A WORDPLAY ON ARCHITECTURE AND PLAY
Starting with a wordplay on the relation between architecture and play, this essay constructs a logic of categorization which corresponds to the active play agents and agencies as well as the tripartite architectural actions of creation, operation, and ‘reception’. However, this rational categorization is only constructed to be destructed later in the essay. Through a reading of the example of the Wunderkammers, the article argues that the relational operativity of play suspends our conventional modes of categorization and language. The essay refers to the common approaches on the topic of the relation between architecture and play and suggests that their deficiencies are resulted from the fact that they do not take such a quality of play seriously.
Key words: architecture, play, wordplay, language, Wunderkammer