the spacing of the grid. But this point of view does not see; it is blind to what happens in
the folie. For if we consider it absolutely, abstracted from the ensemble and in itself (it is
also destined to abstract, distract or subtract itself), the point is not a point anymore; it no
longer has the atomic indivisibility that is bestowed on the geometrical point. Opened
inside to a void that gives play to the pieces, it constructs/deconstructs itself like a cube
given over to formal combination. The articulated pieces separate, compose and
recompose. By articulating pieces that are more than pieces—pieces of a game, theatre
pieces, pieces of an a-partment [Fr. piéce, room] at once places and spaces of
movement—the dis-joint forms that are destined for events: in order for them to take
place.
PART SIXTEEN
For it was necessary to speak of promise and pledge, of promise as affirmation, the
promise that provides the privileged example of a performative writing. More than an
example: the very condition of such writing. Without accepting what would be retained
as presuppositions by theories of performative language and speech acts—relayed here
by an architectural pragmatics (for example, the value of presence, of the maintenant as
present)—and without being able to discuss it here, let us focus on this single trait: the
provocation of the event I speak of (‘I promise’, for example), that I describe or trace; the
event that I make happen or let happen by marking it. The mark or trait must be
emphasized so as to remove this performativity from the hegemony of speech and of
what is called human speech. The performative mark spaces: is the event of spacing. The
red points space, maintaining architecture in the dissociation of spacing. But this
maintenant does not only maintain a past and a tradition; it does not ensure a synthesis. It
maintains the interruption, in other words, the relation to the other as such. To the other
in the magnetic field of attraction, of the ‘common denominator’ or ‘hearth’ to other
points of rupture as well, but first of all to the Other: the one through whom the promised
event will happen or will not. For he is called, only called to countersign the pledge
[gage], the engagement or the wager. This Other never presents itself; he is not present,
maintenant. He can be represented by what is too quickly referred to as Power, the
politico-economic decision-makers, users, representatives of domains, of cultural
domination, and here, in particular, of a philosophy of architecture. This other will be
anyone, not yet [point encore] a subject, ego or conscience and not a man [point
l’homme]; anyone who comes and answers to the promise, who first answers for the
promise, the to-come of an event which would maintain spacing, the maintenant in
dissociation, the relation to the other as such. Not the hand being held [main tenue] but
the hand outstretched [main tendue] above the abyss.
PART SEVENTEEN
Overlaid by the entire history of architecture and laid open to the hazards of a future that
cannot be anticipated, this other architecture, this architecture of the other is nothing that
exists. It is not a present, the memory of a past present, the purchase or pre-
comprehension of a future present. It presents neither a constative theory nor a politics
nor an ethics of architecture. Not even a narrative, although it opens this space to all
Rethinking Architecture 316