• Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.89-97
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• 2016

The aim of this study is to review Norberg-Schulz's architectural phenomenology to find out its meaning and limitations in contemporary architecture. His phenomenological trilogy, 'Existence, Space and Architecture', 'Genius Loci' and 'The Concept of Dwelling' are main texts to examine background, characteristics, meaning and limitations of his theory in relation to Structuralism and Heidegger's thoughts. Heidegger's phenomenology, especially his dwelling concept, had great impacts on forming Norberg-Schulz's architectural phenomenology. However, since his architectural phenomenology was strongly influenced by Structuralism, his theories present unstable combination of phenomenology and semiotics. And this results in instrumentalization, and overlooking body movement and socio-economical elements in his theory. In spite of these limitations, his theory also shows possibility to go beyond the theory of Modern architecture and plays important role in suggesting direction for better environment through applicability from single building to city in Postmodern architecture. Another meaning of his theory lies in presenting theoretical background for new way to interpret regionalism and specific policy tool to make town planning in Finland.

• Proceeding of Spring/Autumn Annual Conference of KHA
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.337-340
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• 2006

Dwelling refers to a way of being that has to do with a cautious and guarded attitude. What has to be nurtured and preserved is the dweller's relationship with the fourfold of heaven and earth, divinities and mortals. This leads to the fourfold definition that mortals dwell insofar as they save the earth, receive heaven as heaven, await the divinities as divinities, and are capable of death as death. Heidegger sees the thing as the concrescence of what he calls the fourfold of earth, sky, mortals, and divinities. For Heidegger, true being means to be open to the fourfold, to tend the fourfold in its essence. C. Norberg-Schulz takes as his starting point Heidegger's notion of the thing as that in which the fourfold is assembled. The built space must be organized in a way that concrete places are created, places that are characterized by a specific genius loci. This idea refers to life in the warm seclusion of a traditional community, but is much less applicable to the functional networks and relationships that determine life in a modem society. Cacciari thinks that what is worth questioning is in particular the condition of homelessness perceived by Heidegger, and the possible consequences of this situation for architecture. The aim of this paper is to study the meaning of dwelling through Heidegger's concept of dwelling and the interpretations of C. Norberg-Schulz and M. Cacciari about it.

• Journal of architectural history
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.149-162
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• 2003

Schulz accepted the existentialist view based on Heidegger's thought and at the same time the objectivist view making fixed this living world, evoking controversies for discussion. He could not see various presentations of the meaning of place because he perceived elements of this world individually. Thus Schulz's mixed system of understanding is sternly different from Heidegger's thought. First, Heidegger suggests that place as existential space represents the occasion revelation of incidents in Dasein. While Schulz recognizes that place is a systematic space predetermined for Dasein. Second, Heidegger interprets the placeness as creative openness in which elements comprising this world face and interact with each other into one. In contrast, Schulz defines each of the elements through signification and regards it as invariable and static. Third, Heidegger perceives that the placeness is expressed with sustainable, complex images through "rift-design" which seeks dynamic interactions between the ground and the world. While Schulz attempts to take "Genius Loci" or "habituated scene" through "gathering" as a concept he regards static and then visualize such structural two factors, producing certain internal images of place. However, limits of Schulz's theory prevent us from exerting complete imagination and discovering the inner creative world of the object. Thus the ultimate goal of paying attention to the placeness, that is, the recovery of individual identity, fails due to the prevalence and abstraction of objectified thinking. In contrast, Heidegger's thought about "openness" is a useful means of realizing the placeness. Openness may be referred to a dynamic coordination in which the earth and the world sustain each other under incessant mutual tensions, but not sticking o each other. "Rift-design" is an openness strategy to cause tense relations by preventing structuralization intentively. This is a creative design that allows seeing original seams of the object.