Concept of liberating architectural form in Peter Eisenmans works

Estetica |2013-2014 Prof: Elisabetta Di Stefano

Studente: Vultur Loana Alexandra

CONCEPT OF LIBERATING ARCHITECTURAL FORM

IN PETER EISENMANS WORKS

1. PETER EISENMANS BIOGRAPHY

Peter David Eisenman is a known architect and also a theoretician, especially for his
architectural theories and for his extremely radical designs projects. He was born in Newark,
New Jersey in August 12, 1932.
Studies and career
1955 Cornell University, Ithaca, New York (Bachelor of Architecture);
1960 Columbia University, New York City (Master of Architecture Degree);
1962 University of Cambridge (M.A.);
1963 University of Cambridge (Ph.D.);
1967 founder of the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in New york City;
1973-1982 editor of the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studiess publication,
Oppositions;
He also taught at a variety of universities, including the University of Cambridge,
Princeton University, Yale University, Harvard University, the Ohio State University, and
Cooper Union in New York City.

Concept of liberating architectural form in Peter Eisenmans works

Estetica |2013-2014 Prof: Elisabetta Di Stefano
Studente: Vultur Loana Alexandra

He was firstly noted as a member of the New York Five group. This group was formed
by five architects: P. Eisenman, Charles Gwathmey, John Hejduk, Richard Meier and Michael
Graves. Their works have been the subject of an exhibiton at the Moma museum, in the 1969.
Also , their projects have been often considered like a new reinterpretation of Le Courbusiers
ideas. Subsequently those five architects developed their own ideas, ideologies and styles and
Eisenman became affiliated with the Deconstructivist movement. 1

2. LIBERATING FORM IN DECONSTRUCTIVIST MOUVEMENT

Formal theory in architectural volumes

Eisenman was focused on "liberating" architectural form and he has a lot of success with
this new idea, which was notable from an academic and theoretical stand point but resulted in
structures that were both badly built and hostile to users.
All his projects were based on his formal theory, inspired by Colin Rowe, also known as
his American mentor during his time at the University of Cambridge, UK. This theory is based
on the primacy of form. He didnt pay any attention at all at the notion of space, so it is not
present in his works. Architecture, in this framework of interpretation, is a three-dimensional
volume developing in time and space. This architectural volume is open to different internal,
and, to a certain extent, external forces resulting in distortion and deformation, a line of though
characteristic in Eisenmans career up till the present.
In his dissertation, published only in 2006, considered to be a critical one rather than a
historical one, Eisenman opposes the account of architecture in social theory. He said that logical
and abjective considerations can provide a conceptual and formal basis for any form of
architecture. He is interested in a language and order which uses geometrical solids as absolute
points of reference for any form of architecture. So what does he looks for? He is looking for a
new order based on geometrical references.
1

Jackie Craven. Peter Eisenman; 2005, p.1, available at:

http://architecture.about.com/od/greatarchitects/p/eisenman.htm

Concept of liberating architectural form in Peter Eisenmans works

Estetica |2013-2014 Prof: Elisabetta Di Stefano
Studente: Vultur Loana Alexandra

In essence, architecture for Eisenman is the joining of form to intent, function, structure,
and techniques in the sense of primacy in the hierarchy of elements. Moreover, he differentiates
a subdivision of form into two types: generic and specific. The generic form is Platonic, a form
in three dimension, while the specific is the actual physical configuration in architecture which is
realised in response to a particular intent and function. In architecture the emergence of the
specific form follows from a consideration of these conditions. No building develops from a
Platonic notion of form, but from intent and function. 2
Concept of the Diagram in architecture
Eisenman was always trying to understand architecture and to be able to understand a
volume, he introduces the notions of movement and experience. He consider and compare
architecture with a a language with its own grammar. Buildings are like language, intentional;
indeed architecture orders itself by certain rules like language. In the end architecture might have
structure or order, but it has no grammar.
On the other hand, Peter Eisenman has generated perhaps the single most important
research project on the diagram in architecture. From his PhD thesis and other texts to designs
and built projects, Eisenmans work has consistently been determined by and depended on his
rigorous and decades-long research into the architectural diagram. A seminal text in architectural
diagram theory, this essay was first published in Eisenmans Diagram Diaries (1999) and has
since become one of the most recent, significant and original contributions to architectural
theory. The central subject of this essay is architectures and the architectural diagrams
relationship to writing and the text. For Eisenman, the diagram traces and writes, and can be
traced and read in, architecture. As such, the diagram mediates between the history of
architecture (diagrams of anteriority) and the ways in which this is traced in a real building and
the other possible buildings that are within it (diagrams of interiority). Diagrams of exteriority,
those from outside architecture, are defined as agents from the specific site, the program, or the
history. Through his concept of superposition, Eisenmans account of the diagram
2

Arie Graafland, Peter Eisenman: The formal basis on modern architecture , Footprint Trans disciplinary,
autumn 2007, pp. 93-96

Concept of liberating architectural form in Peter Eisenmans works

Estetica |2013-2014 Prof: Elisabetta Di Stefano
Studente: Vultur Loana Alexandra

demonstrates a close reading of Derridean deconstruction and other Postmodern, postrstructuralist theories of the diagram, language, text and writing which are together marshaled to
critique the premise of architectures origin in presence. Effectively placing architecture on a
new ontological, metaphysical and epistemological basis, this account uses the diagram to
expand architecture into a more complex concept.
In architecture the diagram is historically understood in two ways: as an explanatory or
analytical device and as a generative device. Although it is often argued that the diagram is a
post-representational form, in instances of explanation and analysis the diagram is a form of
representation. In an analytical role, the diagram represents in a different way form a sketch or a
plan of a building. For example, a diagram attempts to uncover latent structures of organization,
like the nine-square, even though it is not a conventional structure itself. As a generative device
in a process of design, the diagram is also a form of representation. But unlike traditional forms
of representation, the diagram as a generator is a mediation between a palpable object, a real
building, and what can be called architectures interiority. Clearly this generative role is different
from the diagram in other discourses, such as in the parsing of a sentence or a mathematical or
scientific equation, where the diagram may reveal latent structures but does not explain how
those structures generate other sentences or equations. Similarly, in an architectural context, we
must ask what the difference is between a diagram and a geometric scheme. 3
For Eisenman, architecture is not primarily about building beautiful or functional spaces
within which human beings can live, work and be fruitful: no, it is about expressing and working
out an ideology. Eisenman rams this point home through the repeated use of the word
metaphysic in connection with every aspect of his work.
Until recently, Peter Eisenman was known mainly as a teacher and a theorist. His first
major public building was Ohio's Wexner Center for the Arts, designed with architect Richard
Trott. Made up of complex grids and a collision of textures, the Wexler Center is a hallmark of
Deconstructivist design.

Peter Eisenman, Diagram: an original scene of writing, ANY, New York, 1998, pp. 93-103

Concept of liberating architectural form in Peter Eisenmans works

Estetica |2013-2014 Prof: Elisabetta Di Stefano
Studente: Vultur Loana Alexandra

Since then, Peter Eisenman has stirred controversy with buildings that appear
disconnected

from

surrounding

structures

and

historical

context.

Often

called

Deconstructionist, Eisenman's writings and designs represent an effort to liberate form from
meaning. Yet, while eschewing external references, Peter Eisenman's buildings may be called
Structuralist in that they search for relationships within the building elements. 4
All his architectural projects and works were based on theories drawn from the
architectural dogma especially linguistics and philosophy. Eisenman has developed highly
complex formulations of designing architecture, based especially on the role of structure in
contemporary society. With reference to rhetorical strategies, company alienation and existing
architectural forms, Eisenman's theoretical work derives much of Nietzsche's philosophy, Noam
Chomsky, and Jacques Derrida. If the conceptual suport is not completely or apparent easily
seen in the buildings and projects, the text of those precursors underlies both literary and
architectural Eisenman's work.
As postmodern strategies or deconstruction strategies, dismantling or poststructuralism
promotes degradation or fragmentation of the existing structure but doesnt promise a final
replacement, nor provides an absolute new. Rather it suggests a psychological goal that causes
anxiety and cultural dislocation. The induction of destabilization and rupture in the structure
itself that are so much associated with comfort and shelter, even in family houses, Eisenman
raised the stakes by creating postmodern architecture which some consider as the limit nihilism.
His projects seem to be in a state of emergence, they move constantly. Based on the prerequisites
for a fluid polemic of opposition, interaction and redefinition, Eisenman's projects constitute a
structural and a formal review which by definition is constitutionally unable to reach closure. 5

Jackie Craven. Peter Eisenman; 2005, p.1, available at:

http://architecture.about.com/od/greatarchitects/p/eisenman.htm
5
materiali didattici

Concept of liberating architectural form in Peter Eisenmans works

Estetica |2013-2014 Prof: Elisabetta Di Stefano
Studente: Vultur Loana Alexandra

3. ROLE AND IMPORTANCE OF STRUCTURE IN EISENMANS

PROJECTS
As I said before, grid was the organizing principle of his first works, a series of rectilinear
boxes in which he investigated and articulated a variety of theoretical ideas, including the notion
of "deep structure" a proposal that is universal, "a fundamental ordering tool is logical and
natural generator of the project." Building were seen and experienced as autonomous and selfreferential, independent of human context and function as universality of mathematical
functions. Structures are beautifully rational, but it is a rationality that is entirely self-referential,
intentionally trying to attract human sensibility of elegance, beauty and comfort.
In his work, Notes on Conceptual Architecture II A, Peter Eisenman discuss the problems
of the transposition of linguistic analogies and models to design methods in architecture. He tries
to show that language and architecture, which seem to be similar modes of communication, are
in fact different in one particular aspect. Also he will attempt to isolate that aspect of
architectural space which affects communication and meaning in a way which at present is not
able to be modeled either by traditional architectural methods history, aesthetics, function nor
by new theories of meaning.
Traditionally in architecture, considerations of form have played an important role.
Previously these considerations were basically concerned with aesthetic problems, with the
analysis and the design of specific configurations having proportions, size, scale, contrasts of
texture, color and light. Beyond this concern for the physical properties of elements there was
equally a concern with relationships-sequence, interval, location, etc between elements. These
concerns are not aesthetic but more appropriately syntactic in that they are concerned with
relationships. However, they are syntactic only in what will be called a surface structural sense.
For example, a column or an entry faade in itself may be considered as a formal and thus
syntactic element. A description of a particular shape, texture and coloration of a column or a
faade would provide us with information concerning the actual physical form, which is only the
surface structure. Equally, the relationship of a column to a wall their location, proximity,
direction, etc which provides information of a syntactic nature is still information regarding the
6

Concept of liberating architectural form in Peter Eisenmans works

Estetica |2013-2014 Prof: Elisabetta Di Stefano
Studente: Vultur Loana Alexandra

specific or surface configuration. Thus it can be said that even when architecture was concerned
with formal relationships, syntax, these were relationships of the elements or object themselves,
shapes, or the relationships between shapes in a specific environment dimension, size, scale,
etc. This was the limit of syntax. But this did not account for another or underlying level a
more complex phenomenon which can be detected in a specific environment.
Now in architecture all experience of the space is actual, and one cannot have a virtual
experience. Here is a central problem for architecture: it is all real, and our relationship to it is
initially actual. Now if one posits that all physical reality has inherent in it a capacity for an
opposite or virtual state, because of the capacity of certain spatial relationships to present a
potential continuum form actual to virtual, then somehow we must be able to take this factor into
account in any model concerned with the generation of architectural space, again, because this
dialectic between actual and virtual may be active even if not designed or consciously
interpreted. It is precisely because the individual has the capacity not only to perceive and
actually walk through the space but to conceive of that space that he will receive information
which he will translate into conceptions. In other words, since there is always the possibility in
architecture of a virtual experience as well as a real experience, they both might be
predetermined. 6
After reading through his text, I want to admit that it was confusing. No two articles can
be deciphered with the same approach as he has critiqued and formulated numerous theories. His
evolution as a designer is also very contradictory. For a person, who emphasizes on the
importance of design process, the broken link between his earlier works and recent ones raises
many

questions.
Starting with the analysis of his text, firstly, for Eisenman, I would say structural

aesthetics is a more appropriate word if we were to rephrase formalism in architecture for him.
He believed in the raw aesthetics of formalism and not the manipulated one. Architecture was a
language for him just like english, spanish , french etc. It had to be communicated through its
own ways and people had to learn it over time.
6

Peter D. Eisenman, Notes on Conceptual Architecture II A , The Institute for Architecture and Urban studies,
New York, 1984, pp. 319-325

Concept of liberating architectural form in Peter Eisenmans works

Estetica |2013-2014 Prof: Elisabetta Di Stefano
Studente: Vultur Loana Alexandra

Secondly, emphasizing on the final product was never a matter of importance, the process
and capturing of those instances and decision that led to the final product were more pivotal to
him. He was looking for reasoning and justifications behind those final portrayals of built form.
He believed "Development of formal operations can be dictated by mind through time. "

4. IMPORTANT BUILDINGS AND PROJECTS

1989: Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio (with Richard
Trott)

1993: Greater Columbus Convention Center, Columbus, Ohio

1996: Aronoff Center for Design and Art, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio

1999-present: City of Culture of Galicia, Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain

2005: Berlin Holocaust Memorial (Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe), Berlin

2006: University of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale, Arizona

WAXNER CENTER

His first deconstructivist building, known also as the first one of this movement was Wexner
Center. This building has required expensive and estensive repairs because of some elementary
design flaws (such as incompetent material specifications, and fine art exhibition space exposed
to direct sunlight).
The building looks like a scaffolding, with a three-dimensional grid that serves as the spine
of the building positioned at an angle between two anonymous pre-existing structure. This grid
opens a walkway between the existing buildings and the Wexner galleries that binds them
together with a large part of the building space which is undergrownd.Ou expectations normal
expectations about the site and building are antagonized by this non-building that it occupies a
non-site. spina aligned with the urban grid of Columbus, connects Wexner Center and the
campus

with

the

city

by

imposing

urban scale grid on campus, a typical overlay of an Eisenman's grid above the other to
create a disconcerting junction on site.
8

Concept of liberating architectural form in Peter Eisenmans works

Estetica |2013-2014 Prof: Elisabetta Di Stefano
Studente: Vultur Loana Alexandra

His spatial grammar with collision plans tend to make users disoriented to the point of
generating them headaches. In these post-functionalist aesthetic and very complex neo-rationalist
exercises Eisenman essentially structured the esence of a house. This houses doesnt had a name.
Numbered rather than named (House I, House II House III ...) expressed his investigation into
the nature and meaning of the architectural form. Instead to base his projects on function
followed by shape, houses explores specific structural principles, with functions to match at the
interior as much as possible. This introduction of suffering into the most precious sanctuary,
home, is typical of Eisenman's fight to produce displacement and to cause uncertainty.
HOSE NO. VI
House no. VI projected for Suzanne Frank in the late 1970s, confuses user's expectations
with
tricks such as an exterior column which does not touch the ground, there is a linear trench floor
bedroom that never allowed Ms. Frank and her husband sleep in the same bed, and spatial
planning antagonistic. Initially Frank was patient with Eisenman's theories and demands. But
after years of repairs on the house which was poorly designed, House no. VI destroyed VI Frank
family budget and then used the money sidelined for a lifetime. Frank decided to strike back with
an answer for the size of a book, a paper with a bit of black humor and one of the most revealing
of sec. twentieth century.
House VI is widely known as an example of a result of arbitrary geometric transformations
above everything: utilities, technology, context, symbolism, and even aesthetics. Ditch located
on the floor between the two beds in the bedroom, walls and roof is the best known example:
"This forced us us to sleep in separate beds, which was not used in our case," says Suzanne
Frank, customer and lead author of the book.
The dinning has a column in the middle of the table which separates the "unequivocal people
at the table," there is a staircase inside down, the only bathroom is accessible only by one of the
bedrooms, and this was there only at the demand of the customer. John Hejduk described the
residence as a "the second canonical home De Stijl "and Eisenman took that conclusion
describing House VI as" inversion "of Project De Stijl. Critics noted Eisenman's attempt to
combine theory with design language; interest in the theory of syntax and Noam Chomsky's
9

Concept of liberating architectural form in Peter Eisenmans works

Estetica |2013-2014 Prof: Elisabetta Di Stefano
Studente: Vultur Loana Alexandra

transformational grammar is particularly evident in his series of axonometric drawings which he

did for this house. Several of these Project designs in this collection appear in the book Suzanne
Frank, "Peter Eisenman's House VI: the client's response ", published in 1994.
I wouldn't say that the first look of the houses would come across as simple. They appear
quite confusing, very similar to the text provided by Eisenman. The structural aesthetic and the
form evolution process are very well evident in the drawings and the final product. At the same
time there is also a constant tension in between the elements that holds the attention. This tension
also makes the readability of the house more complex and hence contradicts the ideology of
Eisenman. Just looking at the various axonometric views and images of the house I feel there is
more of a spatial experience to the house than it's readability. Planes are intersecting, overlapping
and merging at one instance or the other. Every space is doing something. There are a lot of
things happening at the a single instance, more than what is perceivable by a human eye and
brain.
Peter Eisenman was investigating how he could control the function of the space through
his design. He made contradictory interventions which created a certain unrest amongst it's
habitant. He was successful in doing what he intended in house VI.Eisenman says that it is
important to conquer the function and to purposely depict the function wrongly. He also says that
without function, there is no architecture."
FIN DOU HOUSE
" Fin d' Ou house charts have worked on many different levels. They have evolved from
the relationship diagram to the house, which is how the charts are marked in house IV.
Essentially the idea was to produce a set of charts so that any attempt to trace his transformation
from certain origins was problematical . Charts indicated a possibility to read and mapped , but
as in bad mystery novel with all the keys , when they were drawn to their origin, have been
shown to be false . Instead, these keys just led to another marking system which would have
resulted in another direction . This was similar to the decomposition process that began with
House X '( Diagram Diaries '93 ) . In this case the chart is used as a method of destabilization
and "non- foundation " . Charts for house Fin d' Ou are used in such a way that each flowchart (
and there are many ) give the impression a key or follow : refer back to some of the previous
10

Concept of liberating architectural form in Peter Eisenmans works

Estetica |2013-2014 Prof: Elisabetta Di Stefano
Studente: Vultur Loana Alexandra

diagrams , some of the earlier " origins ". But when someone is trying to discover the origin, it
manages to reach yet another chart , another result . The process is similar when we meet with
the house itself: it " features " seem to refer back to a plan or printing : but there is only endless
charts . Each diagram is woven in a variety of processes: nesting , scaling, artificial excavation ,
etc. . Thus instead to provide the project with a metaphorical foundation (eg a rigid plan )
Eisenman 's charts as keys call into question the notion of such foundations. Even more literally :
Fin d' Ou house itself ask questions on its foundation : it is based on/into an excavated space :
houses foundation is rather absent. Thus Eisenman 's diagrammatic approach appears to
undermine

both

inside ( theory ) and outside ( the building ) . 7

In conclusion the concept of liberating form in Eisenmans works and theory stay at the base of
every single project. This could be considered as one of his religions and he never quit on his ideas. Even
there would be always people who disagree with his concepts, for him architecture it is his own form of
expression: Real architecture only exists in drawings. The real building exists outside the

drawing. The difference here is that architecture and building are not the same.
I never thought I would want to build anything but houses because I thought they gave
sufficient room to experiment with non-functionalities, since there is no one type of functional
organization for a house, but there are architectural organizations. But that later proved to be
problematic. The second thing was that I didnt believe it was necessary to ever visit my houses.
In other words, there were houses that for the first six months or year they were open I didnt
even go to see them because I thought it wasnt that important; the important thing was laid in
the drawing. 8

materiali didattici
Iman Ansari. Q+A>Peter Eisenman; 06.20.2013, The Architects Newspaper, p.1, available at the address:
http://archpaper.com/news/articles.asp?id=6720
8

11

Concept of liberating architectural form in Peter Eisenmans works

Estetica |2013-2014 Prof: Elisabetta Di Stefano
Studente: Vultur Loana Alexandra

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Arie Graafland, Peter Eisenman: The formal basis on modern architecture , Footprint
Trans disciplinary, autumn 2007;

Iman Ansari. Q+A>Peter Eisenman; 06.20.2013, The Architects Newspaper, p.1,

available at the address: http://archpaper.com/news/articles.asp?id=6720 ;

Jackie

Craven.

Peter

Eisenman;

2005,

available

at:

http://architecture.about.com/od/greatarchitects/p/eisenman.htm ;

materiali didattici;

Peter D. Eisenman, Diagram: an original scene of writing, ANY, New York, 1998;

Peter D. Eisenman, Notes on Conceptual Architecture II A , The Institute for

Architecture and Urban studies, New York, 1984;

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