Philosophy “/” Architecture: Against l’informe

Abstract

From the linguistic aspect, “/” does not represent the concept for “both.” Instead, it refers to the field of alternatives between “two;” therefore, it excludes absolute conjunction. Concerning the process of design of the architectural object, I will try to explain the successive morphogeneses of the architectural form and the formless through which we generate a specific resistance of architecture to philosophy and vice versa. The architectural object is immanent to the formless in order to stop time, that is, its own finitude (end). Thus, the formless refers to what negates form as the principle of stable order and harmonious continuity and opposes form in its material becoming. This opposition to the own materialization of the object represents a metaphor for the desire for aesthetics that includes a non-representational (philosophical) dimension. The formless introduces a conceptual dimension to architecture, which is why I associate formless with the process of the creation of an object at the same time as its disappearance. In addition, according to Didi-Huberman, formlessness is not a rejection of form but precisely the possibility of reaching figuration. When the form dissolves into the formless and the formless changes into the form, the architectural concept becomes “burdened” by its own negativity, the desire for a non-substantial dynamic l’informe, and also the desire for figures that contain something non-imaginable. In this regard, l’informe methodologically belongs to philosophy because it deconstructs the materiality of the architectural object. However, paradoxically, it can also serve as a design of architectural figures. These states of the impossibility of absolute conjunction of philosophy and architecture create contingencies for new architectural concepts.