In Vom Subjekt zum Projekt [From Subject to Project], Vilém Flusser declares that the house must be reinvented (Vom Subjekt zum Projekt, 1994, pp. 61–74). For the end of the individual also signifies the end of the old house which centered the individual, allowing him/her to venture forth and then return to process the experiences made amid the “familiar.” That house, and the ontological, political, and social boundaries it afforded, have become obsolete.

The relationships between inside and outside, between private and public, have changed now that the walls of the house are no longer penetrated only by windows and doors, but also by various kinds of media. The radio, which was once perceived by Martin Heidegger as an intruder in the lockable, enclosing, and excluding house, was merely a precursor to the disappearance of the house’s bounds.

From this, Flusser concludes that the new house should be oriented toward the flood of symbols that will inevitably invade it. He envisages it as a “node of competence” within flows of information, communicating with similar nodal points and participating in a free and adventurous game, the object of which is to generate new information.

The materiality of the house is of little interest to Flusser; this, however, has done nothing to diminish architecture’s interest in Flusser’s philosophy. Of course architects continue to work on the translation of designs into durable material and enduring buildings. Yet perspectives have been changed by war and reconstruction, by demolition and rebuilding in the name of markets and modernity, by the growing importance of temporary structures, and by engaging with virtual spaces: Over the course of the twentieth century, various experiences have given rise to an awareness that the solidity of things is not to be relied upon. Today the tents, sails, and screens, the “creative nests” so prized by Flusser, are quite present in architecture as well.

Original article by Susanne Hauser