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Peter Eisenman: "Liberal Views Have Never Built

Anything of any Value."Jul 27, 2004An Interview by Robert Locke

Peter Eisenman, 70, is one of the founding theorists ofpostmodern architecture and a distinguishedpracticing architect who will probably be bestremembered for his Monument to the Murdered Jewsof Europe (view images from the Archinect gallery)currently under construction in Berlin. Thus it wasvery surprising to hear what he had to say about thefailures of contemporary architecture one morning athis firm's offices in an industrial loft in Manhattan'swholesale antiques district.

Although he is usually classed with postmodernistsand deconstructivists who consider themselvescultural radicals with an agenda of revolution,Eisenman turns out upon closer examination to be avery different thinker, who is surprisingly blunt aboutthe failures of modern architecture, the uselessness

of the cultural left, and the obsolescence of the avant-garde. He is a cantankerously honest thinker in a field

Related Links:Eisenman ArchitectsRobert Locke

Related Books:Giuseppe Terragni: TransforDecompositions, CritiquesDella PitturaChora L Works: Jacques Der

EisenmanThe Other ModernismFuturist ManifestosClassical ArchitectureThe Memoirs of Giorgio DeModernism in Italian ArchiteThe Patron StateThe DanteumThe State of Architecture at21st CenturySHARE THIS FEATURE: digg del.icio.us facebookComments
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rife with glib ideologues and trendy posers.

Would you care to elaborate a little on theconnection you see between politics andarchitecture?

Well, I think architecture is a form of politics. I believethat architecture does make political statements.There is no doubt. I mean, I was just in Naplesrecently, and three of the great buildings that I saw inNaples, in the most beautiful shape, were built byMussolini. But that doesn't mean I agree withMussolini's politics.

I have just written a book, which I've spent 40 yearsof my life on, on one of the most important Italianfascist architects (Giuseppe Terragni:Transformations, Decompositions, Critiques), who wasa party member: he built the House of the Fascists inComo. Why would I be doing that if I'm such a lunaticon the left?

Well, I didn't say that. But people assume it.

Right. They assume that, but here's proof that I'mnot. You know, I can tell you this: most of my clients

are Republicans, most of them are right-leaning. Infact, my client in Spain for the cultural center atSantiago de Campostela is the last Francoist minister.And I have the most rapport with right-leaningpolitical views, because first of all, liberal views havenever built anything of any value, because they can'tget their act together.

I find this public process about what monument weshould build in downtown at the WTC site an aberrantone, because since when does the public choose? I

would think that what you just said to me would leadone to believe that we ought to listen to the voice ofthe people as to what we should build, and I'm notconvinced that you're not the liberal in the room andI'm not the conservative.

I would say that the voice of the people is onevoice to be listened to, if only because thepublic has no choice but to look at buildingsonce they're built, unlike paintings or poems.

But most people, insofar as there is a culturalright in this country, tend to assume that
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anyone who advocates and practices the kind ofarchitecture you do has to be someone likeBernard Tschumi ' architecture in the service ofMarxist revolution or whatever kind ofrevolution they've moved on to now.

Right - exactly.

So you're at the other end of the spectrum?

Yes and no.

I don't mean you're a fascist like your pal inSpain.

He's not a fascist.

Well, a former fascist, if you classify Franco asa fascist, which I realize is controversial.

The people who support me in Arizona are allRepublicans. The support I had in the state of Ohiowas from the head of the Republican Party in Ohio.They supported my work at the Venice Biennale. Theysupported my buildings. Rudolph Giuliani supported acultural museum I was doing in Staten Island.

Republican Borough President Guy Molinari was mybig supporter in this city, who helped me in this city,who couldn't be more conservative, right? My appealto Governor Pataki at the time of the World TradeCenter was from a conservative point of view - Ibelieve our project was the most conservative of all ofthe projects proposed.

World Trade Center Proposal
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You mean the tic-tac-toe building

Yes. I think it was a very conservative icon comparedto what's being done. So therefore, I find it verydifficult to see myself to see myself as a wildly - I

mean, I'm very happy your magazine is choosing towrite an article about my views because I think myviews are not too far from The New Criterion andHilton Kramer and those people.

That's why a lot of my students see me on the otherside of the fence: they see Leon Krier and me both astroglodytes. I am attacked more readily by the leftthan I am by the right. You know, this is what'sinteresting: If you take the left-leaning critics, I amone of their big enemies, because I stand forsomething that threatens them, because it appears tobe radical, but for them it isn't radical, so for them it'svery threatening. They don't worry about Leon Krier,because he's obviously off the charts for them. Thepeople, like myself or Rem Koolhaas, that they worryabout, are the people who appear to be radical butthat they believe to be conservative. That's a fairassessment of where the young radical left inarchitecture is.

So if you describe yourself as an architect asbeing on the right, but not conservative like,say, a Robert A.M. Stern or a DemetriPorphyrios, wouldn't that be like how somepeople would describe Italian fascism, as infuturism and Marinetti and all those nuttyguys?

I wouldn't call it nutty. In fact, I'm writing a piece...

He wanted to blow up Rome.

I'm writing a piece now for an Italian exhibition onmetaphysics. On de Chirico, Corac, all of these so-called crazy guys, the Italian crazies. I've beenworking on this: what was the nature of thedisciplinary specificity of architecture that was what Iconsider autonomous? My whole position is thatarchitecture participates in what I call the continualunfolding of existence, that architecture, like anyother discipline, has the capacity to do that, and that

there is what I would consider to be a disciplinaryspecificity to architecture, so that even though the


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deconstructionists say that everything is one, andthere's an intertextuality, and that there is no subject,I believe there is a subject, I believe there is adisciplinary specificity to all disciplines and what Ibelieve one is looking to do - in addition to anything

else - is find what that disciplinary specificity is inarchitecture.

You see, my work basically says that while I may havemy own personal political leanings, or I may haveaffinities to conservative politics, when it comes toarchitecture, ultimately its politics is autonomy. That'swhy I can look, as Leon Krier does at Albert Speer,even though he was what he was - and I'm bestfriends with his son - I have no problem with that. Idon't have to be an ideologue; I'm not a flag-waver. Ibelieve that the architecture that the fascist regimewas doing was a very important moment in time.

This can't help provoke a question about thebuilding you yourself have said is the one youare mostly likely to be remembered for, theHolocaust memorial in Berlin. I'm not sure whatto ask you about it: it reminded me of a sea ofgravestones in a military cemetery.

What I was thinking was something quite different.I'm very much against the Holocaust industry. I'magainst the nostalgia that is brought up about theHolocaust. I am against kitchifying the Holocaust.

I think it was something that defies representation; Ithink you cannot represent it. And what I've tried todo is say if you go to Auschwitz, if you go there, it'shorrific: you're reminded of all these images etcetera. But you can re-assimilate your internalmechanisms to say, OK, that was then and here we

are now.

What I tried to do in Berlin was to do something thatcouldn't necessarily be as easily re-assimilated. It hasno imagery. In other words, it was not about imagery,it was not about marking, it was not about acemetery. The fact that it could look like a cemeteryis possible. It could also look like a field of corn. I wasthinking about a field of corn I was lost in in Iowawhen I did it. I was trying to do something that had no

center, had no edge, had no meaning, that was dumb:D-U-M-B. And there's nothing in the city that's dumb.


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And therefore it was silent, it didn't speak.

I believe that when you walk into this place, it's notgoing to matter whether you are a Jew or a non-Jew, aGerman or a victim: you're going to feel something.

And what I'm interested in is that experience offeeling something. Not necessarily anything to dowith the Holocaust, but to feel something differentthan everyday experience. That was what I was tryingto do. It's not about guilt, it's not about paying back,it's not about identification, it's not about any of thosethings; it's about being. And I'm interested, in asense, in the question of being and how we open upbeing to very different experiences.

I've got to tell you the biggest supporter of thatproject was Helmut Kohl, the conservative primeminister of Germany. When the liberal GerhardSchroeder came in, he almost killed it. My first projectin Berlin was when Richard Von Weisacker was mayorand I did this field at Checkpoint Charlie, and VWcame to me after I won the competition and he saidto me,

"You know, Peter, my problem with your project isthis: the left wing hates it because they think it's right

wing and the right wing hates it because they thinkit's left. Nobody can make an assessment. You havecreated something that is, in a sense, problematic foreverybody, because they can't label it. And if theycan't label it, then they can't tell whether they like itor dislike it."

That's what I've tried to do in Berlin. That's what I'vetried to do with myself, with my work. I don't want alabel. I don't want to be either good or bad, right orwrong, left or right,

I am one of the most outsider of all the insiders. Imean, a lot of people say, you teach at Princeton, youteach at Yale, but I never had tenure at thoseinstitutions. I never wanted tenure at thoseinstitutions. But I'm not yet a maverick. I don't dresslike a maverick. My dress is either Brooks Brothers orJ. Press.

I believe that art and life are two different discourses,

and how I want to live is different from how I want topractice architecture. I love living in an old New


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England house; my in-laws have a small sea-sidehouse in Connecticut. I had this 1740s farmhouse inConnecticut where I used to live. What I do not wantto do is to recreate a 1740s farmhouse; I want theoriginal thing, with the original boards, because you

can't get those kinds of wide boards any more, thekind of nails that were made.

But doesn't saying that art and life are twodifferent things mean alienating our culturefrom the people it's supposed to be the cultureof and lead to a kind of hothouse aestheticismthat has nothing to do with real life?

Well, I'm very interested in real life, but that dependson your definition of 'real life." Who represents reallife? I don't have any idea who, really. My clients thatcome to me, they're not coerced into coming to me, Idon't have that many, and there's not any worry thatPeter Eisenman is going to destroy real life. Just likethere's no worry that Webern or Bartok are going todestroy pop music, right?

I wasn't talking about you so much as the ideathat you suggested.

The idea that I suggested is very important to keepalive in the culture. I would think that both DemetriPorphyrios and Leon Krier would think that not havingme in the culture would not be a good thing. It helpsthem to point to what the problems are. I representcertain problems. Just like I think would be very muchless of a culture not to have them around, because ithelps me to point out what some of the problems are.

I don't believe in the homogeneity of culture or the

hierarchy of culture. I don't believe in one system,one - gestures - et cetera. I'm interested infundamentals. I'm interested in fundamentalresearch. But I am not a fundamentalist. Nor am I aMarxist. Nor am I a modernist. If the world were alldeconstructionist buildings, I'd go nuts. I aminterested in what the discipline has to show us aboutarchitecture as it relates to the culture.

As I said, I taught gothic. It's to do with the nature of

the work. I believe that the history of architecture. Imean, Bob Stern, I have his lecture, his


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commencement speech. He made a strong critique ofmodernism. And I might make a similar critique ofmodernism. What I might say is Bob Stern,unfortunately, has to deal with the so-calledmarketplace, and his students don't want to hear

about classical architecture.

You know, people say architects are not supposed tolike sports, but I'm an avid sports fan. Doing astadium for me is like doing a cathedral. I'm doing twoother stadiums right now in addition to that (points atrendering on wall) stadium for the Arizona Cardinals.It's a very conservative area, Arizona, and they're soexcited about the stadium. I think it's a classicalstadium: look at it; it has a classical aura about it, butit doesn't have the trappings, classical ordination, butit seems classical, and what I'd like to think, if yousaw see my Wexner Center at Ohio State University,you'd say it has a classical feeling to it. And I'm notagainst that.

And that's what I've been trying to touch: thatmoment in space and time that doesn't brand you asa conservative, doesn't brand you a fundamentalist etcetera. I'm against fundamentalism, becausefundamentalism as preached by regimes in the Middle

East is against secularism (which doesn't mean you'reagainst God) and against progress, and I believe inboth.

But what I'm talking about is not progress in thehistoricizing sense of the word as in ultimateprogression to a better future. I believe that progressis something which opens up the present, not getsbetter. I don't think things get better; I don't believein idealism; I don't believe in an ontological view ofthe world. I believe in the here-and-now, as in making

this here-and-now better than it has been.

But I don't think it can be done: while I aspire to that,I don't think I make the world any better. And that'snot my role: it's opening it up to the possibility ofthat.

Do you have any thoughts on the oft-madeaccusation that there's too much theory inmodern architecture, particularly in teaching?

I don't think you can understand history unless you
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understand its theory. Alberti said in his Della Pitturain 1500 that what painting needs is to invent a historyfor itself. That's a theoretical proposition, not anhistorical one. To understand why he said that, whyart and architecture need a history, that's a

theoretical proposition.

All of the developments in architecture, thedevelopments that we hold dear, have come aboutthrough theoretical pronouncements that thenbecome history. So I can never distance theory fromhistory. When I teach history to the freshmen at Yale,I start with Piero della Francesca, then Montaigne,then late gothic painting, then early Renaissancepainting, and then we get to Brunelleschi. Hardlyradicals, in one sense of the word - then Bramante,Palladio, Borromini, and Schinkel, right down to thepresent day.

For example: to understand what Brunelleschi wasdoing with perspective, he was interested ininstantiating the subject in architecture as the subjecthadn't existed in the Gothic world, and in theRenaissance it was now the subject that was thecenter of the universe, and so he said the only waythe subject can be involved in architecture is to set up

the subject's eye as the way of understanding space.

What do you make of the argument, which hasbeen floating around for some years now, thatthe so-called avant-garde isn't avant-garde anymore, has been getting long in the tooth, is abunch of clich's from the 1920s and frankly, weall ought to be laughing at its pretensions?

I agree. I agree. (laughs) No, I agree. The avant-gardecannot exist in the way it did in the 20s, to repeat the

20s is no longer avant-garde, and I am myself not anavant-gardist.

When you get to be 70 years old, to try and pretendthat you're a young Turk, doesn't wear very well. Todress like a teeny-bopper is really problematic, and tobehave like one is equally so. When you get to be 70,you have a role in the world that's important to actyour age.

(The interview is briefly interrupted as Prof. Eisenmantakes a phone call from a member of the conservative
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Catholic organization Opus Dei who wants to know ifhe would mind being nominated for an architecturalprize of theirs in connection with his cultural center inSantiago de Campostela in Spain. He does not, andthe interview resumes.)

Looking at your convention center in Columbus,what it says to me is you've taken the verybanal big-box suburban type architecture thatgets ground out all over this country and you'vesaid, - if this is the reality of contemporaryAmerica then let's do something clever with itthat will actually be nice to look at...

Yeah - But I am very much against the idea of"aestheticizing" anything. I would like to think thatjust as I'm against the politics of fascism - that usedthought to aestheticize their politics - I would like tothink that what I'm talking about is not aestheticizinganything.

While we were stuck with this dumb box, OK, I wouldlike to think that what we did - and this is where wemay disagree - I would like to think that what we triedto do was, that we tried to find an alternative way: wecut the dumb box up into strips, right? And I don't call

that aestheticizing. I call it reconfiguring ortransforming the dumb box.

The Greater Columbus Convention Center, Columbus

I just mean making it pretty as opposed to ugly.

I don't know if I would say it's "pretty."


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I liked it, and I don't mean "pretty" as an insult.

OK. Let's say, making it something that people takenotice of, that causes them to say, I like it or I don'tlike it.

That improves the built environment...

Yes. OK.

That's all my questions. Anything else you'd liketo add?

Don't confuse me with Bernard Tschumi. You know,when he was dean of the architecture school atColumbia, I could never get a job there. I may seemlike a person that's far out to you and Bob Stern andDemetri Porphyrios, which is fine, but to the students,whom Bob and I both have to deal with, Bob and I areboth seen as conservatives, and they want stuff that'smore relevant to what they believe is relevant. It's avery difficult moment because Bob has to hire me toplacate the students and he has to hire people likeGregg Lynn to, in a sense, show the students who areconstantly demanding, "where is the world today?"And I think part of the reason why Yale hires

somebody like a Richard Meier to do the arts buildingis because they believe they have to in fact keep upwith what's happening in the world of architecture,like many other universities.

Robert Locke - [email protected] - isa freelance journalist residing in New York CityDid you know that Peter and Richard Meier are cousins?Posted by: redchairs on Jul 27, 04 | 9:07 pmAnd born in Newark, NJ?

Posted by: sewage on Jul 28, 04 | 12:45 pmwell, the comment on politics is an old can of worms. eisenman alreadyspent lots of ink by having several arch writers respond to diane ghirardoin a famous p/a debate in nov 94 & feb 95.

i'd be more interested in knowing how eisenman responds to currenttrends in formalism. given he's in the middle of a long trajectory[wittkower, rowe, eisenman, lynn, diaz-alonso ?]... has there really beenan evolution in the stance of formalism or has it only been lead bysoftware development?

isn't it contradictory that he is careful to point out that he is not trying to
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be avant-gardist at 70, but he still insists on his outsider status [thoseprinceton, yale, not tenured commnents...]? i mean, i see the differencebetween being in the avant garde and being an outsider, but i'd like toknow why he feels like one..

and if we are going to go into politics, i'd like to know why he thinksacceptance for his projects has usually come from the "conservativeright"... maybe it has something to do with his formal studies of classicalbuildings? is the message here that he has distilled, proportion, harmonyand recondensed it in new purified form...? i can see that in very few ofhis projects... the formalist play is most often a reference to itself, not amathematics of the ideal villa game.

it just seems to me the answers are so vague and general... i'd like to readmore about where his current interests lie, and less about his 'i'm the kidleft out of the game' routine. is the theoretical cosmos really so differentfrom the academia cosmos?Posted by: aml on Jul 28, 04 | 6:49 pm"And I have the most rapport with right-leaning political views, becausefirst of all, liberal views have never built anything of any value, becausethey cant get their act together."

ahh the poetics of bullshit. the best of art and architecture is a responseto the right-wing agenda.Posted by: b3tadine[sutures] on Jul 29, 04 | 5:53 pmEisenman proves again that he'll say or do anything to remain

conroversial. This move is brilliant--now that he's been typecast fordecades as a leftist intellectual radical, he "shocks" us all by switchingsides and playing a football-fan Republican. Whatever he says it's allcalculated so that he remains on the radar (you clicked the cover story,now didn't you?). He's about as faithful to liberalism as Philip Johnson is tomodernism--i.e. so long as it suits his self-hyping agenda.Posted by: frankencense on Jul 29, 04 | 6:09 pm*sniff sniff*

I smell bullshit.

Posted by: oe on Jul 29, 04 | 6:11 pmPeter Eisenman is a two bit hack with no talent.I wouldn't let him design my outhousePosted by: RqTecT on Jul 29, 04 | 6:11 pmshit, he sounded like a schoolboy trying to impress an older girl andalmost not getting away with it, if not the content of wat i said, just theway he said it...very disappointing.Posted by: bigness on Jul 29, 04 | 8:15 pmI agree with STARK3D.

The reason that his support comes from the right is due to the fact thatmost republicans are idiots.
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Posted by: mdler on Jul 29, 04 | 8:27 pmfrankencense is onto something with the Philip Johnson reference, thatname popped into my head as well Though I think Eisenman is less of atrend-whore than PJ, he's certainly equally as calculating when it comes toremaining in the public eye. At best, this is Eisenman trying to destabilize

his public perception, ostensibly by shaking its very foundations, and thusgenerating a buzz. But I think he really comes off pretty poorly, it all justseems so trite. I'll bet upon reading the interview, he wishes he could do itover.Posted by: Shalak Moore on Jul 29, 04 | 8:50 pmAside from hearing a few of my acquintances were inpired by his lectureat Texas A&M some years ago, it appears to me that a right wing patrononce had not asked him not to reason out a way to circumvent left wingthought to make it sound more right wing.Posted by: agarch on Jul 29, 04 | 11:20 pmIt's strange to read the answers of a (certainly) intelligent man that soundso superficial and dumb. I mean, he positions himself on the right (whilesaying hypocritically that he doesn't want to be labelled) because right-wing politicians have backed him up (is there more to it, or should wethink that that's all you have to do to get Peter on your side, offer himcookies?)

Then the remark about liberals not getting anything done is obviously astraight attack, not against the left, but against democracy and thedecision making process in most civilized countries today. He seems tohave a fit of nostalgia towards Speer and Terragni and their environment,

that let them do "pure design" for the sake of the ART of architecture. Hedoesn't see how the fussiness and contradictions of today are intertwinedwith human rights and the idea of equality.

And the way he says all this... Insinuatingly circling his subjects withoutsticking his neck out even once. Shame on you mr. Eisenman.Posted by: Helsinki on Jul 30, 04 | 2:25 amno comment, i mean not even worth.....Posted by: gringodms50 on Jul 30, 04 | 4:48 amhave you seen the ramp house that comes with wedge-shaped shoes?Posted by: ArchAngel on Jul 30, 04 | 6:16 am

sometimes i think guys like eisenman say this stuff just to stir things up.like his infamous comment that theory is dead.liberals built this nation.Posted by: norm on Jul 30, 04 | 8:15 amSome flowers in this manure, including this one:

"My whole position is that architecture participates in what I call thecontinual unfolding of existence, that architecture, like any otherdiscipline, has the capacity to do that, and that there is what I wouldconsider to be a disciplinary specificity to architecture, so that even

though the deconstructionists say that everything is one, and theres anintertextuality, and that there is no subject, I believe there is a subject, I
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believe there is a disciplinary specificity to all disciplines and what Ibelieve one is looking to do in addition to anything else is find whatthat disciplinary specificity is in architecture."

What is architecture's specificity? I'll quote my old friend Aditya and say

it's body and memory.

Body as in the physical material stuff that makes it, memory in being areflection of culture - AKA the emotional stuff that makes it.

Posted by: liberty bell on Jul 30, 04 | 9:34 amI think Eisenman is playing into the 'architects only build for the rich'image. read: My clients are rich/republican therefore I side with theirpolitics as architects should do as their masters tell them.

Its interesting to note that 70% of principals at corporate design firms arealso right leaning...

Slightly different topic but interesting nonetheless...

Architects donations to the 2004 campaign more right this year

Whats interesting about architects, money and politics is who is doingwhat : on the list oftop 10 contributors there are at least 3 Bush'Rangers'.The head of Turner construction has raised $100,000 for Bush.

Also Hans Hertell is the chairman of American Builders Corporation, ageneral contractor in Puerto Rico. In addition to attaining Pioneer status asa Bush fundraiser ($100,000), Hertell made a total of $23,000 in GOPcontributions during the 2000 election cycle. In 2001 Hans was appointedas Ambassador to the Dominican Republic.

FYI: Peter can't be that political as he has not contributed to any politicalcampaign in the last year...

(FOG and Steven Holl gave to Kerry)

Posted by: Cameron on Jul 30, 04 | 10:20 amthe thing with eisenman is that he loves stirring things up. but after awhile it gets tiring... yes you are being 'controversial' by talking aboutright wing, but he ends mocking both left and right. that is all amusingand good, but it gets tiring. where is his commitment? if not in the politicalarena, then in architecture... if you mock positions but avoid taking one,you are left with no discourse.

so taking up a side angle: architecture and wealth have always had thislove hate relationship. i guess that is what eisenman is mocking in theend, the idealist that needs to eat. but there are men that have bypassedthis hurdle [sam mockbee, and i'm gonig to say architecture for humanity
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is doing a pretty good job also].

the mocking and double entendres are fun, but don't get us anywhere.eisenman has avoided any constructive discussion by limiting hisdiscourse to innuendo.

Posted by: aml on Jul 30, 04 | 10:55 amThe PJ comparison is right on. Werner Seligman use to tell great storiesabout Eisenman, from PE's cheerleader/frat boy days....

It's all about positioning himself, not necessarily a bad thing but just tooobvious in this case.

And that business about "...because it appears to be radical, but for themit isnt radical so for them......."

Ahhhhh...............what?Posted by: aldorossi on Jul 30, 04 | 12:09 pmthe flower:

"My whole position is that architecture participates in what I call thecontinual unfolding of existence, that architecture, like any otherdiscipline, has the capacity to do that, and that there is what I wouldconsider to be a disciplinary specificity to architecture, so that eventhough the deconstructionists say that everything is one, and theresan intertextuality, and that there is no subject, I believe there is a subject,I believe there is a disciplinary specificity to all disciplines and what I

believe one is looking to do in addition to anything else is findwhat that disciplinary specificity is in architecture."

- my guess is 'specificity" is: buildings/built environment

Posted by: Sir Arthur Braagadocio on Jul 30, 04 | 4:23 pmPeter Eisenman is what you a true 'nihilist' he believes in nothing but selfpreservation at the level he enjoys most.

to a 'nihilist' there is no left wing or right wings, there is no hyprocrisy,there is no true or lies, its all a here-and-now - live in absolute absurd

freedom of doing what you feel.

so to critize the man as being this or that is an absolute waste of yourtime, moreover he's a 70 year old man, i think his days of low-self esteemand peer pressure are over.

just thought i'd defend a man most of the people on this site - especiallythe political debaters can't understandPosted by: Sir Arthur Braagadocio on Jul 30, 04 | 4:27 pmbut then again does my defense even matter...Posted by: Sir Arthur Braagadocio on Jul 30, 04 | 4:29 pm
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I do not understand why you see him as a nihilist. I personally think theman is anything but a nihilist...however he is quite clever in seperatingjournalistic accounts of himself...from what he himself writes. The articleabove is nothing more than an attempt on his part NOT to say anything(or too much)...and I would understand it coming from a decent writer

(rare are those that build well and write well), if he has anything to say hewould write it himself..in his way. The interview is boring, and Eisenman isa happy participant in actively making it boring. Anyways, I've alwaysdisliked him (his intellect has a stinky fishy smell about it) ...that bow tie isso '"pimpin' architecture". I think Philip Johnson, since he was brought inthe discussion, is a much more interesting architect (as opposed to muchmore interesting architecture). Eisenman's logic is interesting thoughvulgar...no, not perverse, just vulgar. He also looks like an octogenariangollum-nerd.Posted by: uneDITed on Jul 30, 04 | 5:01 pmi am intertersed in Eisenman's reference to Della Pittura and the need fora subject to "invent a history for itself" as a theoretical rather thanhistorical proposition. In many ways one could argue that this is exactlyhow the right has a leg up from the left. The right has its positions moreclearly defined--and its history laid out--than the left. There is no need forposition clarification with the today's right. History for the right is a set ofbinary oppositions (good/bad)coalescing into a linear historical narrative.The left, however, seems to always be defining and re-definfing itspositions (sometimes according the right's coordinates). Politics on the leftis constantly reinventing itself (as it should, as Alberti observed paintingshould) and writing its own history. This 'invention of history' as a

theoretical proposition weakens the clarity of a the left's platform and adiscernable (even predictable) stance on issues.

I think Eisenman enjoys the ambiguity of his position as being notdependent upon the language of right and left (inventing his own historyas well) and therefore outside of that confining pendulum ... BUT anarchitect with so much resistance to 'the norm' cannot rightly associatehimself or herself with predictability, structuralist, linear history ORtheory. I think it safe to say that Peter is a third party member, the PeterParty.Posted by: Mason White on Jul 30, 04 | 5:17 pm

that just brought memories of roland barthes's chapter on the right andthe left in the mythologies book...Posted by: aml on Jul 30, 04 | 5:52 pm"I dont think you can understand history unless you understand itstheory. Alberti said in his Della Pittura in 1500 that what painting needs isto invent a history for itself. Thats a theoretical proposition, not anhistorical one. To understand why he said that, why art and architectureneed a history, thats a theoretical proposition."

" the need for a subject to "invent a history for itself" as a theoreticalrather than historical proposition"
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What is theoretical (in his sentence) is the Alberti proposition (in itsinteriority...in its exteriority, it is de facto a historical outcome) for that'invention' and not the actual invention (or its subject..namely its ownhistory) or your extracurricular 'need'. Eventually, the only thing he said

was that a proposition is theoretical. Really? amazingly perceptive... Youmade it a bit clever by endowing the subject (for example, the paintedmule in 15th century Italian paintings of Mary and Joseph) with its ownneed...an inherent kantian aesthetic in turmoil behind its own plasticity(an urgent aesthetic insurrection- a NEED for fuck's sake) ...rather than asociological (and therefor necessarily historical) need. He gave you a littleintellectual toy for you to decieve yourself with (it becomes more than atoy).

of course, this proposition belongs in a history of propositions. Thiseisenman rhetoric is not removed from much of his usual rhetoric thattries to escape history and meaning (through geometric absolutism orarchitectonic connotative exaggerations)..only to crashland on theneighbouring ground of monstrofied meanings..i.e postmodernism. This islargely why I find his intellect vulgar. It is an intellect of equivalences, ofthings that crash into each other.

Also, in your logic (which I find a tad simplistic) the left could also be saidto have an equally binary opposition setup(the good (not right (i.e left))and the bad(the right(i.e not left)). This is the natural effect of

antagonistic co-dependency. As such, the 'left' is equallypredictable/unporedictable as is the 'right'...the re-inventions are part of aconstant formula that accomodate a possibility to react to the 'right'. Andon par, the 'right' reacts to the 'left'. In america especially...this kitchifyingof right and left has led to the simplistic seesaw nature of your logic (nopersonal offense intended ;-)Posted by: uneDITed on Jul 30, 04 | 6:10 pmhe still cant build a building that is not a piece of shit. And his memorial inBerlin, wasnt that done in the garden of Liebskind's museum a few yearsbefore???Posted by: mdler on Jul 30, 04 | 8:22 pm

Thinking about what architectures these day are really political, I wouldn'tcount Peter Eisenman's among them. What I would count are "the greatwall of Israel", US military bases all over the globe, any secured bordercheckpoints, architectures like that. Was the USSR the last great politicalarchitecture of the 20th century? Could be. And how does CommunistChinese architecture stand up these days?

John Young's eyeball series at http://www.crytome.org is at the head ofthe class when it comes to scoping super-power architectures.

I like Eisenman for often letting me know what he does not know.Posted by: two on Jul 31, 04 | 7:36 am
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I think you meant this eyeball seriesPosted by: John Jourden on Jul 31, 04 | 8:03 amGosh, John never tells me anything anymore!Posted by: two on Jul 31, 04 | 8:14 ama bit off subject, but just to folow through the above post earlier ... As for

my argument that the left is constantly re-defining its position (sometimesto its detrement), hence rescripting its history, lets take the example ofstem-cell research. The hard right needs not think about the issue at all.They hear that it involves toying with the origins of human life andimmediately their position is sharply against it. The left, however, seeks abetter understanding of the science to clarify the issue and then definesits position (therefore its history) on that contemporary understanding.The right seems to take a more historical position, while the left takes amore theoretical position. I know it is not necessarily as clear cut as justthat, there are in-betweens and contradictions. But at their foundations,that is my impression.Posted by: Mason White on Jul 31, 04 | 10:03 amwell, the right (in the us at least) changed its opinion in an hour as soon asregan was diagnosed alzaymer...all of a sudden stem cell research wasok...you're making it sound like the only political side with a clear set ofrules/morals/ideals. you can advocate that most of the times, in westerncountries, the right campaigns for the keeping of the status quo (while theleft pushes for reform), or refers back to decades-old values, but that itsmainly because the protests of the 70's destroyed those values, and thoseprotests where almost completely leftist.if we're talking about extremes, then its probably the left which tends to

have more historical positions on big issues concerning morals, possiblyconnected to the fact that the left's political philosophy is much bettercodiified than the one of the right...my two cents.Posted by: bigness on Jul 31, 04 | 11:29 amdear uneDITed,

"This eisenman rhetoric is not removed from much of his usual rhetoricthat tries to escape history and meaning (through geometric absolutism orarchitectonic connotative exaggerations)..only to crashland on theneighbouring ground of monstrofied meanings..i.e postmodernism"

- you just described the philsophical nihilist strategy of convincing othersto change the way they think.

- i mean here an 'existential nihilist" not a political one. someone whodoesn't even believe in destruction (deconstruction), rather in nothingmore than the "continual unfolding of existence" without a goal. perhaps,as only a result of your biological pre-dispositions changing due to yourenvironment. you have to be somewhat of a 'fatalist'. free will is fated.

there is no 'left' and there is no 'right', render them both historicaly and

presently meaningless in relation to the 'continual unfolding of existence'.destory everything so that you can re-invent everything. destroy yourself
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to become something else. this is the goal of deconstruction - somewhatof a paradox.

'left' and 'right' are more similar to 'modes of thinking' than 'sets ofsystems of thought'. you can not choose a 'mode of thinking' for life,

rather just for a moment in the present-and-now. and to stick with anymoral or ethical set of values is just plane stupid, unless you're insecureand hate being lost in the desert empty of meaning.

mdler - did libeskind do the garden at the Jewish memorial or did someoneelse?

here's a pop quiz question for you 'side pickers': if i made a promise underone set of morals and then changed my moral 3 years later, andaccording to the first set of morals broke that promise, but in the secondset i didn't do anything unusual - did i break a promise? (don't use theaccountability argument, try something else)Posted by: Sir Arthur Braagadocio on Jul 31, 04 | 1:08 pm"(through geometric absolutism or architectonic connotativeexaggerations).."


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the vulgarized corruption of the intellectual who is pissed off at the'rubbish' that has run amock following people-choice.

Posted by: uneDITed on Aug 01, 04 | 7:24 am

Eisenman: "I believe that art and life are two different discourses, and howI want to live is different from how I want to practice architecture. I loveliving in an old New England house; my in-laws have a small sea-sidehouse in Connecticut. I had this 1740s farmhouse in Connecticut where Iused to live. What I do not want to do is to recreate a 1740s farmhouse; Iwant the original thing, with the original boards, because you cant getthose kinds of wide boards any more, the kind of nails that were made."

Q: "But doesnt saying that art and life are two different things meanalienating our culture from the people its supposed to be the cultureof and lead to a kind of hothouse aestheticism that has nothing to do with

real life?"

Eisenman: "Well, Im very interested in real life, but that depends onyour definition of real life. Who represents real life? I dont have any idea who, really. My clients that come to me, theyre notcoerced into coming to me, I dont have that many, and theresnot any worry that Peter Eisenman is going to destroy real life. Just liketheres no worry that Webern or Bartok are going to destroy popmusic, right?"

*****

We need to separate his work from his "life".

Eisenman is a conceptual artist whose medium can sometimes be afunctional building. While Eisenman's clients and supporters may berepublicans, that is about his life, and less about how he sees his work. Aswith his Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, he sees his work as having no moralagenda other than to introduce the subject to new conceptions of space.

About his work, Eisenman states "I am looking for ways of conceptualizing

space that will place the subject in a displaced relationship because theywill have no iconographic reference to traditional forms of organization.That is what I have always been trying to do, to displace the subject, tooblige the subject to reconceptualize architecture."

But his intention of reconceptualizing space and revealing to the subjectnew possibilities in architecture is not about "changing the world"... Hedoesn't think that his work is "dangerous", or revolutionary... He doesn'thave any kind of moralist agenda to "transform the world" or make theworld a better place through his architecture, but simply to expose it tosomething new.Posted by: bRink on Aug 01, 04 | 9:42 am
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this is a terrible interview.

eisenman has much more to offer than answers to these silly questionsand even worse - built work!Posted by: Philip Gentleman on Aug 01, 04 | 5:49 pm

boringPosted by: satan on Aug 03, 04 | 3:51 amand with one word, satan halts the thousands and thousands of wordspouring down upon the indifferent shoulders of peter eisenman.

very impressive.Posted by: joed on Aug 03, 04 | 6:43 pmi, for the most part, enjoy pete's work; however, as an architecturestudent at the university of cincinnati, i have to go to one of his buildingseveryday...the DAAP building. anyway, i was walking out the door of thatbuilding one day talking to some friends. my head was turned so i didn'tsee...and i whacked my scull into the corner of a drywall cube that stuckout from the wall...apparently pete thought it was a good idea to have asharp corner sticking out of his wall at exactly 6 feet off the ground. mightwant to consider those of us over 5'11 next time pete. at least that corneris no longer dangerous...seeing how i rounded it off pretty well with myhead.Posted by: placemj on Aug 30, 04 | 9:51 amIt seems many of you were hoping that P.E. would say something that youwould agree with. Does that mean you are still looking for a leader youcan join in lockstep? Abandon such hope. Caress the dragon.

Posted by: gustav on Sep 22, 04 | 7:17 amHe's not even right-wing, he's just an egomaniac. It's like being at a partywhen you're 17, and you want to rile feathers and sound cool, so you leanagainst the wall and you look up at the ceiling, and you say, yeah, I wantto be eaten by wolves... or some shit like that, and it's just a joke, but youthink you sound profound. You think you sound tough and interesting, buteveryone's already moving on the next person. Rather than dick aroundbobbing and weaving and saying nothing of substance - does thisinterview actually have any content? - why doesn't he calm down? Getover it. He's a conservative. Who cares? Now say something in anarticulate manner, for god's sake. He's like a fat person obsessed with

being fat, when no else gives a shit if you're fat or not. So what if you'refucking fat? You're not the only person in the universe.Peter Eisenman is the Kirstie Alley of architecture.
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