Peter Eisenman is an American architect known for developing deconstructivism. Some key points: 1. He studied at Cornell University where he was influenced by theorist Colin Rowe and examined the works of Le Corbusier. 2. Eisenman's early career focused on formalism but he later explored deconstruction and weak form, influenced by philosophers like Derrida. 3. He is known for buildings like the Wexner Center which featured colliding planes that disoriented users. 4. Eisenman's approach considers the layers of physical and cultural contexts at each site rather than just functions or aesthetics.

1. Peter Eisenman
AFNAN DAMRA 0132210 / AMEERA HASAN / FATIMA ABU-TAHA 0130919
LARA WASFE 0138666 / NAJDAT HAZAIMH 0141382 / SAHAR SALEEM 0136595
“From Formalism to Weak Form"

2. Peter Eisenman …
AMERICAN ARCHITECT (born 1932)
If you were a son of mine, I wouldn't want you to be an architect, because it's a
tough way to be in the world 😉

3. Peter Eisenman
➢ He developed a passion for architecture as an
undergraduate at Cornell University.
➢ At Cornell, he studied under theorist/critic Colin
Rowe, receiving the Charles G. Sands Memorial
Medal awarded for exceptional merit for his senior
thesis.
➢ While working with Rowe, Eisenman re-examined
the origins of modern architecture, particularly the
early works of the French architect Le Corbusier.
➢ He was exposed to a set of ideas that formed the
foundation of his early practice and architectural
philosophy
Early Life
➢ He went on to receive a Bachelors Degree in
Architecture from Cornell,
➢ Masters Degree In Architecture from Columbia
University
➢ Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge.
➢ In 2007, he received an honorary degree from the
Syracuse University School of Architecture.
➢ He also has an honorary Doctor of fine arts degree
from the University of Illinois
➢ where he was founder and director of the Institute
for Architecture and Urban Studies from 1967 to
1982.

4. Approach
“The architecture we remember is that which never consolers
or comfort us” peter Eisenman

5. Deconstructivism style
Peter Eisenman

6. Philosophy Of Peter Eisenman
Known as an eccentric, Eisenman is often seen in a bowtie and a sweater with a small hole.
1

7. Philosophy Of Peter Eisenman
➢ Despite his significant impact on architecture through both built and theoretical works, most studies
of Peter Eisenman's career focus on either one aspect or the other. In “From Formalism to Weak
Form: The Architecture and Philosophy of Peter Eisenman,”
➢ All of the different moments characterizing Eisenman’s trajectory imply different phases, different
projects, different programmatic manifestos and, above all, an evolving notion of form. To approach
the complexity of his discourse means dealing with form in all its declinations:
1. Formalism
2. de-composition
3. Deconstruction
4. weak form.
➢ Each of them has constituted the mutant epidermis of Eisenman’s theoretical corpus, based on
philosophical references and provocative statements.

8. Philosophy Of Peter Eisenman
➢ Thanks to his ability to connect with the cultural tendencies of the
time, Eisenman has explored different territories:
o first, structuralism and Chomsky’s linguistic theory;
1. Successively
2. Derrida and Delueze’s post-structuralism
3. passing through the influence of Colin Rowe’s formalism
4. his recent interest in the return to autonomy as theorized by Pier
Vittorio Aureli.
➢ At the same time Eisenman has always played a central role in
influencing and manipulating the American architectural debate,
due to his propagandistic activity:
1. first with the IAUs (Institute for Architecture and Urban studies)
2. and then with the magazine Oppositions.

9. Philosophy Of Peter Eisenman
➢ His first theoretical works, like his doctoral thesis, did not claim
the creation of forms ex-novo; on the contrary, they constituted
a heterodox interpretation of several architectural texts. In fact,
Eisenman was interested in displacing form from its necessary
relationships to function, meaning and aesthetics, without at
the same time necessarily denying the presence of these
conditions.
➢ Architecture, then, was made of latent ideas that survive
through the process of design and continue to influence the
project even through construction – and the architect’s main
task was to consist in describing the internal matrix that
generates architecture

10. Philosophy Of Peter Eisenman
➢ His differentiation between a deep and superficial structure
would be the main reference for Eisenman’s discourse:
the American architect in fact distinguished between
superficial/sensorial aspects (colour, texture, shape, and so on),
and deep aspects (frontality, compression, and disjunction).
➢ To cite Rafael Moneo, we may say that Eisenman built a
dichotomous version of his architecture, based on the
opposition between the mental (the deep structure) and the
sensorial (the superficial structure).
Whereas this phase, defined by Eisenman as the diagrams of interiority, was characterized by the desire to
find internal rules and mechanisms for the discipline without any contact with the exterior world, at the end
of the 1970s pessimism about architecture and the mission of Modernism enveloped Eisenman: he gradually
abandoned his interest in internal syntactic processes and replaced geometry, abstraction and self-
referentiality with a recourse to external factors.
Architecture thus became for Eisenman a tool to reflect upon the instability of history

11. The design emerged from a conceptual process that began with a grid. Eisenman manipulated the grid in a way so that the house
was divided into four sections and when completed the building itself could be a "record of the design process." Therefore structural
elements, were revealed so that the construction process was evident, but not always understood.
includes disorientation in the work without the concept of relating it to the traditional home. The house is, in fact, anything but what
one would consider a conventional house

12. Deconstructivism
American architect Peter Eisenman is a Deconstructivist who shuns the term.
He embraces unconventional theories that have shrouded him in controversy.
2

13. Deconstructivism
Eisenman Architects’ unique approach to design projects is to consider
the layers of physical and cultural archaeologies at each site, not just
the obvious contexts and programs of a building. Rather than pursuing a
particular building type, Eisenman Architects specializes in a particular
problem type:
1. projects with difficult siting
2. programmatic and/or budgetary constraints, and of strategic
importance to their environment.

14. Deconstructivism
Deconstructivism is a development of postmodern architecture that
began in the late 1980s. It centers on the ideas of fragmentation, an
interest in manipulating ideas of a structure's surface that distort some of
the elements of architecture itself.
Deconstructivists seek to move architecture away from what they see as
the confining 'rules' of modernism such as "form follows function",
"purity of form", and "truth to materials." They prefer to stimulate
unpredictability and control chaos

15. “
Experts say that Eisenman's focus on "liberating"
architectural form was notable from an academic and
theoretical standpoint but resulted in structures that were
both badly built and non-functional.

16. Example ..

17. The Wexner Center
The Wexner Center, the first major public deconstructivist
building, has required extensive and expensive repairs and re-
designing because of elementary design flaws (such as
incompetent material specifications, and fine art exhibition space
exposed to direct sunlight).
It was frequently repeated that the Wexner's colliding planes
tended to make its users disoriented to the point of physical
nausea.

19. Columbus Convention Center
In 1967 Eisenman had begun the first of a series of residential designs, labeled cardboard
architecture because of their thin white walls and model-like qualities.
It was here that he explored the implications of his theories in built form.
His notable work includes:
1. The Greater Columbus Convention Center
2. Columbus Ohio (1993)
3. The Aronoff Center for Design and Art at the University of Cincinnati (1996)
4. The City of Culture of Galicia Santiago de Compostela in Galicia
5. Spain (1999) and Il giardino dei passi perduti Castelvecchio Museum in Verona (2004).

20. The Greater Columbus Convention Center Columbus Ohio
giardino dei passi perduti Castelvecchio

21. Currently, he teaches architecture at Yale
University and has also undertaken a larger
series of building projects than ever before
in his career, including the recently
completed Memorial to the Murdered Jews
of Europe in Berlin and the new University
of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona

22. Thanks!
Interviews: Peter Eisenman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP8ifcS8wMw&t=6s

23. Quotes
I don’t believe that classical architecture is enough to engage people any more they
say “ so what else is new ?”
I don't design houses with unclear family idea because I don't believe in it as a
concept
architecture is definitely a political act

24.  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291355754_THE_DIAGRAM_PROCESS_METHOD_T
HE_DESIGN_OF_ARCHITECTURAL_FORM_BY_PETER_EISENMAN_AND_REM_KOOLHAAS
 https://www.kmpfurniture.com/designer-news/peter-eisenman-and-architect-shrouded-him-
controversy_113.html
 http://www.archdaily.com/591214/from-formalism-to-weak-form-the-architecture-and-
philosophy-of-peter-eisenman
 From Formalism to Weak Form: The Architecture and Philosophy of Peter Eisenman
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Eisenman
 http://www.eisenmanarchitects.com/firm-profile.html
 https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/p/peter_eisenman.html
 http://www.archdaily.com/535705/spotlight-peter-eisenman
References