Traces of Nietzschean Philosophy in the early Architectural Speculations of Lebbeus Woods

One of the most frequent analogies employed by Lebbeus Woods in his architectural rhetoric is the symbolic account of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden. This mythical fable, which marks the origin of humanity, delineates for Woods a crisis between the impulse for knowledge and the notion of faith. Nietzsche’s famous pronouncement that “God is dead” has similar implications to Woods’s symbolic ostracism from the Garden of Eden. In each case the catharsis represents an opportunity for the creative liberation of individuals from the stifling metaphysical quandary of Christianity. This catharsis also induces a fundamental crisis in architecture where existing buildings have become redundant because the ideologies upon which they are founded are no longer relevant. Both Nietzsche and Woods understand that for architecture to continue to exist a new “vernacular” is required.
This paper traces the parallel arguments of both Woods and Nietzsche, demonstrating first the symbolic denial of God, the architectural implications of this and then the means provided by both figures for circumventing this crisis. Fundamental to the resolution of this crisis is the necessity to recreate the world out of the shattered pieces left by the departure of God. Woods’s 1980 project for Einstein’s Tomb, as well as other speculative projects from the period, will be analysed as an extension of this philosophical position.