Origin of the concept

You are right to ask us about the origins of the concept and, in particular, the legitimacy of its use today. By that I have not said much. What I am saying, however, is that for years now, out of prudence and growing embarrassment, I have been unable to ask, in the face of the fullness of a project or a house: what is your concept? I must admit, at the same time, to the anguish of studio judgment that it is of a special kind; as for what happens to one's own projects there things seem to me, so hidden in their action and movement, all the more obscure.

After all, when we wonder about the concept, we wonder, we are in fact aiming at something that underlies something else and makes it possible. We invoke, by asking, and precisely that the question is oriented in its questioning by the very answer already present, namely, the pre-existence of something stable, unwavering, the point of birth which, in time, has been called, somewhat undifferentiated, the single principle, idea, ground, concept. In other words, that which appears before me, before my gaze, with solipsism of the first instance, stands and is held by something immovable, incorruptibly necessary, which makes its appearance possible. Probably, already, it is an exaggeration here, not necessarily wondering aiming at firm ground. But we are with the question in its vicinity, we are aiming at it, piercing with our gaze, the unmoving, the redeeming immobility of the firm. For the question of the concept is a penetration through or, more precisely, it is the will of thought to penetrate the appearance of appearance towards its principle, towards its unconditioning. In fact, I feel like saying, the gaze that rushes and pierces through the fullness of the appearance's peacefulness in order to rest in its scheme (figure?), the gaze that seems to precipitately ignore the body in order to prefer its skeleton, is one of the subjectivity of the subject that consolidates its own interiority towards a growing and destined unconditioning. For it is the unconditioning of the subject in its becoming that is at issue here, questioning the concept.

In other words, we are looking with the eyes of the metaphysically constituted subject, we are looking with the eyes of the modern, with the 'fact of being modern', that is to say, with the subject which, thrown upon being, aims at its own unconditioning. The subject proper to modernity sees the concept inso insofar as, on its way towards unconditioning, it ob-jectifies, it transforms, putting things forward, assuringly, for itself, into objects of knowledge. Thus, we objectify, the object is, henceforth, by representation, for the subject. But by objectifying (ob-jectum), by throwing forward into an untouched territory of the concept, the subject assures itself by pushing things, the world, towards the project of their objectification. The concept is not something to which, arbitrarily, capriciously or functionally, thought thinks of appealing on its way, but it is the very structure of thought, its principle of existence. I think because, thinking, and I look at the concept. Hurriedly and riskily said, as a subject proper to modernity, I look and I look at the scheme of the world. I mean with Descartes' eyes. I would remind you that in the very introduction to the second part of Discourse on Method (The main rules of this method which the author sought), Descartes, in speaking of the construction of his own thought, makes, how else, an analogy with the structure of the city in which he had just camped: beautiful and picturesque, but badly laid out, with winding and sloping streets, with older and newer houses, in short... the city. His own vision, on the other hand, is, I believe, the vision of modernity itself, it is the modern's way of seeing, the ordering frame of his gaze through which the world can be intelligible: he says, one over another, that the well-crafted city is one that is thought from the beginning, by oneself and in the countryside.

These three conditions of the incorruptibility of thought realize the point-of-view from which the world, from now on, is. And it is insofar as it is re-presented. For, in the question what is your concept? lies the phenomenal reduction from the accidentality of the inherited given, from the fact-of-being-in-the-world, already under-understood, towards the remission to the unfolded measurability of the frame of the point-of-view. It is not by chance that with the Baroque, and once the subject is the convergence towards the point-of-view, projection, in the sense understood and practiced by us, is possible. We keep in us Alberti's incipient frame whereby the world is of coordinate points, and as fixed points we can "count" on them as re-presented, we hold them (and reality itself) as measurable on space (or, more precisely, that circumstance become space) stretched out, smooth. Things are taken outside themselves, they are given to me as ob-jectum, as objects placed in the space thought as res-extensa.

Read the full text in issue 6 / 2014 of Arhitectura Magazine

The issue of Arhitectura magazine with the theme CONCEPT/ABSTRACTIZATION will be launched on Tuesday, January 27, at 5:00 pm, in CCA-UAR, 48 rue Jean Louis Calderon. The following contributors will be present at the launch: Augustin Ioan, Francoise Pamfil, Anca Sandu Tomașevschi, Florian Stanciu, Ștefan Vianu. Read more details here or visit the event page on facebook.