Reassessment of Heidegger’s Notion of Authenticity in Architectural Theory: Between Anxiety and Poetic Dwelling
Reassessment of Heidegger’s Notion of Authenticity in Architectural Theory: Between Anxiety and Poetic Dwelling

Summary/Abstract: This paper discusses reflections of Martin Heidegger’s philosophy in architectural theory with an emphasis on the notion of authenticity, observed through the disparity of the concepts of anxiety and poetic dwelling. Architectural affirmers of Heidegger, from a phenomenological stance, advocate authentic dwelling as a poetic alternative to allegedly threatening alienation and homelessness in the anxious state of modernity. Conversely, critics of poststructuralist and neo-Marxist provenance find this reading to be a nostalgic regression into a premodern, romantic and mythical state of homely security, far beyond metropolitan contemporaneity. The dialogue’s result thus reduces to opposing a domesticated dwelling condition and anxiety provoked by the invasion of an alien presence. In this polarized and superficial discourse of architectural theory, clarifying Heidegger’s understanding of the concept of authenticity is necessary. Nevertheless, these considerations should not be restricted to authenticity alone, and they need to extend to other interconnected concepts: alienation, anxiety, dwelling and homelessness. It is additionally noted that Heidegger treated all these concepts differently in early and late phases. The deliberation leads to the intersection of different interpretations from architectural theory and philosophy regarding the mentioned concepts, derived through a comparative analysis of Being and Time from Heidegger’s early period, and essays collected in Poetry, Language, Thought, representative of later thought. In the light of this reassessment, research is directed towards two notions that balance, if not unify, the seemingly contradictory thinking of early and late Heidegger. These are the notions of mortality and care that could clarify dilemmas occupying Heidegger’s various architectural readers.

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