Romanticising Nietzsche!

Nice stache

The stone is more stone than before. In general we no longer understand architecture, at least by far not in the way we understand music. We have outgrown the symbolism of lines and figures, as we have grown unaccustomed to the tonal effects of rhetoric, no longer having sucked in this kind of cultural mother's milk from the first moment of life. Originally everything about a Greek or Christian building meant something, and in reference to a higher order of things. This atmosphere of inexhaustible meaningfulness hung about the buildings like a magic veil. Beauty entered the system only secondarily, impairing the basic feeling of uncanny sublimity, of sanctification by magic or the gods' nearness. At the most, beauty tempered the dread - but this dread was prerequisite everywhere.

What does the beauty of a building mean to us now? The same as the beautiful face of a mindless woman: something masklike.

Nietzsche philosophises about the loss of symbolism in the modern age of thinking. "we have outgrown the symbolism of lines and figures", Nietzsche explains that through man's search for truth, for the pure knowledge of things, we have come to see things for not what it is, but for something more substantial than itself. In the context of a stone, as Nietzsche puts it "stone is more stone than it used to be", through Zumpthor's perception of how stone can be re-interpreted by the various ways of manipulating it, we have come to understand or recognise the material through its distinctive features and its composite structures.

In light of transforming a material for a more aesthetical quality, does the action become futile and a waste of resources? Without intent or symbolism, as Nietzsche puts it "beauty is merely a mask of a mindless beautiful woman." In Zumthor's case where he transformed the Kolumba bricks to emphasize on the quality of change in response to the old gothic church, symbolism becomes the main driver and beauty is secondary.

I agree with Vic's point that the idea of reinterpreting a material has allowed us to explore a new facet of architecture but in light of a negative perspective. How does transforming, or changing the characteristics of a material become negative? Is it the lack of honesty? Does it change the way the world is perceived? In the case of forensic architecture, a facade is put up against a concrete structure to remind the people of the holy city of Jerusalem. The way that stone becomes more than just stone in this context, to have a more significant meaning behind it, does the negative come from its political context or the waste of materials?

In response to Nietzsche's philosophy of how "The stone is more stone than before."

Nietzsche argues that: beyond the symbolic ideas that references a higher order of things, "beauty... is the same as the beautiful face of a mindless woman: something masklike." This suggests that architecture, without purpose or symbolism, is merely a facade for aesthetical reasons. In Nietzsche's nihilistic view, architecture's purpose then becomes irrelevant; as a waste of effort or energy. Conversely, if the efforts of architecture are to fulfil an aesthetical requirement of the built form, then does Nietzsche propose us to fulfil something more than form, something with more meaning aside from its specific function.

"Dressing and the mask are as old as human civilisation...

Masking does not help, however, when behind the mask the thing is false or the mask is no good"

- G. Semper