Between ruins and landscapes

Heterotopic poetics in the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright

Abstract

We propose an analysis of Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture, particularly the 1936 Fallingwater House, from the notion of heterotopia. This concept was introduced by French philosopher Michel Foucault, who defined it as other places that function as counterspaces that question the usual places in the city. This conceptual tool has been extremely useful for architectural theory and criticism, as it makes decentered discourses visible, marginalizing those other histories that remain outside the dominant architectural discourse. In particular, we are concerned with the heterotopias of Mayan and Japanese cultures, which will inform the spatial conception of our case study. Their poetics allow us to consider the American architect within a decentralized aesthetic of the modern movement that strongly took hold in the 20th century. The conclusion is that conceptual shifts between philosophy and architecture help to clarify critical positions by interrogating the other. It is concluded that conceptual shifts in the concept of heterotopia challenge critical positions in architecture by questioning otherness in space.