PETER EISENMAN

Submitted by :Rubeena MK
16MAR11004
Contemporary Process in Architecture
 American architect
Deconstructivist
12-08-1932, New York , New Jersey
Cornell University – Columbia University – University of Cambridge
Bachelors' – masters – post doctoral
Graduated in 1955- 1960 - 1963
Architecture and Urban studies in New York – 1967
Academician and theoretician
True element of architecture lied in conceptual
form
Represented through diagram and sketches

Fusion of arts, philosophy and linguistics

Influenced by Jacques Derrida (founder of
deconstruction) and Friedrich Nietzsche, Noam
Chomsky
Post modernist and post structuralist
Meaning of drawing – indication of idea and attitudes of architecture
Red thread
 In each of his projects, Mr. Eisenman says, he aims to create a building that is

''not a singular, unified object [ but ] a building that attempts to move beyond singularity of place to
a multiple, dynamic idea of what enclosure is, what defines inside and outside.''
1960-1970s

House I , Prrinceton, New Jersey

House II, Hardwick, Vermount
House IV, Cornwall, Connecticutt
Modern rigid geometry and rectangular plans
Never ending stairways and columns
Negated FUNTIONALISM

“New York Five”

Michael Graves, Charles Gwathmey, John
Hejduk and RichardMeier
1980s

Methods- disconcerting forms, angles and materials

Wexner Center for the Arts , Ohio state University

The greater Columbus Convention center
Aronoff center for design and art

Arnold W. Brunner memorial award - 1984

Architectural form into theoretical science
Wexner Center for the Arts , Ohio state University
1989

“The museum that theory built”

a monument to architectural theory
a multidisciplinary space for the exploration and exhibition of contemporary art

Deconstructivism and theory,

 Architecture is less the molding of space to solve a problem than it is the concrete realization of a
theoretical idea.

He firmly rejects the traditional idea of the building as a single, solid, ordered object sitting in space, in favor of
blurring distinctions between inside and outside, between top and bottom, between front and back.

He also believed that the materials and the language of how the building is built can have its own language and
dialogue between elements
1989

Completely disconnected parts

structure of sharp, angular forms, brick turrets and a 540-foot-long framework of white-painted steel,
designed in boldness of conventional architectural practice
strangely rich and powerful by conventional architectural standards.
 FORM

evoke the
armory's
presence as
much as he
is trying to
remind us Walkway
that it is Set based on
gone. the city grid
CONTEXT : SITE
Ohio city grid : knowns as
Jefferson grid has a 12.250
shift from the true north
south axis
- Reconnect the desperate urban
fabric of the city of Columbus to
Ohio state university
- The campus does not follow the
Jefferson grid
Ohio city grid - Wexner aims to unite both the
grids by aligning the circulation
Ohio university “scaffolding” corridor to 12.250 of
grid the city and the complex edge
aligns to the rest of the campus
The walkway
 FORM

108,000-square-foot, three-story building

THEME; an attempt to explore the underlying nature of this site.
form ; not by the functional needs of the center but by larger urban patterns.
The campus of Ohio State University is set on a grid that is roughly 12 degrees off from the street grid of the city of
Columbus, and Mr. Eisenman has taken this skew and made it the basis for the Wexner Center's layout.
Thus the long scaffold like steel structure, which serves as a walkway through the complex, is set on the city grid,
making it appear to slice a diagonal swath through the campus and through this building.
The walls of the rooms inside the building are set on either the city grid or the campus grid, making the internal
organization of the building emphasize this city-campus duality further. Even the patterns of granite in the floor, the
fluorescent light fixtures on the ceiling and the colors in the carpeting play off on the diagonal relationship between
the two grids.
 FORM

The segments of brick turrets recall an armory that stood here until 1958, when it was demolished after a fire.

This is not the soft, comforting use of historical form that has become so popular in this post-modern age, however;
by the very design of these turrets as partial, broken, or split elements, Mr. Eisenman is trying to evoke the armory's
presence as much as he is trying to remind us that it is gone.
Aronoff center for design and art
Peter Eisenman , Aronoff Center For Design And Art
 Weave in and out – like tartan
Shake and tilt – like shards
Stuttering cubes
Light blues, flesh pinks and green
Rococo (French) + Adamesque
(Scottish) 18 th century
Provoke and shock to decenter
perspectives
Deprevilage any one of the view
Cross boundaries
Blur categories
Bo proffered space for the viewer
to understand
ARONOFF CENTER FOR DESIGN AND ART

computer – laser technology – special coordinate system of construction points

Main entrance from garage, coming from a hybrid grid of window/door/wall – into a
symphony of staggered, staccato forms
overhead skylights – fluorescent tubes – vinyl tiles – pastel cubes dovetail and layer
through.
2000 students kept tense and alert.
No semantic demand, no figural message – completely “ABSRACT”

None of prototype of public realm is invoked

 New fabric which is always changing
Seesawing, blue chevrons marks the old
grid while the pink and green segments
mark the new formal methods
A tilt to one side, an earthquake to another
and the trapezoidal crush of windows and
floors between
New visual language of staccato landforms
and straight tangents

Transform and become closer to living

organism
Named as MOTHER : regeneration
Abstract – cool - Rococo
The greater Columbus Convention center
“Diagram Diaries”, “Eisenman Inside Out”, Barefoot on White-Hot Walls” and “Written into the Void”
Diagram Diaries

Eisenman's buildings are essays on the way humans and inert materials occupy and control space. This
illustrated chronicle showcases Eisenman's own work, from his earliest house designs to the heralded Wexner
Center in Columbus, through commissions such as the Memorial for the Victims of the Holocaust in Vienna. It
is an exposition of Peter Eisenman's design philosophy and illustrates his contributions to 20th-century
American design.
THANK YOU !!