Abstract
The title of this article is adapted from Theodor W. Adorno’s famous dictum: ‘To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric.’ After the catastrophic earthquake in Kocaeli, Turkey on the 17th of August 1999, in which more than 40,000 people died or were lost, Necdet Teymur, who was then the dean of the Faculty of Architecture of the Middle East Technical University, referred to Adorno in one of his ‘earthquake poems’ and asked: ‘Is architecture possible after 17th of August?’ The main objective of this article is to interpret Teymur’s question in respect of its connection to Adorno’s philosophy with a view to make a contribution to the politics and ethics of architecture in Turkey. Teymur’s question helps in providing a new interpretation of a critical approach to architecture and architectural technology through Adorno’s philosophy. The paper also presents a discussion of Adorno`s dictum, which serves for a better understanding of its universality/particularity.
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Notes
Teymur is known as a rational and analytical academic of architecture. He has written books and articles about architectural education and architectural theory.
According to Teymur, the knowledge of architecture is complex and layered. He postulates that economy has a determining effect on both the ideology of architecture and architectural education. Thus, both the ideology and the knowledge of the profession are determined by the sovereign groups within society. The beliefs and philosophies of these groups, in turn, consequently, created confusion and conflict within the architectural profession, which resulted in a considerable lack of knowledge about the architectural profession itself. Teymur, therefore, suggested that the Institution of the Chamber of Architects should organize a systematic and analytical research into the field of architecture (Teymur and Teymur 1978). This was before the 1999 earthquake.
Although Teymur is analytical about specific subjects, his books, which are about architecture in general, have a different character. In his books “Re-Architecture” (Teymur 2002) and “Learning from Disasters” (Teymur 1999) he brings different examples, thoughts, photographs etc. side by side in order to reveal some political truths about architecture. This book also has a poetic nature, in which Teymur is indirect, and he makes his readers think about and reflect on each issue. It is possible to say that, if there is sufficient knowledge about a subject, Teymur works on it analytically and rationally. However, if there is insufficient knowledge and information, he encourages people to think about this subject from an artistic perspective by writing poems.
The architectural profession lacks knowledge and information generally and especially in respect of the subject of earthquakes. Thus, Teymur treats this subject poetically (therefore indirectly) whilst supporting the politics of the Turkish Chamber of Architects. He wished people to understand and answer this question. This article, therefore, offers the results of this research in a question form, and also supplies an answer to it.
I wrote this statement in bold.
The concept ‘assemblage’ is a part of Deleuze and Guattari’s terminology. Thay say that (Deleuze and Guattari 1993 p. 88):
“We may draw some general conclusions on the nature of Assemblages…. On a first, horizontal, axis, an assemblage comprises two segments, one of content, the other of expression. On the one hand it is a ‘machinic assemblage’ of bodies, of actions and passions, an intermingling of bodies reacting to one another; on the other hand it is a ‘collective assemblage of enunciation,’ of acts and statements, of incorporeal transformations attributed to bodies. Then on a vertical axis, the assemblage has both ‘territorial sides,’ or reterritorialized sides, which stabilize it, and ‘cutting edges of deterritorialization,’ which carry it away….”.
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Hürol, Y. Can Architecture be Barbaric?. Sci Eng Ethics 15, 233–258 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-008-9112-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-008-9112-3