The architect Ludwig Wittgenstein would never have had any work for someone like Petra Blaisse, an enthusiastic designer and champion of decorative additions and interventions. However, the pronouncement of Ludwig Wittgenstein the philosopher – “Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist” (“The world is everything, which is the case”) – perfectly describes Petra Blaisse’s career and in particular her working methods and wide-ranging oeuvre.


For example, when she deliberately contradicts the instrumental rationality of architectural design by introducing generous curves, circles or ovals. This is how Blaisse creates space for “otherness”: there is no longer any fear of the exotic or the sophisticated. On the contrary, Blaisse's interventions add a “primary image” to the building, an additional, diffuse transparency. Indeed, the fact that one does not preclude the other – whether actual or metaphorical transparency – is demonstrated by the results of the frequent architectural collaborations between Blaisse and Rem Koolhaas.


In The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque (Le Pli: Leibniz et le baroque, Editions de Minuit, Paris 1988), Deleuze tells us that what is folded is the enclosed, and that what is folded only exists in an envelope, in what it envelops: “A fold is always folded within a fold, like a cavern in a cavern.” For Petra Blaisse, all of this, from folds to knots, is acceptable and normal because, to return to Wittgenstein: “Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist.” The architect Ludwig Wittgenstein would never have had any work for someone like Petra Blaisse, an enthusiastic designer and champion of decorative additions and interventions. However, the pronouncement of Ludwig Wittgenstein the philosopher – “Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist” (“The world is everything, which is the case”) – perfectly describes Petra Blaisse’s career and in particular her working methods and wide-ranging oeuvre. For example, when she deliberately contradicts the instrumental rationality of architectural design by introducing generous curves, circles or ovals. This is how Blaisse creates space for “otherness”: there is no longer any fear of the exotic or the sophisticated. On the contrary, Blaisse's interventions add a “primary image” to the building, an additional, diffuse transparency. Indeed, the fact that one does not preclude the other – whether actual or metaphorical transparency – is demonstrated by the results of the frequent architectural collaborations between Blaisse and Rem Koolhaas. In The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque (Le Pli: Leibniz et le baroque, Editions de Minuit, Paris 1988), Deleuze tells us that what is folded is the enclosed, and that what is folded only exists in an envelope, in what it envelops: “A fold is always folded within a fold, like a cavern in a cavern.” For Petra Blaisse, all of this, from folds to knots, is acceptable and normal because, to return to Wittgenstein: “Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist.”