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Analysis Of Heidegger's Building Dwelling Thinking

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After the destruction in Germany due to the World War 2, the struggle for survival and inhabitation had been the most and immediate business for the people. The war caused the destruction of near one-fifth of the German houses between 1939 and 1945. In West Germany, there were required almost two and a half million houses for the refugees and another million for younger families. It was where the German philosopher Martin Heidegger’s Freiburg and Black forest were located. People shared accommodation there till they could find their own. Then arose the question of termed as “Wohnungsfrage” that means “Dwelling Question” due to this housing crisis. In its response Heidegger wrote his famous “Building Dwelling Thinking”.
Building Dwelling Thinking …show more content…

Heidegger says that the jug is basically a vessel when considered through its material and shape; it is just used for holding. Its main purpose is revealed when we fill the jug with water i.e the emptiness between the walls and bottom of the jug gets filled to show the real purpose of that thing. Another main thing is that the holding function is performed by the walls and the bottom of the jug, what the potter do is that he just shapes the clay and the void to give the jug the meaning of “Thingness”.
In this essay, he linked the concept of thingness with nearness and describing that how a thing is related to its already existing conditions of fourfold. This essay is somehow different for people who got modern western education because the writer has used a strange technique that anyone who reads the text feels as if that the writer is his philosophical guide.
Another important thing is that like all the other writings, this essay cannot be digested well without getting one’s own self involved in …show more content…

In his essay, Heidegger discusses the type of dwelling which is poetic in a sense. He then questions further that are the dwellings poetic in a true sense if yes then are other dwellings incompatible with the poetic ones? He further questions about the coexistence of the man’s social and historical life. For Heidegger, poetry is the things that let the man dwell and dwelling is through building. He believes that art of building is very much similar to the art of poetry. The way the verses in a poem depict a simple fact in a really creative way is same as that of the technique of constructing a building and then making the building alive by dwelling in that particular building. This philosophy of Heidegger is reflected in his architectural design sense that he connects the building styles with human life. This poem tends to remove the misconceptions that poems snatch away the realities of this world or poetry is mere fantasy but it’s not like that. Actually, poetry brings fantasy to life. Same as the opposing above and below and belonging to each other; the writer sees different contrasting things as

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