1995 Oudenburg
Three elements of thought
for this project of a few dwellings
for a small competition in Oudenburg:
The underlying, the unfinished, the obliqueness.
*
The underlying.
The sketches show that
that the design of the project seems to be inscribed under
the inconsistent urbanism without architecture
of small pavilions,
a sort of gregarious particularism at the orders of the ‘market’,
that fill the Flanders countryside.
This project therefore seems to be underlying.
It is from another time.
Another underlying time.
Not an older time.
It is clearly not a reactionary project.
Not a future time.
It is not a prophetic project.
This project is
of a time alien
to this urbanism of gregarious particularisms.
It is of the present time.
But present time invaded and occupied
miserably, concretely and shamelessly occupied
by the inconsistency of these miserable 'architectures' of particularisms,
without individualism,
at the orders of the market,
i.e. reduced
to economic objects
decorated with an aesthetic of taste.
Reduced to the non-presence of inconsistency.
This project is of the present time...
The time that is no longer
of Man or humanism
with their wishful thinking of sufficiency.
But is the time of what
thought and science
indicate to be
the time of the 'subject’
not central to itself,
which does not exist a priori in itself
but results from a 'crossing of others'.
Infinite 'crossing of others’…
Always in-finite.
Always insufficient.
Subject
whose matter is
this ‘crossing of others’
insufficient and labile
and for which then is indispensable
an architecture of the stance of this matter.
An architecture of matter.
An architecture of dis-position of this matter
for the 'subject'.
Not for him as 'sufficient'
but for him as 'labile’
but for him as insufficient, in-finite,
but for him infinite in welcoming life’s events
but for him in stance from the 'crossroads of others'.
from which an authenticity can then be established
which is his dignity.
Through an architecture that presents him with an arkhe - stance
by holding together its matter.
An architecture of dis-position of matter
and not an architecture of com-position of sufficient figures
as is the field of miserable particularisms
of arrogant object pavilions
arrogantly claiming to be sufficient.
And this is what we can see ....
A project that holds together.
A project that holds together different dwellings
in a law of common aggregation of its material.
and not an architecture composed as an object<<<<><<<<<>
and not an architecture composed of objects.
It is an architecture that does not have an object
It proposes a law of aggregation of its matter.
Infinite and oblique.
*
Infinite...
You can see it immediately in the sketches...
This architecture could be extended to infinity.
You can see it from many sides...
Upwards and to the right
in the sketches and drawings.
And it's a very small project... a few dozen metres...
and in its measure, very small.
It is only a small demultiplication.
A demultiplication that could quickly turn into a re-petition
i.e. variation....
but a re-petition that would not compromise
on 'the same space for all’
neither in its size, nor in its structure.
*
Oblicity
And the structure of this space is oblique
both locally and as a whole....
It is clear,
the project is oblique.
Oblique and not straight.
Oblique means precisely... 'going towards the other'.
the unknown other... unfinished
and not
to go towards an extension of oneself
or
or 'making with what is already there'
as the right does.
The right and the right wing, in its sufficiency,
goes towards an extension of itself.
The oblique,
in its insufficiency,
in its infinite in-finity,
goes towards the other.
Other... necessary for its stance or for its matter.
This oblicity,
where it is instituted,
opens up, moreover
a large inaugural place for the project
which expands towards
a virtual infinity, i.e. the Real,
to indicate well
what the subject needs most:
this infinity that offers
the indispensable opening to the subject towards the other
unlike the closed finite of Humanism.