Norberg-Schulzs writings, as it came out at a time when questions of meaning, history, and mythology assumed greater importance in architectural discourse, in a post-modernist climate that gave back credibility to these themes. And unlike his

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this poetic dimension of things and in reestablishing the lost connection between the various elements that constitute our world. Specically, Norberg-Schulz stressed the connection between the man-made world and the natural world, historically evident in various places and environments from around the world. This relationship is established through a three-point process of visualization, complementation, and symbolization.18 This process was attributed to Heideggers concept of gathering. Its last phase, symbolization, plays a more crucial role in the concretization of meaning in a place, and in the realization of the concept of gathering. Norberg-Schulzs main thesis rested therefore on the marriage of these two concepts, Heideggers concept of gathering and the old Roman concept of genius loci: The existential purpose of building (architecture) is therefore to make a site become a place, that is, to uncover the meanings potentially present in the given environment. Genius Loci is a Roman concept. According to ancient Roman belief every independent being has its genius, its guardian spirit. This spirit gives life to people and places, accompanies them from birth to death, and determines their character or essence. Even the gods had their genius, a fact which illustrates the fundamental nature of the concept.19 In what amounts to a mixing of mythology with philosophy, Norberg-Schulz proceeded to develop his theory, supported by a litany of well chosen photographs that depict various conditions and sites, from the historic towns of Europe to the landscapes of Tuscany, Switzerland, Finland and Sudan, and from the

characteristic images of people walking in the Nordic winter snow to barefoot children posing in their desert village in Sudan. This photo-historiography, as pointedly analysed by Jorge Otero-Pailos,20 also encompassed select examples of historical periods from Greek to Baroque and Modern Architecture. The reference to Greek examples, such as the iconic Tholos and Theatre of Delphi was somewhat legitimized and necessitated by the appeal to the concept of genius loci, with its mythological aspects that invoke the specic appropriations of different places by specic gods, a theme that also brings back Heidegger, specically his essay on The Origin of the Work of Art.21 As for landscapes, NorbergSchulz again drew on Heidegger in calling for a phenomenology of natural place which recalls the different topological contexts and reexamines their etymologies in the hope of uncovering their original meanings: Whereas valleys and basins have a macro or medium scale, a ravine (cleft, gorge) is distinguished by a forbidding narrowness. It has the quality of an under-world which gives access to the inside of the earth. In a ravine we feel caught or trapped, and the etymology of the word in fact leads us back to rapere, that is to seize.22 Norberg-Schulzs personal religious afnities played a signicant role in the articulation of his ideas. Thus, it is not only landscape in general that stimulates a phenomenological understanding of the world, but specic sanctuaries within the landscape that create a favourable condition for intimate dwelling. These sub-places, such as the Carceri of St Francis near Assisi or the Sacro Speco of St Benedict near Subiaco, offer archetypal retreats where man may still experience the presence of the original forces of the earth.23

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Yet what is most surprising in this interpretation of the environment was Norberg-Schulzs reductive categorization of landscapes into three basic types: Romantic (the Nordic region being its main illustration), Cosmic (dened as an environment that makes an absolute and eternal order manifest, represented best by the innite desert), and Classical (varied yet orderly, an example of which is the Greek landscape). Yet these landscapes do not simply present abstract topological conditions; they appear intimately connected to certain social or cultural characteristics, which take the form of historically determined judgments. Thus, the Romantic landscape encourages an intimate relation with the earth where dwelling takes the form of a refuge in the forest, while the desert seems to act as a natural framework for the unifying message proclaimed by religions like Islam, and the Classical landscape appears like an in-between condition, a condition of equilibrium that generates a meaningful order, and fosters a human fellowship where the individual is neither absorbed by the totality (the cosmic order) nor forced to seek his private hiding place (the romantic world). This last case offers, accordingly, the best possibility for a true gatheringfor dwelling in the Heideggerian sense.24 These three types of landscape constitute archetypes, which do not always present themselves in the pure form of the examples mentioned, and sometimes lead to complex landscapes, according to the authorthat is, composite landscapes such as Naples or Venice, or Brandenburg where extension is squeezed in between a sandy moor and a low, grey sky, creating a landscape which seems saturated by the monotonous, cheerless rhythm of marching soldiers.25 The same reductive approach that was followed to categorize the various landscapes

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was also used to categorize man-made place, meaning architecture, into Romantic architecture, Cosmic architecture and Classical architecture. While Classical architecture offers itself more easily to categorization, as it is historically recognized, it is interesting to note the selective reading of the author regarding the other categories, which proceeds from the same geographical determination applied to landscape. Thus, Romantic architecture does not indicate a specic style or period, but an architecture distinguished by multiplicity and variety, irrational and subjective, phantastic and mysterious but also intimate and idyllic.26 This strange denition brings together disparate examples from the medieval towns of Germany to the vernacular architecture of Norway, even extending to the work of Guimard and Aalto in our times. In the same vein, cosmic architecture applies to works characterized by uniformity and absolute order and supposedly nds its best manifestation in Islamic architecture.27 The concluding chapters were dedicated to a selective study of three settlements that best illustrate these three categories, a study which, in reality, translates into something in between a travel guide and an architectural survey of these three cities: Prague, Khartoum and Rome. While Prague exudes a romantic sense of mystery conrmed by the novels of Kafka and supported by its rich architectural heritage, the cosmic Khartoum offers the opposite feeling of an innite landscape dened by the movement of the sun and the Nile River. And while Rome was probably selected to illustrate the third case, upon closer scrutiny its genius loci appears to escape any strict denition, and thus emerges as a complex case which contains everything.

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Norberg-Schulz concluded by a discussion of the loss of place in the contemporary world. This is, in essence, the second thesis of the book, and presents the underlying project of Norberg-Schulz, which is similar to that of other theorists who were preoccupied by the disintegrating urban condition around the world. Here Norberg-Schulz presented a pragmatic assessment of the problem, from the destruction of the urban fabric to the loss of character and place. Yet once again, his conciliatory approach left the issue unresolved, as he did not take any rm stand regarding it. While the illustrations accompanying this part showed the Federal Center in Chicago by Mies van der Rohe and the Green City by Le Corbusier as examples of this decient urbanism, the text reads more like an apology for the Modern Movement. The author saw this movement, in fact, as an attempt to give form to a new spirit, which reects a new genius loci, with the aim of helping people regain a true and meaningful existence, even going as far as suggesting that some of its early manifestations such as Neue Sachlichkeit, effectively meant a return back to things.28 Accordingly, this return to things may be observed in some of the masterpieces of modern architecture, such as the Villa Savoye and the Haus Tugendhat which, despite their lack of substance and presence, satisfy modern mans search for freedom and identity. It is only when moving to the urban dimension that modern architecture fails to gather and to create signicant environments.29 In what amounts, then, to a conrmation of the theses of his teacher Giedion, NorbergSchulz concluded that the underlying basis of the Modern Movement was profoundly meaningful and that only at the hands of some imitators the movement had lost its objectives. These objectives were again being rediscovered in this second phase which

proposes to give buildings and places individuality, with regard to space and character, as manifested in the works of Aalto, the late works of Le Corbusier, and most signicantly in the work of Kahn whose poetic descriptions come close to Heideggers.30 A third generation of architects, composed of Utzon, Pietila, Stirling and Boll, appeared to him on the right path towards an architecture that concretizes this recovery of place.31

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The Concept of Dwelling The Concept of Dwelling constituted the third part of Norberg-Schulzs phenomenological trilogy, still supported by a framework of semiotic, behaviorist and other studies.32 In this work, Norberg-Schulz directly addressed the issue of dwelling, a concept that was singled out by Heideggers famous essay. Here, surprisingly, the subtitle indicated a movement towards gurative architecture.33 In the foreword, the author announced the basic premise of the book as the rediscovery of dwelling in its comprehensive totality, leading towards a nal overcoming of functionalism and a return to gurative architecture.34 The keynote to this work is given by the Norwegian story of Knut, a youngster who recognizes, through a sort of spiritual revelation, his presence in the forest as a fundamental aspect of his existence. Two illustrations, a Norwegian forest and a farmhouse, accompany this introduction, further evoking this idea of dwelling as a return to the sources.35 The Concept of Dwelling was organized into a structured study that proceeded from the general outline to the development of the concept, and again from the macro level of the settlement to that of the individual house, passing by the intermediary modes

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of dwelling, urban space and institution. These four basic modes of dwelling are organized through two aspects: identication and orientation. Mingled in the text are various quotations from Heidegger, but also from Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, to give a phenomenological avour to an otherwise structuralist work that revives the same concepts derived from Gestalt psychology, from Kevin Lynch, in addition to references to the work of Mircea Eliade on mythology. In focusing his attention on laying down the foundations of an architectural language, Norberg-Schulz in fact returned to the earlier phase of his Intentions in Architecture, coloured by his more recent discovery of phenomenology. In this work, the author re-examined the four categories of dwelling under the structuralist template of morphology, topology and typology, which constituted the organizing structure that was applied onto the dimension of being: Mans being-in-the-world is structured, and the structure is kept and visualized by means of architecture.36 And further: The meaning of a work of architecture therefore consists in its gathering the world in a general typical sense, in a local particular sense, in a temporal historical sense, and, nally, as something, that is as the gural manifestation of a mode of dwelling between earth and sky.37 Once again, the selection of particular examples of dwelling at the level of the individual house is quite revealing of the authors selective interpretation. The rst example mentioned was the Hill House by Mackintosh, lauded for its fullment of the task of dwelling: to reveal the world, not as

essence but as presence, that is as material and colour, topography and vegetation, seasons, weather and light.38 After the Hill House, the author turned to vernacular architecture, particularly to the types of dwelling common in northern European countries, which were mentioned by Heidegger (Fig. 3). In addition to these, Gesellius, Lindgren and Saarinens Hvittrask complex (Fig. 4), Behrens house in Darmstadt, Hoffmanns Palais Stoclet and Wrights prairie houses, which share little in common, were seen as good examples of this interpretation of dwelling. Yet this time, the critique of the modern house was more explicit, and the author recognized its failure to arrive at a satisfactory solution to the problem of dwelling, for it lacked the gural quality; it did not look like a house. Hence, what seems to be the problem is simply the inability of the modern house to look like a house, and not, as Heidegger had alluded to, the inability of modern man to dwell. Norberg-Schulz expressed here the hope that the revival of this gural quality, as evident in many post-modern projects, will again make dwelling possible.39 Despite a cautionary remark against the fall into eclecticism, the book ends on an optimistic note that this recovery of the gural quality would lead to a recovery of dwelling, in which phenomenology would play a major role as the catalyst for the rediscovery of the poetic dimension in architecture.40

Conclusion Despite its wide dissemination in architectural circles during the 1980s, Norberg-Schulzs phenomenological interpretation received relatively little critical overview, apart from the usual book reviews, most of which were

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Figure 3. Traditional House in southern Germany. Photo: Author.

Figure 4. Hvittrask. Photo: Author.

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generally positive.41 The strongest attack against this interpretation of phenomenology came indirectly from Massimo Cacciari, who criticized the nave interpretations of Heideggers concept of dwelling.42 Cacciari, in clear opposition to Norberg-Schulz, read in Heideggers essay a recognition of the impossibility of dwelling, rather than a desire for a nostalgic return to pre-modern conditions of dwelling: No nostalgia, then, in Heideggerbut rather the contrary. He radicalizes the discourse supporting any possible nostalgic attitude, lays bare its logic, pitilessly emphasizes its insurmountable distance from the actual condition.43 The difculty of interpreting Heideggers later writings has been raised by some critics. Hilde Heynen, for instance, saw in these different interpretations of Heidegger an opposition between two ideological positions, utopiannostalgic and critical-radical, represented respectively by Norberg-Schulz and Cacciari. In this opposition, Heynen recognized the deciencies of both positions, the rst for its simplistic reduction of the problematic to a question of architectural form, the second for its assimilation of the condition of anxiety as a generative principle.44 It is precisely this aspect that constitutes the weakest point in Norberg-Schulzs theoretical proposition: his desire to translate phenomenological discourse into a tool for the generation of architectural forms that recreate a semblance of meaningful environments. In his interpretation of Heidegger, Norberg-Schulz did not go beyond the surface, satisfying himself with the later works of Heidegger, without attempting to answer some of the

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problematic issues raised by its critics. Furthermore, phenomenology, in Norberg-Schulzs understanding, was continuously supported by a structuralist framework, which puts into question the very possibility of overcoming the duality of mind/body as phenomenologists claim, using this structuralist framework as a pretext for one of two possibilities: a return to vernacular architecture as an archetype for an idealized dwelling on the one hand, or an espousal of a gurative post-modernist architecture as a second option. Even in his last publication, Norberg-Schulz did not propose anything beyond a synthesis of these various concepts from structuralism to phenomenology into yet another work that attempts to give a comprehensive account of architecture from all periods and regions.45 Heideggers later reections on art and architectureand the mythopoeic turn that he tookmay also be partly responsible for this particular interpretation of phenomenology, which was translated by some as a nostalgic return to an authentic dwelling and, consequently, as a retreat to certain styles or periods. The later developments in architecture and the various appropriations of the gurative have shown that the crisis of the object, of which Tafuri had spoken, cannot be simply resolved by such articial measures. It is questionable whether other phenomenological interpretations would be more successful in resolving the problematic condition of contemporary architecture, without addressing the current conditions of its production. A phenomenological approach, in the real sense of the term, cannot be reduced to a formal manipulation of specic parameters such as tactility or vision.46 And despite the occasional masterpieces which can bring forth intense spatial experiences that distinguishes them

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from ordinary productions, such as the work of Peter Zumthor, it is questionable whether it is possible to raise architecture as a whole to this level of aesthetic resolution, within a Notes
1. Dermot Moran, Introduction to Phenomenology, London/ NY: Routledge, 2000, ch. 6. 2. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, Harper, 2008; The Origin of the Work of Art and Building Dwelling Thinking are included in the collection of essays published as Poetry, Language, Thought, Harper, 2001; The Question Concerning Technology in The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays, Harper: 1982. 3. Moran, Introduction to Phenomenology, p. 209. 4. Structuralism largely developed out of linguistic studies, the branch of knowledge concerned with the study of language itself. Initially, the main source of inuence was the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, who left no work of his own, other than the collected notes published by his students after his death, as the General Course on Linguistics, a work that was rst translated to English in 1959. Saussure initiated a major change in the study of language, insisting on a synchronic approach rather than the usual diachronic approach by looking at the structure of the language and its rules of operation. He also posited that language is a con-

practice that continues to separate architecture from its social and political dimensions, which was the historic condition for the generation of meaningful environments.47

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structed system, and not naturally inherited or metaphysically inspired, thus opening the way for a deeper probe into the very foundations of this system, which directly affects the way we construct our reality and the world. Although in his collection of notes, the term structure was never used by Saussure, but rather system, later readers of Saussure came up with this terminology which became a standard bearer for other studies, and rst among those, the work of Claude Levi-Strauss in anthropology. For more on this see Francois Dosse, Histoire du Structuralisme, Vol. 1, Paris: La Decouverte, 1991; and John Sturrock, Structuralism, London: Blackwell, 2003. 5. Christian Norberg-Schulz, Intentions in Architecture, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1965, pp. 2122. 6. Norberg-Schulz, Intentions in Architecture, pp. 101102. 7. Peter Collins wrote a sharp critique of this early work of Norberg-Schulz, warning against the dangers of assimilating architecture within overwhelming theories of philosophical or linguistic nature. See his book review of Intentions in Architecture in the Journal

of Architectural Education, 21, 3, 1967: 810. 8. Christian Norberg-Schulz, Existence, Space and Architecture, NY: Praeger, 1971, p. 7. 9. Otto F. Bollnow, author of Mensch und Raum, 1963 as well as a number of works on German existential philosophy and hermeneutics, among others. 10. Norberg-Schulz, Existence, Space and Architecture, p. 12. 11. Norberg-Schulz, Existence, Space and Architecture, p. 21. 12. Norberg-Schulz, Existence, Space and Architecture, p. 27. 13. Norberg-Schulz, Existence, Space and Architecture, p. 31. 14. Norberg-Schulz, Existence, Space and Architecture, p. 96. 15. Norberg-Schulz, Existence, Space and Architecture, p. 114. 16. Christian Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture, New York: Rizzoli, 1980. The book was rst published in Italian as Genius Loci-paesaggio, ambiente, architettura by Electa in 1979. It is interesting to note here that the Italian subtitle differs from the one chosen

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for the English edition and does not include the reference to Phenomenology. 17. Martin Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought, New York: Harper & Row, 1971. 18. Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci, p. 17. 19. Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci, p. 18. 20. For a critique of NorbergSchulzs visual approach, see Jorge Otero-Pailos, Photo[historio]graphy: Christian Norberg-Schulzs Demotion of Textual History, Journal of Society of Architectural Historians, 66, 2, 2007: 220241. OteroPailos argues that the author created a new type of history book, one which relies on images as an alternate narrative which was paradoxically antihistorical, in that it avoided critical reection by concealing its own historical construction. 21. In this text, Heidegger referred to the Greek temple as a major example of the signicance and role of a work of art. NorbergSchulz dedicated one of his essays to discuss this text by Heidegger, published as Christian NorberSchulz, Heideggers Thinking on Architecture, Perspecta, 20, 1983: 6180. 22. Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci, p. 37. 23. Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci, p. 40. 24. Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci, p. 46.

25. Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci, p. 47. 26. Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci, pp. 6869. 27. Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci, pp. 7173. 28. Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci, pp. 191192. 29. Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci, pp. 194195. 30. Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci, pp. 195198. 31. Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci, pp. 198200. 32. This work did not conclude the series on this topic, as the author published another work, titled Architecture: Presence, Language and Place, which reiterated the same themes discussed in the previous books. 33. Christian Norberg-Schulz, The Concept of Dwelling: On the Way to Figurative Architecture, New York: Rizzoli, 1985. Again, the original publication came out rst in Italian, under Electa, one year prior. 34. In another essay titled On the Way to Figurative Architecture, Norberg-Schulz sheds further light on his interpretation of the gurative, using this concept to support recent post-modernist projects by Venturi, Graves and Botta, among others. See Christian Norberg-Schulz, On the Way to Figurative Architecture, in Norberg-Schulz, Architecture: Meaning and Place, New York: Electa/ Rizzoli, 1988, pp. 233245.

35. Norberg-Schulz, Concept of Dwelling, pp. 912. 36. Norberg-Schulz, Concept of Dwelling, p. 29. 37. Norberg-Schulz, Concept of Dwelling, p. 30. 38. Norberg-Schulz, Concept of Dwelling, p. 89. 39. Norberg-Schulz, Concept of Dwelling, p. 110. Two drawings were used to illustrate the gural quality: the rst a drawing by Louis Kahn, the second by Michael Graves, titled On the Way to Figurative Architecture, pp. 132, 134. 40. Norberg-Schulz, Concept of Dwelling, p. 135. 41. See for instance: Harris Forusz, Review of Genius Loci, Journal of Architectural Education, 34, 3, 1981: 32; one of the critical reviews of Norberg-Schulz is by Linda Krause, Review of Architecture: Meaning and Place, The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 50, 2, 1991: 197199. Also, a critical yet cursory discussion of NorbergSchulzs concept of dwelling can be found in David Leatherbarrow, Roots of Architectural Invention, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. 42. Massimo Cacciari, Eupalinos or Architecture, Oppositions, 21, 1980: 106 116. This article was written as a review of Tafuri & Dal Cos Architettura contemporanea, for the journal Oppositions. Architettura contemporanea appeared in 1976, and was translated

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as Modern Architecture in 1979. Cacciaris essay in Oppositions coincided with Norberg-Schulzs original publication of Genius Loci in Italian. 43. Cacciari, Eupalinos or Architecture, p. 107. 44. Hilde Heynen, Architecture and Modernity, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999. 45. Christian Norberg-Schulz, Architecture: Presence, Language, Place, Milan: Skira, 2000.

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46. This appears to be the case for instance of Steven Holl who, despite the stimulating experiences that his architecture creates, can not claim to resolve the contradictions born out of operating within a certain economic mode that determines a priori the conditions for experiencing and using these buildings. This reduction of phenomenology to a sensory or embodied experience of space is advocated for instance by Fred Rush in his book On Architecture, New York: Routledge, 2009.

47. Botond Bognar articulated a similar position in his essay Toward an Architecture of Critical Inquiry, Journal of Architectural Education, 43, 1, 1989: 1334 in which he came to the conclusion that the recent phenomenological approaches in architecture are legitimate in insisting on a meaningful dimension, yet they lack the strategies for critically evaluating the given social reality which determines the realms of intentionality and intersubjectivity (p. 22).

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