143would be recaptured in dwelling. Architectural culture has adopted this ideal from the
work of Tönnies and Spengler, among others. In the work of these authors a rupture
is discerned between the old social form of the Gemeinschaftand the new reality of
the Gesellschaft. The Gemeinschaftis based on an organic link between people and
their environment, on continuity and cohesion. The Gemeinschaftis the natural en-
vironment for Kulturand Bildung, both of which rely on a harmonious relationship be-
tween different domains of life (Bildungespecially refers to those aspects of
education that instill moral and social values). Dwelling has everything to do with tak-
ing root and with a feeling of oneness. The Gesellschaft, the social form that prevails
in the metropolis, is based on difference and on rootlessness. Technological civiliza-
tion can develop in the metropolis, but it is cut off from any possibility of cultural co-
hesion. The separating out of the different areas of life is the hallmark of the
metropolis. Dwelling, therefore, also assumes another form there. No longer is the
sense of oneness with a place or a social group the decisive factor. Dwelling in the
metropolis has more to do with finding one’s own place and with the negation of
every organic connection with a community.
Dal Co considers that the concept of dwelling that most fully corresponds with
life in the metropolis is to be found in the work of Levinas: “By understanding resi-
dence as an act foreign to taking root, Levinas indirectly confirms the negation of the
organic value of the community environment as an expression of the telluric bond,
while emphasizing that the essential character of the home lies with the wandering
that makes dwelling possible.”^174 In Levinas’s work one encounters a demystified
notion of dwelling, one that is based on a notion of extraterritoriality: a person
chooses a house, dwelling means taking up residence somewhere; it does not orig-
inate in a preexisting link with a place or a community, but consists of an act of choos-
ing. In this concept house and place are radically different. The house is the base
from which the discovery and conquest of one’s surroundings can take place. The
house does not form any part of a harmonious relationship; nor is it part of a pacifi-
cation process that brings about a reconciliation between people and their environ-
ment. On the contrary, the house is a border; it delineates a linguistic disharmony.
Dwelling is the activity that produces this difference.
Dal Co sees a similar concept of dwelling in Heidegger’s “Building, Dwelling,
Thinking,” which also takes the notion of an overthrow of the connection between
place and dwelling as its point of departure. In the case of Heidegger, dwelling is not
a harmonious expression of a relationship to a place that can be assumed in advance;
on the contrary, it is that which makes a place a place. Dwelling is therefore a process
of establishing meaning. Dal Co refers explicitly to Cacciari’s interpretation in “Eu-
palinos or Architecture,” in which Cacciari states that there is an analogy between
dwelling and poie ̄sis—dwelling is an act of “waiting listening.”^175 Dwelling confronts
one with the destiny of “unconcealment” and emphasizes how far humanity has
come from a time when unity and harmony were still possible. In dwelling, the
poverty of human beings is made manifest.142