temple-work

is the setting up a world, but a setting-up that does not cause the material to disappear, but rather causes it to come forth for the very first time and to come into the Open [Offenen] of the work’s world: the rock comes to bear and rest and so first becomes rock; metals come to glitter and shimmer, colours to glow, tones to sing, the word to speak.

[T]he temple-work, in setting up a world, does not cause the material to disappear, but rather causes it to come forth for the very first time and to come into the Open [Offenen] of the work’s world: the rock comes to bear and rest and so first becomes rock; metals come to glitter and shimmer, colours to glow, tones to sing, the word to speak. All this comes forth as the work sets itself back into the massiveness and heaviness of stone, into the firmness and pliancy of wood, into the hardness and lustre of metal, into the lighting and darkening of colour, into the clang of tone and into the naming power of the word. (PLT: 46)

temple work, n.All

temple work