This essay is a commentary on the second of Marc Richir’ s five Phenomenological Investigations (Recherches phénoménologiques). This investigation is remarkable in several respects, since it is here that central concepts assess their architectural value in the horizon of elaborating an independent transcendental phenomenology. Even if terms such as ‘appearance’ , ‘ontological simulacrum’ or ‘infinite periphery’ are older, it is only in this text that their relationship is specified, in a way that remains pathbreaking for later reworkings or refoundations of phenomenological method and architectonics. In particular, the transcendental reduction of the ontological to appearance, as well as the self-evolvement of appearance, which can be interpreted therein due to its self-reflexivity, are fundamental figures in Richir’ s thinking.