Environmentalism and Phenomenology as the Common Task: How may Edmund Husserl’s practical philosophy contribute to Post-sustainability approaches in Architecture
Research endeavor dedicated to Prof. Dr. Kah-Kyung Cho (1927-2022), Korean-American philosopher of phenomenology, who generously mentored me in 2016-17 despite my lack of philosophical background.
Envisioning the earth as a client seems to entail a fundamental rethinking of architectural practice, both as a means of production and as organizational structure of societies. Strangely, current approaches to our environmental crisis are split between two disparate poles – either an apocalyptic view of the Anthropocene, or an accelerationist view that advocates technological innovations and statistics-informed monitoring systems for sustainability. The scientific paradigm of sustainability since the UN’s definition in 1987 has long been criticized by environmental historians (e.g. Donald Worster) and scientists alike, but nevertheless remained a hegemonic status in the architectural industries, its agendas formalized in green standards and even smart city development.
If architecture is to meet the task of reinventing itself under the paralysing pressure of Anthropocene and the paradoxical definition of sustainability, the first and foremost intellectual task is a re-conceptualization of the instrumental role of science and technology in relation to the structure of our consciousness in the crisis. This paper proposes that architects today may learn from mathematician- turned-philosopher Edmund Husserl’s (1859–1938) response to the dangers of Scientificism and Industrialization in the early 20thcentury, through his countering approaches known as the pure phenomenological methods and the concept of ‘lifeworld’. Through bringing today’s prevalent technological approaches to sustainability at household scale under Husserl’s and followers’ (e.g. philosopher of architecture Karsten Harries) philosophical lens, this paper aims to redirect the notion of sustainability to emergent forms of environmentalism, and thus illuminate the common ethos shared by environmentalism and phenomenology that may contribute to possibilities in post-sustainable practices.