No. 57/58 (2021): Forms of ritual, forms of architecture
Articles

Scandal of the limit and anesthesia of the form in the society of a-mortality. I celebrate by John Hejduk, a formula beyond death

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  • Susanna Pisciella
Susanna Pisciella
Università IUAV, Venezia
Bio
FAMagazine. Research and projects on architecture and the city
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12838/fam/issn2039-0491/n57/58-2021/690

Published 2022-02-11

Keywords

  • John Hejduk,
  • Celebration,
  • Architecture and death,
  • Representation of pain,
  • Corporality

How to Cite

Pisciella, S. (2022). Scandal of the limit and anesthesia of the form in the society of a-mortality. I celebrate by John Hejduk, a formula beyond death. FAMagazine. Research and Projects on Architecture and the City, (57/58), 222–227. https://doi.org/10.12838/fam/issn2039-0491/n57/58-2021/690
Copyright Notice

Abstract

The culture of our time has removed the concept of the limit. Death is more and more a matter of others; spectacularization, or thanatology. Yet its cancellation is impossible. Farewell halls and funeral homes are neutral zones designed more to minimise than to comfort. They represent the extreme attempt to anaesthetise the pain of loss, to remove death. Anaesthetic architecture for an a-mortal society that has to reduce its sensitivity. Whereas death itself is the limit that humanises us.
John Hejduk, in spite of his time, puts death back at the centre of his work, revealing to us the only way not to succumb: to celebrate it. His work proves nothing, it celebrates everything. Through pain, his architecture recovers the sensitivity of form, its empathy.

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