PIVOTAL TERMS: Architecture, Eros and the Movement Inhibition

Abstract

Etymologically, theory has to do with processions and sight-seeing. As the settings and objects of these procedures, buildings, and the urbs generally, are theoretical matters from the beginning. That is. their immobility gires a point to movement. How. though, does Ibis originating dialectic of architectural discourse find contemporary incorporation? In Repressed Spaces (2002) I extended these theoretical anxieties to public space design, defining the agoraphobia experienced in modern city spaces as a ‘movement inhibition.’ In current work the loosening of limbs thus frozen in mid-stride is attributed to the renewed influence of Eros. What, in this context, would an erotic architecture be? It is likely that it will involve an expanded range of place-making terms, which foreground the value to design of movement figures. The pivot is such a figure, one of a number of terms also pivotal to theorising architecture. If the rapid shuttle is the perfect illustration of the constant feedback of our now globalised Time, the pivot of the pulley would then represent the axis of a Time belonging to a reason that tries to disclose the hidden meaning of the Event. Paul Virilio