Rethinking Architecture| A reader in cultural theory

(Axel Boer) #1

labyrinth of this coral, the truth is the non-truth, the errance of one of those ‘errors’ which
belong to the title of another labyrinth, another palimpsest, another ‘quarry’. I have been
speaking about this other for some time now without naming it directly. I speak of
Romeo and Juliet, an entire story of names and contretemps about which I have also
written elsewhere;^3 here, I speak of Eisenman’s Romeo and Juliet, Moving Arrows, Eros
and Other Errors. Have I not then lied? Have I not allegorically been speaking all this
while about something other than that which you believed? Yes and no. The lie is without
contrary, both absolute and null. It does not mislead in error, but in those ‘moving errors’
whose erring is at once finite and infinite, random and programmed. For this lie without
contrary, there is no liar to be found. What remains ‘is’ the unfindable, something
entirely different from a signatory, conscious and assured of its mastery, entirely different
from a subject; rather an infinite series of subjectiles and countersignatories, you among
them, ready to take, to pay or miss the pleasure given by the passing of Eros. Liar or lyre,
this is the royal name, for the moment, one of the best names, by which to signify, that is,
the homonym and the pseudonym, the multiple voice of this secret signatory, the
encrypted title of Choral Work. But if I say that we owe this to language more than to
Peter Eisenman, you will ask me, ‘which language?’ There are so many. Do you mean
the meeting of languages? An architecture which is at least tri- or quadrilingual, of
polyglot stones or metals?
But if I tell you that we owe this chance to Peter Eisenman, whose own name, as you
know, embodies both stone and metal, will you believe me? Nevertheless, I tell you the
truth. It is the truth of this man of iron, determined to break with the anthropomorphic
scale, with ‘man the measure of all things’: he writes such good books! I swear it to you!
This is of course what all the liars say; they would not be lying if they did not say that
they were telling the truth.
I see that you do not believe me; let us explain things in another way. What is it that I
hoped to have shown, about the subject of the Choral Work, all the while proposing with
the other hand an autobiographical description of my meeting with Peter Eisenman, in all
of the languages which are at work within him? All of this in truth refers to two other
works, the Fin d’Ou T Hou S and Moving Arrows, Eros, and Other Errors. That which
Jeffrey Kipnis correctly analysed as ‘the endless play of readings’^4 is equally valuable for
these three works. Each of the three is at the same time bigger and smaller than the series,
which no doubt also includes the project for Venice (Cannaregio) and several others. And
I had to find an economic way of speaking about all three at once and in a few pages,
those which were allowed me. Similarly, at La Villette, we had little space, a single space
with which we had to work. We had already multiplied it or divided it by three within
itself and we hoped to multiply it by three again in the future. For the moment we have to
find a structure which multiplies within a given economy, faisant flêche de tout bois
(literally, ‘making an arrow out of any piece of wood’, i.e. making the best of one’s
resources), as we say in French, when meaning is displaced like an arrow, without ever
being allowed to stop or collect itself, we will no longer oppose the errors which it
provokes and which indeed are no longer lies, to the truth. Among errors, eros and
arrows, the transformation is endless, and the contamination at once inevitable and
aleatory. None of Eisenman’s three projects presides at the meeting. They intersect like
arrows, making a generative force out of misreadings, mis-spellings, mispronunciations, a
force which speaks of pleasure at the same time as procuring it. If I had enough time and


Rethinking Architecture 326
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