Peter Eisenman

Peter Eisenman

“From Formalism to Weak Form"

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Peter Eisenman …

AMERICAN ARCHITECT (born 1932) If you were a son of mine, I wouldn't want you to be an architect, because it's a tough way to be in the world ð&#x;˜‰

Peter Eisenman

Early Life ➢ He went on to receive a Bachelors Degree in Architecture from Cornell,

➢ Masters Degree In Architecture from Columbia University ➢ Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. ➢ In 2007, he received an honorary degree from the Syracuse University School of Architecture.

➢ He also has an honorary Doctor of fine arts degree from the University of Illinois ➢ where he was founder and director of the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies from 1967 to 1982.

➢ He developed a passion for architecture as an undergraduate at Cornell University.

➢ At Cornell, he studied under theorist/critic Colin Rowe, receiving the Charles G. Sands Memorial Medal awarded for exceptional merit for his senior thesis. ➢ While working with Rowe, Eisenman re-examined the origins of modern architecture, particularly the early works of the French architect Le Corbusier. ➢ He was exposed to a set of ideas that formed the foundation of his early practice and architectural philosophy

Approach “The architecture we remember is that which never consolers or comfort us� peter Eisenman

Deconstructivism style Peter Eisenman

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Philosophy Of Peter Eisenman Known as an eccentric, Eisenman is often seen in a bowtie and a sweater with a small hole.

Philosophy Of Peter Eisenman ➢ Despite his significant impact on architecture through both built and theoretical works, most studies of Peter Eisenman's career focus on either one aspect or the other. In “From Formalism to Weak Form: The Architecture and Philosophy of Peter Eisenman,” ➢ All of the different moments characterizing Eisenman’s trajectory imply different phases, different projects, different programmatic manifestos and, above all, an evolving notion of form. To approach the complexity of his discourse means dealing with form in all its declinations: 1. Formalism 2. de-composition 3. Deconstruction 4. weak form. ➢ Each of them has constituted the mutant epidermis of Eisenman’s theoretical corpus, based on philosophical references and provocative statements.

Philosophy Of Peter Eisenman ➢ Thanks to his ability to connect with the cultural tendencies of the time, Eisenman has explored different territories: o first, structuralism and Chomsky’s linguistic theory; 1. Successively 2. Derrida and Delueze’s post-structuralism 3. passing through the influence of Colin Rowe’s formalism 4. his recent interest in the return to autonomy as theorized by Pier Vittorio Aureli. ➢ At the same time Eisenman has always played a central role in influencing and manipulating the American architectural debate, due to his propagandistic activity: 1. first with the IAUs (Institute for Architecture and Urban studies) 2. and then with the magazine Oppositions.

Philosophy Of Peter Eisenman ➢ His first theoretical works, like his doctoral thesis, did not claim the creation of forms ex-novo; on the contrary, they constituted a heterodox interpretation of several architectural texts. In fact, Eisenman was interested in displacing form from its necessary relationships to function, meaning and aesthetics, without at the same time necessarily denying the presence of these conditions. ➢ Architecture, then, was made of latent ideas that survive through the process of design and continue to influence the project even through construction – and the architect’s main task was to consist in describing the internal matrix that generates architecture

Philosophy Of Peter Eisenman ➢ His differentiation between a deep and superficial structure would be the main reference for Eisenman’s discourse: the American architect in fact distinguished between superficial/sensorial aspects (colour, texture, shape, and so on), and deep aspects (frontality, compression, and disjunction). ➢ To cite Rafael Moneo, we may say that Eisenman built a dichotomous version of his architecture, based on the opposition between the mental (the deep structure) and the sensorial (the superficial structure).

Whereas this phase, defined by Eisenman as the diagrams of interiority, was characterized by the desire to find internal rules and mechanisms for the discipline without any contact with the exterior world, at the end of the 1970s pessimism about architecture and the mission of Modernism enveloped Eisenman: he gradually abandoned his interest in internal syntactic processes and replaced geometry, abstraction and selfreferentiality with a recourse to external factors.

Architecture thus became for Eisenman a tool to reflect upon the instability of history

The design emerged from a conceptual process that began with a grid. Eisenman manipulated the grid in a way so that the house was divided into four sections and when completed the building itself could be a "record of the design process." Therefore structural elements, were revealed so that the construction process was evident, but not always understood. includes disorientation in the work without the concept of relating it to the traditional home. The house is, in fact, anything but what one would consider a conventional house

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Deconstructivism American architect Peter Eisenman is a Deconstructivist who shuns the term.

He embraces unconventional theories that have shrouded him in controversy.

Deconstructivism Eisenman Architects’ unique approach to design projects is to consider the layers of physical and cultural archaeologies at each site, not just the obvious contexts and programs of a building. Rather than pursuing a particular building type, Eisenman Architects specializes in a particular problem type: 1. projects with difficult siting 2. programmatic and/or budgetary constraints, and of strategic importance to their environment.

Deconstructivism

Deconstructivism is a development of postmodern architecture that began in the late 1980s. It centers on the ideas of fragmentation, an interest in manipulating ideas of a structure's surface that distort some of the elements of architecture itself.

Deconstructivists seek to move architecture away from what they see as the confining 'rules' of modernism such as "form follows function", "purity of form", and "truth to materials." They prefer to stimulate unpredictability and control chaos

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Experts say that Eisenman's focus on "liberating" architectural form was notable from an academic and theoretical standpoint but resulted in structures that were both badly built and non-functional.

Example ..

The Wexner Center

The Wexner Center, the first major public deconstructivist building, has required extensive and expensive repairs and redesigning because of elementary design flaws (such as incompetent material specifications, and fine art exhibition space exposed to direct sunlight).

It was frequently repeated that the Wexner's colliding planes tended to make its users disoriented to the point of physical nausea.

Columbus Convention Center

In 1967 Eisenman had begun the first of a series of residential designs, labeled cardboard architecture because of their thin white walls and model-like qualities.

It was here that he explored the implications of his theories in built form.

His notable work includes: 1. The Greater Columbus Convention Center 2. Columbus Ohio (1993) 3. The Aronoff Center for Design and Art at the University of Cincinnati (1996) 4. The City of Culture of Galicia Santiago de Compostela in Galicia 5. Spain (1999) and Il giardino dei passi perduti Castelvecchio Museum in Verona (2004).

giardino dei passi perduti Castelvecchio

The Greater Columbus Convention Center

Columbus Ohio

Currently, he teaches architecture at Yale University and has also undertaken a larger series of building projects than ever before in his career, including the recently completed Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin and the new University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona

Interviews: Peter Eisenman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP8ifcS8wMw&t=6s

Thanks!

Quotes I don’t believe that classical architecture is enough to engage people any more they say “ so what else is new ?�

I don't design houses with unclear family idea because I don't believe in it as a concept architecture is definitely a political act

References

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291355754_THE_DIAGRAM_PROCESS_METHOD_T HE_DESIGN_OF_ARCHITECTURAL_FORM_BY_PETER_EISENMAN_AND_REM_KOOLHAAS  https://www.kmpfurniture.com/designer-news/peter-eisenman-and-architect-shrouded-himcontroversy_113.html  http://www.archdaily.com/591214/from-formalism-to-weak-form-the-architecture-andphilosophy-of-peter-eisenman  From Formalism to Weak Form: The Architecture and Philosophy of Peter Eisenman  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Eisenman  http://www.eisenmanarchitects.com/firm-profile.html  https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/p/peter_eisenman.html  http://www.archdaily.com/535705/spotlight-peter-eisenman 