MARTIN HEIDEGGER

WORKS
General Editor J. Glenn Gray
POETRY,
Colorado College
LANGUAGE,
Also by Martin Heidegger THOUGHT
BEING AND TIME

DISCOURSE ON THINKING
(Gelassenheit) MARTIN HEIDEGGER
WHAT IS CALLED THlNKING?
Translations and Introduction by
IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE
'"
HEGEL'S CONCEPT OF EXPERIENCE
Albert Hofstadter
ON THE WAY TO LANGUAGE

PERENNIAL LlIIRARY
LU
Harper & Row, Publishers, New York
Grand Rapids, Philadelphia, St. Louis, San Francisco
London, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto
 CONTENTS

Preface vu
1 Introduction lX
References XXll1
1.The Thinker as Poet 1
II. The Origin of the Work of Art 15
III. What Are Poets For? 89
IV. Building Dwelling Thinking 143
V. The Thing 163
VI. Language 187
VII. " . . . PoetieaUy Man Dwells . . " 211

'"
A hardcover edition of tMs book is published by Harper & Row,
Publishers, [ne.

POETRY, LANGUAGE, THOUGHT. Copyright © 1971 by Martin Heidegger. AIl

tights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book
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First HARPER COLOPHON edition puhlished 1975

STANDARD BOOK NUMBER: 06~090430-5

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v
 BUILDING DWELLING THINKING

In what follows we shall try ta think about dwelling and

building. This thinking about building does not presume ta
discover architectural ideas, let alone ta give rules for building.
This venture in thought does not view building as an art or as
a technique of construction; rather it traces building back into
that domain to which everything that if belongs. We ask:
1. What is it to dwell?
2. How does building belong to dwelling?

1
We attain to dwelling, 50 it seems, only by means of build·
ing. The latter, building, has the former, dwelling, as its goal.
Still, not every building is a dwelling. Bridges and hangars,
stadiums and power stations are buildings but not dwellings;
railway stations and highways, dams and market halls are
built, but they are not dwelling places. Even sa, these buildings
are in the domain of our dwelling. That domain extends over
these buildings and yet is not limited to the dwelling place. The
truck driver is at home on the highway, but he does not have his
shelter there; the working woman is at home in the spinning
mill, but does not have her dwelling place there; the chief
engineer is at home in the power station, but he does not dwell
there. These buildings house man. He inhabits them and yet
does not dwell in them, when ta dwell means merely that we
take shelter in them. In today' 5 housing shortage even this much

145
146 POETRY,LANGUAGE,THOUGHT i.n.·l Building Dwelling Thinking 147

is reassuring and ta the good; residential buildings do indeed neah, near, and gebur, dweller. The Nachbar is the Nachgebm,
provide shelter; today'shouses may even be weil planned, easy' the Nachgebauer, the near-dweller, he who dwells nearby. The
ta keep, attractively cheap, open ta air, light, and sun, but-do verbs buri, büren, beuren, bem'on, ail signify dwelling, the
the houses in themselves hold any guarantee that dwelling occurs abode, the place of dwelling. Now ta be sure the old ward buan
in them? Yet those buildings that are not dwelling places re- not only tells us that bauen, ta build, is really to dwell; it also
main in tum determined by dwelling insofar as they serve man's gives us a clue as to how we have ta think about the dwelling it
dwelling. Thus dwelling would in any case be the end that pre- signifies. When we speak of dwelling we usually think of an
sides over ail building. Dwelling and building are related as end activity that man performs alongside many other activities. We
and means. However, as long as this is aU we have in mind, we work here and dwell there. We do not merely dwell-that
take dwelling and building as two separate activities, an idea would be virtual inactivity-we practice a profession, we do
that has something correct in it. Yet at the same time by the business, we travel and lodge on the way, nQW here, now there.
means-end schema we black our view of the essential relations. Bauen originally means ta dwell. Where the ward bauen still
For building is not merely a means and a way toward dwelling speaks in its original sense it also says how far the nature of
-ta build is in itself already ta dwell. Who tells us this? Who dwelling reaches. That i5, balten, bllan.< bhu, beo are our ward
gives us a standard at ,Il by which we can take the measure of bin in tbe versions: ich bin, 1 am, du bis!, yOll are, the impera-
the nature of dwelling and building? tive form bis, be. What then does ich bùz mean? The old ward
It is language that tells us about the nature· of a thing, pro- bauen, ta which the bin belongs, answers: ich bin, du bis! rnean:
vided that we respect languages own nature. In the meantime, l dwell, you dwell. The way in which you are and l am, the
1
ta be sure, there rages round the earth an unbridled yet clever manner in which we humans are on the earth, is BtlanJ dwelling.
talking, writing, and broadcasting of spoken words. Man acts as To be a human being means ta be on the earth as a mortal. It
though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact means ta dwell. The old ward bauen, which says that man
language remains the master of man. Perhaps it is before ail else if insofar as he dwells J this word ba1len however also means at

man' s subversion'" of this relation of dominance that drives his the same time to cherish and protect, to preserve and care for,
nature iuto alienation. That we retain a con cern for care in 1 specifically to till the sail, to cultivate the vine. Such building
speaking is ail ta the good, but it is of no help to us as long as only takes care-it tends the growth that ripens into its fruit
1
language still serves us even then only as a means of expression. of its own accord. Building in the sense of preserving and nur-
Among ail the appeals that we human beings, on our part, can turing is not making anything. Shipbuilding and temple-build-
1 ing, on the other hand, do in a certain way make their own
help to be voiced, language is the highest and everywhere the
first. works. Here builqing, in contrast with cultivating, is a construct-
What, then, does Bauen, building, mean? The Old English ing .. Bath modes of building-building as cultivating, Latin
and High German word for building, buan, means to dwell. 1 colere, witz/ra, and building as the raising up of edifices,
This signifies: to remain, to stay in a place. The real meaning aedificare-are comprised within genuine building, that is,
of the verb bauen, namely, to dwell, has been lost to us, But a dwelling. Building as dwelling, that is, as being on the eorth,
covert trace of it has been preserved in the German word Nach- however, remains for man's everyday experience that which is
bar, neighbor. The neighbor is in Old English the neahgebur; from the outset "habitual"-we inhabit it, as our language says
148 POETRY,LANGUAGE,THOUGHT Building Dwelling Thinking 149

sa beautifully: it is the Gewohnte. For this reason it recedes ward bauen, mean ta remain, ta stay in a place. But the Gothic
behind the manifold ways in which dwelling is accomplished, wl/nian says more distinctly how this remaining is experienced.
the activities of cultivation and construction. These activities W unian means: ta be at peace, ta be brought ta peace, ta re-
later claim the name of bau en, building, and with it the fact main in peace. The ward for peace, Friede, means the free,
of building, exclusively for themselves. The real sense of bauen, das Frye, and fry means: preserved from harm and danger,
namely dwelling, falls into oblivion. preserved from something, safeguarded. To free really means
At first sight this event looks as though it were no more than ta spare. The sparing itself consists not only in the fact that we
a change of meaning of mere terms. In truth, however, some- do not harm the one whom we spare. Real sparing is something
thing decisive is concealed in it, namely, dwelling is not ex- positive and takes place when we leave something beforehand
perienced as man' s being; dwelling is never thought of as the in its own nature, when we return it specifically ta its being,
basic character of human being. when we "free" it in the real sense of the word into a preserve
That language in a way retracts the real meaning of the ward of peace. Ta dwell, ta be set at peace, means ta remain at peace
bau en, which is dwelling, is evidence of the primaI nature of within the free, the preserve, the free sphere that safeguards
these meanings; for with the essential words of language, their each thing in its nature. The fundamental [haraeter of dwelling
true meaning easily falls into oblivion in favor of foreground is Ihis sparing and preserving. It pervades dwelling in its whole
meanings. Man has hardly yet pondered the mystery of this range. That range reveals itself ta us as saon as we reflect that
process. Language withdraws from man its simple and high human being consists in dwelling and, indeed, dwelling in the
speech. But its primaI cali does not thereby become incapable of sense of the stay of mortals on the earth.
speech; it merely falls' silent. Man, though, fails ta heed this But "on the earth" already means "under the sky." Bath of
silence. these also mean "remaining before the divinitie,' and include a
But if we !isten ta what language says in the ward bauen we "belonging to men's being with one another." By a p,'imal one-
hear three things: ness the four-earth and sky, divinities and mortals-belong
1. Building i~ really dwelling. together in one.
2. Dwelling is the manner in whieh mortals are on the earth. Earth is the serving bearer, blossoming and fruiting, spread-
3. Building as dwelling unfolds into the building that culti- ing out in rock and water, rising up into plant and animal.
vates growing things and the building that erects buildings. When we say earth, we are already thinking of the other tluee
If we give thought .la this threefold fact, we obtain a clue along with it, but we give no thought ta the simple oneness of
and note the following: as long as we do not bear in mind the four.
that all building is in itself a dwelling, we cannat even ade- The sky is the vaulting path of the sun, the course of the
quately ask, let alone properly decide, what the building of changing moon, the wandering glitter of the stars, the year' s
buildings might be in its nature. We do not dwell because we seasons and their changes, the light and dusk of day, the gloom
have built, but we build and have built because we dwell , that and glow of night, the clemency and inclemency of the weather,
is, because we are dwellers. But in wh.t does the nature of the drifting clouds and blue depth of the ether. When we say
dwelling consist? Let us listen once more to what language says sky, we are already thinking of theother three along with it,
to us. The Old Saxon lOllon, the Gothie lOunian, like the old but we give no thought ta the simple oneness of the four.
150 POETRY,LANGUAGE,THOUGHT Building Dwelling Thinking 151

The divinities are the beckoning messengers of the godhead. Mortals dwell in that they initiate their own nature~their
Out of the holy sway of the godhead, the god appears in his being capable of death as death~into the use and practice of
presence or withdraws into his concealment. When we speak of this capacity, sa that there may be a good death. Ta initiate
the divinities, we are already thinking of the other three along mortals into the nature of death in no way means to make
with them, but we give no thought ta the simple oneness of death, as empty Nothing, the goal. Nor docs it mean to darken
the four. dwelling by blindly staring toward the end.
The mortals are the human beings. They are called mortals In saving the earth, in receiving the sky, in awaiting the
because they can die. Ta die means ta be capable of death as divinities, in initiating mortals, dwelling occurs as the fourfold
deatll. Only man dies, and indeed continually, as long as he preservation of the fourfold. To spare and preserve means: to
remains on earth, under the sky, before the divinities. When take under our care, to look after the fourfold in its presencing.
we speak of mortals, we are already thinking of the other three What we take under our care must be kept safe. But if dwelling
along with them, but we give no thought to the simple oneness preserves the fourfold, where does it keep the fourfold's nature?
of the four. How do mortals make their dwelling such a preserving? Mortals
This simple oneness of the four we cali the fourlold. Mortals would never be capable of it if dweiling were merely a staying
are in the fourfold by dwelling. But the basic character of dwell- on earth under the sky, before the divinities, among mortals.
ing is ta spare, to preserve. Mortals dwell in the way they Rather, dwelling itself is always a staying with things. Dwelling,
preserve the fourfold in its essential being, its presencing. as preserving, keeps the fourfold in that with which mortals
Accordingly, the preserving that dwells is fourfold. stay: in things.
Mortals dwell in that they save the earth~taking the word Staying with things, however, is not merely something at-
in the old sense still known ta Lessing. Saving does not only tached ta this fourfold preserving as a fifth something. On the
snatch something from a danger. Ta save really means ta set conlrary: staying with things is the only way in which the four·
something free into its own presencing. Ta save the earth is fold stay within the fourfold is accomplished at any time in
more than ta exPloit it or cven wear it out. Saving the earth simple unity. Dweiling preserves the fourfold by bringing the
does not master the earth and does not subjugate it, which is presencing of the fourfold into things. But things themselves
merely one step from spoliation. secure the fourfold only when they themselves as things are let
Mortals dwell in that they receive the sky as sky. They leave be in their presencing. How is this done? In this way, that
to the sun and the moon their journey, ta the stars their courses, mortals nurse and nurture the things that grow, and specially
ta the seasons their blessing and their inclemency; they do not construct things that do not grow. Cultivating and construction
tum night into day nor day into a harassed unrest. are building in the na,rower sense. Dwelling, insofar as it keeps
Mortals dwell in that they await the divinities as divinities. or secur~s the fourfold in things, is, as this keeping, a building.
In hope they hold up to the divinities what is unhoped for. They With this, we are on our way ta the second question.
wait for intimations of their coming and do not mistake the
signs of their absence. They do not make their gods for them· II
selves and do not worship idols. In the very depth of misfortune In what way does building belong to dwelling?
they wait for the weal that has been withdrawn. The answer to this question will clarify for us what building,
 152 POETRY, LANGUAGE,THOUGHT Building Dwelling Thinking 153

understood by way of the nature of dwelling, really is. We limit ta other banks and in the end, as mortals, ta the other side.
ourselves ta building in the sense of constructing things and Now in a high arch, now in a low, the bridge vaults over glen
inquire: what is a built thing? A bridge may serve as an example aud stream-whether mortals keep in mind this vaulting of the
for our reflections. bridge' s course or forget that they, always themselves on their
The bridge swings over the stream "with ease and power." way ta the last bridge, are actually striving ta surmount all that
It does not just connect banks that are already there. The banks is common and unsound in them in arder ta bring themselves
emerge as banks only as the bridge crosses the stream. The before the haleness of the divinities. The bridge gathers, as a
bridge designedly causes them ta lie across from each other. passage that crosses, before the divinities-whether we explicitly
One side is set off against the other by the bridge. Nor do the think of, and visibly give thanks for, their presence, as in the
banks stretch along the stream aS indifferent border strips of the figure of the saint of the bridge, or whether that divine presence
dry land. With the banks, the bridge brings ta the stream the is obstructed or even pushed wholly aside.
one and the other expanse of the landscape Iying behind them. The bridge gathers ta itself in its own way earth and sky,
It brings stream and bank and land into each other' s neighbor- divinities and mortals.
hood. The bridge gathers the earth as landscare around the Gathering or assembly, by an ancient ward of our language,
stream. Thus it guides and attends the stream through the is called "thing." The bridge is a thing-and, indeed, it is
meadows. Resting upright in the stream's bed, the bridge'piers such as the gathering of the fourfold which we have described.
bear the swing of the arches that leave the stream's waters ta Ta be sure, people think of the bridge as primarily and really
run their course. The waters may wander on quiet and gay, merely a bridge; after that, and occasionally, it might possibly
the sky's floods from storm or thaw may shoot past the piers in express much else besides; and as such an expression it would
torrential waves-the bridge is ready for the sky's weather and then become a symbol, for instance a symbol of those things we
its fickle nature. Even where the bridge covers the stream, it mentioned before. But the bridge, if it is a true bridge, is never
holds its flow up ta the sky by taking it for a moment under first of all a mere bridge and then afterward a symbol. And
the vaulted gate':ay and then setting It free once more. just as Iittle is the bridge in the first place exclusively a symbol,
The bridge lets the stream run its course and at the same time in the sense that it expresses something that strictly speaking
grants their way ta mortals sa that they may come and go from does not belong ta it. If we take the bridge strictly as such, it
shore ta shore. Bridges lead in many ways. The city bridge never appears as an expression. The bridge is a thing and only
leads from the precincts of the castle ta the cathedral square; the that. Only? As this thing it gathers the fourfold.
river bridge near the country town brings wagons and horse Our thinking has of course long been accustomed ta ,tl/der-
teams ta the surrounding villages. The old stone bridges hum- state the nature of the thing. The consequence, in the course of
ble brook crossing gives ta the harvest wagon its passage from Westem thought, has been that the thing is represented as an
the fields into the village and carries the lumber cart from the unknown X ta which perceptible properties are attached. From
field path ta the road. The highway bridge is tied into the net· this point of view, everything that already belongs to the gather-
wade of long·distance tr.flic, paced as calculated for maximum ing natme of this thing does, of course, appear as something
yield. Always and ever differently the bridge escorts the linger· that is afterward read into it. Yet the bridge would never be a
ing and hastening ways of men ta and fro, sa that they may get mere bridge if it were not a thing.
154 POETRY,LANGUAGE,THOUGHT Bt/ilding Dwelling T hinking 155

Ta be sure, the bridge is a thing of its own kind; for it sa does the relation of the location ta the man who lives at that
gathers the f~urfold in st/ch a way that it allows a site for it. location. Therefore we shall now try ta clarify the nature of
But only something Ihat if itself a location can make space for these things that we cali buildings by the following brief con-
a site. The location i5 not already there before the bridge is. sideration.
Before the bridge stands, there are of course many spots along For one thing, what is the relation between location and
the stream that can be occupied by something. One of them space? For another, what is the relation between man and space?
proves ta be a location, and does sa becattse of the bridge. Thus The bridge is a location. As such a thing, it allows a space
the bridge does not first come ta a location ta stand in it; rather, into which earth and heaven, divinities and mortals are ad-
a location comes into existence only by virtue of the bridge. The mitted. The space allowed by the bridge contains many places
bridge is a thing; it gathers the fourfold, but in such a way that variously near or far from the bridge. These places, however,
it allows a site for the fourfold. By this site are determined the may be treated as mere positions between which there lies a
localities and ways by which a space is provided for. measurable distance; a distance, in Greek stadion, always has
Only things that are locations in this manner allow for spaces. room made for it, and indeed by bare positions. The space that
What the word for space, Rat/m, Rum, designates is said by its is thus made by positions is space of a peculiar sort. As distance
ancient meaning. Raltm means a place deared or freed for settle- or "stadion" it 1S what the same ward, stadion, means in Latin,
ment and lodging. A space is something that has been made a spa/iltm, an intervening space or interval. Thus nearness and
room for, something that is cleared and free, namely within a remoteness between men and things can become mere distance,
boundary, Greek peras. A boundary is not that at which some- rnere intervaIs of intervening space. In a space that is repre-
thing stops but, as the Greeks recognized, the boundary is that sented purely as spatium, the bridge now appears as a mere
from which something begins ils presencing. That is why the somethïng at sorne position, which can be occupied at any time
concept is that of horismos, that is, the horizon, the boundary. by something else or replaced by a mere marker. What is more,
Space is in essence that for which room has been made, that the mere dimensions of height, breadth, and depth can be ab-
which is let intc! its bounds. That for which room is made is straded from space as intervals. What is sa abstracted we repre-
always granted and hence is joined, that is, gathered, by virtue sent as the pure manifold of the three dimensions. Yet the room
of a location, that is, by such a thing as the bridge. Accordingly, made by this manifold is also no longer determined by distances;
spaces receive their being jrom locations and not jram (rspace."· it is no longer a spatimn, but now no more than extensÎo-'-
Things which, as locations, allow a site we nQW in anticipation extension. But from space as extensio a further abstraction can
cali buildings. They are sa called because they are made by a pro- be made, ta analytic-algebraic relations. What these relations
cess of building construction. Of what sort this making-build- make room for is the possibility of the purely mathematical
ing~must be, however, we find out only after we have first construction of manifolds with an arbitrary number of dimen-
given thought ta the nature of those things which of themselves sions. The space provided for in this mathematical manner may
require building as the process by which they are made. These be called "space," the "one" space as such. But in this sense
things are locations that allow a site for the fourfold, a site that "the" space, "space," contains no spaces and no places. We
in each case provides for a space. The relation between location never find in it any locations, that is, things of the kind the
and space lies in the nature of these things qua locations, but ;,ridge is. As against that, however, in the spaces provided
156 POETRY,LANGUAGE,THOUGHT Building Dwelling T hinking 157

for by locations there is always space as interval, and in this From this spot right here, we are there at the bridge-we are
interval in turn there is space as pure extension. Spatiu11I and by no means at sorne representational content in our conscious-
extensio afford at any time the possibility of measuring things ness. From right here we may even be much nearer ta that
and what they make room for, according to distances, spans, bridge and ta what it makes room for than someone who uses it
and directions, and of computing these magnitudes. But the daily as an indifferent river crossing. Spaces, and with them
fact that they are universally applicable to everything that has space as such-"space"-are always provided for already within
extension can in no case make numerical magnitudes the ground the stày of mortals. Spaces open up by the fact that they are let
of the nature of spaces and locations that are measurable with into the dwelling of man. To say that mortals are is ta say that
the aid of mathematics. How even modern physics was com- in dwelling they persist through spaces by virtue of their stay
pelled by the facts themselves ta represent the spatial medium among things and locations. And only because mortals pervade,
of cosmic space as a field-unity determined by body as dynamic persist through, spaces by their very nature are they able ta go
center, cannot be discussed here. through spaces. But in going through spaces we do notgive
The spaces through which we go daily are provided for by up our standing in them. Rather, we always go through spaces
locations; their nature is grounded in things "f the type of in such a way that we already experience them by staying con-
buildings. If we pay heed ta these relations between locations stantly with near ànd remote locations and things. When 1 go
and spaces, between spaces and space, we get a clue ta help us toward the door of the lecture hall, 1 am already there, and
in thinking of the relation of man and space. 1 could not go ta it at aIl if 1 were not such that 1 am there.
When we speak of man and space, it sounds as though man 1 am never here only, as this encapsulated body; rather, 1 am
stood on one side, space on the other. Yet space is not some- there, that is, 1 already pervade the room, and only thus can 1
thing that faces man. It is neither an external object nor an go through it.
inner experience. It is not that there are men, and ove! and Even when mortals turn "inward," taking stock of themselves,
.
above them space; for when 1 say "a man," and in saying this
ward think of a being who exists in a human manner-that is,
they do not leave behind their belonging ta the fourfold. When,
as wc say, we come ta our senses and teReet on ourselves, wc
who dwells-then by the name "man" 1 already name the stay come back ta ourselves from things witho!tl ever abandoning our
within the fourfold among things. Even when we relate our- stay among things. Indeed, the 1055 of rapport with things that
selves ta those things that are not in our immediate reach, we occurs in states of depression w~uld be wholly impossible if even
are staying with the things themselves. We do not represent such astate were not still what it is as a human state: that is,
distant things merely in our mind-as the textbooks have it- a staying with things. Only if this stay already characterizes
50 that only mental representations of distant things run through human being can the things among which we are also fail ta
our miuds and heads as substitutes for the things. If aIl of us speak ta us, fail ta concern us any longer.
now think, from where we are right here, of the old bridge in Man' 5 relation ta locations, and through locations ta spaces,
Heidelberg, this thinking toward that location is not a mere inheres in his dwelling. The relationship between man and space
experience inside the persons present here; rather, it belongs ta is none other than dwelling, strictly thought and spoken.
the nature of our thinking of that bridge that in iI,relf thinking When we think, in the manner just attempted, about the re-
gets through, persists through, the distance ta that location. lation between location and space, but also about the relation
158 POETRY,LANGUAGE,THOUGHT Building Dzvelling Thinking 159

of man and space, a light falls on the nature of the things that preserving is the simple nature, the presencing, of dwelling. In
are locations and that we cali buildings. this way, then, do genuine buildings give form ta dwelling in
its presencing and house this presence.
The bridge is a thing of this sort. The location allows the Building thus characterized is a distinctive letting-dwell.
simple onefold of earth and sky, of divinities and mortals, ta Whenever it is such in fact, building already has responded ta
enter into a site by arranging the site into spaces. The location the summons of the fourfold. Ali planning remains grounded
makes room for the fourfold in a double sense. The location on this responding, and planning in tum opens up ta the de-
admits the fourfold and it installs the fourfold. The two- signer the precincts suitable for his designs.
making room in the sense of admitting and in the sense of in- As saon as we try ta think of the nature of constructive
stalling-belong together. As a double space-making, the loca- building in terms of a letting-dwell, we come ta know more
tion is a shelter for the fourfold or, by the same token, a house. clearly what that process of making consists in by which build-
Things like such locations shelter or house men's lives. Things ing is accomplished. Dsually we take production ta be an activ-
of this sort are housings, though not necessarily dwelling-houses ity whose performance has a result, the finished structure, as
in the narrower sense. its consequence. It is possible ta conceive of making in that way;
The making of such things is building. Its nature consists in we thereby grasp something that is correct, and yet never touch
this, that it corresponds ta the character of these things. They its nature, which is a producing that brings something forth.
are 10catiOlls that allow spaces. This is why building, by virtue For building brings the fourfold hither into a thing, the bridge,
of constructing locations, is a founding and joining of spaces. and brings forth the thing as a location, out into what is already
Because building produces locations, the joining of the spaces there, room for which is only now made by this location.
of these locations necessarily brings wÎth it space, as spatiJt7rt The Greek for "ta bring forth or ta produce" is tikto. The
and as extemio, into the thingly structure of buildings. But ward teehne, technique, belongs ta the verb's root tee. Ta the
building never spapes pure "space" as a single entity. Neither Greeks techne means neither art nor handicraft but rather: ta
directly nor indirectly. Nevertheless, because it produces things make something appear, within what is present, as this or that,
as locations, building is closer to the nature of spaces and ta the in this way or that way. The Greeks conceive of teehrte, pro-
origin of the nature of "space" than aoy geometry and mathe- ducing, in terms of letting appear. Techne thus conceived has
matics. Building puts up locations that make space and a site been concealed in the tectonics of architecture since ancient
for the fourfold. From the simple oneness in which earth and times. Of late it still remains concealed, and more resolutely,
sky, divinities and mortals belong together, building receives in the technology of power machinery. But the nature of the
the directi"e for its erecting of locations. Building takes over erecting of buildings cannat be understood adequately in terms
from the fourfold the standard for ail the traversing and mea- either of architecture or of engineering construction, nor in
suring of the spaces that in each case are provided for by the terms of a mere co:nbination of the two. The erecting of build-
locations that have been founded. The edifices guard the four- ings would not be suitably defined even if we were ta think of
fold. They are things that in their own way preserve the four- it in the sense of the original Greek techne as solely a letting-
fold. Ta preserve the fourfold, ta save the earth, ta receive the appear, which brings something made," as something present,
sky, ta await the divinities, ta escort mortals-this fourfold among the things that are already present.
160 POETRY, LANGUAGE,THOUGHT Building Dwelling T hinking 161
The nature of building is letting dwell. Building accomplishes for dwelling. The two, however, are also insufficient for dwell-
its nature in the raising of locations by the joining of their ing sa long as each busies itself with its own affairs in separation
spaces. Only if we are capable of dwelling, only then can we instead of listening ta one another. They are able ta listen if
build. Let us think for a while of a farmhouse in the Black bath-building and thinking-belong ta dwelling, if they re-
Forest, which was built some two hundred years aga by the main within their limits and realize that the one as much as
dwelling of peasants. Here the self·sufficiency of the power ta the other cames from the workshop of long experience and in-
let earth and heaven, divinities and mortals enter in simPle cessant practice.
oneness into things, ordered the house. It placed the farmon We are attempting ta trace in thought the nature of dwell-
the wind-sheltered mountain slope looking south, among the ing. The next step on this path would be the question: what
meadows close ta the spring. It gave it the wide overhanging is the state of dwelling in our precarious age? On ail sides we
shingle roof whose proper slope bears up under the burden of hear talk about the housing shortage, and with good reason. Nor
snow, and which, reaching deep down, shields the chambers is there just talk; there is action tao. We try ta fill the need by
against the storms of the long winter nights. It did not forget providing houses, by promoting the building of houses, plan-
the altar corner behind the community table; it made room in ning the whole architectural enterprise. However hard and
its chamber for the hallowed places of childbed and the "tree bitter, however hampering and threatening the lack of houses
of the dead"-for that is what they cali a coffin there: the remains, the real plight of dwelling does not lie merely in a
Totenbau11l-and in this way it designed for the different lack of houses. The real plight of dwelling is indeed aIder than
generations under one roof the character of their journey the world wars with their destruction, aIder also than the in-
through time. A craft which, itself sprung from dwelling, still crease of the earth's population and the condition of the in-
uses its tools and frames as things, built the farmhouse. dustrial workers. The real dwelling plight lies in this, that
Only if we are capable of dwelling, only then can we build. mortals ever search anew for the nature of dwelling, that they
Our reference \p the Black Forest farm in no way means that must ever leam to d1vell. What if man's homelessness con-
we should or could go back ta building such houses; rather, it sisted in this, that man still does not even think of the real
illustrates by a dwelling that has been how it was able ta build. plight of dwelling as the plight? Yet as saon as man gives
Dwelling, however, is the basic character of Being in keep- thon ght ta his homelessness, it is a misery no longer. Rightly
ing with which mortals exist. Perhaps this attempt ta think considered anel kept weil in mind, it is the sole summons that
about dwelling and building will bring out somewhat more calls mortals into their dwelling.
clearly that building belongs ta dwelling and how it receives its But how else can mortals answer this summons than by try-
nature from dwelling. Enough will have been gained if dwelling ing on their part, on their own, ta bring dwelling ta the fullness
and building have become worthy of questioning and thus have of its nature? This they accomplish when they build out of
remained worthy of thought. dwelling, and think for the sake of dwelling.
But that thinking itself belongs ta dwelling in the same
sense as building, although in a different way, may perhaps be
attested ta by the course of thought here attempted.
Building and thinking are, each in its own way, inescapable