1ll

It is too complex to adequately address here; for some, however, this mention alone may prove useful when considering the meaning of 'play', 'origins', and 'ends'—especially when applied to the Navidson house:

Ce centre avait pour fonction non seulement d'orienter et d'equilibrer, d'organiser la structure—on ne peut en effet penser une structure inorganisee—mais de faire surtout que le principe d'organisation de la structure limite ce que nous pourrions appeler le jeu ¹³¹ de la structure. Sans doute le centre d'une structure, en ori- entant et en organisant la coherence du systeme, per- met-il le jeu des elements a l'interieur de la forme totale. Et aujourd'hui encore une structure privee de tout centre repesente l'impensable lui-meme.

And later on:

C'est pourquoi, pour une pensee classique de la structure, le centre peut etre dit, paradoxalement, dans la structure et Iwrs de la structure. II est au centre de la totalite et pourtant, puisque le centre ne lui appartient pas, la totalite a son centre ailleurs. Le centre n'est pas le centre. ¹³⁰

See Derrida's L'ecriture et la difference (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1967), p. 409-410. ^l30 Here's the English. The best I can do:

The function of [a] center was not only to orient, balance, and organize the structure—one cannot in fact conceive of an unorganized structure—but above all to make sure that the organizing principle of the structure would limit what we might call the play of the structure. By orienting and organizing the coherence of the system, the center of a structure permits the play of its elements inside the total form. And even today the notion of a structure lacking any center represents the unthinkable itself.

And later on:

This is why classical thought concerning structure could say that the center is, paradoxically, within the structure and outside it. The center is at the center of the totality, and yet, since the center does not belong to the totality (is not part of the totality), the totality has its center elsewhere. The center is not the center. ¹³¹

Something like that. From Jacques Derrida's 'Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences* in Writing and Difference translated by Alan Bass. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. 1978. p. 278-279. ^l31 Conversely Christian Norberg-Schulz writes: