Review: ARCHITECTURE AS SYMBOLIC MEDIUM

Reviewed Work(s): Gebaute Gesellschaft. Architektur als Medium des Sozialen by Heike
Delitz
Review by: UTA KARSTEIN
Source: European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie /
Europäisches Archiv für Soziologie , 2011, Vol. 52, No. 3 (2011), pp. 570-572
Published by: Cambridge University Press

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/43282211

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 ARCHITECTURE AS A SYMBOLIC MEDIUM*

In this book H EIKE Delitz discusses the relation

between architecture and society. In doing so, it
intention to re-establish a foundation for archite
also refers to shortcomings in the formation of soci
regard to architecture. As she correctly asserts,
material shape of a society has never played an im
sociologists such as Max Weber or Alfred Schütz were barely in-
terested in the materiality of the context of action, and theorists such as
Georg Simmel, Karl Mannheim or Jürgen Habermas often produce
relevant statements about architectural theory only indirectly. Accord-
ing to Delitz, interesting approaches can be found in authors such as
Norbert Elias or Walter Benjamin. Here, however, architecture mainly
appears as an " 'expression', 'symbol' or 'mirror' of the social" (S.n).
Such a conception of architecture would render it merely a "highly
visible copy of prior, 'actual' social existence" (S.12). This would
propagate the classical dualism between the social and the material,
a dualism that Delitz believes ought to be overcome.
Consequently, Delitz establishes an alternative paradigm in her
discussion: architecture as a symbolic medium through which society
first constitutes " this determined society" using it to " create an expressive,
visible and tangible shape" (S.13). From this perspective, architecture
no longer represents the "neutral shell" of the social (S.12) but rather
assumes constitutive significance for it. In addition to this (rather
macro-social) s/řtf£č-dimension ("Gestalt"), architecture also bears the
(micro-social) property of an artefact that is continually bound to "the
individual life", thereby enabling "postures, movements and looks"
(S.14). In this context, Delitz speaks of agencements ("Gefüge", in
English: 'arrangements') - aiming once again to overcome the subject-
object-dualism with the help of theoretical work.
For this purpose, she draws on two theoretical trends of the 20th
century. One is that of the "vitalism" ("Lebenssoziologie"), little
known in Germany, proposed by Henri Bergson and elaborated by
authors such as Gilles Deleuze, Cornelius Castoriadis and Gilbert
Simondon. In addition to their difference-theoretical and non-Cartesian

* About Heike Delitz, Gebaute Gesellschaft. Architektur als Medium

des Sozialen. (Frankfurt/Main, Campus, 2009).

570
Uta Karstein, Universität von Leipzig [karstein@uni-leipzig.de].
Arch.europ.sociol., LII, 3 (201 1), pp. 570-572 - 0003-9756/1 i/oooo-90o$o7.5oper art + $0.10 per page©^.#.^,

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 ARCHITECTURE AS A SYMBOLIC MEDIUM

way of thinking, Delitz appreciates the fact that they

account for "the dynamics and eventfulness of society
and unpredictable state of "becoming different" (S.22)
this French school of thought the author also refers to th
anthropology of Helmut Plessner and Arnold Gehlen.
Delitz is especially interested in modern western architecture.
According to the author, the particular innovative aims of this period
make architecture not just a constitutive, but a " transitive medium"
(S.i 6): the various vanguards are always one step ahead of social
development and explicitly demand that the social be actively and
collectively shaped in terms of a new base concept. The exemplary
studies attached by the author to her programmatic text therefore refer
to five important architectural trends of the last century. In the Garden
city of Dresden-Hellerau, in the Bauhaus and its conservative oppo-
nent of the Stuttgart School as well as in socialist and deconstructive
architecture, "the social-historical entity obviously chose new respec-
tive shapes" and incited new agencements, according to Delitz (S. 21 8).
These "analyses of agencements and shape" (S.211) are all worth
reading and extremely informative. One reason for this is that they
serve as examples to help the reader understand the fundamental idea
of the book. For instance, the Lebensreform movement could not have
been realized within the architecture of the Gründerzeit. Indeed, the
Garden city of Dresden-Hellerau was necessary to create a new design
concept that would give a real shape to its central ideas of rhythm
through physical education, the fusion of every-day life and arts and
a new sense of community; and to make it possible to live and experience
these ideas. The intelligent and non-ideological discussions of the
Stuttgart School (of which many of the architects later became Nazi
sympathizers) and the socialist architecture of the gdr shows how these
too were influential.
On the other hand, these analyses contradict to some extent the
theoretical sources of what Delitz calls architectural sociology. In
particular, the concept of the "social-historical" (Castoriadis) cannot
adequately treat concrete arguments and conflicts generated by new
developments in architecture because it is too general and indistinct.
The proposed theoretical conception does not explain how a position is
actually deemed avant-garde, i. e. what internal power dynamics are at
work that allow this in first place? Another question is how vanguards
obtain legitimacy and validity outside the field of architecture, i.e.
what (historically contingent) relation they have to architecture and
politics, arts, science, public etc. Nor do the favoured concepts do

571

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 UTA KARSTEIN

justice to the highly interesting question of how such a

received and appropriated by its users. Her assertions de
complex conflicts and (un-) successful means of acquisit
are among the most exciting in her case studies.
Despite this criticism, the book raises long-overdue c
questions. In the future, one will be unable to ignore th
account of architecture as a symbolic medium as formul

UTA KARSTEIN

572

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