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Chora L Works
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by Jacques Derrida, Thomas Leeser and Peter Eisenman
Monacelli Press
Due/Published
September 1996, 208 pages,
paper
ISBN
1885254407
Chora L Works documents the unprecedented collaboration, initiated in 1985, between philosopher Jacques Derrida and architect Peter Eisenman on a project for the Parc de la Villette in Paris. Woven into the volume are discussion transcripts, candid correspondence, and essays, as well as sketches, presentation drawings, and models. Derrida and Eisenman's design process was guided by Plato's chora text from the Timeaus; their unique reciprocal relationship was an interchange - and transformation - of voices. |
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Review
Chora L Works is certainly one of the more...how shall I say it?...unique books we have in the store. The book's design includes a kind of grid or pattern that runs throughout the book in the form of holes on every page. I must admit as intriguing as it sounds at times it can be a little frustrating -- I mean Derrida is difficult enough without having a word here or there chopped off. However, despite some "inconveniences" with the book's design, the book is a fascinating "dialogue" between Eisenman and Derrida and their project in 1985 to build a garden in Parc de la Villette in Paris. The two decide to use the Plato's chora text from the Timeaus as a guide for their design process. Chora is a conception of place in Platonic thought, but unlike topos, it is not a determinate place but rather "...is the spacing which is the condition for everything to take place, for everything to be inscribed...chora is irreducible to the two positions, the sensible and the intelligible...it is irreducible to all the values which we are accustomed..." Needless to say, this is a rather tricky starting point for an architectural project, and as the correspondence, conversations, sketches and models, bear out, Eisenman and Derrida struggled with the problems of representing Chora in their design. In the midst of the differences of opinions and misunderstandings between the two, an engaging (for the reader) "relationship" develops between the two as they grapple with philosophical and architectural problems.
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