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EISENMAN ARCHITECTS
41 W. 25th Street
New York, NY 10010
T: 212.645.1400
www.eisenmanarchitects.com

Interview with Peter Eisenman

October 2003, New York

Vladimir Belogolovsky: How did you become intereste

Peter Eisenman: Growing up, I knew nothing about architec

an architect. I was always interested in art and drawing, but
boys did not take art. They were much more interested in w
So I never took art. When I went to Cornell, my senior advise
models and drawing and I would help him because I used to
was very popular during the war. And I thought to myself, you
Because of my accidental contact with this person I decided
thing I ever wanted to be. So that is how it began.

VB: So there were no architects in your family?

PE: No, my father was a chemist and my mother was a hou

VB: Why do you think architecture should engage in a

be critical?

PE: All architecture that we know throughout history has alw

requires the displacement of conventions; therefore it is crit
displacing conventions. Architecture’s uniqueness is that its
displaces what it must place. In other words, architecture m
displaces places. It must make functions and yet it displace
this. Any great work, whether it is film, music, or art is of its o
what exists, it displaces in order to create what will be. Crea

VB: What is architecture?

PE: That question is almost like, what is life? I think it is quit

cultural activity. It manifests how the society at any one time
literature, or poetry. It is a very broad view of the built enviro
does not solve functions; it problematizes and thus creates
questions. It does not solve problems; it creates problems.

VB: The client hopes it would solve problems.

PE: But it does not. That’s where people have a wrong idea

VB: What words would you chose to describe your ar

PE: Critical, weak form, blurred, non-dialectic, anti-metaphy

discipline, implosive, concerned with the figuring of the grou

VB: Piranesi, Chomsky, and Derrida are the names tha

reads about your work. How is your work related to ea

PE: First, Piranesi was a critical architect. He made project

buildings. He invented landscapes and different ideas of sp
Piranesi in the idea of interstitial space. What Piranesi crea
space that is a space between. It was not left over space, b
space that was residual.

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PE: Some of the most didactic building type ever done. Pal
changed the whole idea of a house. Narkomfin apartment b
world was. You know, a house can change the way the world
As Alberti said “A house is a small city and a city is a big ho
interconnected.

VB: Are you working on the Sagaponac project with C

PE: No. I was invited, but I don’t want to do it. I am not intere
trouble; and besides, I have nothing more to say about hous

VB: So that chapter is closed?

PE: Yes. It was closed a long time ago. You know, people w
and they change. Picasso went through his blue period, ana
period, his cutouts… He changed, right? I changed.

VB: Would you ever do a house for your family?

PE: No. I live in my apartment in New York, designed by ano

not want to live in my work. Art and life are different. I don’t s
who come to me and say they want to live in architecture I s
houses.

VB: So you would not do, let’s say, a condominium?

PE: No, that’s different! That is an urban project. I would do

individual housing.

VB: You have compiled a list of the most important bu

PE: They are not the most important; let us say they are the
They are:

Congress Hall in Strasbourg by Le Corbusier

Peter Lewis Building in Cleveland by Frank Gehry
Jussieu Library project in Paris by Rem Koolhaas
Casa Girasole in Rome by Luigi Moretti
Adler and DeVore houses in Philadelphia by Louis Kahn
Jewish Museum in Berlin by Daniel Libeskind
Farnsworth House in Plano, Illinois by Mies van der Rohe
Engineering Building at Leicester University in England by J
San Cataldo Cemetery in Modena, Italy by Aldo Rossi
Vanna Venturi House in Philadelphia by Robert Venturi

VB: There is no Eisenman building on your list?

PE: No, because I was acting critically, outside of my work.

VB: What do you think is the main contribution of the

PE: No, that is not a question you can ask me. You have to
cannot ask me a critical question about my own work. I don’

VB: It is known that your buildings contribute to maki

nauseous. Is it intentional? What message do you try

PE: I am interested in displacing traditional reactions. I wan

surroundings. I do not necessarily want them to be sick. I wa
than passive because the media world that we live in, made
between body, mind, and eye. What architecture can do, wh
body, the mind, and the eye.

VB: Do you still teach at Cooper Union?

PE: No, I am on leave from Cooper Union. I teach at Yale an

VB: What is your favorite design assignment for stude

PE: Analyses of great historical projects by Borromini, Bram

Loos… or I have them read William Faulkner, Marcel Prous

VB: Read, analyze...

PE: And draw. Read, analyze, and draw.

VB: And the purpose of this study would be… to desig

PE: No! The purpose is to educate, to open the students to

making architecture. Look, when a composer goes to schoo
compose a sonata. They do not know how. They listen to co
the can do an thing the ha e to kno hat m sic is and

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VB: Are you working on any other project in New York

PE: No one is ever a hero in his own country. I am working o

VB: Why did you enter WTC competition as a team me

experience?

PE: First of all, I personally felt it was a moral responsibility

when it happened and experienced it first-hand to enter this
able to do such a major complicated project. My friends (Ri
Holl) felt the same way. The only way we could approach thi
because we are all individual architects, but we produced a
collaboration, and it was very important for me and for mem
be involved. Often you enter competitions because you have
you need to win, you should not enter.

VB: What do you think about the Libeskind project?

PE: I do not think about it; I do not comment on my competit

that I enter and lose.

VB: He was your student, right?

PE: Yes, he was.

VB: What other projects are you working on now and

PE: We are working on: the stadium for the Arizona Cardina
Santiago de Compostela, which will include an opera house
administration building; a resort community in Italy; a socce
Olympic Stadium in Leipzig for their bid for 2012.

VB: Against New York’s 2012 bid, right?

PE: Yes, against New York.

VB: Was Santiago de Compostela project partly desig

PE: No, no, we won the competition. Prior to the competitio

project in Santiago. When he was dying I went to him and o
his two towers. So I insisted on it being built first, because o
built first as homage to John Hejduk, but it has nothing to do

VB: What is your dream project?

PE: It is still in the future! If you said to me – where would yo

cultural project in St. Petersburg or in Moscow. I do not wan
building, let’s say a new Russian Orthodox Church or a high
new experience for me. There are lots of things I want to do
I do not want to do another museum. I am looking for new ex
three more of them. I would like to build in my hometown – N
my university, Cornell, a major project. I do not want to build
see it. I want to build in Warsaw, Budapest…

VB: So when you are talking about projects you think

PE: Absolutely! I am interested in places. I have three Polis

interview, I would like to have Russian students here. We ne
the future is in the East, in the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Hu
part of the world, the part of Europe that was cut off is really
have Italians, Germans, Argentineans, Spanish… They com

VB: Can you recall the most memorable questions ab

PE: I don’t think I could answer that question. I have had ma

most memorable critics, such as Manfredo Tafuri’s essay o
important critical essays on my work. I think Rosalind Kraus
another. The most serious critical essays pose questions fo
through their eyes. So I would say Tafuri and Krauss offer th

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