The World and the Cave: Imagination, Public Space and Politics with Hannah Arendt and José Saramago

Abstract

Imagination, Hannah Arendt argues, is the human capacity to mentally remove oneself and see things from a different perspective. It allows to imagine how things can be different., As such, this capacity is as much the source of political action as well as of architectural design. Architectural imagination - as well as understanding - might flourish when fed by perspectives from other academic and professional fields, like philosophy, social sciences, theology, as well as other artistic fields, like literature, painting, and sculpture. In this article, Hans Teerds proposes an exemplary reading beyond the borders of the architectural profession by means of a comparative reading of Hannah Arendt's 1958 book The Human Condition and the novel The Cave (2000) by the Portuguese writer José Saramago. By reading them together, this paper explore perspectives upon public space, mass consumption and production, and craftsmanship, which highlight political aspects of architecture.