Preserving The Fourfold
The edifices guard the fourfold. They are things that in their own way preserve the fourfold.
To preserve the fourfold, to save the earth, to receive the sky, to await the divinities, to escort mortals – this fourfold preserving is the simple nature, the presencing, of dwelling. In this way, then, do genuine buildings give form to dwelling in its presencing and house this presence.Building thus characterized is a distinctive letting-dwell. Whenever it is such in fact, building already has responded to the summons of the fourfold. All planning remains grounded on this responding, and planning in turn opens up to the designer the precincts suitable for his designs.
As soon as we try to think of the nature of constructive building in terms of a letting-dwell, we come to know more clearly what that process of making consists in by which building is accomplished. Usually we take production to be an activity whose performance has a result, the finished structure, as its consequence. It is possible to conceive of making in that way; we thereby grasp something that is correct, and yet never touch its nature, which is a producing that brings something forth…
Building Dwelling Thinking by Martin Heidegger, trans. by Albert Hofstadter, published 1954
I attended a town-hall meeting last night, a hour and a half of Q&A by our member of the House of Representatives, Bill Foster. Departing the event I felt a kinship to the Representative, the result of his will to remain a decent human. Paradoxically and concurrently after all that was said inside the meeting space, I felt no hope of any rescue from the Trump-DOGE-mob onslaught on our institutions, coming from the remnants of the Democratic party in Washington. The “old ways” are fighting a rear guard action, trusting to the courts, and reinforcements are certain to be too late to “save the day.” Remember Custer!
I find solace in the essay which I just finished presented by Martin Heidegger at the end of his career as one of Germany/Europe’s most respected intellectuals. He opens for me the notion that constructed spaces, in addition to the obvious practical need for shelter, also establish a confluence, a unity between nature (sky and earth), our sense of the divine, and time-bound/mortal humans.
Heidegger characterizes this framing as preserving the fourfold, presencing, bringing something forth. In the wake of an overview of our conflict riven society, I am satisfied, inspired by these written words.
Am I able to hear the summons of the fourfold?
