Marc BelderbosLa Raison de l'augure. Le génie de l'architecturer. Trois essais sur le commencement

“Marc Belderbos’s thesis is a work of rare originality and exceptional speculative vigour. It offers us an authentic theory of architecture, which does not consist in applying to architecture concepts borrowed from other disciplines or from a priori philosophical views, but in helping us to understand architecture starting from itself.

The interpretation developed by M. Belderbos is both a demonstration of “what in architecture makes architecture” and a perspective on the destiny of Western architecture, from its Greek origins to the forms it has taken in the works of the great contemporary designers. It is also an understanding of architecture, in the very process of its self-constitution.

M. Belderbos uses a number of classical philosophical concepts, such as reason, discourse, reality, identity, matter, form, logic and aesthetic ethics. But he gives them an extremely personal interpretation, according to the internal requirements of the development of his thinking. We have to admire unreservedly the strength of thought that enables him to rigorously re-elaborate all this conceptual apparatus according to the strict coherence of his project, and which also enables him to give it a systematic articulation supported by astonishing creativity.

It must also be said that the proposed interpretation of the history of Western architecture makes an extremely interesting contribution to our understanding of the historicity that characterises Western culture and the destiny of reason. The first part of the book develops the theoretical foundations of the relationship between architecture and reason.

M. Belderbos’s thesis thus offers us a genuine, self-consistent philosophy of architecture that truly advances thought.”

Jean Ladrière