Deconstruction Example

I use deconstruction as a method for thinking new thoughts. Let me describe it by example. I'll be fanciful and pretend that ChristopherAlexander had used it in the early 70s. (See also DeconstructiveBrainstorm.)

He started from a position of being uncomfortable and dissatisfied with the state of architecture. To apply the deconstructive method, he would have searched architectural discourse for marginal concepts, ones that were explicitly or implicitly excluded as irrelevant or uninteresting. A marginal concept is treated as one half of a "binary opposition"; the other half is the "privileged" or central concept.

What's central to architecture? -- the shaping of physical space. What's marginal? -- what happens within that space, what Alexander (in The Timeless Way of Building) calls the patterns of events.

In the next step, Alexander would have "inverted the hierarchy". What if the central concern of architecture were patterns of events? It would be about identifying them, deciding which should be encouraged, and devising the means to encourage them.

A final step would have brought the two concepts together. As a good deconstructionist, Alexander would have leapt at the conclusion that "a pattern of events cannot be separated from the space where it occurs" (TWoB, p. 73). He would have recharacterized architectural theory as the study of how space shapes events and how desired events should shape space. Therefore, particular forms of space could be described in terms of relationships among component parts and justified by the recurring events they encourage.

So deconstruction could have motivated patterns.

There are a variety of ways of playing the two halves of an opposition against each other. For example, I might ask whether Alexander's notion of event is infected by properties of "space". Is it significant that his recurrent examples -- a peach tree growing by a garden wall, people sitting and dreaming -- are all notably static? What should we make of this statement (TWoB, p. 94): "Nothing of any importance happens in a building or a town except what is defined within the patterns that repeat themselves" (my emphasis). Might his theory be weak on frenzy, disorder, and one-time events? (I don't know -- remember, I'm using deconstruction to brainstorm ideas.)

Another fruitful approach is to show how the marginalized concept forces itself into all discussion of the central one. For example, in Chip Morningstar's discussion of deconstruction (DeconstructAlmostAnything, http://www.fudco.com/chip/deconstr.html), he sets up an opposition. On the one side are deconstructivists, who are obsessed with wit and style. On the other is the reader (and writer), presumed to favor substance: clear, rational arguments. And yet his own argument is highly witty and stylish, to the point where Morningstar's clear and rational conclusion is, I would argue, not the one the typical reader will draw. The stated conclusion is "there is indeed some content, much of it interesting... [there] are a set of important and interesting ideas...", but the stronger message of the piece is that deconstructionists are laughable. So what does his reliance on style, supposedly marginalized, say about the actual usefulness of clarity and rationality, even in a text that supposedly celebrates them? (Someday I should take this argument further. Thinking about Chip's article in a deconstructive way gave me all sorts of ideas -- which is the point of deconstruction, to me.)

-- BrianMarick

The sentence "So deconstruction could have motivated patterns" prompted this:

More likely they already stem from similar philosophical traditions. Derrida owes a lot to Nietszche who borrowed heavily from Advaita Hindu, and possibly Madyamika Buddhist traditions. -- RIH

To be clear: the story on this page is an alternate universe fantasy. (See first paragraph.) I know it didn't happen that way. I thought it would be entertaining to use patterns when talking about deconstruction to a patterns audience.

Oops, I didn't mean to sound critical, feel free to delete if you feel the non-fantasy 'common-root' is irrelevant. -- RIH