The Philosophy of Architecture or Architecture as Philosophy in Hegel’s Lectures on

Fine Art

There seems to be a discomfort every time philosophy encounters the question of architecture.
Architecture seems to move in ambiguous zones, in in-between spaces difficult to define,
conceptualize, and classify. How do we understand the architectural object? Should we analyze
it in its functionality or use? Should we understand it as a form of art within the tradition of
aesthetics? And, assuming the last one, does not its own functionality blur the idea of a pure
artistic form within certain aesthetic discourses? Maybe due to the “hard time” that architecture
seems to have given to the philosopher, one can find a negligence, not to say most of the times
a completely disregard, towards this subject within the tradition of philosophy. Of courseOf
course, there is a vast amount of literature on theory of architecture; as a matter of fact, the first
treaty we know about on the subject, written by Vitruvius, dates from 80 B.C. Nonetheless our
appreciations on the uncomfortable encounter between philosophy and architecture is pointing
to the discourses found in the texts of what we call the “canonical” figures in the tradition of
western philosophy. It is within this tradition that architecture has passed almost unexplored,
usually quickly analyzed, and in most of the cases dismissed. Architecture seems to be an
uncomfortable place for the philosopher.

1. Antecedents

prekantian – Vitruvian – wolff.

Let us take Kant’s account of architecture, even though calling it an account would be already
an exaggeration. In his Critique on the Faculty of Judgment Kant devotes a few
paragraphparagraphs to architecture as a form of art and use some architectural examples for
some of his analysis. It is never clear, however, what is the status of architecture within his
system. We know that architecture is classified by Kant as a plastic art, and more specifically as
a fine art. (XXXX) Nonetheless once he gives a more precise description of Architecture’s art
qualities, the classification offered seems to blur.

For Kant, the aesthetic judgement is neither a judgment of utility, nor one of the agreeable or the
good; It is, rather, a disinterested judgment. This type of pure aesthetic judgment takes place
mostly when appreciating nature. Nevertheless, Kant also recognizes that some artistic forms
can produce an aesthetic pleasure, but only insofar as it “looks to us like nature”(nature” ( §
45.). This means then that art must look as if did not intend to look like nature, “Thus the
purposiveness in the product of beautiful art, although it is certainly intentional, must
nevertheless not seem intentional” (§ 45). It would not be too risky to deduce that the art of
which we can have a disinterested judgment, according to Kant, has to be representative if it is
to produce the feeling of pleasure proper to the beautiful. But it seems that Kant is aware of the
fact that art does not always succeed in imitating nature or does not even seek to do so, and he
includes in his definitions the category of adherent beauty.

There are two kinds of beauty: free beauty (pulchritudo vaga) or merely adherent beauty Formatted: Font: Italic

(pulchritudo adhaerens ). The first presupposes no concept of what the object ought to Formatted: Font: Italic

be; the second does presuppose such a concept and the perfection of the object in
accordance with it. The first are called (self-subsisting) beauties of this or that thing; the
latter, as adhering to a concept (conditioned beauty), are ascribed to objects that stand
under the concept of a particular end. (§ 16.)

But let us go slowly. We have so far three different aesthetic experiences: i) the free beautiful,
experienced in our encounter with nature. It is free insofar as the feeling produced in us is not
mediated or caused by any type of interest (be practical or aggregable); ii) the adherent
beautiful, produced by art that intents to look like nature but we still can notice it is not nature
itself. We judge it then by its purpose or goal and measure it by comparing the results with its
initial intentsions; iii) but Kant also includes a pure type of beauty in art when the object does not
seem to pursue any purpose and does not imitate nature, and still produces in us the feeling of
the beautiful, “designs a` la grecque, foliage for borders or on wallpaper, etc., signify nothing by
themselves: they do not represent anything, no object under a determinate concept, and are
free beauties.” (§ 16). According to this categoriesthese categories, one would tend to situate
architecture within the third cathegorycategory, architecture does not imitate nature and its
forms can produce pleasure. But curiously, architecture is in fact an adherent type of beauty, as
it presupposes a concept of the end of its purpose. However, what is significant and unique
about it, is that architecture is an adherent type of beauty that does not seek to imitate nature.

(…) a building (such as a church, a palace, an arsenal, or a garden-house) presupposes

a concept of the end that determines what the thing should be, hence a concept of its
 perfection, and is thus merely adherent beauty. Now just as the combination of the
agreeable (of sensation) with beauty, which properly concerns only form, hindered the
purity of the judgment of taste so the combination of the good (that is, the way in which
the manifold is good for the thing itself, in accordance with its end) with beauty does
damage to its purity. One would be able to add much to a building that would be
pleasing in the intuition of it if only it were not supposed to be a church (16).

Architecture’s concept of perfection is its utility. We judge a building in regards to what extend
does it succeed in accomplishing its original purpose or function. But why including then
architecture within the category of art? Architecture is certainly not a representative type of art
and it does not seem to be either disinterested nor does it try to represent nature. It has a
purpose and that purpose is a practical one, a characteristic that should be excluded from both
the pure aesthetic experience of nature and of certain types of art, and from the adherent
beauty of certain forms of art that imitate nature. Architecture seems not to fit in any analysis of
the beautiful and yet Kant includes it.

But even if Kant struggles to handle the architectural object, what is relevant in his approach to
the subject is, as Paul Guyer (2011) suggests it, how he opens up the discussion about
architecture by displacing it from the Vitruvian discourse of beauty, utility and durability to the
possibility of an expressionism: “The decisive factor in this turn, I would suggest, is Kant’s thesis
that all art involves the expression of “aesthetic ideas,” that is, the expression of rational ideas in
a form that yields inexhaustible material for the play of the imagination” (Guyer, 7). In other
words, Kant opens up the possibility of discussing the architectural object by focusing in the
idea that such object aims to express or convey, rather than in its properties of beauty and Commented [GRM1]: La belleza no puede ser una
propiedad para Kant, no es una propiedad del objeto.
usefulness. Nonetheless what goes unnoticed in Guyer’s analysis is the fact that even if Kant
attributes to the architectural object the status of art, that is to say, the expression of a certain
aesthetic idea, that idea is still mediated by its function or utility (utilitas). And more important,
that function contaminates the purity of beauty:

But the beauty […] of a building (such as a church, a palace, an arsenal, or a garden- Commented [GRM2]: Esto ya lo hab’ias citado.

house) presuppose a concept of the end that determines what the thing should be,
hence a concept of its perfection, and is thus merely adherent beauty. Now just as the
combination of the agreeable (of sensation) with beauty, which properly concerns only
form, hindered the purity of the judgment of taste, so the combination of the good (that
 is, the way in which the manifold is good for the thing itself, in accordance with its end)
with beauty does damage to its purity.

This means that the values introduced by Vitruvius are still at stake, and only the perspective in
the analysis of them has changed. Still, it is true that with Kant the philosophical account of
architecture is no longer focused on the Vitruvian discourse of firmitas, utilitas y venustas, but
rather on the expression of an aesthetic idea. The beauty of an architectural object depends on
the achievement of its purpose. This approach opens up what later will be called in architectural Commented [GRM3]: Pero esto suena muy contrario a lo
que Kant llamar’ia lo bello. No s’e si aqu’I ya est’as por
theory a typology: buildings must follow a type, that is to say, a regulative idea based on its fuera de Kant, o no.
function.1 A church, a hospital, a prison, a school, they all respond to a particular typology, that
is to say, they all stage a certain pre-given idea.2

Guyer thinks the discussion is not anymore focus on the Vitruvian values. This is not completely
true. The definition of aesthetic pleasure already presupposes the exclusion of those values so
the discussion on those values still present. to judge it is to see how does it accomplish its initial
purpose.

(Schopenhauer post-kantian)

Guyer is right when he points at the turn that Kant will introduce in the coming philosophical
accounts of architecture. From Kant, philosophy will understand architecture from an
expressionist perspective. It is in this same stele were Hegel will situate himself. However, Commented [GRM4]: Esto es muy interesante, y yo creo
que se puede expander mucho. Es el mismo sentido de
unlike Kant, Hegel, maybe unintentionally, seems to give a more important role to architecture in expresionismo que se podr’ia ver en Hegel?
his philosophical system. Architecture inaugurates art, it is the first manifestation of the spirit in
its artistic form. But what calls our attention is that architecture is not only the first moment of art,
but also the first moment of the absolute spirit in its path towards absolute knowledge. In other
words, architecture is the first moment in the beginning of the beginning: it is the first moment of Commented [GRM5]: Los sentidos de beginning aquí son
distintos, yo creo. Habría que explicar esto muy bien.
art, which is, in turn, the first moment of the idea in its way through the Absolut Spirit. With art
the spirit takes distance from the cyclical processes of nature, the experience of the spirit’s

1
Also Rossi and the concept of typology. Cuneo’s article on the history of typology the
discussion on the idea of a “normative idea” of type.
2
footnote on Foucault and typologies. Panopticon as the classic typology of prison, Foucault
calls attention on how the form of all these institutions is similar.
freedom is thus actualized for the first time in Art. For Hegel Art is a way through which a people
seeks to understand itself. Commented [GRM6]: Sí, pero esto es también la religión y
la filosofía. Qué es propio del arte, distinto?

(check the step between architecture to art)

2. Hegel’s Lectures on Fine Art

In his system, Hegel analyzes different historical moments in the process of actualization of the
Spirit, that is to say in its different forms of becoming free by understanding itself. Art is thus the Commented [GRM7]: ¿En qué sentido son históricos?
¿Cómo sería esto distinto entonces de un análisis histórico
first of this historical developmentsthese historical developments in which freedom is staged for como el de la filosofía de la historia?
the first time. By means of the artistic production we intent to understand something about us Commented [GRM8]: Creo que este we es complicado, tal
vez podrías decir más de por qué we y no ellos.
and that desire is already guided by the spirit’s freedom. As William Maker puts it “Art is a
product of Spirit, it is part of the effort to craft our freedom, and in contemplating works of art we
also come to understand something distinctive about that effort and its realization” (Maker,
2000: 13). Thus, the spirit’s process of self-understanding starts with art i) insofar as it is the first
historical moment in which the spirit takes distance from nature by freely creating a piece of art; Commented [GRM9]: Sí, esto es muy importante! Creo que
puedes explicar esto más, por qué el primer paso para dejar
and ii) as it allows us to understand something about ourselves both in its present but also when la anturaleza es el arte?
looked retrospectively. Art is then part of the process of self-understanding of the absolute spirit. Commented [GRM10]: Esto tocaría definirlo, explicar qué
es. Qué es lo absolute de este espíritu?

in this its freedom alone is fine art truly art, and it only fulfils its supreme task when it has
placed itself in the same sphere as religion and philosophy, and when it is simply one way
of bringing to our minds and expressing the Divine, the deepest interests of mankind, and
the most comprehensive truths of the spirit. In works of art the nations have deposited
their richest inner intuitions and ideas, and art is often the key, and in many nations the
sole key, to understanding their philosophy and religion. (7) Commented [GRM11]: Desarrollar esto también, no has
hablado de la relación con la religion y la filosofía.

Hegel’s analysis of art deals, on the one hand, with the inner development of the Idea, ––which
is only an Idea by developing itself explicitly in its own activity–– that gives place to the
particular forms of art: symbolic, classic, and romantic. On the other hand, however, this form of
art coincides with a particular historical representation or materialization, a succession of
different figures: architecture, sculpture, painting, music and poetry. This is the reason why
there is for each form of art an exemplary materialization and, at the same time, we can find
these different materializations present in all of the three different moments of the particular
forms of art. Architecture, for instance, is for Hegel the best materialization of the symbolic form
of art, and it coincides historically with the Egyptian pyramids. But, at the same time, one can
find examples of architecture in the classic and romantic periods. Hegel’s Lectures are in fact
not only a study of the idea of each particular form of art –symbolic, classic and romantic– but
also a careful analysis of concrete works of art in themselves. Therefore, contrary to the opinion
of people like Adorno who blames Hegel for “the unwavering asceticism of conceptualization,
doggedly refusing to allow itself to be irritated by facts” (quote XXX), contrary to these type of
opinions, the artistic examples chosen by Hegel should be analyzed in all its right if one wants
to understand the aesthetic project presented in the Lectures. Not only was Hegel well versed Commented [GRM12]: Esto está muy interesante. ¿Cuál es
este Proyecto estético? ¿Por qué es un Proyecto?
on the literary forms of art of the western tradition3, he was in fact a great connoisseur of
different artistic manifestations both in his time and in the past, and his curiosity about other
non-western traditions is reflected in his aesthetic descriptions.

The process of actualization of the Absolute spirit has for Hegel three moments. The highest
form of self-understanding in this process is the conceptual work of philosophy. But since
philosophy is not part of our everyday life, and people usually do not tend to achieve this point
of self-understanding, the spirit also actualizes itself in different forms: i) through feeling,
imagination and faith with Religion; ii) and through the sensuous experience provided by Art.
(QUOTEXXX) This is why, for Hegel, art is just another manifestation of truth, it is indeed its
sensuous manifestation. Truth is, as such, for the first time expressed in beautiful art, because,
for Hegel “Beauty is only a specific way of expressing and representing the true” (Hegel’s
Lectures 91).
Commented [GRM13]: No estoy seguro de esta
explicación. Suena como si el espíritu decicidera no
actualizarse completamente desde el principio porque la
gente no entendería. Esto subjetiva al espíritu, y lo pone
como si ya estuviera complete por fuera d eeste movimeinto
pero solo se expresara en ciertas maneras. Creo que hay que
mostrar mucho major por qué arte, religion y filosofía, en ese
orden y en ese sentido.

Unlike the formal understanding of art offered in Kant’s third critique, Hegel is interested in the
content as well. For Kant, the beautiful is produced by the free play of our faculties of
imagination and understanding. It is then as such a feeling of pleasure that pertains to the
subject and never to the object, “its determining ground is the feeling of the subject and not a
concept of an object” (Kant § 17). But for Hegel beauty is a property of the object and he aims to
understand what is a beautiful object. Commented [GRM14]: Referencia el texto para mostrar
esto, esto es clave!

For art to be beautiful, that is to say to express or represent its truth, there must be what Hegel
calls an adequacy between the idea aimed to be expressed and the form in which that idea is
sensuously materialized. The movement of the idea of art, which first stage is the symbolic form

3
See houlgate hegel and the arts. Pag xiii Formatted: English (United States)
of art, is prompted in the first place by the search of adequacy between shape and meaning. In
Hegel’s words: “symbolic art seeks perfect unity of inner meaning and external shape which
classical art finds in the presentation of substantial individuality to sensuous contemplation, and
which romantic art transcends in its superior spirituality” (Hegel Lectures: 302 my emphasis). In
other words, art is the movement of the sensuous appearance and actualization of the Spirit in
three different stages called particular forms of art: the symbolic, the classic and the romantic.
The particular forms of art are “the concrete determinations of the Idea of Art”. On its way of
actualization, the Idea departs by differentiating itself from nature and seeks its first expression
in art. In its path of actualization, the idea of art will pass from the symbolic form, to the classic Commented [GRM15]: ¿Por qué pasa esto? Hegel tiene que
mostrar que esto es necesario, no solo un capricho del
and finally to the romantic, where art reaches its own end. espíritu.
Commented [GRM16]: ¿Por qué estas tres?

The first moment, the symbolic form of art, is still abstract and the Idea cannot find its real
determination in any external object: “it is still abstract and indeterminate and therefore does not
have its adequate manifestations on and in itself, but finds itself confronted by what is external
to itself, external things in nature and human affairs” (300). The pure universality of the idea
cannot find any adequacy with the particularity and singularity of external objects. However, this
first moment is sublated once the Idea finds its correspondence with the external object, that is
to say, once it is able to find universality as already incorporated within the particularity. This
second moment, the moment of Classic Art, is not anymore the sheer antagonism of shape and
meaning as in the symbolic form of art, it is rather the harmony of an adequacy. The Idea is in
this second moment not anymore abstract but rather “free infinite subjectivity” and, as such,
apprehends this actual determination as spirit. As Hegel ponts out, “now spirit, as free subject,
is determined through and by itself, and in this self-determination, and also in its own nature,
has that external shape, adequate to itself with which it can close as with its absolute reality”
(301). This is for Hegel the moment in which art reaches its true nature insofar as it brings the
Idea of the beautiful in harmony with the material reality. But this Spirit is still burdened with an
abstraction. (Which type abstraction?) It will need to return from the outwardly to the inwardly
self-determination. This return is the movement that takes place in the romantic form of art. As
Hegel points out, the spirit “dissolves that classical unification of inwardness and external
manifestation and takes flight out of externality back into itself” (301). In other words, the
external representation becomes irrelevant in the romantic form of art, and the split between
shape and meaning is again reintroduced in a different way than that of the symbolic form of art.
 3. Symbolic Art and Architecture in Hegel’s Aesthetics

Architecture is the first moment of the symbolic form of art, “L’architecture correspond à l‘art
symbolique dont, en tant qu‘art particulier, elle réalise le mieux le principe” (QuoteXXX). We
know so far that the principle guiding the symbolic form of art is the search of a perfect unity
between meaning and shape; but still we need to understand what this search or seek of unity
consists of, and what are the consequences of this particular process. We will come back to this
point.

The position of architecture within Hegel’s system seems to be a privileged one not only
because it is the first moment of art, but yet more important because art itself is the beginning of
Hegel’s system before philosophy and religion. In other words, architecture is the first moment
in the beginning of the beginning: it is the first moment of art, which is, in turn, the first moment Commented [GRM17]: Pero literalmente es el principio del
fin. ¿Cuál es el sentido de ese Segundo beginning?
of the idea in its way through the Absolut Spirit. But this first moment is still one-sideness and
Commented [GRM18]: No, la idea lleva mucho camino
abstract. This means that art has not found yet the perfect accordance of its meaning and its antes!

shape and so its shape appears as something external and not adequate to the meaning. Thus,
in the symbolic form of art “the Idea still seeks its genuine expression in art, because in itself it is
still abstract and indeterminate and therefore does not have its adequate manifestation on and
in itself, but finds itself confronted by what is external to itself, external things in nature and
human affairs” (300). Let us remember at this point that the truth of the concept of art becomes
actualized once the meaning and the shape relate one to each other in harmony.

Hegel characterizes symbolic art and thenceforth architecture only as the threshold of
art. it is not yet art, because art requires the adequacy of shape and meaning that only arrives in
the classic form; but it is not anymore sheer unconscious nature: “the symbol, in the meaning of
the word used here, constitutes the beginning of art, alike in its essential nature and its historical
appearance, and is therefore to be considered only, as it were, as the threshold of art” (303). It
is the first movement required by art to come into its actuality, it inaugurates truth but it cannot
be called yet art for art requires the adequacy of shape and meaning and this is not the case in Commented [GRM19]: Esto parece arbitrario de parte de
Hegel.
the symbolic form of art. But symbolic art seeks this harmony between shape and meaning.
Nevertheless, this search of unity between external shape and inner meaning staged by the
symbolic form of art is not a harmonious encounter. On the contrary, it is a battle: “it is in
general a battle between the content which still resists true art and the form which is not
homogeneous with that content either” (Hegel 317). And it is precisely the structure of the
symbol itself what carries the antagonism.

The first clarification made by Hegel on his account of the symbol is the two elements
present in every symbol: a) the meaning or the “idea or topic” and b) the expression, that is to
say, a sensuous presentation, a shape. It is true that every symbol is also a sign. However,
while in the sign the relation between the two before mentioned elements is always arbitrary, in
the symbol, on the contrary, the relation allows the meaning to be already incorporated––in a
very particular way––in its expression: “the symbol is not purely arbitrary sign, but a sign which
in its externality comprises in itself at the same time the content of the idea which brings into
appearance” (Hegel 305). Symbolic art, but more precisely architecture, is the moment in which
the idea that has already taken distance from Nature cannot identify itself with a particular real
shape. Or to put it in another way, the expression, the shape, resists the determination of one
idea and carries in itself an ambiguity of meaning. As a result of this inadequacy, the idea ends
up being abstract and measureless, for it is only in its adequacy with the shape that can
determine itself freely. The ambiguity that the symbol carries within itself comes from the fact
that the expression does not reflect immediately an explicit meaning, but rather takes us to a
multiplicity of different interpretations:

this is because even if, on the one hand, the content, which is the meaning, and the
shape, which is used for the signalization thereof, harmonize in one property, still, on the
other hand, the symbolic shape contains yet other characteristics of its own utterly
independent of that common quality which the symbolic shape signified once (Hegel 305).

But even if the relation between meaning and expression is not arbitrary, the symbol in
which Hegel is interested cannot have a total harmonious coincidence between these two
elements4.

Hegel brings architecture in the section on the symbolic form art to explain what he understands
as the “Symbolism Proper”. A symbol is for Hegel constituted of: i) a meaning [Bedeutung] or
the “idea or topic” and ii) the expression [Gestält], that is to say, a sensuous presentation, a
shape. Symbolic art, but more precisely architecture, is the moment in which the idea that has

4
For an analysis between the ambiguity between this differentiation made by Hegel between the
sign and the symbol see “Le Puits et la pyramide”, Jacques Derrida. 1972.
already taken distance from Nature cannot identify itself with a particular real shape (on wonder
as the step out of nature, why pure wonder is not yet art but is a condition sine qua non). In
other words, the shape resists the determination of one idea and carries in itself an ambiguity of
meaning. As a result of this inadequacy, the idea ends up being abstract and measureless, for it
is only in its adequacy with the shape that can determine itself freely. The ambiguity that the
symbol carries within itself comes from the fact that the expression does not reflect immediately
an explicit meaning, but rather takes us to a multiplicity of different interpretations:

this is because even if, on the one hand, the content, which is the meaning, and the
shape, which is used for the signalization thereof, harmonize in one property, still, on the
other hand, the symbolic shape contains yet other characteristics of its own utterly
independent of that common quality which the symbolic shape signified once (Hegel 305).

The symbol, as described by Hegel, cannot have a total harmonious coincidence between
these two elements5. For precisely what characterizes symbolic art in general and architecture
in particular is the antagonism and struggle that takes place in the seeking of adequacy
between them: “the whole symbolic art may be understood as a continuing struggle for
compatibility of meaning and shape” (318). In this seek of adequacy, meaning and expression,
shape and idea, enter into a battle that will end only with the disappearance of architecture
itself. It is not the eradication of architecture as such, we are not talking about destroying
buildings ––although that would be a real battle––, but rather the sublation of the symbolic
moment––and therefore of architecture as its exemplary concretization–– and the beginning of
the classic form or art. The paradoxical situation of architecture is that of being what it is by
canceling itself. Architecture must be sublated and replaced: its form of being is that of a Commented [GRM20]: Pero esto es cierto de todos los
momentos del Sistema de Hegel, por la dialéctica. ¿Qué es
constant battle to ceasing being itself, architecture’s way of being is the continuous antagonism propio de la arquitectura?
that will lead to its own dissolution.

In this research I will argue that the paradoxical situation of architecture within Hegel’s system is
twofold: i) By inhabiting an in-between position difficult to categorize, namely, architecture is not
yet art but is no longer sheer unconscious Nature; ii) by inaugurating the movement of the
actualization of the Idea of the beautiful within the system, while being the most grounded/stable
of all forms of art. As a threshold between nature and the spirit, architecture gives birth to the Commented [GRM21]: Desarrollar esto, por qué la más
grounded?

5
For an analysis between the ambiguity between this differentiation made by Hegel between the
sign and the symbol see “Le Puits et la pyramide”, Jacques Derrida. 1972.
movement that will remain present throughout every moment of the Spirit as a necessary
condition for its development and its becoming self-explicit. Architecture, as the birth of the
absolute spirit, will not only determine and dictate its destiny, will constitute such destiny.
Therefore, what we would like to show is how, if the destiny of the absolute spirit is philosophy,
and such destiny is always already contained in its birth ––architecture––, there must be a
philosophical element in architecture that Hegel did not develop and requires further
explanation. But even more, we would like to show how architecture does not only determine
philosophy, but how the destiny itself of philosophy might be architecture. (include analysis on
the circularity of hegel’s system).
What we would like to find in this research is how the absolute knowing cannot simply be
understood as “though thinking itself”, but as thought thinking itself always in a concrete place,
spatially determined. This analysis will take as a point of departure Hegel’s philosophy of nature
in order to understand the concepts of space, time and place (time+space). This analysis will
allow us to reflect on how architecture can take place within nature but by disrupting such
nature. The disruption of architecture within nature will be shown through Hegel’s analysis of the
Egyptian pyramids and the description of Antigone present in the Phenomenology. The
pyramids appear “as the negative of life, as death (…) in a concrete shape” (355). Building a
Commented [GRM22]: Esto es muy difícil de mostrar!
Cómo se entendería como destino?
Commented [GRM23]: Este creo que es el núcleo de tu
claim. Como hablamos aquí, yo pienso que habría que ser
muy cuidadoso con lo que se llama aquí “always already
contained.” Si fuera completamente contenido, no hace falta
el desarrollo y lo que tenemos sería un idealismo que Hegel
quiere atacar. El desarrollo se necesita, así que tiene que
haber algo que el movimiento mismo gane.
Commented [GRM24]: Chévere, me gusta mucho esto.
Esta es una pregunta muy distinta de la anterior, me parece.
No sé si puedas tratar ambas así al tiempo.
Commented [GRM25]: Pero estos son dos momentos muy
muy distintos del Sistema! Hay que mostrar en qué sentido
puedes usarlos los dos paralelamente.

space to remember death, is to stop the cyclical undifferentiated process of nature, with the
pyramids “the death acquires the content of living itself” (355). Thus, the pyramid appears as the
concrete preservation of death. But how is it possible to preserve the absence? How to make
present that which is precisely the absolute negation of presence itself? It is precisely the
structure of the symbol what allows the Egyptian pyramids to stage this relation between death,
absence, and presence. (description on Hegel semiotics).

….

Tentative text structure.

1- Nature and architecture:
1.1. Nature, space. Hegel’s definition of space: the point, the line, the plane, the
geometrical body. how architecture appears in this?
How space is the first difference within nature?
 1.2. Place. Space + Time. How architecture appears in place? Place is by virtue
of architecture. The first place. It takes place. It comes to be place for the first
time in its concreteness.
a. The step away from nature. How architecture interrupts the cyclical processes of
nature. Funerary architecture
- The Egyptian pyramids: With architecture, but more precisely funerary
architecture ––the pyramids is the example used by Hegel––, the spirit
erects itself as freed from the cyclical process of Nature. It stops that
cycle by making present death, by “commemorating’ death and taking it
away from the undifferentiated cycle of nature.
- Antigone’s burial in the Phenomenology.
2- Memory and architecture.
2.1. the memory of the spirit is art. Angelica Nuzzo.
2.2. How memory becomes spatial. The memory of the spirit is always spatial and it
moves from the abstraction into the concreteness of spatiality.
3- History, memory and philosophy.
3.1. The concreteness of the spirit in space. The possibility of philosophy thanks to
space.
3.2. A spatial understanding of history. Philosophy as always located historically.
History takes form in space.
4- I’d like challenge one the most common interpretations of Hegel’s philosophy that
understands philosophy as thought thinking itself. Philosophy is in fact thought thinking
itself but historically determined, that is to say in place rather than purely temporarily
determined.

I don’t want to deal with hegel’s understanding of art as beautiful.