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September 16, 2004
Just after the example of the bridge in Building Dwelling Thinking essay Heidegger remarks:
"Before the bridge stands, there are of course many spots along the stream that can be occupied by something. One of them proves to be a location, and does so because of the bridge. Thus the bridge does not first come to a location to stand in it; rather, a location comes into existence only by virtue of the bridge. The bridge is a thing; it gathers the fourfold, but in such a way that it allows a site for the fourfold. By this site are determined the localities and ways by which a space is provided for."
That is a dense passage. What is being referred to is not something pre-existing-- a position-- but arises with the bridge that is regarded as a thing.
Heidegger then adds:
"Things which, as locations, allow a site we now in anticipation call buildings. They are so called because they are made by a process of building construction. Of what sort this making-building-must be, however, we find out only after we have first given thought to the nature of those things which of themselves require building as the process by which they are made."
Heidegger then goes on to ask some useful questions:
"For one thing, what is the relation between location and space? For another, what is the relation between man and space? The bridge is a location. As such a thing, it allows a space into which earth and heaven, divinities and mortals are admitted. The space allowed by the bridge contains many places variously near or far from the bridge. These places, however, may be treated as mere positions between which there lies a measurable distance.."
In a space that is represented purely as mere position the bridge appears as a mere something at some position, which can be occupied at any time by something else or replaced by a mere marker. In architectural language it is a site.
I presume that what Heidegger is doing here is arguing against the idea of space in modern mathematical physics which accords primacy to position. That means little by way of the concrete particularity of place. Is Heidegger edging his way back to residing in a place?
What we do have is a shift from a mere spot, position or simple location into a fully fledged location. That fully fledged location is also a gathering of the fourfold to reside in the bridge.
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