Heidegger, Martin

Bio Sketch

Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) was a German philosopher central to twentieth-century continental thought — phenomenology, existentialism, and the critique of technology. His later essays on dwelling, being, and place (notably "Building Dwelling Thinking," 1951) underpin the phenomenology of place in architecture and the architectural interest in dwelling, atmosphere, and "being-in-the-world."

Key Works

• *Building Dwelling Thinking* (1971)
• *Being and Time* (1927) — the structures of Dasein and being-in-the-world.

Key Concepts

Concepts associated with this author that have pages in this wiki:

• Dwelling
• Atmosphere
• Thing-Ontology — Heidegger's distinction between objects (Gegenstand, "what stands against") and things (selbstständig, "standing by themselves") as the foundation of the ontological spectrum of things.
• Dasein — the entity for whom Being is an issue; existence precedes essence.
• Being-in-the-World — the fundamental structure of Dasein; Being-in as dwelling.
• Ready-to-Hand and Present-at-Hand — equipmental vs. theoretical modes of encounter.
• Das Man (The 'They') — the anonymous public authority of everyday inauthenticity.
• Fallenness — Dasein's absorption in the they and the world of concern.
• Care (Sorge) — the Being of Dasein; ahead-of-itself, already-in, alongside.
• Angst (Anxiety) — the basic state-of-mind revealing uncanniness and individualizing Dasein.
• Being-Toward-Death — Dasein's ownmost, non-relational, not-to-be-outstripped possibility.
• Temporality — the ontological meaning of care; ecstatic unity of future, past, present.
• Uncanny — not-being-at-home; the feeling revealed by anxiety.
• Lived Body — the vehicle of Being-in-the-world (Merleau-Ponty develops Heidegger's foundation).
• Everyday Life — average everydayness as the starting point of the existential analytic.

Relevance to Geoffrey's Research

Heidegger anchors Geoffrey's phenomenology of place and modernity & dwelling areas. His account of dwelling as the basic character of human being, and of space as deriving from locations rather than abstract extension, provides the conceptual ground for the critical architecture of dwelling (Heynen) and for the ethical function of architecture (Harries). His critique of technology also informs readings of parametricism and the digital turn.

Source Support

Source notes in this wiki drawn from this author's work:

• Becoming Places (Dovey 2010) — the spatial ontology engaged, not dismissed: Dovey endorses "the spatiality of being – the role of place in stabilizing a fragile sense of being and identity" while separating it from "a much more spurious argument about a primordial sense of place with a singular identity, authentic history and exclusion of difference" (p. 5); "The claim that place is wrapped up with ontology does not suggest that lived experience is primordial or fully given. If we sever place from ontology then we are left with a weak theory about the relations of place to power" (p. 6); the zuhandenheit/vorhandenheit distinction redeployed for architecture's meaning-in-use (p. 46); "let the use of [buildings] teach you their meaning" (Wittgenstein parallel); and the replacement thesis — being-in-the-world succeeded by becoming-in-the-world. The chapter is this wiki's most careful engagement with the Heidegger/Massey dispute over place's ontology — see dwelling, being-in-the-world, becoming.
• Being and Time — the foundational existential analytic; Dasein, Being-in-the-world, ready-to-hand/present-at-hand, das Man, fallenness, angst, being-toward-death, care, temporality.
• Building Dwelling Thinking
• The Everyday, Building, and Architecture: Reflections on the Ethos and Beauty of Our Built Surroundings
• The Ethical Function of Architecture
• Architecture and Modernity: A Critique
• Existence, Space & Architecture
• Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture
• Habit and Inhabit, Stuff and Trash (Spuybroek 2025) — Spuybroek draws on Heidegger's distinction between objects (Gegenstand) and things (selbstständig) to ground the ontological spectrum of things; "the thick of things" as the ontological convergence of object with event, issue, and habit.
• Gadamer for Architects (Kidder 2013) — Gadamer was Heidegger's student; hermeneutics extends phenomenology through tradition, play, and the fusion of horizons.
• Design studio through the subtle revelations of phenomenology (Smith 2018) — the pedagogical reception via Marion: Heidegger "legitimates the possibility of a phenomenology of the unapparent in general" (The Visible and the Revealed, 2008, p. 7, quoted), and "Heidegger's terminology of 'showing itself' 'from itself' is the announcement of subtle revelation" — Heidegger's phenomenological method as the warrant for a design studio taught through the unapparent and the hidden (visible-invisible, subtle-revelation).