Architectural Context Part 8: Peter Eisenman
Architectural Context Part 7: Rem Koolhaas
In his work “The Formal Basis of Modern Architecture” Peter Eisenman attempted to create an alternative reading of architectural form.¹ He defined architecture as the giving of form to intent, function, structure, and technics and argued that the concept of architectural form had been commonly oscillating in the discipline without explicit attempts to define its precise conceptual meaning. Thus, he proposed a formal language where generic architectural form could be defined through its four essential properties volume, mass, surface, and movement.²
Eisenman argued that the concept of volume is a more precise and vibrant alternative to the vague notion of space. The essential difference between the terms is that the volume can operate in a dynamic manner. It can be thought of as a particularized contained space that can exert pressure and at the same time resist external pressure exerted upon it.³ The dynamic state of the volume is caused by the necessity to resist the internal and external contextual forces acting on it. Furthermore, he defined architecture as a three-dimensional system of volumes expanding in time and space that is subjected to different external and internal forces resulting in distortions and deformations of the overall system. Moreover, Eisenman suggests that the concept of movement is essential for fully understanding this new definition of volume since architecture is the only plastic art that is comprehended both internally and externally. ⁴ He argues that movement can be conceptualized as a geometric vector described by its approximate size, intensity, and direction. Thus, vectors act as a notational measuring tool that can express not only a location in space but also intensity and direction.⁵ Vectoral description of movement allows thinking of it as a morphing force exerted upon the body of volume that modifies the equilibrium of the formal system under the examination. Within this framework, traditional compositional axes can be interpreted as neutral vectors that can be used to define the position of an object in a neutral Cartesian space but have no morphing effects on the form of the object. Eisenman applied his newly developed formal vocabulary onto the work of Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto, Giuseppe Terragni and Frank Lloyd Wright to show that highlighted building can be viewed as architectural systems containing inherent formal logic to a certain extent independent from aesthetic functional or metaphysical considerations.
For instance, in his analysis of Aalto’s Saynatsalo Civic Centre Eisenman argued that the form of the courtyard building and its orientation was a response to the external vector created by the neighbouring series of linear developments. The building was placed in a particular way to disrupt the continuity of the vector and act as an end or beginning for it. The vector that intersected the building diagonally affects the solidity of the courtyard cutting the library block away and creating an entrance for the building. In doing so, the form of the building also acknowledges the existence of a movement vector that also exerts pressure on the formal system of the building. In a similar step by step fashion, Eisenman gradually reconstructs the building based on merely formal principles of organization and treating the building as a formal system under the influence of external and internal vectors that reconfigure it.
What Eisenman was trying to show is that the building under inspection besides from being influenced by functional considerations also contains internal formal logic that is to a certain extent independent from phenomena external to architecture. In his later work, Eisenman returns to this idea and argues that his predecessors were primarily concerned with phenomena external to architecture (politics, social conditions, cultural values) and rarely investigated architecture as an autonomous discourse focused on its own interiority. ⁶ His PhD dissertation allowed him to look at architecture from a standpoint that was fundamentally different from his predecessors. He considered the functional, aesthetic and social concerns to be “pallid justifications for do-what-you-want expressionism.” ⁷ Eisenman proposed a different approach that could be more logical and more involved with what he defined as the interiority of architecture. This meant a process that would displace architectural form from its supposed correlation to function, aesthetics, and meaning without at the same time denying the presence of these conditions. This act of detaching one from the other is what laid the foundation for his diagrammatic analysis conducted in “The Formal Basis of Modern Architecture” and in his later work on Giuseppe Terragni. Thought the concept of diagram Eisenman attempted to open up architecture to its own discourse. He highlights the crucial importance of diagrams in his “Diagram Diaries” where he suggests diagrams in architecture can be understood in two ways: first as an analytical device for explaining architectural systems, and second as a generative device. ⁸
The use of the diagram as an analytical device is profoundly shown in his Ph.D. dissertation where diagrams became the main analytical device to reveal the latent structures of organization within the examined buildings.⁹ Similar use of diagrams can also be seen in his “Ten Canonical Buildings 1950–2000” where he tried to trace and extract the diagrams of organization from prominent projects of the twentieth century. In “Ten Canonical Buildings 1950–2000” he tried to illustrate that the built work can contain traces of the diagramming process that can be used to relate the built work with the interiority of its discourse. Diagram as a generative device can be conceived as a mediation between a real building and architectures interiority. His experimental house projects illustrate this idea of moving away from conventional composition and personal expressionism towards a more diagrammatic, autonomous and self-conscious design process.
The diagram of House VI (Figure 35), for instance, was constructed as a sequence of rules that with every consecutive step would begin to change the very nature of the original rule system. While clarifying the underlying diagram of the House VI Eisenman writes:
The generative rule system would bring about a series of moves, like in a game of chess, in which each move is a response to the last. With each move, the system produces different alternatives and then readjusts itself. The end product could not be predicted in advance.¹⁰
Thus, in House VI the diagram takes on a generative role that denies a possibility for a pre-figured result. His House projects are made as explorations of different concepts within the interiority of architecture but what unites all these houses is the method of the design process or in other words the underlying generative diagram. Each house is generated as a sequence of procedural formal operations that shape the form of architectural artefact in step by step fashion. In his later work, Eisenman introduced other forms of diagrammatic process that were attempting to even further displace the values embedded within architectural geometry by introducing diagrams that were not necessarily geometric in nature. These diagrams raised the question of the instability of interiority and introduced the idea of exteriority. Eisenman frames the question of exteriority the following way:” If interiority was no longer stable, then could the ground, an assumed architectural datum, also be questioned?” The idea of exteriority permitted Eisenman to destabilize the dialectical doctrine of figure/ground relationships allowing the creation of figure/figure and ground/ground conditions. He attempted to depart from Collin Rowe’s homogenous figure/ground diagram to a heterogeneous figure/figure and ground/ground diagram. This approach can be seen in Eisenman’s project City of Culture of Galicia in Santiago de Compostela where the figure of the building emerges analogous to Moiré pattern in between two intersecting surface-grounds that replace the ground as a datum (Figure Below).
Eisenman’s work was incredibly influential in that it introduced a new viewpoint on the discourse of architecture. His conception of the diagram as an analytical and generative device opened up architecture to its own interiority independent from external non-architectural considerations. This allowed him to reconceptualize many of the doctrines of the discipline including the dialectical nature of figure/ground relationships. In his diagrammatic approach, he introduced a new operative method of working with architectural form marking the early steps towards a more formalized architectural design method.
References
[1]: Peter Eisenman, The Formal Basis of Modern Architecture (London: Lars Mueller Publishers, 2006), 57–59.
[2]: Peter Eisenman, The Formal Basis of Modern Architecture (London: Lars Mueller Publishers, 2006), 57.
[3]: Peter Eisenman, The Formal Basis of Modern Architecture (London: Lars Mueller Publishers, 2006), 59.
[4]: Peter Eisenman, The Formal Basis of Modern Architecture (London: Lars Mueller Publishers, 2006), 59.
[5]: Peter Eisenman, The Formal Basis of Modern Architecture (London: Lars Mueller Publishers, 2006), 73.
[6]: Peter Eisenman, Diagram Diaries, (New York: Universe Publishing, 1999), 36.
[7]: Peter Eisenman, Diagram Diaries, (New York: Universe Publishing, 1999), 48.
[8]: Peter Eisenman, Diagram Diaries, (New York: Universe Publishing, 1999), 27.
[9]: Peter Eisenman, Diagram Diaries, (New York: Universe Publishing, 1999), 169.
[10]: Peter Eisenman, Diagram Diaries, (New York: Universe Publishing, 1999), 173–174.
