pE e the transcript of our first meeting as well as a rough translation of the fragment from your work on chora. I don't
d sit down and design things together any more than we should sit down and write a philosophical text together. • -si we do is write an architectural text, then bring it together with a philosophical text. Let me return again to the luliet project. In this project we had three te^: the Dapporto, the Bandello and the Shakespeare. We could not -c project without their differences and st -jMkes, but the scaling — the architectural process — remains inde- > ,e structure of -'Mjggitexts. In this case we . wP^ave three texts: Bernard Tschumi's, Jacques Derrida's and Peter . , -,'hich is not ye' II»]. Interestingly, each of these is a text on a text: Bernard's can be seen as a text on mine for r s will be a text orftacques Derrida's; his is a text on Plato's Timaeus. We therefore have both a closed and an open ■ida opens the circle, changing it to a spiral. But the process will be as much conditioned by Tschumi's text as by Let s see. Tschumi is to Eisenman as Eisenman is to Tschumi, plus Eisenman. Then, Plato to Derrida as Derrida is to ; !, , - Derrida. Then a third which connects the two. Something like that. w^t is interesting for me as I read the chora text - •. I feel that I was actually making chora before I knew about it. The RomSo and Juliet project is a case in point. There is . "ing there, a level of correspondence, perhaps a ndsr^gjjBg. What we may want is to write an in-between text, one which .v" ,-;ts Derrida's Plato with TschurQi's Eisenman. As I u lirid it, chora is a place, a receptacle, which, because of its can only be the imprint' ,r'Vig, between being and "Becoming. I therefore propose a project which in itself has no ; i; it will become a receptac both the chora and Tschumi texts — Tschumi's text as being, yours as becoming — ,:r,p: wwd on our site or sites. I feel one site would create too much of an "object." If we had two or three, we could counterpoint them, showing a writing that appears in one site erased in another, and so on, to create a cycle of appearance and disappearance that is so much a part of my misreading of your work. I therefore propose that the first reading is Tschumi's, that is, La Villette, through a registering of Tschumi's text on the archaeology of that text — the past of La Villette, Venice, etc. The second reading is Derrida's text, which is what I would like us to discuss more fully today. I will have to do an analysis of the Derrida text in order to find a registration for it in the project, as I wo u I a •, c h u rn is. The project's only being would be this registration, it would have no being in and c' ' |jjЈ its being would effai'1 ^Pbwn being. It would be like a house in which people live, but whose purpose and text is not ea Vsd sleeping. Similarly the purpose of my text will be to efface its own corpus in order to produce the structure I find . . . let i -JS?, this gets tough for me . . . between Derrida and Plato, which is analogous to that between Tschumi and Eisenman — that is, to register Tschumi's construct of Eisenman as Derrida's construct of Plato. When I read Derrida moving around Timaeus, it is as if the route is in the form of a spiral, helix or labyrinth — as if you were trying to find your way. I don't know what the form of the investigation is, but I see you probing this text, here, there and then back again. I want to use this interpretation of chora because though chora cannot "be," we can representee idea of representing chora. Peter Eisenman will not represent anything but the idea of Derrida repainting chora as Tsc '<%ii representing Eisenman representing Tschumi and so forth. The reader will get a registration whi-. •'•■■es the relationship of Tschumi's La Villette to the history of the La Villette text and its site. That should lead to the second h iff^'hich is the Derridean analysis of the Timaeus, which in turn leads to a third site, chora, where the impossibility of being would be the effacement of Eisenman in the realization of La Villette. It will be the analogic structure of registration which will provide the information. I don't know what your response to this wil! be and I don't know what this means in physical form — that's obviously the work to be done. That's why I haven't brought you a drawing — I have brought you instead an idea, a text I would like you to respond to. Can you suggest any formal analogies to your work on chora; to the way you have tried to get at the idea in your paper? AP I have a question. Do you want the
visitor to the park to read the process of the analysis? PE I don't think an author knows what the reader reads. But you could say that the potential readers of this project need to be retrained as readers. I have always believed that it doesn't help you to read Derrida if you are trained in reading Leibniz, for example. You have to phase out of reading Leibniz and start to read philosophy in a different way. Jacques is retraining readers to read him — he does this as he is writing. I believe, too, I am trying to retrain readers of architecture as I write it, and I face the same difficulties. JD I have no way to answer the question you asked me — what is the formal analogy to my way of working. I have many different models: labyrinth is one, but one among others. It would be very difficult to schematize the chora text. I'm not able to draw it myself. PE Would you try? JD One of the questions in this text is, what does "to receive" mean? Chora is a receptacle. (Y.ou will recall that in our last meeting, I said that in Timaeus, Socrates is, in the end, a receiver — he is the one, finally, who listf eje states everything; he is the addressee of everything. In this sense, he resembles them. The question is: what is the lasrK,u,v-3, the last receiver of t ,/\hing? Chora is the name for something in which everything will be received. In the wonderful analogies between these jf exts — the text by Bernard Tschumi referring to you, myself referring to Plato and yourself referring to Tschumi and me — will mere be a receptacle, a place from which everything is watched or read or received? PE Yes. JD And who will be the reader, the general reader of this adventure. PE What about you? Let's make you Socrates for a minute. JD I could be a receptacle in the sense that I am, as you said a moment ago, a mediator between you and Ji ;,lfcumi. PE Exactly. JD So, okay, let me be the La Villette Socrates. Socrates will then ask questions and will want to understand now this multiplicity of layers and levels of text could become not only an architectural object, but something more. How can it become some^ -^specialized, in which a reader, trained or not, could receive. Or how does it train — what will be the pedagogy, so to speaff ^ ;jr training a new reader. What would this training be in terms of architecture? The pedagogy will take place at the site. The reader or visitor will have! -„'sprained by what we are going to do, trained to read, to interpret, and perhaps to write a new text. PE The meta-purpos* '^/pe to train new readers, perhaps even to train them to write. Now, that possibility is very exciting. JD An oscillation between different texts — can you find something like that! I don't know if I can understand . . . But in any case, this place should not be ultimate, outside; it should also be a place among others. Do you agree? AP Yes, but when we read Plato, we find a discourse on the universe which I have read as a centerpiece, a kind of place and non-place from which you understand all places. JD Yes, non-place. PE We could make one place from which the reader, by reading its generation, the archaeology of La Villette, understands the whole. However, a non-place is also a place where you are not. JD Now, let f-!pdd something very specific. Let's call metonymy this particular place from which we understand the whole, or read the* , ^ or have the memory-of the whole, so that in the part you have the whole. Now, it is my wish to avoid such a totalization, and the metonymic struct! < which you are speaking approaches such a totalization. The only way to avoid it would be that in this place in which you'n-^'e the possibility of understanding the whole, you will nevertheless of necessity write something new. Then there will always be something more. It's only by having the reader or visitor write something, add a small part, that you will open the circle of totality. Then the metonymy will not be metonymy in the classical sense. PE I think the idea of writing something new is good. I also think there should be the possibility of erasing. One possibilities to use sand and water — sand for writing, water for erasing. Physically the architecture will have to deal with these issues'.' rse will have to find a^.analogic way to consider the sand and the water. Perhaps the person, by walking, can cause the water to affect the sandf ^ .-^3 are also the issues of non-place and non-totalization. The person should feel, in a meta-sense, that although active, n^-d-^she is not participating. There should also be a sense of dislocation. JD Perhaps glass PE Yes, glass or mirror. Also, the sense of participating which would be dislocated from the place itself; in other words, a sense that the results of your participation are occurring elsewhere. I once did a house with a room that you could look into but that you could never enter; you could feel its presence in every other room in the house. This had the effect of always making one feel outside of the house, because the ultimate interior was inaccessible. JD That is a good analogy for chora. Chora is virgin. There is no content, no consummation. Chora is totally indifferent to what happens. But what about the
... vou raised it once — of the mystic writing pad? The notion of writing which in some way leaves a trace, but the sur- ■ is gone. That's another analogy that could be useful. I wrote another text on a text by Freud in which I discuss this PE ; -n't it a piece of paper that you write on and there is something soft underneath it, so that after lifting the paper, the ,. • • • >■- appears but the JD Roughly speaking, it's a metaphor for the unconscious. But how will all of the layers be sen- PE Jacques, let me tell you something. I read your texts and they are wonderful for me because of their layers. I can't ,, .f : know that it's possible because I see that you and Blanchot and others have done it. So you have to say, "Peter, I .. . ■, f;an do it." I mean, that's why we're here. You have to be the one who says yes or no, because it's very hard for me to . • friends tell me that there are levels of meanin^gj^the Romeo and Juliet project that are inaccessible to me because .. Crk, it's as if I were in an unconscious state. W «1 need to happen is for the site and our discussions unconsciously • . a- - si a structure for I don't want to repeat -IPreo and Juliet; I never repeat a project. I want to push past, beyond,
. to find the mistakes'. ««Id like, for example, your thoughts on what was missing from Romeo and Juliet, so that I can ,,fiber. We have to push one another, just as I am pushing you towards providing a structure, a formal analogy of your ic,<a i <„vouid welcome a critique of Romeo and Juliet. I am a reactive person, not an original person. I can click off of what you cav JD For the moment, I have nothing to say about Romeo and Juliet. If you force me to compare the Romeo and Juliet pro- iect with this one, I would say that it is still very historical and emotional, not f.-:*l enough. The atmosphere of chora is naked; there is no love, no story; it's desert. PE It's a zero? JD A zero, yes. PE And Romeo and Juliet is too loaded. JD It's not a critique. PE I want critique. That's what I wanted to hear JD Th^ Milt in a point for Romeo and Juliet is a story full of events, of facts, of everything. With chora, we are at tjp point of origin. It's a 1 story, not an Italian story or a Christian theology. It has to do with something which is before C* .VWfcven before creation. So why isn't chora the word? Before God and nature — why not the word? JD The word? BecausO?pPiot a word. It's pre. . . PE Pre-word. JD Yes. It is before and it is totally independent. PE And it is not only before, because it's also after. JD It's only before in the sense of allowing. It's before before. AP Yes, it's before any future. Because it has all things, it can receive all things, and it can keep all things. PE It can give form to things without being anything itself. JD It is something which no archaeology could reach. You wish to tell and retell the story of Tschumi's La Villette, or archaeology . . . Okay, we have to do so. But having reached a certain point, which is chora, there will be no other. PE . . . where there are no traces, where it's just blank, where finally there is nothing. Maybe a stone which is not a stone, with no grain or history, no time. JD Not even matter PE An essenti jHlI in a sense? JD It's not a void. PE Material? JD It's not substantial matter either. PE Okay. BuUgfiink there has to be ;flie, a looming which is nothing, "inexplicable" because it doesn't read. It's mute. JD It's non-re VHe. PE Non-readable. JD Non-readable. RR [translated from the Italian] Chora is a place that exists in one's thinking. It's 'J'cTmable, yet indefinable; empty, then full — quite a paradox. The moment one attempts to comprehend it, to define it, one reduces its value because it cannot be defined. Perhaps chora is an impossible state in reality, one that only exists in one's thought. In trying to define it, one goes beyond the boundaries set up by the phrase itself. JD Of course, chora cannot be represented in any form, in any architecture. That is why it should not give place to an architecture — that is why it is interesting. What is interesting is that the non-representable space could .q»ve the receiver, the visitor, the possibility of thinking about architecture. PE Yes, that's it! That's it, th.ata|t, that's it. JD Whik ;-:*ora is impossible to represent, we can train, . PE That is the beginning. How to think about the ir-, ■ '■■bility of representing this being. JD Of representing, for instance, an architecture of representation, of chora. PE Exactly. ...it's impossible. That's the limit, that's the boundary. You have to draw a limit. It would be a solid limit, which could represent, so to speak, the limit that the receiver, the visitor, the reader would reach. PE Yes. But the more we begin to take these things into account, the more we assume materiality. We can't just talk to them on the site. We have to efface all the forms we make, decontaminate traditional representation. No matter how much we say, "this is chora," we don't want the visitors to feel "no, it's not, it's a table." We will have to erase and efface to get to chora. The way we get there is chora. JD And at the same time, you have to keep something; you cannot erase everything.
You have to keep PE The mark of the erasure. JD Yes. It's the form of the limit that is to be decided. PE Yes. If you take the whole of the table away, then you have nothing. What we have to do now is to write the program for the training of the readers — to find a means of de-programming them from their traditional reading of architectural representation and of introducing them to the possibility of the discursive, rather than the figurative, in architecture. Nevertheless, we have to figure our discourse. Now for the guestion of the limits. What is the limit of moving from the discourse, in and about your text, to figuration? What can be made figurative? Hence the need of a figure for your text. JD Give me some time. PE At our next meeting we will have some drawings, so that we can see what we are doing. I think that the strategy for this meeting was right to develop a program. JD One feature that I have in mind is that the text goes backwards —r!^..walk. PE That's fantastic! How can you get somebody to walk backwards? Is there a way, while walking forwards, suddenlJ1 ^eJd yourself walking backwards? JD And there is a succession of questions: of course guestions about who or what re'ofK-r what. What is the mo ypneral, the more embracing receiver? At a certain point, I find a certain aspect more embracing, then another structure, a , i,< ially . . . what does embracing mean? What does receiving mean? What does it mean to have a structure within a structure within a structure? What does it mean that the bigger the structure, the smaller the receiver? I go backwards and describe these conclusions. PE Now you are telling me about your architecture. I believe what is interesting about this situation is that, at its conclusion, you will have written a book, Chora, and we will have mad^ ;;iforoject together. Then, together, we will have made a book in a sense, which will be a commentary on both your book and our project — a parallel. JD And nobody would be able to tell which was which. PE Nor which was the beginning. It would seem the project c| before your text and that your text came before the project. They would be constantly shifting. JD I would say that this irrf ability of saying what qrigin is has to do with the structure of chora because, in a certain sense, chora is the beginning of the beginning, before ever# Vs> In another sense — in the strict sense of traditional origin and becoming — chora is not an origin. The origin is the inscr-f. ' the Demiurge of something in chora. So chora is not the beginning, it is not an origin — it's impossible to say whether it is an origin or not. PE Yes. That is precisely why I want to use the relationship between La Villette and my Cannaregio project as a text — to subvert any tradition of priority or authorial chronology. JD So, because the sense of origin is usually related to some history, some inscription — in that sense the origin is an inscription in chora. PE What's even more timely ... I'm sorry that I keep interrupting ... is that your text isn't finished and that we are working on a text that is a commentary on an unfinished text. We are making a critigue that could change the text itself, just as your critique of our tdf , /1 id drawings will change them. Hence there can be no origin or in any sense a process that closes. Everything is only at a „ ,33. JD When this is buii-~in.l^a Villette, I hope that it should be only a step in a longer process, which leads me to a question: do you think that there coj ny a pedagogical document to help the reader and the visitor to understand what's going on? PE We are going to make sucn a-document, whether the authorities of La Villette do or not. That's why we're recording. 1 believe that it's important for architecture that what we do together transcends our specific task. That it becomes a vehicle for the greater task of talking about architecture as other than a representative object, other than an aesthetic object, other than an originary object — the stimulus for a theoretical discussion of architecture in general. JD Something schematic could even be made available for the visitor. PE Well, why don't we say that part of our project is to provide such a d Jl wient, that some be allocated for that. We will say that it is to be available at the site for
visitors to take and read — a very small document irl 1 < ^nation of the registrations, and the project as a whole. But there will also be a more complete narrative discourse. ,
TRANSCRIPT THREE JACQUES DERRIDA, PETER EISENMAN TRENTO, DECEMBER 16, 1985
[The meeting is already in progress; the subject is the metaphor of "quarry" as a working concept in the project.] JD Is that literally, or . . . PE We are talking literally about moving stones — that the visitor participates in their location as he or she goes from site to site. The first site is a quarry; the second is a palimpsest — you can call it chora if you want, but let's stick to palimpsest for the time being — where the superposition of Tschumi's plan for La Villette is over the archaeology of La Villette. The stones of Eisenman, from the guarry site, are moved to the palimpsest site, where a movecf ^glj both marks itself on the site and is itself marked by what is on the site. When moved again, it leaves a trace of its presence ><es with it the absence^ - 7presence of the palimpsest to the third site — the Derrida/Plato site. JD I like the idea, but PE The Derrida/Plato site will* w i ne a labyrinth. Its form is not known to begin with because it is the result of the movement of the stones from the palimpsest. The sire of the labyrinth is the site of the destruction of the narrative; the breakdown of the continuous story; the attempt to define the undefinable chora; the site of erasure. No matter how many stones you bring there, it can never be complete. How the stones make the labyrinth is the most difficult part, because at no time does it have a prior for|, k.wards which it moves. So, my proposal is a quarry, a palimpsest and a labyrinth. To complete the cycle, the erasure could be the bringing of stones back to the quarry, the replenishing of the quarry and the erasure of the labyrinth. And thus the process continues. I believe \t s, derive the form of the first two sites, but the third is more difficult: how is this process expressive of your text on Plato? J| a labyrinth. Why? PEt The labyrinth is the only architectural metaphor for discontinuity and "no place." The labyrinth denies placй: it suggests constant (К '.-s s, constant movement. There isn't any place in the labyrinth. JD The labyrinth is structured by the hope of getting out. PE The" ,»: of reaching a conclusion, yes. JD So it has nothing to do with the chora structure. PE The palimpsest has something to do with chora, and as each site relates to the other, the labyrinth is also united to chora. The palimpsest is two things — chora and Tschumi's project. Now, maybe you are right to ask the question, "Why the labyrinth?" I see what you are saying. This site is problematic. JD To turn to something very practical, are we sure that three places are available? Have you explained that three places on the site are required? PE I think we should show Pelissier and Tschumi the proposal for three sites at the end of December. If they say it is not possible, we will have to collapse the three sites into one by working at three different I . ,'r the uppermost the quarry; the middle the palimpsest; the bottom the labyrinth. It can be done with a very low increment of ofa few feet up or dow*~ ,'P You should hide that possibility. Now, permit me another technical question. How can you imagine this process of printing? OF < ; pit matter, on what kind of structure? PE It came to me in a dream, as I told you the other night. I dreamed that people were taRir'icfLp the stones .... The thing we are trying to do is to make something which is not stable, which leaves traces of a former stability. I'm trying to find a way to make this project ephemeral and constantly changing. A quarry seems to me a potent vehicle for such an idea. JD You gave up the idea of water? PE I haven't given up any of the things we discussed; I'm just trying to see what you think of this process. If it's to be continuous, there has to be ... JD Circulari^-J^E The questions I keep asking are: how do the people know where to put the stones? How do the stones get marked? How 's /y leave traces? Coi>H vou imprint the stones on sand? JD When you say that the palimpsest will be the second site, with La Villette the layer . . . Will thl 1 / a visible representation, a drawing or something? PE No, it should be in the actual form. JD The previous structure of La VilпeiпoV PE Yes. JD In concrete? PE Yes. JD It's difficult to imagine. PE It's difficult for me too — I mean, we are trying to pull this out of our joint unconscious. It will be difficult to do all the things we want. If you don't like the idea of moving stones, then how do we build change into the project? CR It's too much like miniature golf. PE She's saying it as a term of derision. JD But you know, the visitors can, if the structure is not sufficiently solid, deteriorate it into a miniature golf course. PE Maybe the idea of people moving things is wrong, but somehow I like the idea of the quarry. How does one make the idea of a quarry manifest? The labyrinth, architecturally, is the nearest thing to a non-narrative, non-linear, non-anthro- be a catastrophe. The thing should be achieved before anybody enters. PE Let us metaphorically start with paste, print it and transform it into the labyrinth. I say labyrinth, but we could change that. But we start with the quarry, we go to the palimpsest, both of which are chora-like, one the receptacle, the other ... the imprinter. JD Peter, I would suggest something. In this association, it is as if you were the dreamer and I were the architect, the technician. So you are the theoretician and I am thinking all the time of the practical consequences. PE Well, we do not have to worry about that because we know that it is not true. JD What I would suggest is that everything should be done beforehand. There should be solid form and structure before it is ever entered. Then we should give the visitors the opportunity first to understand what the structure means — everything you are describing now — and then to participate in it, so that they could have some initiative, could do soothing, having understood, if not all the content of the possibility, at least the general structure. PE Okay. JD Once they have i tood, they could try to write something, something new, something which they could sign themselves. But we should not depk,,- ,'pn them to write, I wouk 7.-'[the proto-text; that would be too dangerous. PE And they would not get it. They would not know. JD They would not get it. If sc ;,, ( pdy has, well, intelligence and imagination and creativity enough to write something new, the opportunity would be there. But if, on the other hand, some visitor wants simply to be a spectator, just passing by, observing and not doing anything, he or she could be free to do so. It would also be a promenade for contemplation, as if it were a museum. PE So, what we are saying, to go back to the double text idea, is that each place will have two texts — one given, on',|4. vssible. The possible text will be that of the visiting writer, the opportunity to write or erase. JD Even to ask questions, to object to something. PE Yes, though that is tricky. JD But it is also safer and more practical, PE Between now and our meeting in Paris, I would like you to i , '^bout the third figure and your idea of chora in relation to the ideas of quarry, palimpsest and labyrinth. Maybe you will think c * „.1 ething else. JD There is a theme which is present in the chora text and perhaps useful: the four elements. PE Earth, air, fire and water. JD It seems we 9 '„Ј. suse water. If we use water in the third place, air is also to be there. Fire could be replaced by some source of light, so the pre • r cof erasure would imply some combination of water, light ... a spot with light or mirrors . . . PE It may be possible to have one see in a mirror what was erased. JD What I was dreaming of, and I don't know if it is technically possible, is to use some form of photography. "Photograph" means "writing of light" — writing with light, so that, for instance, what people have written at the second site could be kept awhile, to reappear on a mirror at the third site. When the light goes off, everything goes black. The photograph would have a certain duration, and then — gone. We could use photography or video, perhaps. PE I hear you . . . some kind of video camera that imprints on the third place a record of the tape, which is then erased by light in some/ , ; fhere would then be a constant circularity of erasure. CR Fire can erase also. JD They would not allow us to burn anything a/ ,, 3 , llette, for safety reasoip" .Lthink a video machine or camera would be useful. PE Yes, I like it. What worries me, Jacques, is your concern about the labyri t; ^ ^ I have a very ambiguous relationship with the labyrinth. I like it, of course, but I think it is too close to the desire to find the'eA.c-^r door from the reappropriation. It's too classical; it's a topos. PE As yet, the palimpsest and quarry do not exist in architecture; they are not architectural figures. I was trying to use an extant architectural figure to root the thing architecturally. I think we need the third place, but perhaps another figure would be better. Can you give me another metaphor? We have Tschumi and Eisenman, now we need you and Plato. JD The idea I could have concerns the idea o.f, receptacle, the place where everything is received. That is chora; that is also Socrates in the dialogue. He is the one who listenL.,/3 makes everybody^p^ak, he is the universal addressee of everything. Perhaps it is possible to use sound in the project. For instance, the third place/ m,^/ be the place which is to receive everything which has been written or spoken, a sort of eye and ear receiving and reflecting ^thing. I will tell you what I am sure of and what I am less sure of. I am sure that the idea of these three places making a sort of strange memory of La Villette, Tschumi's project and yours, etc., is strong. I am less sure that the rest of our, your PE No, no. Of our . . . JD. . . is physically possible for the moment. We have to imagine crowds coming into this place. It must not be too complicated, otherwise people will not understand. It will be profound or not profound, but simple. The operations must be simple. PE Simple. I think you are right. It has to have incredible simplicity, but it also has to be able to do what we want it to do. In the third site, the labyrinth ... I want a void, an absolute erasure. JD That is water. PE
• . . Water erases sand. You see, the quarry has architectural dimension, it has mass and it can be read. Things have been ( , . ■ ■ < an erasure of a sort. It seems that there are three kinds of erasure. The quarry, let's say, is my project in Venice. You
. . , .-.way and you see the project in a different way than you would see it in a palimpsest or in sand. JD In that case you, as „ i do that. But in this case you want the visitors to do the something. PE Yes, I understand. But what is the last place? ,oout three kinds of erasure: taking stones away; covering up a layer with another layer as in the palimpsest; and finally, . , , erasure by water. How do we relate that to you and Plato? That is the difficulty — using that metaphor to embody your
,, r , - -r iO to Plato. JD You asked me this question some time ago, and my answer was that I had the feeling of walking backwards. PE 1 ight. So how do we make "walking backwards"? CB How do you experience work when you are walking backwards? PE
• i , ackwards is fine, but how do you make a thine c«Hk6 people have to walk backwards? How do you do that physically? , _ - /ou control that wil r ^ i that says, "Now, turn i-WWid and walk backwards"? We will get it. We have to be prepared for
an of anxiety. I neve/ . ■IL about it — we will know when it is right. JD Do you think that the second place would have to ; m concrete the architectural structure of La Villette? Will you ask them to build a model? PE A model? The plan, or per-
haPc a niece. It could be at different scales. I don't have any notion yet of how we are going to do that, but it will be something that ^ >■ suggests the history — the abattoir, for example. Then the third site is the place where Derrida/Plato enter mysteriously, a are saying that there are two histories: one of Tschumi/Eisenman anc-^^other of Plato/Derrida, both of which fuse in : < ■ , an/Derrida. I'm sorry but this third is really bugging me. Labyrinth was a heuristic to push it — it's difficult. JD Let's go back to my chora text. The main motives are first, the inclusion of p^ilji/e in narrative, boxes within boxes. Then, Socrates as chora, as the receptacle of the dialogue, a universal receiver. Finally, ir 1, chora is thought as in a dream — a hybrid, dreamed of. The idea of the dream is very importar\;\,i'ML That is why I thought or the video. It has to do with light, but also with dreams, phantasms, and so on. PE So how about a blc. for the third site? JD That's all right. PE It seems to have something to do with what you
are saying. JD Something having to do with a dream PE Receptacle? JD Receptacle, night. PE Light. JD Light and night. Did you decide if the places are to be open or covered? PE Open. JD Then we couldn't use video or film. PE The third could be closed, perhaps a dark cave. JD So that we could enter into, let us say, Plato, in three stages. First, chora will be totally open air. Then some intermediary situation, and finally, totally black, totally enclosed. PE It could be the other way. The quarry where you begin could be totally black because it is underground. If we did it in reverse, the underground is you and Plato, you quarry Plato. JD Everyone will think of the cave, of course, Plato's cave. PE That's right, but let's -yVH around. The next could be the palimpsest, where there is trace and erasure. Then the final place isJj||humi. La Villette as it i > pR we could go that way around. That is interesting: you start in a cave, go through the black box to t '* ■■sn. JD But in the final state you have to erase, you cannot simply have the masterwork. PE Much better this progression, this ci.'ijSmty. You and Plato, then me, then Tschumi, then the work.