Authorship in algorithmic architecture

from Peter Eisenman to Patrik Schumacher

Eletherios Siamopoulos, 04107077

Supervising Professors: Vassilios Ganiatsas, Kari Jormakka

Athens, October 2012

NTUA - School of Architecture - Architectural Design

Authorship in algorithmic architecture

from Peter Eisenman to Patrik Schumacher
Eletherios Siamopoulos, 04107077
Supervising Professors: Vasilios Ganiatsas, Kari Jormakka

Athens, October 2012

Abstract

Over the past two decadesm computer technology has evolved,

resuling in acivaion of a complex geometrical language that could not
be controlled by tradiional methods. However, the use of computer
remained in a representaional stage and the design process remained
classical to the end. So the architect remains the creator of the object
with the meaning atributed to the word in Romanicism, and the tradiional relaion between the subject and the object does not change.
However Patrik Schumacher and Peter Eisenman,, tried a more
integrated approach to the design of architecture with the computer,
aiming to change the design paradigm, in a diferent way each, favoring the use of extensive algorithmic design. Ater I deine the the term
algorithmic design in relaion to architecture and explore carious nonclassical synthesis techinques in music and paining, I analyze the design process followed by Patrik Schumacher and Peter Eisenman. Finally,
ater analyzing, what conitutes a work of art in architecture and how
we judge it, I explore the role of the above menioned architects in the
creaion of the inal object. But does algorithmic design bring a change
in the relaion between the subject and the object?

Contents

Prologue

p. 06

1. Introducion
2. Algorithmic Design
3. Patrik Schumacher on Parametricism
4. Peter Eisenman and the Algorithmic Design
5. Authorship in Architecture
6. Authorship in Patrik Schumacher and Peter Eisenman

p. 07
p. 14
p. 29
p. 43
p. 58
p. 67

Image Appendix A
Image Appendix B
Image Appendix C

p. 74
p. 83
p. 87

Bibliography

p. 91

Prologue

This research project started on the occasion of a quesion on

Patrik Schumachers theory of autopoiesis in architecture, a term irst
used from the Chilian biologists Humberto Maturana and Fransesco Varelo in 1972 in the ield of biology. Patrik Schumacher adapted this idea
in the theory of the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann (1972-1998)
and he is referring on the dynamic evoluion of architecture, whose autonomy as a system is helping it evolve, resuling in Parametricism. The
iniial quesion that occurred to me is which is the role of the architect
in this process?
Ater a discussion with Professor Kari Jormakka, who was my advisor for the research project, in the Technische Univeristt Wien, where
I studied for two semesters with the ERASMUS program, I decided to
deal with the role of the architect in algorithmic architecture in general,
and the relaion of the subject in creaing the object.
For this reason I chose to analyze the approach of two architects
who aim on changing the design paradigm, of Patrik Schumacher who is
dealing with Parametricism and of Peter Eisenman who was the irst architect that used algorithms in the design process. But irst I analyze the
diference between digital design as a drat tool and algorithmic design
as a design tool. Before I reach the conclusions, I invesigate the role of
the architect in the design process and whether the resuling object is
ideniied as the work of art in architecture.

1. Introduction

1.1
Between, 23 of June and 30 of August in 1988, there was an exhibiion named Deconstrucivist Architecture, in the Museum of Modern Art(MoMA) in New York. The architects, whose work was presented,
were Coop Himmelb(l)au(Apartment Building in Vienna 1983, Hamburg
Skyline 1985, Rootop Remodelling 1986), Peter Eisenman(Biology Center for the University of Frankfurt 1987), Frank Gehry(Familian Residence 1978, Gehry House 1977-1987), Zaha M. Hadid(The Peak 1983),
Rem Koolhaas(Boompjes 1980), Daniel Libeskind(City Edge 1987) and
Bernard Tschumi(Parc de la Villete 1982). [Image Appendix A]
Unlike the Modern Architecture exhibiion of 1932, which
summed up the architecture of the twenies and prophesied an Internaional Style in architecture to take the place of the romanic styles
of the previous century, the aim of the Deconstrucivist Architecture
exhibiion was not to declare a new style. The guest curator of the exhibiion Philip Johnson already from the abstract of the exhibiion outlined: It is a conluence of a few important architects work of the years
since 1980 that shows a similar approach with very similar forms as an
outcome. It is a concentraion of similar strains from various parts of the
world. The associate curator, Mark Wigley, writes also in the abstract
that: The nightmare of deconstrucivist architecture inhabits the unconscious of the architect. The architect merely countermands tradiional
formal inhibiions in order to release the suppressed alien. Each architect
releases diferent inhibiions in order to subvert form in radically diferent ways. Each makes themaic a diferent dilemma of pure form. [] An
architecture, inally, in which form distorts itself in order to reveal itself
anew..1

. Michael Hays, Architecture Theory since 1968, The MIT Press, 1998

Though the architects menioned above recognize the imperfecion of the modern world and they try to reveal, as Philip Johnson says
the pleasures of discomfort. By using diagonals, curves and folds the
are intenionally trying to violate the right angles, the simple composiion of platonic solids and the raionalism of modernism. The classical
principles of harmony, unity and purity are displaced from disharmony,
break and mystery.
In the almost 25 years since the exhibiion, the above menioned
architects have evolved coninuing nevertheless on designing forms
which are similar to the forms created in post-modernism. The evoluion of these forms is closely related to the parallel development of
computer science, which made the design and producion of free forms
easier. It seams that through the digitalizaion of design, a new way of
architectural thinking emerges, which ignores and opposes the classical
formal convenions, in favor of a coninuous experimentaion with new
forms. [Image Appendix B]
1.2
However it should not be assumed that free forms were irst
discovered and used in the end of 20th century. Rafael Moneo, on a
purely morphological level, talked about forgoten geometries lost to
us because of the diiculies of their representaion.2 For example the
forms that Frank Gehry is using in his latest projects such us the Giggenheim Museum in Bilbao, can be ideniied in expressionisic works of the
1920s. Or even earlier, someone can encounter free forms in the organic
and biomorphical shapes of Art Nouveau and more precisely in the helical lines of Hector Guimard on the staions of the subway in Paris. Also in
the sculpture-buildings of Gaudi with the complex organic forms, which
result from his own method of curve modeling through the copy of the
form of a hanged chain.
There is a number of architects that used similar expressive
means from 1920s onwards. The observatory Einsteinturm(1921) of Er2
as quoted in: Kolarevic Branko, Architecture in the Digital Age Design and
Manufacturing, Taylor & Francis, 2005

ich Mendelsohn in Potsdam in Germany, the church of Ronchamp(1955)

and the Philips Pavillion in Expo 1958 in Brussels of Le Corbusier, the
TWA Terminal(1962) in New York of Eero Saarinen, the Sidney Opera
House(1967) of Jrn Utzon. It is worth remembering that the free view
and the free plan of Le Corbusier, are those who enabled the creaion
of curves in the works of modernism. Eero Saarinen atributed the reappearance of free forms in the advance of technology, but he also recognizes that they were used for aestheic reasons. Finally Alvaar Alto,
objected to the strict geometry of Internaional Style the spiral lines and
curved forms of his plans from the furniture scale to the building scale.
The Finnish Pavillion in the World Expo of 1939, one of his best known
works, is characterized by its undulaing curves within a modest rectangular cell. [Images Appendix C]
Most of these works are a milestone in the history of architecture, for diferent reasons each. However all of them show the intenion
of breaking with the classical convenions that were used in the contemporary architecture of the ime. It is obvious that free forms have not
prevailed unil the end of the 20th century, mainly due to the restricions
of the available at that ime means of visualizaion and analysis. The tradiional instruments of drating, such as triangles, compasses, scales and
protractors, limited largely the designers in the world of straight lines,
of parallels and perpendiculars and in construcions that were based on
the logic of euclidean geometry for their producion. As a result, architects oten found that they could not design forms which they could not
describe suiciently and therefore they could not also construct them.
Of course through these restricions it was possible for great projects to
be built as the ones menioned above, exactly the same way that is happening with the poets creaing masterpieces through the strict restricions of the sonnet.
Today the computer technology has achieved to lit these restricions, with the use of 3D geometrical and digital models. For the irst
ime in the end of the 20th century, it was made possible for the architects to be able to design and produce easily free forms. To illustrate
this extraordinary change that took place in the digital age it is enough
9

to compare two masterpieces of the 20th century: the Sydney Opera

House of Jrn Utzon and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao of Frank
Gehry. Both buildings are considered masterpieces for their ime, which
is conirmed by the fact that became emblems of the ciies in which they
were built.
The Sydney Opera House was the result of an internaional compeiion in 1956, with winner the work of Jrn Utzon, that was characterized by curved concrete shells. Schemaic diagrams of the architect
for the contest, were depicing free-form curves and surfaces, which
presented a challenge for the construcion engineering irm of Ove
Arup. From 1957 to 1961, Jrn Utzon and Ove Arup were trying to ind
a soluion of mathemaical descripion of these curves, experimening
in changing its shape, so that the construcion would become feasible.
Finally the soluion came with a simpliicaion of the originally planned
form of shells, by drawing them into triangular secions of the same
sphere. This simpliicaion in form, has led to a simultaneous simpliicaion to their design, to their calculaion and their construcion, with the
contemporary design tools that were available. In 1967, 10 years ater
the original design of the opera, the shells were constructed.
At the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, four decades later, Frank
Gehry designed an even bolder composiion of free forms. This ime,
however, the exact design calculaion and construcion of these free
forms was not a problem. By using the program Caia, which was mostly used in the ield of aeronauics, he designed a complete model of free
forms of the building, which in the end were constructed automated
with minimal cost. For Frank Gehry it was not necessary to simplify the
free forms that he designed, as it was of Jrn Utzon, and the inal result
was strikingly similar to the original architects sketches.
1.3
With the revoluion in technology and digital representaion it
became possible, in the late 20th century, for many architects to construct the free forms that they were drawing but they could not construct. Nevertheless, the use of computers in architectural design has
10

Sidney Opera House, Jrn Utzon, 1967

Guggenheim Museum, Frank Gehry, 1999

11

remained at the representaion stage, where the computers are used

purely as an electronic design tool. In the example of the Guggenheim
Museum of Frank Gehry, the program Caia was used to describe the
digital free-forms that are part of the outer skin of the museum. Similarly most architects are using the computer that were presented in the
Deconstrucivist Architecture exhibiion in MoMA.
In most cases, the computer is allowing the acivaion of a geometric language, which could not be controlled because of the complexity of the geometry of the form by using tradiional projecive methods.
This of course means that the use of computers remains in the representaional stage in the architectural design, as there is no actual percepion of the compuing nature governing the digital environment. But
instead, the design process remains deeply tradiional, remaining essenially similar to the approach of a process based on tradiional design
methods. What is changing, is simply the awareness of the possible extension of the geometric language of architecture, that is present in the
invisible mathemaical descripion of the digital design tools.
So in the case that the computer is only used as a design tool,
in fact we have a development of the tool of design and nothing more.
For this reason, in most cases we do not have change in the relaionship
between the subject and the object during the architectural design. The
architect in both cases remains creator of the object, in the sense that
was given to the term in Romanicism. The author is an original genius,
who through intuiion and emoions is able to produce its own original
work, in a process of creaion from nothing. This idea can be found in a
remark made by the German painter Caspar David Friedrich said that:
The feelings of the arist is his law. .
However two of the architects menioned before, Zaha M. Hadid
and Peter Eisenman, tried a more integrated approach to architectural
design with computers. They claim that they do not remain in the use
of the computer as a tool for describing and designing complex geometries, but rather they aim to change of the design paradigm, favoring
the extensive use of algorithmic design in the design process, each one
12

of them for their own reasons. Therefore I chose these two extreme
examples, to invesigate the changes that the use of algorithmic design
brings to the relaionship between the subject and the object in their
architecture. But what is algorithmic design?

13

2. Algorithmic Design

2.1
Algorithmic architecture involves the designaion of computer
sotware to generate form and space through a rule-based logic inherent in architectural programs, typologies, building code and language
itself. Here we should make the disincion between the computaion
and computerizaion of architecture. The dominant mode of uilizing
computer in our days is that of computerizaion. That is nothing more
than the digiizaion and then manipulaion of what they have already
designed through tradiional means. On the other hand computaion,
enables the role of the architect from architecture programming to
programming architecture.
An algorithm is the procedure to a soluion to a problem, which
ater a inite number of steps, stops, and inally leads either to a soluion
to the iniial problem or not. As a result an algorithm is a group of procedural rules, of instrucions; a decision making process.3
An algorithm can be a soluion strategy to a problem through a
inite number of steps, but this doesnt mean that we already know the
soluion neither that there is a soluion. The output of an algorithmic
procedure is always open. We can know the input and the steps that
we will follow, but the result is unknown. The special thing about an
algorithm as a soluion procedure to a problem is not only its initude
or its universality, but also the importance of an every ime applicability.
An algorithm is a procedure, which can be used in every possible state,
3

Manfred Wolff-Plotegg, Architektur Algorithmen, Passagen Verlag, 1996

Unter Algorithmus versteht man ein Verfahren zur Lsung eines Problems,
das nach endlich vielen Schritten abbricht und dabei entweder eine Lsung des
Problems produziert oder es als unlsbar zurckweist. Ein Algorithmus ist also eine
Verfahrensanweisung, eine Handlungsanweisung, eine Entscheidungsprozedur.

14

Sierpinskys Triangle, same rules different variables

Three houses of Frank Lloyd Wright with the same program and layout

15

in the procedure of addressing a problem. As a result an algorithm is

a universal procedure consising of rules, which can always be used, is
objecive, methodical and efecive. As I have already menioned, the
basis of algorithmic design is that with the same rules and procedure a
designer can create diferent forms. For example Frank Lloyd Wright created three diferent buildings by using the same organizaional scheme,
but using diferent shapes for creaing the inal form; once by using rectangles, once by using triangles and once by using circles. Nevertheless
the use of algorithms has an aim which paradoxically is, to put the aim
itself aside. In what we could call classic architecture, what the inal outcome of a design process should be, was deined by our aims, but in
algorithmic architecture, the end is allowed to be unknown, as it is going
to be generated through the use of algorithms.
Although the human forms a set of instrucions to be performed
of a computer, he cannot have an oversight of the inal result, as the
there are algorithms which simulate the way natural processes work,
algorithms which create randomness, or even algorithms which are able
to generate new algorithms. For instance the introducion of an arbitrary process can produce results which are unpredictable but in the
same ime accidentally meaningful. Unpredictability is, by deiniion, a
disassociaion of intenion, but unlike chaos, a random rearrangement
of elements, in a predeined rule-based system can result a legit result.
However, from very early a lot of arists have tried to achieve a
disassociaion of the intenion of the creator from the creaion process
by using diferent non-classical techniques. Even so without using the
computer they invented a process that displaced the creator himself,
giving importance to other pieces of the work of art.
2.2
Alexander Cozens, a Briish landscape painter (1717, St. Petersburg 1786, London), who worked during the irst years of Romanicism,
ried to free his art from the formal noions and the rules formed in classicism, through a new process that he proposed. This new non-classical
process of creaing original composiions in paining, was not based on
16

Blotting of a landscape painting of Alexander Cozens

The landscape paining of Alexander Cozens that was produced from the bloing above

17

the original geniuss idea of Romanicism, but on the other hand it was
ruled by the concept of randomness; a method no more controlled from
the human conscience.
Alexander Cozens, described his radical process in his pamphlet
A New Method of Assising the Invenion in Drawing Original Composiions of Landscape, published in 1785. One of his pupils give us a descripion of his peculiar method of teaching: Cozens dashed out upon
several pieces of paper a series of accidental smudges and blots in black,
brown and grey, which being loated on, he impressed again upon other
paper, and by the exercise of ferile imaginaion, and a certain degree of
of ingenious coaxing, converted into romanic rocks, woods towers, steeples, cotages, rivers, ields, and waterfalls. Blue and grey blots formed
the mountains, clouds and skies.4 An improvement of this technique,
was to splash the botoms of earthenware plates with these blots, and
to stamp impressions therefrom on sheets of damped paper. As Alexander Cozens, in his book A New Method of Assising the Invenion in
Drawing Original Composiions of Landscape suggests: To sketch is
to transfer ideas from the mind to the paper. To blot is to make varied
spots... producing accidental forms... from which ideas are presented to
mind. To sketch is to delineate ideas; bloing suggests them..5 Moreover he deines bloing as a producion of chance with a small degree
of design.
The proposed process of Alexander Cozens, can be seen as an
algorithmic process through a contemporary view. This process can be
interpreted as an algorithm exactly because he displaced the way of
producing a paining; from the creaion through intuiion of the original
genius, to the interpretaion of a result which came out of an arbitrary
procedure. The algorithm in the process that he proposes, is not other
than discovering the unknown, by seeing in his random composiion
of blots something that he would not imagine in another way. Leav4
Otto Stelzer, Die Vorgeschichte der abstrakten Kunst, R. Piper, Mnchen, 1964
5
Alexander Cozens, A New Method of Assisting the Invention in Drawing
Original Compositions of Landscape, 1785, as quoted in: Manfred Wollf-Plottegg,
Architektur Algorithmen, Passagen Verlag,1996

18

ing outside intenions, turning something through interpretaion that

seems meaningless into meaningful. This way, he achieves the end of
the beginning, since he has no iniial intenions and his iniial point of
creaion is just deined by a random composiion of smudges and blots.
Moreover he achieves the end of the end, as he has no aim in his process; he just has a random composiion of smudges and blots, which he
later interprets, resuling in a creaion of a paining he had not foreseen;
a result that is to him unknown from the beginning.
However, as Alexander Cozens acknowledges, his ideas are inluenced of a passage in Leonardo da Vincis (1452-1519, Old Style Calendar) book Treaise on Paining, published in France in 1632. Leonardo
da Vinci recommends that arists should look for inspiraion of painings
in marks on old walls or igures in clouds. He coninues suggesing a
method, of throwing a wet cloth against the wall, from which someone
could be inspired for new composiions. In the modern period, Paul Klee
(18 December 1879-29 June 1940), followed the advice of Leonardo da
Vinci for inding unreasonable ways of inspiraion regarding paining
composiions, as he writes: In the restaurant of my uncle(Frick), the fattest man in Switzerland, tables were arranged on which stood polished
porcelain dishes, and on their surface was designed a tangle of lines.
In this maze of lines, someone could discover grotesque human igures,
which he could later draw them with pencil..6
Another example of random composiion in paining, however this ime without interpretaion, is the method of Jean (Hans) Arp
(1886-1966), a French arist. Claiming that chance is my raw material
he created composiions of collages and reliefs, by leing pieces of paper unexpectedly fall on a blank canvas. However, he did not use his
method for creaivity reasons or for breaking away from classic values
6
Paul Klee, Tagesbuch, p.16, as quoted in: Stelzer Otto, Die Vorgeschichte der
abstrakten Kunst, R. Piper, Mnchen, 1964
Im Restaurant meines Onkels (Frick), des dicksten Mannes in der Schweiz, standen
Tische mit geschliffenen Marmorplatten, auf deren Oberflche ein Gewirr von
Versteinerungsquerschnitten war. Aus diesem Labyrinth von Linien konnte man
menschliche Grotesken herausfinden und mit dem Bleistift festhalten.

19

and forms, but rather for poliical reasons. Doing his irst experiments
with Dada-collages created by chance, during the First World War, he
was seeking solace in the randomly occurring forms in nature, he set
these works against the raional order that unleashed the war: mechanizaion, organizaion, naionalism.
However, the idea of random composiion was not an idea only
used in paining. John Cage (1912 Los Angeles) is an American composer,
who began to invesigate the ways music was composed through chance
procedure, believing that something beauiful could come out. During
his studies in UCLA with the composer Arnold Schnberg, he realized
that he wanted to make radically diferent music from the music of the
ime, and he says: I certainly had no feeling for harmony, and Schnberg thought that that would make it impossible for me to write music.
He said Youll come to a wall you wont be able to get through. So I
said, Ill beat my head against that wall... John Cage wanted to make
art in ways that broke from the rigid forms of the past, and inspired by
Marcel Duchamps ready-mades that presented everyday items in museums as inished works of art, he found music around him without relying on expressing something from within. His irst experiments using
non-classical techniques for composing music involved altering standard instruments, such as puing plates and screws between a pianos
strings before playing it, but he later realized that he needed enirely
new instruments. Pieces such as Imaginary Landscape No 4(1951)
used twelve radios played at once and depended enirely on the chance
broadcasts at the ime of the performance for its actual sound. In his
piece Water Music (1952), he used shells and water to create another
piece that was moivated by the desire to reproduce the operaions that
form the world of sound we ind around us each day. Throughout the
sixies he started to focus his atenion on the technologies of recording and ampliicaion. One of his beter known pieces composed using
this technique is Cartridge Music(1960), during which he ampliied the
sound small household objects make at a live performance. Taking the
noions of chance composiion even further, he cut up a tape of recording, randomly puing it back together.
20

2.3
The problem regarding such techniques which were described
above, is that they usually contain to much. They tend to contain a vast
number of possibiliies that have no meaning, plus possibiliies which
are meaningful but irrelevant or uninteresing. Somebody could state
that the techniques described above, mostly ruled by randomness, are
not objecive neither scieniic. The state-acion trees, which are created
from an arbitrary process containing rules, establish numerous branches
that are not worth exploring. To take as much as we can through this
process, leaving out the branches not worth exploring, can be done by
ightening up the rules of the game. One powerful way of doing this is
the grammaical combinaion of parts. For example in the English language, when we use a noun in a sentence, it is essenial to being an
English noun that is only instaniated in English sentences in certain kind
of combinaions with other words, as given by the rules of English grammar. Thus not all string of words count as sentences in English. Only
those which follow the rules of the English grammar.
Coninuing from music, Arnold Schnberg, the Austrian composer who was a teacher of John Cage in UCLA, tried in his way to compose music diferent from the forms used in classical music, through
the deiniion of rules of producion, through an algorithmic process.
Arnold Schnberg invented, in 1921, the method of musical composiion called Twelve-tone technique. Twelve-tone technique orders the
12 notes of the chromaic scale, forming a row or a series and providing a unifying basis for a composiions melody, harmony, structural progressions, and variaions. It is a means of ensuring that all 12 notes of
the chromaic scale are sounded as oten as one another in a piece of
music while prevening the emphasis of any through the use of tone
rows, an ordering of the 12 pitches. All 12 notes are thus given more or
less equal importance, and the music avoids being in a key. Schnberg
himself described this system as a Method of Composing with Twelve
Tones Which are Related Only with One Another. His invenion of the
method of Twelve-tone technique made it possible for the technique
of composiion called serialism, that uses a series of values to manipulate diferent musical elements, to emerge.
21

However the idea of using rules of producion to create music

was irst proposed by Ludwig Mizler, friend of J.S. Bach ,in his paper in
1739: The Iniial Basses of Figured Bass, propounded mathemaically
and presented in a very clear way by a newly invented machine. is the
machine of musical composiion . The era had already let romanicism
aside and Ludwig Mizler invented a machine of musical composiion,
which mechanically produced objecive music.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, between other composers such
Haydn, C.P.E. Bach and Calegari, invented his own Musikalisches Wrfelspiel, in the year 1787, which was published from N. Simrock in Bonn,
in 1787, ater the death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It was a system
for using dice to randomly generate music. The dice was rolled, and every ime a number was atributed to a number on a table, which respecively was corresponding in a two-bar secion of music. Adding up the
randomly selected secions of music, a musical piece was created. His
aim was to show that anyone without an idea about music could compose a walz and other types of music. In 1801, Antonio Calegari presents
in Venice the Gioco pitagorico musicale, another musical dice game, in
which he proposed the use of three dices and he writes: It is obvious
the music, which is considered the language of heart, should have as every other language its phrases, its sentences, its words, its syllables and
its leters..7
The analogy of the grammaical combinaion of parts in architecture can be illustrated in Alberis handling of columns, piers, entablatures and arches, as analyzed by Rudolf Witkower, in 1962:
In his religious buildings Alberi consistently avoided the combinaion of arch and column. When he used columns he did, in fact, give
them a straight entablature, while when he introduced arches, he made
them rest on pillars with or without half-columns set against them as
decoraion. Alberi found the models for both forms in Roman architec7
, . ,
, 2007

22

The use and the combinaion of columns, archs, half-columns and entablatures from
Alberi in his religious buildings

23

ture. But whereas the irst moif is Greek, the Romans playing the role
of mediators, the second is Roman. The irst moif is based on the funcional meaning of the column, the second on the cohesion and unity of
the wall. To explain this later point: in the Colosseum the arched pillars
may be interpreted as residues of a pierced wall, with the half-columns,
which carry the straight entablature, placed against them as ornament.
In pracice, therefore, Alberis concepion of the column is essenially
Greek, while his concepion of the arc is essenially Roman.8
The grammaical rules of a language of architectural form, like
those used in a language, can be speciied in a variety of formats. The
simplest approach as employed by Pugin, is to display various exemplars
of correct and incorrect pracice. This technique has already been
employed from Vitruvius unil today. Another, more sophisicated approach, is to state generalized prescripive rules, as in elementary language textbooks. In Renaissance, architectural theorists were paricularly fond of doing this, as the rules of composiion Palladio introduced
in his Four Books of Architecture in 1570.
John Mitchell in his book The Logic of Architecture in 1990,
proposes a sophisicated generaive grammar to create villa loor plans
in the style of Palladio, since Palladio was one of the irst architects to
explore plan ideas by sketching numerous variants. The Palladian grammar which is formulated by Mitchell is a parametric shape grammar, as
deined by Siny in 1980, in which shapes consist of points, lines, and
labels. The proposed grammar consists of vocabulary and rules of the
language and illustrate them through a step by step derivaion of the
plan of the Villa Malcotenta. The grammar generates plans in a topdown fashion, working from footprint and an organizing grid, down to
the details of walls, columns, doors and windows. The stages of the plan
generaion of a Palladian Villa are the following:
1. grid deiniion
2. exterior wall deiniion
8
William J. Mitchell, The Logic of Architecture: Design, Computation, and
Cognition, MIT Press, 1996

24

The unixaial villas that Palladio published in his Four Books of Architecture as they
were produced from John Mitchells grammar

Villa Malcontenta as produced from John Mitchells grammar

25

All the combinaions that are being produced from John Mitchells grammar in a 3x3 grid

Two prototype villa plans as they were produced from John Mitchells grammar in a
convincing Palladian grammar

26

3. room layout
4. interior wall realignment
5. principal entrances, poricos and exterior wall inlecions
6. exterior ornamentaion, columns
7. windows and doors
8. terminaion
The above proposed Palladian grammar, generates not only all
the uniaxial villa plans published in Palladios Four Books of Architecture, but also many plans of him sketched elsewhere and moreover a
rich catalogue of original plans in a convincing Palladian manner. Since
we can create grids of increasing size it, this grammar speciies a countable ininite universe of villa designs for exploraion. In essence such a
grammar of generaing Palladian villa plans can be used also in the opposite direcion, providing a way to recognize villa plans as Palladian, by
succesfully reducing them to the iniial step of the generaion.9
Such shape grammars have been used from ime to ime to design architecture. Most notable is Bernard Tschumis design for Park of
La Villete in Paris, in which he has programmaically employed subsituion of architectural elements from a chosen lexicon, within the framework of a gridded ten-meter cube to generate a set of pavilions.
The above paradigms, show us how the algorithmic way of thinking can be used to create an objecive I dare to say architectural design. The shape tokens, being the vocabulary, and the rules of combining them, being the grammar of such a language. The above menioned
rules and the predeined steps form an algorithmic procedure, which
cannot only be seen as a tool of giving a soluion to a design problem,
but also a design tool that leads towards the producion of concepts,
ideas and even forms, which in turn efect the way the architects are
thinking. The basis of algorithmic design is that with the same rules a
designer can create diferent forms.
9
as quoted in: William J. Mitchell, The Logic of Architecture: Design,
Computation, and Cognition, MIT Press, 1996

27

At this point, however, we need to explore the way in which

Patrik Schumacher and Peter Eisenman, have used the algorithms in the
design process and the reasons that each one of them favors.

28

3. Patrik Schumacher on Parametricism

3.1
MAXXI was described as a building for the staging of art, and
while provocaive on many levels, this project demonstrated a maturity
and calmness that belied the complexiies of its form and organisaion.
[] This was a mature piece of architecture, a disillaion of years of experimentaion, only a fracion of which has been built. It is the quintessence of Zahas constant atempt to create a landscape, a series of cavernous spaces drawn with a free, roving line. The resuling piece gives
the visitor a sense of exploraion.. With these words the jury of RIBA
Sirling Price commented on the winning disincion of MAXXI win as the
Building of the Year 2010.
The design of MAXXI started about 12 years ago as a theoreical project; it was understood, by the Zaha Hadid Architects, from the
beginning as a radical experiment in design research. Its compleion, 10
years ater the design compeiion, proved that the transformaion of a
radical concept into a project, a project into a building, and a building
into a living insituion. Even ater its compleion as a building MAXXI
remains a theoreical project in the sense that it is an architectural manifesto projecing the potenial of the new architectural style: Parametricism.10
Parametricism is the new architectural style which Patrik Schumacher, collaborate and right-hand of Zaha Hadid Architects, proposed in
the 11th Architecture Biennale in Venice, in 2008. During the last iteen
years he has published numerous aricles theorizing a new agenda for
architecture. In his latest atempts of expressing a new uniied theory
of architecture of the new style called by himself Parametricism, he
10
Patrik Schumacher, The Meaning of MAXXI Concepts, Ambitions,
Achievements, MAXXI: Museum of XXI Century Arts, Rizzoli International Publications,
New York 2010

29

30

wrote and published a book in two volumes which is named: The Autopoiesis of Architecture. As he claims:
Contemporary avant-garde architecture is addressing the demand for an increased level of ariculated complexity by means of retooling its methods on the basis of parametric design systems. The contemporary architectural style that has achieved pervasive hegemony within
the contemporary architectural avant-garde can be best understood as
a research program based upon the parametric paradigm. We propose
to call this style: Parametricism.11
Parametricism tries to introduce new concepts as well as new
values in the course of architecture. This happens in terms of a richer
and expanded formal repertoire as well as a new deiniion and understanding of funcion, which are organized through scripts and executed
by computers. As a result MAXXI is acing as a built manifesto for the
values represented in Parametricism, by trying to organize and ariculate
life, which is its general aim. To accomplish this, Parametricism tries not
only to intensify the internal cohesion and difereniaion through an
ordered complexity of the architectural design, but to also create coninuiies between the building and the urban context.
As Patrik Schumacher claims, cultural buildings in general, but
especially contemporary art centers, are the perfect vehicles for staing
architectural opinions, thus a new architectural style. This has to do with
the openness of contemporary art, which is trying to relect new social
phenomena and ideas. Art was always about invenion and experimenting with new, as also Adolf Loos stated, in Ornament and Crime. Contemporary art has no speciied content and typology and tries always
to reinterprets the very concept of art. Art is the zone of incubaion of
all ideas, including architectural ideas. This is easily understood when
somebody thinks of modernism, and the way modern art stated the
11
Patrik Schumacher, Parametricism as Style Parametricist Manifesto,
Presented and discussed at the Dark Side Club, 11th Architecture Biennale, Venice
2008

31

values of modernism long before they were adapted, if they ever were
completely, in architecture. The architectural frame, which in our case is
the museum, should be a catalyst and incubator of art and furthermore
the ideas which art is expressing. It is all about brainstorming about
brainstorming 12; achieving something new by designing an excepional
form.
In the site in which the MAXXI was built two urban grids meet.
The Zaha Hadid Architects were confronted with this challenge, so the
design took its iniial point of departure, from the geometry of the surrounding urban context. The resultant change in the angle of 51 degrees
of the building is mediated by means of curves. The second decisive
design concept was the imposiion of a strong rigorous formalism; the
formalism of parallel lines that bend, branch, bundle or intersect, which
were later interpreted as walls, beams, ribs, staircases and lightning
stripes.13
As the design moved on, the formalism gained funcional signiicance, by becoming a wall everywhere thought of as a potenial
exhibiion surface and the fundamental space-making element of the
design. The walls remain mostly parallel, and the curves coming from
the change of the urban grid create exhibiion spaces between walls, as
well as interior and exterior spaces, but rather enhancing than losing the
coninuous low of space. The low of the walls deines two streams: one
major the galleries and one minor the staircases and bridges. As a
result, every single one of the architectural elements: walls, beams and
ribs as well as ramps and staircases is being created by the strict formalism of linear, streaming elements, contribuing to the circulatory low of
the visitors and densifying communicaion and event paricipaion.

12
Patrik
Achievements,
New York 2010
13
Patrik
Achievements,
New York 2010

Schumacher, The Meaning of MAXXI Concepts, Ambitions,

MAXXI: Museum of XXI Century Arts, Rizzoli International Publications,
Schumacher, The Meaning of MAXXI Concepts, Ambitions,
MAXXI: Museum of XXI Century Arts, Rizzoli International Publications,

32

The urban context in which was built

The formalism of parallel lines

33

This low of people inside the museum is achieved by the projects formal unity and coherence and it is thus understood internally as a
ield rather than externally as an object.14 The interplay of a mulitude of
architectural elements menioned earlier results to a space which cannot be grasped in a single glance. There exist two kind of zones with different funcional meaning. Zones of laminar low, which are spaces used
for art exhibiion and adequate for concentrated encounter. And zones
where the intersecion and the layering of lines is correlated with verical
connecions that aford level changes. Such spaces of visual and circulatory interchange is the great public foyer and some connecions which
are ofered internal to the domain of the galleries. The luid sequence of
space results to an open-wandering through the building without a beginning or an end-point. MAXXI abandons the tradiional room-by room
museum layout, in favor of an open, dynamic low of people wandering throughout the building, through an ordered complexity. By creating surprising shits of space, draws the visitors further, bringing new
aspects in view and ofering new choices to coninue their path.
No other style could have achieved the formal coherence in such
diferent site condiions and scales with so many variants; especially
when confronted with a large scale development of this kind. The use
of generaive formal algorithms, which the Zaha Hadid Architects are
using, are able to create this formal consistency in such diferent scales
and such diferent structures. But this consistency depends upon the
adherence to the strictures and imposiions discussed above. That implies that the parametricist coninuaion forged by diferent architects is
possible in myriad diferent ways, but never random. Patrik Schumacher
says: Large scale projects in Beijing and Cairo prove that Parametricism
is able to deliver all the components for a high performance contemporary life process.15 That is why Parametricism will succeed in changing
our percepion of the built environment, exactly as modernism did on
14
Patrik Schumacher, The Meaning of MAXXI Concepts, Ambitions,
Achievements, MAXXI: Museum of XXI Century Arts, Rizzoli International Publications,
New York 2010
15
Patrik Schumacher, The Parametricist Epoch: Let the Style Wars Begin, AJ:
The Architectural Journal, vol. 231, no. 16, 06 May 2010

34

The big public foyer and a complex of staircases and bridges

The idea of the open museum

35

the dawn of 20th century.

3.2
Every new style that is proposed in architecture needs a comprehensive architectural theory. The reasons are for organizing the ideas
and the people who are designing using this new style, which is Parametricism for us. It is also important if you are trying to work in an oice
and lead many architects across a muliplicity of projects, diferent in
terms of program and scale. Finally it is important for oneself, so that
one will be able to eliminate all contradicions within ones own eforts;
so that one doesnt stand in its own way all the ime. You can only lead
a coherent pracice with a coherent theory.16
It is necessary for us to agree that in Parametricism all elements
are considered parametrically malleable. Unlike every other former
style of pracicing architecture, I dare to say from the beginning of architecture unil today, including modernism, Parametricism is not working with platonic solids, with rigid, hermeic and geometric igures by
just composing them. Unlike modernism which was leaded by the principles of separaion and repeiion, Parametricism is being led by the
principles of difereniaion and correlaion and that of formal coherence. Nobody will claim the opposite regarding the use of such forms by
modernism. Although modernism, compared with classical architecture,
was allowed, and did stretch proporions, gave up on symmetry creaing
a more dynamic equilibrium and leaving for the user a bigger degree
of freedom, it remained classical to its internal structure, avoiding the
break with the tradiion and the classical forms; unlike the change that
happened in the rest of the arts during the same period of ime.
If somebody looks how Patrik Schumacher and his followers are
doing architecture he will realize that they are using nothing more than
splines, blobs, nurbs, and paricles, all organized by scripts. The architecture they create, has a coherent formal vocabulary generated from
algorithms, that creates coherent forms, led by the principles of uni16
Patrik Schumacher, Parametricism and the Autopoiesis of Architecture,
Lecture in SCI-Arc, Los Angeles, September 2010

36

formity but yet variety. In the last centuries though, numerous variants
of the uniformity and variety formula(unity and variety or order and
complexity) have been put forward, leading ulimately to various eforts
of quanifying aestheic value.17 The mathemaician George Birkhof
(1933) made an interesing but yet unconvincing atempt to measure
aestheic values of musical and visual composiions by a formula of the
form m=o/c, where m is the aestheic value, o is an objecive measure
of order, and c an objecive measure of complexity.
As Patrick Schumacher claims, avant-garde styles might be interpreted and evaluated in analogy to new scieniic paradigms, afording a new conceptual framework and formulaing new aims, methods
and values. Therefore: Styles are design research programs.18 Every
research program requires its hard core of design principles and a characterisic way of tackling design problems and tasks. So the style or research program consists of methodological rules; some that say which
paths we should avoid (negaive heurisics) and others what paths to
pursue (posiive heurisics). Because a style is not only a mater of forms
and formalism, but it also introduces a paricular aitude and way of
comprehending and handling funcions and program, Patrik Schumacher introduces a series of negaive and posiive heurisics for both form
and funcion.
Formal negaive heurisics: avoid straight lines, avoid right angles, avoid corners, avoid rigid geometric primiives like squares, triangles and circles, avoid simple repeiion of elements, avoid juxtaposiion
of unrelated elements or systems, and avoid familiar typologies
Formal posiive heurisics: hybridize, morph, deterritorialize, deform, iterate, use splines, nurbs, generaive components, script rather
than model, consider all forms to be parametrically malleable, difereniate gradually (at variant rates), inlect and correlate systemaically
17
William J. Mitchell, The Logic of Architecture: Design, Computation, and
Cognition, MIT Press, 1996
18
Patrik Schumacher, Parametricism A New Global Style for Architecure and
Urban Design, AD Architectural Design Digital Cities, vol. 79, no.4, July/August 2009

37

Funcional negaive heurisics: avoid thinking in terms of essences, avoid stereotypes and strict typologies, and avoid designaing funcions to strict and separated and discrete zones
Funcional posiive heurisics: think in terms of gradient ields of
acivity, about variable social scenarios calibrated by various event parameters, think in terms of actor-arifact networks
Somebody could interpret and use the funcional and posiive
heurisics away from one another. But in Parametricism those two make
sense together. In order to translate and achieve these funcions into
form someone needs the formal heurisics. The projects that are coming out of the Zaha Hadid Architects oice show the richness and unity
of the formal vocabulary used in Parametricism, through the richness of
the types of structures of various scales it is addressing. The hallmark of
Parametricism is exactly this kind of unity within diference and diference within unity in the various scales of architecture from the tectonic
detail, to the building scale, as well as to the urban scale why not to the
whole world.
In such a style as Parametricism, which claims universal validity, what is most important is formal coherence, which derives from the
universality of the algorithms which are used to create such forms. The
elegance of the ordered complexity but yet unity which is produced and
the sense of seamless luidity, akin to natural systems, can be reviewed
through diferent projects that came out of the Zaha Hadid Architects
oice, from the shoes to the Nordpark Cable Railway and inally to the
Kartal-Pendik Masterplan.
The Zaha Hadid Architects oice collaborated with the Brazilian
shoe company Melissa, in order to design a pair of shoes which would
achieve the creaion of the characterisic sensaion of luidity, which the
oice produces. The natural staring point for the design was the organic
curves of the human body, that inspired the idea for a shoe in lux, which
comes into life when somebody wears it, in contrast to a typical shoe
38

Melissa Shoes

The stations of Norpark Cable Railway

39

that is understood as staic in a shop window.

In the project Nordpark Cable Railway, in Innsbruck, Austria,
where diferent kinds of cable railway staions were designed, the formal unity and yet diference in the construcions is understood. The different kinds of roofs were successively adapted in the diferent site condiions creaing diferent inal forms; however without losing the formal
consistency between each other.
The same formal coherence in the urban scale is easily represented in the design of the Kartal-Pendik Masterplan, in Istanbul, Turkey, which Zaha Hadid Architects designed in 2006. Using parametric
sotware in this project they achieved a worth-while collecive value:
The unique character and coherent order of the urban ield that all
players beneit from, if adherence can be enforced..19 The design in all
the scales of the city produces an elegant, coherently difereniated cityscape. This ordered complexity replaces the monotony of other planned
developments and the disoriening visual chaos which was the outcome
of unil now planned contemporary city expansions. The interariculaion between cross towers and perimeter blocks, as well as the system
of parks that are spread into the city achieve the rhythmic low of the
urban fabric, and give a sense of organic cohesion. In addiion, the system of the facades used throughout the city, makes the exterior of the
blocks look heavier than the interior. This results in a low of the public
space where a block opens up, via the gradient transformaion between
the outer and the inner ariculaion.
3.3
If we look at the history of the whole evoluion of architecture,
we could easily come to the conclusion, that social order requires spaial
order and that society doesnt exist without a structured environment.
As Mark Wigley has said, architecture was always a central cultural unity
and it will be protected as such, because it provides for stability and
19
Patrik Schumacher, Parametricism A New Global Style for Architecure and
Urban Design, AD Architectural Design Digital Cities, vol. 79, no.4, July/August 2009

40

Use of a formal algorithm in Kartal-Pemdik Masterplan

Renders that show the formal coherence of the city-scape

41

order. 20 At this point, Patrick Schumacher claims the same; that spaial
organizaion sustains social organizaion. Parametricism, which claims
universal validity, through the extensive use of scriping in an almost
scieniic way, is creaing endless coherent forms, and thus it organizes
and ariculates life.
Patrick Schumacher, being leaded himself by the needs of the
society of the 21st century, he tries to make the new style of Parametricism, the only valid for architecture in the future; the great new style
ater modernism. According to him, post-modern and deconstrucivist
architecture have been transiional episodes that ushered in this new,
long wave of research and innovaion, of Parametricism.
Nevertheless, Patrik Schumacher acknowledges that deconstrucivist architecture, which started with the formal invesigaions of
Peter Eisenman, made the turn in the way we conceive and do architecture possible. Peter Eisenman being lead by the deconstrucion theories
of Jacques Derrida used various techniques for designing architecture;
through gridding, scaling, tracing, folding and scriping, he designed
buildings that were more of experiments. By this way the start was
made, by geing away from the tradiional drawing and designing techniques, and by these I mean drawing with ruler and compass, making
rigid lines and rigid igures, and introducing and working with dynamic
systems.

20
Philip Johnson, Mark Wigley, Deconstructivist Architecture, Museum of
Modern Art, New York, 1988

42

4. Peter Eisenman and algorithmic design

4.1
Peter Eisenman, even in his early designs in the beginning of
decostrucivist architecture, tries to distance himself from the design
process, oten by using an arbitrary process with the help of algorithms
and diferent non-classical techniques in the design process. By interpreing the ideas of Jacques Derrida regarding Deconstrucion, he tried
to generate a kind of non-representaional iguraion in the object. This
suggests the idea of architecture as wriing as opposed to architecture
as image. What is being writen is not the object itself, but the act of
creaing this object. Architecture is no longer seen as merely aestheic
or funcional elements, but rather as another grammaical counter, proposing an alternate reading of the idea of the object.21 In this case a
not classical architecture begins acively to involve an idea of a reader
conscious of his own idenity rather as a user or an observer. The reader
proposed here is distanced from any external value system, paricularly
an architectural-historical system. As a result such a reader brings no a
priori competence to the act of reading other than his own idenity as
a reader, thing useful for the non-classical architecture which does not
aspire to be understood through such preconcepions.
The above idea, is expressing the idea about the death of the
author. It comes originally from the philosopher Roland Barthes, who
expressed it in its essay The death of the author. The essay summarizes itself in the last paragraph:
Thus is revealed the total existence of wriing: a text is made of
muliple wriings, drawn from many cultures and entering into mutual
relaions of dialogue, parody, contestaion, but there is one place where
21 Peter Eisenman, Architecture and the Problem of the Rhetorical Figure,
Architecture and Urbanism no. 202, July 1987

43

this muliplicity is focused and that place is the reader, not, as was hitherto said, the author. The reader is the space on which all the quotaions
that make up a wriing are inscribed without any of them being lost; a
texts unity lies not in its origin but in its desinaion..22
Barthes himself claims that the language is a system by itself and
the only thing that the author does is using this exact system for wriing
a text, which contains the subject. He claims that the author should stop
being important. What should be important on the other hand, is the
reader and the way he interprets the same text. Diferent readers will
give texts diferent meanings, as the original intenion and the objecive interpretaion of the writer will be no more of importance. Barthes
himself says that To give an author to a text is to impose that text a stop
clause.. The author should stop playing this god-like role, as what is really important to us is the reader himself. [...]the death of the reader
must be ransomed from the death of the author..23 The author should
stop to play this god-like role, as what is important to us is the reader.
Nevertheless, Peter Eisenman is not only trying to achieve the
end of the author the way Barthes is expressing. He tries to give the end
of the author, another dimension already from his irst deconstrucivist
designs. He explores himself diferent, non-classical processes of design. He distances himself from the architectural design, as much as he
can, and by using algorithmic design the reader has the inal reason
against the building rather than the god-like architect.
The analogy to wriing can be here done, referring to Oulipo. The
workshop for potenial literature, Ouvroir de litrature potenielle,
which the writers Raymond Queneau and Franois Le Lionnais founded
in 1960. It was a loose gathering of mainly French speaking writers and
mathemaicians which explored ways of seeking new structures and patterns of creaing texts. They used a variety of constrained wriing techniques which were used as means of triggering ideas and inspiraion.
Most famous of those is the technique called lipogram, which is wriing
22
23

Roland Barthes, The Death of the Author, Aspen, no. 5-6, 1967
Roland Barthes, The Death of the Author, Aspen, no. 5-6, 1967

44

Cent Mille Milliards de Pomes of Raymond Queneau

45

a text using words which do not contain a speciic leter. A famous work
writen using the above technique is La Dispariion, by Georges Perec
in 1969, enirely without using the leter e. Other famous techniques
are: S+7in which you replace every noun in a text with the seventh
noun ater it in the dicionary, Palindromes in which sonnets and other
poems are constructed using palindromic techniques. Finally, another
well known work of the groups is Queneaus Cent Mille Milliards de
Pomes which is inspired by childrens picture booksin which each page
is cut into horizontal strips that can be turned independently, allowing
diferent pictures to be combined in many ways (usually people: heads,
torsos, waists, legs, etc.). Queneau applies the same technique into poetry. The book consists of 10 sonnets, each on a page. Each page was
split into 14 strips, one for each line, allowing one to be combined with
each on let from the other 9. This creates 10^14 poems which somebody needs approximately 200 million years to read all possible combinaions.
4.2
The most famous non-classical design technique Peter Eisenman developed, inspired by the ideas of Roland Barthes about the end
of the author and interpreing the theory of Deconstrucion of Jaques
Derrida in architecture, is a method called scaling, which he used for
the irst ime in 1985 in Romeo and Juliet project, in Verona. In Peter
Eisenmans criical essay Moving Arrows, Eros, and other Errors: An Architecture of Absence, commemoraing his winning submission for the
Third Internaional Venice Architecture Biennale of 1985, outlined his
theoreical design direcion:
For ive centuries the human bodys proporions have been a
datum for architecture. But due to developments and changes in modern technology, philosophy, and psychoanalysis, the grand abstracion of
man as the measure of all things, as an originary presence, can no longer
be sustained, even as it persists in the architecture of today. In order to
efect a response in architecture to these cultural changes, this project
employs another discourse, founded in the process called scaling.
The process of scaling entails the use of three destabilizing con46

The scaling process used in the Romeo and Juliet project

47

cepts: disconinuity, which confronts the metaphysics of presence; recursivity, which confronts origin; and self-similarity,which confronts
representaion and the aestheic object. Strictly speaking, disconinuity,
recursivity,and self-similarity are mutually dependent aspects of scaling.
They confront presence, origin, and the aestheic object in three aspects
of the architectural discourse: site, program,and representaion.24
Peter Eisenman, with the Romeo and Juliet project did not want
to create any work, but instead a text, that would reveal its structure
from within. He wanted with the process of scaling to confront presence, origin and the aestheic object in three aspects of the architectural discourse; the site, the program, and representaion. He treated
the site, not only as physical presence, but also as a palimpsest and a
quarry, containing traces of memory as well as of immanence, resuling
this way in a non-staic site. The program of this project, was not a usual
program, as it presented the dominant themes of Romeo and Juliet in
architectural form in at the site of the two castles in the city of Verona.
In the story of Romeo and Juliet there are three structural relaionships,
which were taken as the basis of the architectural program. The irst of
these structural relaionships is this of division the separaion of lovers
which was symbolized through the balcony at Julias house. The second
is this of union the marriage of the lovers which is symbolized through
the church and the third is their dialecical relaionship the togetherness and apartness of the lovers which is symbolized through Julias
tomb. The above described structural relaionships can also be found
to exist at physical level in the plan of the city of Verona. Cardo and decumanus, the two middle-age city walls divide the city, whereas the old
Roman grid unites it. Finally, the Adige creates the dialecical condiion
of union and division between the two halves of the city.
Peter Eisenman then, draw a icive plan of the city of Verona,
which depicted the middle-age city walls(division), the old Roman
grid(union), the Adige river(dialecical relaionship), as well as the supposedly exising in Verona house of Juliet(division), the church in which
24
Peter Eisenman, Moving Arrows, Eros, and other Errors: An Architecture of
Absence, Architectural Association, London, 1986

48

The result of the scaling proccess used in the Romeo and Juliet project

The physical model of the Romeo and Juliet project

49

the couple was married(union) and Juliets tomb(dialecical relaionship). Those elements were drawn as axonometric designs in three different scales. The superposiions of scales were done so that the icional elements would fall on top of the real elements. In the overlaps
and coincidences of the design arise elements which have to do with
the condiion of memory, of presence and of immanence. The elements
which had to do with the past or the condiion of memory were drawn
gray, the elements which had to do with the condiions of present were
drawn blue, and the elements which had to do with the future or the
condiion of immanence were drawn white.
The scaling process used by Peter Eisenman in Verona, has no
privileged point of relaion with the design; it has no origin, thus is freeing architecture from the concept of the human scale. Moreover, in the
scaling process, the overlapping of architectural and no architectural elements, controlled by randomness, we might talk of a design which have
changed the tradiional relaion between the object and the subject,
creaing a self-referenial object; an architecture without author.
As we have already menioned, the scaling process used by Peter
Eisenman in several projects, is an interpretaion of Jacques Derridas
theory of Deconstrucion in architecture. Jacques Derrida wants to reverse the widespread convicion that a sign literally represents something, because a sign could always refer to yet more signs ad ininitum.
Thus there is no ulimate referent or foundaion.25 As in this text, nothing guarantees that another person will endow the words I use, with the
paricular meaning that I atribute to them. For example, when reading
the word water, we might think of water drops, a lake, the chemical
symbol H2O, and so on. We dont necessarily think of a predeined image of water; there is no such thing as a universal referent or foundaion
of water. And then, each of the diferent signiiers in which the word
water could refer, according to our percepion, could trigger another signiier, with no ending. So we conclude that a sign can represent more
than one thing, yet it cannot represent anything. The same way thinks
25
Jonathan Culler, On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after Structuralism,
Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York, 1982

50

Peter Eisenman of the use of sign in architecture. He wants to free the

object which he designs from sign, origin and direcion, because it could
for someone represent more than one thing, thus it could not represent
anything. He makes architecture without origin and without author.
Peter Eisenman, however, is beter known for a series of 10 experimental houses that he designed, most of them not built. In his writings following the design of the houses he claims that he atempted the
freeing of the house from its cultural atributed meanings. Each one of
the houses were designed through a process, which he would say, resulted to the a self-referenial inal object, without taking into account
the formal convenions of the modern movement. However, those designs had a diferent point of iniiaion, which was Noam Chomskys syntax theory of generaive grammaical transformaions. Noam Chomsky
claimed that there is a universal frame of grammar rules, that makes everybody understand if a combinaion of words in a sentence is logical or
not. In every generaive grammar there is a deep structure and a surface
structure that both form sentences. The process, that builds a surface
structure from a deep structure is called transformaion. Peter Eisenman was inspired from the concept of the grammaical transformaions,
and he created a system of simple geometrical transformaions which
together with an iniial formal vocabulary, created complex designs of
houses.26
26
His most famous design, from this series of experimental houses, is House
VI that he designed in a lat site in Cornwall, Connecicut. The design of the house
started with a typical grid, which then he manipulated in a way so that, when it was
completed, it could exist not only as an object, but also in a way of cinematographic
embodiment its own transformaion process. To start, Eisenman created a form from
the intersecion of four planes, subsequently manipulaing the structures again and
again, unil coherent spaces began to emerge. As a result structural elements, were
revealed so that the transformaion process was evident, but not always understood.
This means that even if a simple post and beam system was used for the design and the
construcion of the house, not all of these played a structural role. There are columns
not supporing anything, one column in the kitchen hovers over the kitchen table without even touching the ground. In other spaces, beams meet but do not intersect, creating a cluster of supports. There is even an upside down staircase, the element which
portrays the axis of the house, painted red to draw the atenion. Robert Gutman,
Sociologist Professor in the University of Princeton, wrote on the house saying: [...]

51

4.3
The above designs shows us the importance which Peter Eisenman gave into creaing architecture through diferent non-classical
processes. In his essay The End of the Classical, The End of the End, The
End of the Beginning, one year before the Romeo and Juliet project, he
had already outlined the theoreical direcion of his work, claiming that
architecture from the 15th century unil the present has been under the
inluence of three icions. These icions are representaion, reason
and history.
According to him each of the three icions had an underlying purpose: representaion was to embody the idea of meaning; reason was to codify the idea of truth; history was to recover the idea of
imeless from the idea of change. These three icions have persisted
through the diferent architectural styles that emerged since the 15th
century; from classicism, neoclassicism, romanicism, to modernism
and postmodernism. Because of the persistence of these icions in architectural thought, we can refer to this coninuous mode of thought as
the classical.27
By the icion of representaion, he addresses the problem
of the simulaion of meaning in architecture. Before Renaissance the
meaning of a building was in itself, truth and meaning were self- evident.
Renaissance buildings on the other hand received their value by represening an already valued architecture. Modern architecture claimed
to liberate itself from the Renaissance icion of representaion, thus it
was no longer necessary for architecture to represent another architecture but important was to embody it own funcion. Form should follow
funcion, so a building should express its funcion, and moreover the
raionality in the design process. Modern architecture though it tried
to become more objecive, more social; a programmaic art, stayed only
most of these columns have no role in supporing the building planes, but are there,
like the planes and the slits in the walls and ceilings that represent planes, to mark the
geometry and rhythm of Eisenmans notaional system.
27
Peter Eisenman, The End of the Classical, The End of the End, The End of the
Beginning, Perspecta, Vol.21, 1984, p. 154

52

in reproducing abstracion, atonality, atemporality which though being

stylisic manifestaions of modernism, did not represent its essenial nature.
By the icion of reason, he addresses the problem of the simulaion of truth in architecture. Before Renaissance the idea of the origin of architecture was self-evident, as its meaning and importance belonged to an a priori universe of values. In the Renaissance, origins were
sought in natural or divine order, as it was widely believed that an ideal
beginning would lead to an ideal end. Enlightment brought a change in
the way of thinking, and from that ime on, architecture was thought as
a raional process of designing, rather than of divine order. The idea of
the raionality reinforced from the development of technology, became
the moral and aestheic manifestaion of modern architecture.
By the icion of history, he addresses the problem of the simulaion of the imeless. Unil the mid-iteenth century, when the idea
of temporal origin emerged, and with it the idea of eternal or universal
values, there was no concept of the forward movement of ime. The
modern movement polemically rejected the history and its values that
preceded it, and presumed itself to be a form of intervenion which followed the spirit of the age, appealing to values other than those embodied the eternal or the universal. But one more ime this resulted only
to yet another set of aestheic preferences, supporing asymmetry over
symmetry, dynamism over stability, absence of hierarchy over hierarchy.
In brief, the modern movement made a shit possible, away from
the dominant aitudes of humanism which were pervasive in Western
socieies from the iteenth century. The modernist sensibility had to do
with a changed mental aitude regarding the arifacts of the physical
world, not only manifested aestheically, but also socially, philosophically and technologically. Modern art for example fundamentally changed
the relaionship between the man and the object, away from an object whose primary purpose was to speak about man, to one which was
concerned about its own object-hood. The inal object should be autonomous, having no idenity or signiicance; it should speak by itself.
53

This was more accomplished in modern art, that it was ever in modern
architecture. In fact, this shit away from the values of humanism took
place in diferent imes in the 20th century in disciplines such as painting, literature, music and ilm. The non-objecive abstract painings of
Malevich and Mondrian, the non-narraive atemporal wriing of Joyce
and Apollinaire, the atonal and polytonical composiions of Schnberg
and Webern, as well as the non-narraive ilms of Richter and Eggeling.28
The shit made in the above disciplines was suggesing a displacement of the man away from the center of the world. He was no longer
viewed as an originaing agent of the objects. The objects were seen like
ideas independent of man. Although modern architecture, as we have
already said, atempted similar dislocaion, there was no fundamental
shit in the relaionship between the subject and the object. Although
the object looked diferent, its relaion to the subject stayed essenially
the same. Although the buildings someimes were conceptualized, by
axonometric or isometric projecion rather than perspecive, no consistent delecion of the subject was carried out. Somebody could also support that architecture did never achieve a break with the tradiion, but
on the other hand, it coninued the Renaissance tradiion, unlike the big
changes that happened in art throughout the 20th century, remaining
classical to its essence.
In the deconstrucivist architecture of Peter Eisenman, there is a
constant try to free itself from place and go against the laws of gravity.
The aboliion of gravity means as much as the aboliion of place. The
aboliion of place means as much as the aboliion of presence. He tries
to create an architecture away from the tradiional physical experience
of room. Peter Eisenman is aiming to an non-classical architecture which
would achieve the end of the classical, the end of the end, the end of
the beginning. An architecture without origin, without end and without
author.
By the end of the classical he means the end of the tradiional
view and values of the world that were established in Renaissance and
28

Peter Eisenman, Post-Functionalism, Oppositions 6, Fall 1976

54

coninued through Enlightenment. Whether the appeal was to a divine

or natural order, as in during the Renaissance, or to a raional technique
and typological funcion, as in the post-Enlightment period, it amounted
to the same thing. To the idea that architectures value derived from a
source outside itself; no mater if those values where funcion and type
or divine and natural ones. He suggests that a non-classical architecture
should be made possible which would pose an end to the dominance of
classical values in order to reveal other values.
By the end of the beginning he means the end of the origin. The
idea of architecture as something added to rather than something
with its own being leads to a percepion as a pracical device. But once
this self-evident characterisic of architecture is dismissed and architecture is seen as having no a priori origins whether funcional, divine,
or natural alternaive origins can be proposed. Not-classical origins,
unlike classical ones, can be strictly arbitrary, simply staring points,
without value. They can be ariicial and relaive, as opposed to natural,
divine and universal. But if the beginning is arbitrary, there can be no
direcion toward closure or end, because the moivaion for change of
state(that is, the inherent instability of the beginning) can never lead to
a state of no change(that is, an end). Thus, a process freed from universal values of both historic origin and direcion, can lead to ends diferent
of what we understood as end in its tradiional meaning.
By the end of the end he means the freedom from an aim or a
speciic end. With the end of the end what was formerly the process of
composiion or transformaion ceases to be a causal strategy, a process
of addiion or subtracion from an origin. Instead, he invents a non-dialecical, non-direcional, non-goal oriented process. The invented start
of this process; the invented origin difers from the classicist idea of origin by being arbitrary, reinvented for each circumstance. The process
instead of being a goal-oriented strategy is now more of an open-ended
tacic. The diference between strategy and tacic in our case, is that
strategy is directed to a goal, to an iniial intenion. In our case architectural form is invented rather than intenionally designed. To invent an
architecture is to allow architecture to be a cause; in order to be a cause,
55

it must arise from something outside a directed strategy of architectural

composiion.
4.4
Peter Eisenman tried to achieve in the early 80s what the modern failed to do. Ater the paradigm shit that took place in the years that
following the Second World War, from the mechanical one to the electronic one, a non-classical architecture was made possible, through the
use of algorithms. The idea of the paradigm shit can be easily understood by comparing the impact of such primary modes of reproducion
as the photograph and the fax on the role of human subject. The photograph illustrates the mechanical paradigm and the fax the electronic
one. In photographic reproducion the subject sill maintains in control
of the outcome and the object itself. The human can develop the photograph deciding upon the contrast, the texture, the clarity, even the colors. Thus the human subject remains an interpreter and decider of the
outcome of the process. On the other hand in the scanning-principle of
the fax, the human subject remains out of the process of reproducion,
being unable to interpret, as it takes place without control or adjustment.29
Under the inluence of such electronic media and machines,
not only the distances(relaionship between close and far) and
scales(relaionship between small and big) changed, but also the relaionship of human and space. The principles with which we design architecture where put under quesion. Architecture, unil then was deined
as the art of building, and was close related to the physical experience of
space. Although the changes that the electronic era brought to the concepts of reality, architecture was hardly inluenced by it. In tradiional architecture, everything has its own place: an apartment, a room, a desk.
A ciizen without a house, has no place; having no place is not allowed.
The Town hall should be in the main square, the dinner room next to the
kitchen, in the oice we should be working. Moreover every detail has
its own place. The place is deined each ime in a paricular way accord29
Peter Eisenman, Visions Unfolding: Architecture in the Age of Electronic
Media, Intelligente Ambiente, Ars Electronica, Linz, 1994

56

ing to the observer. The reason why, is that architecture has tradiionally
been a basion of what we consider to be the real.
Peter Eisenman claims that the electronic shit should have had
a big impact on the way we understand architecture because it deines
reality in terms of media and simulaion, it values appearance over existence. This way the foundaions of the immaterial space experience
were put. Even that space and body were forming a unity for centuries,
the immaterial space experience had an efect on the beginning of the
disappearance of space and room. He focuses in the dislocaion that
this paradigm shit should have brought saying that architecture can no
longer stay ied in the staic condiions of space and ime and that in one
electronic world there is no place with its tradiional meaning.30
He suggested that, through the use of non-classical design techniques and the use of algorithms, a displacement of the man away from
the center of the world can be made possible. He suggested a nonclassical architecture which would achieve the end of the classical, the
end of the end, the end of the beginning. An architecture without origin,
without end and without author, radically negaing the idea of the original genius, the tradiional role of the creator in architecture but also the
way of deining the work of art in architecture.

30
Peter Eisenman, Visions Unfolding: Architecture in the Age of Electronic
Media, Intelligente Ambiente, Ars Electronica, Linz, 1994

57

5. Authorship in Architecture

5.1
In his Poeics of Music, in 1942, Igor Stravinsky pointed out the
isolated natural sound such as the murmur of the breeze in the trees the
rippling of a brook, the song of a bird are not music but merely promises
of music. Coninuing his argument he claimed that the tonal elements
become music only by the virtue of their being organized. To generalize
this idea we can claim that a creator gives form to his materials.
The above idea can be traced back directly to the Platonic doctrine of ideas, which suggest that physical objects imperfectly imitate
perfect, abstract ideas. Aristotle, in the Metaphysics, developed a
modiicaion of the above doctrine, according to which a form irst exists in the mind of the arist, and then it is given by the arist to mater.
Alberi echoed the above idea, in his Ten Books of Architecture,
when he carefully disinguished between the design and the structure
of a building:
Nor has this design anything that makes its nature inseparable
from mater; for we see that the same design is in a mulitude of buildings, which have all the same form, and are exactly alike as to the situaion of their parts and the disposiion of their lines and angles; and we
can in our thought and imaginaion contrive perfect forms of buildings
enirely separate of mater, by setling and regulaing in a certain order, the disposiion and conjuncion of the lines and angles. Which being
granted, we shall call the design a irm and graceful pre-ordering of the
lines and angles, conceived in the mind, and contrived by an ingenious
arist. 31
31
Alberti, Ten Books of Architecture, as quoted in: William J. Mitchell, The Logic
of Architecture: Design, Computation, and Cognition, MIT Press, 1996

58

It is important to recognize that when we describe the forms of

buildings we refer to extant construcions of physical materials in physical space, but when we describe designs we make claims about something else construcions of the imaginaion.32 Therefore we will refer
from now on, to the design as the construcion of imaginaion and to the
building as construcion of the real world.

5.2
Architecture, is the art which we could call the basion of what
we consider to be real, as what maters to most is the inal result of the
design, the physical object, which is of course the building itself. Architecture, from its beginning was about overcoming the physical forces;
overcoming gravity, overcoming extreme weather condiions. However,
as we have seen there are architects that give the same importance to
the construcion of imaginaion as well as to the construcion of the
real world, the design as well as in the building itself. At this ime it is
important to make an analogy of architecture with music, so that we can
idenify the diference between the design and the building.
In music we have the composiion and its performance. The
composiion is read, whereas its performance is heard. The composiion
is writen in the notaional language of music, which is the score, that
has a universal power and meaning. Although a score is a notaional
language, and it should contain rules which should be unambiguous,
it is not always that way. Most musical composiions consist of the
notes, which are objecive rules, but also contain verbal notaion, which
are subjecive rules. This kind of verbal notaion is there to deine the
tempo, the dynamics but also the expression of the performance. The
master of an orchestra is there to interpret these unspeciied rules and
to synchronize the orchestra, so that they perform the musical composiion.
Moreover, in works of art, such as classical music, theater, opera,
32
William J. Mitchell, The Logic of Architecture: Design, Computation, and
Cognition, MIT Press, 1996

59

cinema, which they depend on a collecive of people the deiniion of

the author of the work is more problemaic. The musical composiion
depends mostly on one person, whereas the musical performance depends on more. We can say that the author of a composiion is usually
one person, whereas the author of the performance is no person, but a
group of persons. Finally, this group of people can change from performance to performance, so we have a change of author every ime the
performance is performed. The composiion can be performed unlimited imes in diferent places and each ime will be therefore not considered to be a more authenic or original instance of work. Imagine for instance, the performance of the Opera Tristan and Isolde of Oto Wagner,
in 1865 in Munich and in 2003 in Los Angeles. Nobody could claim that
those performances were the same nor that they are of the same arisic
value, even though they were performances of the same composiion.
As a result of the above thoughts, we can understand that when
we talk about the composiion and the performance of a musical piece,
we talk about two diferent pieces of art.
In music the notaion is
not only a pracical aid to producion and a guide to the inal performance, but it also gives the composer an authoritaive ideniicaion.
The composer remains the author of this musical piece and he is the
one to whom the arisic value of the composiion is atributed to. On
the other hand, since a composiion can be performed unlimited imes
from an unlimited number of groups of persons, each performance consitutes a diferent work of art. In this case, every ime a composiion
is performed the arisic value is contributed to the orchestra that performed the composiion.
In architecture the place of the composiion takes the
design(construcion of imaginaion) and the place of the performance
takes the building(construcion of reality). In architecture, we have the
architect who is the author of the design, and a group of people which
now the author of the physical object. The main diference between musical performance and architectural performance is that, the architectural performance is only performed once, resuling the building. There
are also excepions, as it happens with the case of Barcelona Pavilion,
60

designed from Mies van der Rohe, which was irst built in 1929, in the
Internaional Expo, in Barcelona, Spain. As the work was the German
Pavilion for the Expo, and therefore a temporary exhibit, it was demolished in 1930. A group of Spanish architects, reconstructed the building
from 1983 to 1985 in its original locaion, under the original plans and
black and white photographs, because of its architectural value. Yet we
can perhaps talk about to diferent buildings, two diferent works of art,
with diferent architectural value, as they were constructed from diferent groups of people in diferent imes.
Following the above thoughts we can claim that when we refer
to architecture we refer to two diferent works of art, that have two
diferent authors. On the one hand there is the work of art of the design which is atributed to the architect and on the other hand there is
the work of art of the building which is atributed to a group of people;
an orchestra of diferent specialists which build it. As there can be a
successful and a less successful performance of a musical composiion,
there can be a successful and a less successful performance of a design.
One could argue that the work of art as the architecture is idenical to the building, and any criic of architecture should be based on
the building itself. Firstly, many buildings have visible features which are
ignored systemaically by historians and criics of architecture. Secondly,
buildings have changed to their original design at imes, so to keep the
building in operaion, but sill the original design is generally used for
their criicism.
For example the Finlandia Hall, designed by Alvaar Aalto, in
Helsinki, Finlandia, complies to both of the above condiions. Speciic
details, such as electricity cables running inside the building, are systemaically ignored by the criics, though they are visible and are permanent elements. Experts, however, focus instead, on the composiion
of enclosed space, on construcion and colors. While the coaing of the
facade with marble plates atracts atenion, because of the accidentally
wavy form that they have taken due to the extreme weather condiions,
is overlooked by criics, and it is neither regarded as a key feature of
61

Barcelona Pavilion, Mies van der Rohe, 1929

Finlandia Hall, Alvar Aalto, , 1967

62

work of Alvar Aalto. On the other hand many criics have suggested, due
to the operaion of the building, replacing the marble plates. But no one
would dare to express a proposal to change to change a building or a
secion of it, when this consitutes a work of art.33
As a result we can assume that design and construcion cannot
be considered as the same work of art, even though both are recognized
as the Finlandia Hall. The architectural design is part of architecture, and
the architect is criicized by it. For this reason the design itself can consitute itself a work of art, thus the design process and the design intenion is important. But can we judge architecture only on the basis of the
design intenion or not?
5.3
Goethes three quesions for construcive criicism, obviously
for literary works, are: What did the author set out to do? Was his plan
reasonable and sensible? Did he succeed in carrying it out?34 I argue that
we could make the above quesions to criicize architecture, whether
we talk about the design or the building. The design, however, always
results ater a design process is followed. For the ime being we do not
care whether the process followed can be called classical or non-classical. However it is essenial to argue, why a building can be judged depending on its design process and not by judging the building itself.
Kendall Walton in his essay Categories of Art, argues that facts
about the origins of works of art, that even though there are someimes
let aside, play an essenial role in criicism. Most of the imes aesthetic judgments of the physical object rest on the origins in an absolutely
fundamental way, even though there is a view saying that works of art
should be judged simply by what can be perceived in them. Thus we cannot judge a work relying only on its aestheic values.35
33
Jormakka Kari, Geschichte der Architekturtheorie, Selene, 2003
34
as quoted in: W. K. Wimsatt Jr. and M. C. Beardsley, The Intentional Fallacy,
The Sewanee Review, Vol. 54, No.3, July September, 1946, p. 472
35
Kendall L. Walton, Categories of Art, The Philosophical Review, Vol 79, No.3,
July 1970, p..337

63

He argues that the aestheic properies of a work of art, depend

on the non-aestheic properies of it. For example, a paining can have a
sense of mystery and tension, which comes from the dark colors and the
coniguraion of shapes in it. He coninues his argument that the nonaestheic properies of a work of art, are divided in standard features,
variable features and contra-standard features, which they decide to
which category of art the work of art belongs (paining or sculpture,
deconstrucivist architecture or modern architecture, etc.). A feature of
a work of art is standard, when this feature is essenial for the work to
be qualiied in a category. When a work lacks this feature, the work disqualiies from that category. A feature of a work of art is variable, when
this feature has nothing to do with a works belonging to this category.
Finally, a feature of a work is contra-standard, when this feature tends
to disqualify a work from that category. In the example of a paining, the
latness and the moionlessness of it are standard features, the colors
and shapes of it are variable features. In the case that the paining contained a three dimensional object or had moving parts, these would be
contra-standard features, regarding the category of painings, in which
we have placed the work iniially.
However judging a work of art in regard to a category, requires
us to perceive this work of art as it belongs to a certain category, for
a person in a paricular occasion. It is most usual to perceive Picassos
Guernica as a paining. Regarding this category, latness and moionless
are standard properies of it. The variable properies of it, are that it
has black, grey and white colors, that it has cubisic forms, and so on.
Now imagine a category of objects named Guernica, which are exactly
like Picassos Guernica, but done in various bas-relief dimensions. The
standard property of latness of the Guernica in the category of painting, now turns to variable property in the previous invented category of
Guernicas. There would be versions of Guernica with rolling surfaces,
and others jagged and sharp, sill others would contain lat surfaces
popping out of its surface in diferent angles and so on. This diference
in percepion would make us see Picassos Guernica as cold, lifeless, or
even dull and boring, but in no case would it strike us as brutal, vital or
64

dynamic, that happens when we perceive this work of art in the category of painings.
We can now understand that in order to criicize a work of art,
we have irst to perceive it in the category that it really belongs. For example, the twelve-tone composiions of Arnold Schnberg might seem
to us as formless or incoherent something that also happened with his
contemporaries, even among other composers in the irst contact with
them, but as soon as we perceive it in the category of serial music we
might retract our previous judgments. No doubt is the twelve-tone composiions much beter heard, when we perceive them in the category
of twelve-tone music, than in any other way people might like to hear
them.
In order to perceive a work of art in the correct category, we
have to take into account the frame in which the work was produced,
the origins of it. The arist of the work plays therefore a big role, in the
decision of the category in which we will perceive this very work of art.
In the words of Kendall Walton: [...] An arist tries to produce works
which are well worth experiencing when perceived in the intended way
and, unless we have reason to think he is totally incompetent, there is
some presumpion that he succeeded at least to some extent. [...].36 If
we are confronted by a work about whose origins we know absolutely
nothing imagining an object fell to earth from space we would simply
not be in posiion to judge it aestheically, we would not even be in the
posiion to say if it is a work of art or not. In the case that we suppose
that this object is a work of art, we could of course perceive it in a category we already have experienced, but there might as well exist a category that we have never thought of. As the arists intenion regarding
a work of art is part of its origins, the arists intenion are important to
perceive the work of art in the correct category and as a result to judge
it correctly aestheically. By saying intenion, we do not only mean the
intenion of the arist regarding the creaion of the physical object, but
also the intenion of the arist regarding the design or even the design
36
Kendall L. Walton, Categories of Art, The Philosophical Review, Vol 79, No.3
(July 1970), p.359

65

process.
As a result of the above if we do not know the origins and the
frame within the ready-mades of Marcel Duchamp, the chance composiions of John Cage, or even the Dada-collages of Jean Arp, were made,
we might as well not perceive them as a work of art at all. The essenial
nature of all the above works of art, is the process from which the physical objects were created rather than the interpretaion of the objects as
works of art. Marcel Duchamps urinal, is no work of art in the tradiional
way. It is not judged from his materiality as an object or from its form,
but rather from the process that it came to be art. When a work of art is
understood as the design intenion and not as the physical object itself,
the credit can be given to the arist for the arisic result, when this is
genuine and done intenionally.
We can now understand how the arists intenion has to do with
the correct percepion of the work, not only of the correct category that
we perceive it in, but also of the percepion of it as a work of art. Finally,
when it comes to criicizing of a work of art, the process of creaion of
which is other than the tradiional, we cannot judge it based on our tradiional understanding of authorship.

66

6. Authorship in Patrik Schumacher and Peter Eisenman

6.1
The algorithmic architecture of both Patrik Schumacher and Peter Eisenman cannot be considered as tradiional architecture. As we
have already seen, architecture consists of two diferent works of art,
which are the construcion of imaginaion and the construcion of the
real world. In other words, the design and the building. It really depends
on the intenions of the architect, whether we conceive their architecture as classic architecture or as non-classic architecture; whether
more important is the design or the building.
Because the work of art is the work of its arist, and in analogy
the work of architecture is the work of its architect, we have every ime
to consult the architects intenions in order to understand what consists
the work of art. This is the case because someimes there are works of
architecture, that because of their diferent approach, cannot be perceived as such. In architecture, there was a irst break with what we consider the tradiional percepion of architecture as an art, from the irst
scaling projects of Peter Eisenman. For example, in the Verona project
which we have already examined, the physical object is not of the same
importance as the design process, thus some cannot consider it as architecture, when we conceive it in the category of tradiional architecture.
6.2
In our case, now that we have seen and understood the design
processes used by Peter Eisenman and Patrik Schumacher, but we have
also seen the generaive grammar process of John Mitchell. Ater we
judge the already menioned design processes, we have to examine the
relaion between the subject and the object in the above cases.
We can assume that most architects in the world create the
physical object in a similar manner, whether they use design programs
67

and digital models aiming to create and produce complex geometries

or tradiional drating techniques. The building is created by a classical or otherwise tradiional process, where the intenion, intuiion and
feelings of the architect, play a central role. Therefore the creaivity of
original genius is essenial for the design of the physical object a leading concept of romance.
Peter Eisenmans scaling process, which was irst used in Verona,
has a lot in common with Alexander Cozens process of creaing original landscape composiions. Peter Eisenmans scaling process consists
of an algorithm, which through a random igure creates an overlapping
of architectural and no architectural elements, which contain no privileged point of relaion to the design. However, this process is not really
precise, neither objecive since it is random, that gives way to the interpretaion of the result. It is the same process, which Alexander Cozens
followed for the creaion of his romanic landscape painings. The place
of the random blots on the canvas, takes the algorithm which produces
a random result of overlays on the screen of a computer. The results
of both, Alexander Cozens and Peter Eisenman, are free for the interpretaion of the arist, who then forms the physical object. Peter Eisenman suggests the displacement of the man away from the center of the
world, trying to achieve an architecture without origin, without end and
without author, radically negaing the idea of the original genius, so he
constantly tries to distance himself of the design. However, this idea of
the interpretaion of a random result, not controlled from the human
conscience, remains an idea of Romanicism, though of the radical kind.
We can claim, inally, that Peter Eisenmans process is a combinaion of
algorithmic design with a simultaneous interpretaion, when it comes to
the creaion of the physical object.
Patrik Schumacher claims that in Parametricism every design process consists a design research program. Though there is an atempt to
programming architecture taking into account the surrounding urban
context, as well as the movement throughout the building through the
extensive use of scriping, the process does not remain objecive to the
end. An important role in the inal creaion of the physical object plays
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a strong rigorous formalism, as Patrik Schumacher himself admits. The

Zaha Hadid Architects tend to control the algorithmic process to get the
formal result that they like, which always results to a physical object that
has formal consistency similar to previous ones. Thus algorithms remain
morphological helplines for the creaion of the physical object.
An algorithmic process, objecive from the beginning of the process to its end, is what John Mitchell created with his sophisicated generaive grammar to create villa loor plans in the style of Palladio. His
process, following closely on the rules he created, creates totally objecive palladian manner loor plans, which also have a formal consistency,
and can all be called creaions of the same architect. The process he
followed, does not give to him the freedom, neither for interpretaion,
nor for personal taste. Patrik Schumacher on the other hand, though
waning Parametricism to be objecive similar to scieniic research, he
results in becoming more of the kind of the original genius arist, as he
uses his personal taste in the design process. We can claim, inally, that
Patrik Schumachers process is a combinaion of an algorithmic design
with Romanicisms idea of original genius.
6.3
As we have already analyzed, in the design process that most
architects in the world use, central role in the romanic process of creating the physical object play the intuiion and intenion of a god-like architect, regardless of whether they use the computer as a design tool of
complex geometries or not. The inal form obtained is enirely based on
the expression of the emoions and the creaivity of the architect. This
results in no change in the tradiional relaionship between the subject
and the object in architecture, as the architect-original genius constantly
decides on the inal object and does not take himself of from the design
process.
Peter Eisenman, was the irst who tried to come into a break with
the tradiional relaionship between the subject and the object, displacing human from the center of the design. Trying to create an architecture without origin, without end and without author, radically negaing
69

Orthopedie, Nicholas Andry

70

the idea of original genius. As we have already seen, by trying to remove

the components of the planning process, he is interested in the metaphysics of architecture. Even trying to dislocate himself from the design
process, while dislocaing at the same ime his intuiion and intenion,
changes for the irst ime perhaps the tradiional relaionship between
the subject and the object. However, the change does not occur in the
extent that he claims, as he interprets the random result generated by
the computer, so as to result the inal object. The inal object is not of
the same importance for him as the design process, as the meaning for
him lies in the structure from which the inal object results. Perhaps for
this reason it is important for him to give meaning in all his works, having such an elaborated and complex theory, and it is not fair to judge his
projects without consuling his design intenions.
Unlike Peter Eisenman, Patrik Schumacher in his efort of programming architecture and to make it as objecive as possible, a scieniic research as he himself says, he deines the components of the
design process, aiming on the real part of architecture. As a result he
intensively gets involved in the design process as he determines the parameters, as opposed to Peter Eisenman, who uses arbitrary procedures
from which random results occur. Moreover Patrik Schumacher uses,
as he claims, a strong rigorous formalism in all the projects that come
out of the Zaha Hadid Architects oice. The physical objects that result,
they always have formal coherence recognizable in all scales, from the
construcion detail to the urban scale, and by this the emoions and
the creaivity of the architect remain important parameters in the design process. Therefore, algorithms in his case consist morphological
helplines for the design of objects; a form that is decided beforehand by
the aestheic preferences of the architect. Patrik Schumacher remains
an architect-original genius, who while trying to program an objecive
designing process, this remains subjecive to the end. The relaionship
between the subject and the object, remains tradiional despite the extensive use of algorithms, as what it is important for himself is the inal
result. Thus his relaionship with the object actually remains romanic.
Finally it is important to note that, while both architects are try71

ing to change the design paradigm using algorithms in the design process, achieve a diferent relaionship between the subject and the object. Yet nobody achieves the full uilizaion of algorithms in the design
process and thus the subject always takes part, in a diferent way every
ime, in the creaion of the object.

72

Appendixes

73

Image Appendix A

Apartment Building in Vienna, Coop Himmelb(l)au, 1983

74

Hamburg Skyline, Coop Himmelb(l)au, 1985

75

Rooftop Remodeling, Coop Himmelb(l)au, 1986,

Rooftop Remodeling, Coop Himmelb(l)au, 1986, Vienna

76

Biology Center for the University of Frankfurt, Peter Eisenman, 1987

77

Familian Residence, Frank Gehry, 1978, Santa Monica

Gehry House, Frank Gehry, 1977-1987, Santa Monica

78

The Peak, Zaha Hadid, 1983, Hong Kong

The Peak, Zaha Hadid, 1983, Hong Kong

79

Boompjes, Rem Koolhaas, 1980, Rotterdam

Boompjes, Rem Koolhaas, 1980, Rotterdam

80

City Edge, Daniel Libeskind, 1987, Berlin

81

Layering Parc de la Villette, Bernard Tschumi, 1982, Paris

Parc de la Villette, Bernard Tschumi, 1982, Paris

82

Image Appendix B

Busan Cinema Plaza, Coop Himmelb(l)au, 2005, South Korea

83

City of Culture, Peter Eisenman, 2000, Santiago de Compostela

Guggenheim Museum, Frank Gehry, 1999, Bilbao

84

MAXXI Museum, Zaha Hadid, 1998, Rome

Casa del Musica, Rem Koolhaas, 2005, Porto

85

Royal Ontario Museum, Daniel Libeskind, 2007, Canada

New Acropolis Museum, Bernard Tschumi, 2001

86

Image Appendix C

Einsteinturm, Erich Mendelsohn, 1921, Potsdam, Germany

87

 Ronchamp, Le Corbusier, 1955,France

Philips Pavilion, Le Corbusier, 1958, Brussels

88

TWA Terminal, Eero Saarinen, 1962, New York

Sydney Opera Hall, Jrn Utzon, 1967, Australia

89

Finnish Pavilion, Alvar Aalto, 1939, New York

90

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