What is this that comes and goes? How strange it is! Why does man — this being who creates and brings to life — what relation is there between him, his creations, and death?
If — as Heidegger says — the history of man is the history of the forgetting of "Being," and "everydayness" has made him heedless of pausing on the ultimate meaning of his existence, he creates in order to escape death. But death, woven into the warp and weft of this habitation, brings tidings of the truth of death: that which he builds to escape the terrible dread of non-being. Is there a relation between life and death — have we ever found these two meaningful together?
Architecture is an allusion to creation. It is for this reason that the meaning of absolute "life" summons us to seek permanence from the earth. Why does man cling to the earth to make dwelling upon it appear eternal? Architecture — the seeking of immortality in mortal earth — is a yearning, and the architect is the fervor of its existence. The hidden longing in the desire for architecture is a concealed yearning to prove life. If this longing, from the inner chamber of the soul, gives us, through architecture, advance tidings of death — what a wondrous event!
Architecture vivifies habitation and dwelling in our memory; yet the "architectural" approach to possessing "being" stems from the fear of "non-being" and "ruin." There is a hidden relation in this.
The thought of immortality, too, first: has no meaning outside of human existence. We speak of it because in our private solitude — from which we flee in everydayness — we encounter this "dread." The encounter with this dread leads the way to "creating." So one strives to rise against the earth in defiance; the earth is our primal nature. But this ultimate destiny, too — "world-making" in Heidegger's terms, and his famous dictum Die Welt weltet ("the world worlds") — in sacred texts: is there? Architecture has a wondrous answer: "earth" of the human is joined to "earth" of architecture; let us join the two earths — human and architecture — to build an eternity from them. This, truly, is an answer.
The joy of "architectural" existence, the joy of "architecting," is indebted to the pleasure that the architect finds in this creating. Here, pain has been healed. One who is seized by the anguish of annihilation and mortality — of being perishable — bears a destiny that is "otherwise" and "non-everyday."
But the architect, in all this, has a twofold entanglement — or love: for him, the cure is for "dwelling." He creates in order to "dwell." And what is it that man — this creature on mortal earth — does? He builds and strikes it upon the earth. Upon the body of the earth, joyfully, he drapes a garment of "being": he practices architecture. His creation — perhaps — will not endure long.
He creates for "living," and thus "builds" and "cultivates"; so what relation is there between man, his creations, and death?
On the ashes of his pain, the fire of longing — the thirst for "creating" — is forever ablaze. He builds and strikes it upon the earth. Upon the body of the earth, joyfully, he drapes a garment of "being": he practices architecture. His creation — perhaps — will not endure long. He knows this. He remains — and this incessant creation and unfinished longing.
He becomes immortal, for the authority of his self is made eternal and enduring through "architecture." The one who builds to escape the terrible dread of non-being brings tidings of the truth of death: it is built. His power is manifest and enduring in the grandeur of the architecture he has "commanded." The powerful human, in the very moment that he thinks, entrusts his being to architecture, to "earth," to make it "eternal" — and in doing so, has accepted the authority of death: "We" are the consequence of the embodiment of dominion.
We are "life" upon the earth's soil. If we do not accept this dominion, we do not encounter it except in the inner chamber of our own minds. In the inner chamber of his mind, the architect lives — he dwells.
Immortality in mortal earth is a yearning, and the architect — the fervor of his existence — is always aflame with it.
What a wondrous event: in death, what various forms, what different appearances — and here, in the fear of mortality, we flee and seek refuge in architecture — a response to the anguish that torments the human soul — and marvel that there is no remedy but this very earth.
Unwittingly, sometimes the architect, in the station of a human being, is consecrated by this "earth."
Footnote:
"Architecting" (me'maridan) is a state that the architect possesses in those moments when he "lives" as an architect. This quality, which is the "experience of existence" (or more precisely, the "awareness of existence"), calls the architect to the realm of creating. In architectural terms, this condition — which is identical to what Heidegger calls "dwelling" — is the joy of "architecting," borne of a delight that the architect finds in this "creating." In this process, which is a kind of "world-making," the architect, "joyfully," goes from the earth of his physical self to the earth of his creation, and man returns to earth. Architecture is a response that recalls for us this truth. Here, in this process, "architecting" happens; dwelling occurs. The remedy has been found. That which has come upon this earth has found — after all — refuge from a "different kind" of restlessness, and there is no cure for it except this very earth; the architect, in this domain, has been caught in the fire of a passion that is twofold: for the sake of living.