Primitivism and Otherness - (Post)Structuralist Influences: from Aldo van Eyck to Sou Fujimoto

With this thesis, it is proposed to use the structuralism theoretical framework and its practical relationship to language as a starting point to analyse the relationship between Aldo van Eyck and Sou Fujimoto, and then move towards post-structuralism. In this process, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari are highlighted as key post-structuralism thinkers. In doing so, the aim is to mediate between the theories of the Realm of the Intermediate and the Primitive Future through these thinkers. The ultimate aim is to identify the theoretical conceptual background underpinning Fujimoto’s theory and to show how the architect’s work fits into a line of thought that runs parallel to dogmatic approaches to culture and architecture, with van Eyck as a precedent.

A mixed methodology is used, which consists of interpreting Fujimoto’s text and a selection of his works built between 2007 and 2012: Casa de madera definitiva, La casa antes de la casa and the N, Na and K Houses. With regard to the text, on the one hand, we “read between the lines” the influences of what we speculate may be the architect’s philosophical references and, on the other, we compare it with the theory and work of Van Eyck. To this end, the different chapters of the book are first grouped according to the three lines that characterise Kafka’s minor literature as proposed by Deleuze and Guatari, which situates Fujimoto as an architect of difference. Secondly, the original text is glossed with those passages that are considered key to confirming the hypothesis put forward. Thirdly, four of Fujimoto’s houses, understood as “conceptual objects”, are analysed through drawings and interpreted in line with the discourse that has been developed.

The thesis reveals the relationship between the concepts of otherness and primitivism in van Eyck and Fujimoto and what they imply in the human habitat that their architectures construct. On the one hand, there is Fujimoto’s primitivism, which, when applied to his works, turns them into conceptual objects. On the other hand, there is van Eyck’s ethnographic study of primitive cultures, recognizing them through otherness, which he applied to his work and to his own life in his house in Loenen aan de Vecht. The research also shows that, in the same way that van Eyck proposed the relationship between interior spaces and their relationship with the exterior of his architecture, Fujimoto, with primitivism as a strategy of intervention in the contemporary context, establishes territorial relationships with his projects, and relationships of primary states of architecture with its users, who through the initial estrangement construct a knowledge of the otherness generated by his architecture. This ends up being a means for the knowledge of the primitive in the present day and therefore a knowledge of the territory within the architecture.

The first chapter of the thesis presents the interpretation of the Primitive Future and the selected works. The second chapter is a coda where the partial conclusions derived from this exploration are presented. The third and fourth chapters expand and justify the glosses on the text. The thesis concludes with a chapter on the overall conclusions of the research.

This research contributes to the understanding of the linkage of Sou Fujimoto’s work with poststructuralism and as a successor to the structuralist thinking that informed Van Eyck’s work, both of which have not been explored before. Furthermore, the thesis provides a perspective on architecture as a process of cultural construction over time, as opposed to positions that argue for the rupture of “the commonplace” in contemporary architecture. Ultimately, with all that has been proposed and contributed with this thesis, a path is opened towards a possible doctoral thesis on the subject.