Body, house and city: The intertwinings of embodiment, inhabitation and civilization

Abstract

The house, body and city form a priviledged unity of mutual implication.¹It is here that human life becomes situated and centered; from here it unfolds and comes to encompass a temporal and spatial world. It is only as situated life — as life arched by a sky, supported by a welcoming earth and sheltered by an environment — that past, present and future can announce themselves. It is only as surrounded by a physiognomic world, by things and beings attractive and repellent, by things to do and to avoid, that a primitive geography can first emerge, that a forward and a backward, a high and a low, an up and a down, a left and a right can first come into being. There can be no true house, body or city for a robot; consequently, there can be no true forward and backward within the reach of any mechanical device, nor can there be things near or far, up or down, nor a yesterday or tomorrow.