Peter Eisenman is an American architect known for deconstructivist designs. This document provides biographical details and discusses two of Eisenman's works - House VI from 1972-1975 and the Wexner Center for the Arts from 1989. House VI was conceptualized through a process of manipulating a grid, resulting in unconventional spaces. The Wexner Center design was also based on manipulating grids to link past and present through unconventional means, seen in its curved facade, reconstructed armoury fragments, and use of dark glass.

1. PETER EISENMAN
HOA - 5
SHIVANI
SEM 5

2. INTRODUCTION
• Born August 11, 1932 (age
85) Newark, New Jersey, U.S.
• Nationality American
• Occupation Architect
• Buildings House VI
Memorial to the
Murdered Jews of Europe
City of Culture of Galicia
Peter Eisenman (born 1932) is an American architect. Considered one of the New York Five,
Eisenman is known for his writing and speaking about architecture as well as his designs,
which have been called high modernist or deconstructive.

3. EARLY LIFE
• Peter Eisenman was born to Jewish parents[3] on
August 11, 1932, in Newark, New Jersey.
• As a child, he attended Columbia High School
located in Maplewood, New Jersey.
• He transferred in to the architecture school as an
undergraduate at Cornell University and gave up
his position on the swimming team in order to
commit full-time to his studies.
• He received a Bachelor of Architecture degree
from Cornell, a Master of Architecture degree
from Columbia University's Graduate School of
Architecture, Planning and Preservation, and
M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of
Cambridge.
• He received an honorary degree from Syracuse
University School of Architecture in 2007.

4. CAREER
• He first rose to prominence as a member of the
New York Five (also known as the Whites, as
opposed to the Grays of Yale: Robert A.M. Stern,
Charles Moore, etc.), five architects (Eisenman,
Charles Gwathmey, John Hejduk, Richard Meier, and
Michael Graves) some of whose work was
presented at a CASE Studies conference in 1969.
• Eisenman received a number of grants from the
Graham Foundation for work done in this period.
• These architects' work at the time was often
considered a reworking of the ideas of Le Corbusier.
Subsequently, the five architects each developed
unique styles and ideologies, with Eisenman
becoming more affiliated with Deconstructivism.

5. PHILOSOPHY
• HE REJECTED THE FUNCTIONAL CONCEPT OF
MODERNISM BY DESIGNING STAIRWAYS THAT LED
NOWHERE OR COLUMNS THAT DID NOT FUNCTION
AS SUPPORT
• HIS WORKS WERE CHARACTERIZED BY
DISCONCERTING FORMS, ANGLES AND MATERIALS
• ACCORDING TO EISENMAN, WHEN YOU CAN SENSE
THE INCOMPLETENESS OF A FINISHED STRUCTURE, IT IS
A PARADOXICAL EXPERIENCE. IF THE PARTS THAT MAKE
UP A WHOLE ARE IN CONFLICT, THE SENSATION OF THE
INCOMPLETE CONTESTS THE FACT THAT THE
STRUCTURE IS, IN FACT, A FINISHED AND FULLY
ENCLOSED SPACE

6. STYLE
• EISENMAN HAS ALWAYS SOUGHT SOMEWHAT
OBSCURE PARALLELS BETWEEN HIS
ARCHITECTURAL WORKS AND PHILOSOPHICAL
OR LITERARY THEORY.
• His earlier houses were “generated” from a
transformation of forms related to te tenuous
relationship of launguage to an underlying
structure.
• Eisenman's latter works show a sympathy
with the ideas of deconstructionism.
• His tries to do is to “unlink” the function that
architecture may represent from the
apperance - form - of that same architectural
object.

7. CONEPT
- Artifical excavation
- tracing
- layering
- deformation
TECHNIQUES
- shear
- interference
- intersection
- distortion
- scaling
DIAGRAMMATIC IMAGE
- add to superposition
- Deform coposition
METHODS
- Historical reading of the site:
Superposition
-Deformation strategy:
Diagrammatic image
-Elaboration: Design
DISCONSTRUCTIONSIUM
- Characterized by ideas of
fragmentation.
- Characterized by a
stimulating unpredictability
and a controlled chaos.

8. QUOTES
• “THE ARCHITECTURE WE REMEMBER IS THAT WHICH NEVER
CONSOLES OR COMFORTS US “.
• “IN ANYRCHITECTURE THERE IS AN EQUITY BETWEEN THE
PRAGMATIC FUNCTION AND THE SYMBOLIC FUNCTION”.

9. WORKS
• House VI(Frank residence), Cornwall, Connecticut.Design: 1972.
• Wexner Centre for the Arts, Ohio State University,Ohio, 1989
• Nunotani Building, Edogawa Tokyo Japan, 1991
• Greater Columbus Convention Centre, Ohio,1993
• Aronoff Centre for Design and Art, University for Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio,
1996
• City of Culture of Galcia, Santiago de Compostela, Galcia, Spain, 1999
• Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Berlin, 2005
• University of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale , Arizona, 2006

10. HOUSE VI

11. INTRODUCTION
• Located in cornawall,Connecticut.
• Eisenman created a form from the
intersection of four planes , subsequently
manipulating the structures again and
again, until coherent spaces began to
emerge.
• The envelope and structure of the building
are just a manifestation od the changed
elements of the original four slab, with
some limited madification.
• The purely conceptual design meant that
the architecture is strictly plastic, bearing no
relationship to construction techniques or
purely ornamental form.

12. LOCATION

13. • In the earlier stage of his career he
designed a series of houses, named as
house I to house X. His House II, VI and
X are most famous projects of his initial
ones.
• • Eisenman, one of the New York Five,
designed the house for Mr. and Mrs.
Richard Frank between 1972-1975 who
found great admiration for the
architect’s work despite previously
being known as a “paper architect” and
theorist.
• • By giving Eisenman a chance to put his
theories to practice, one of the most
famous, and difficult, houses emerged
in the United States.

14. • Situated on a flat site in Cornwall, House VI stands its own ground as a
sculpture in its surroundings.
• • 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.
• • Thus, the house became a study between the actual structure and
architectural theory. The house was effeciently constructed using a simple
post and beam system.
• • However some columns or beams play no structural role and are
incorporated to enhance the conceptual design. For example one column in
the kitchen hovers over the kitchen table, not even touching the ground! In
other spaces, beams meet but do not intersect, creating a cluster of supports.

15. DRAWING
S LIVING
STUDY
STORAGE
ENTRYCLOSET
DINING
KITCHEN
GROUND FLOOR
PLAN

16. GROUND FLOOR
PLAN
CLOSET
LAV
M.BEDROOM
DRESSING
OPEN
BATH

17. ELEVATION

18. SECTION

19. • The structure was incorporated into
Eisenman’s grid to convey the module that
created the interior spaces with a series of
planes that slipped through each other.
• • Purposely ignoring the idea of form
following function, Eisenman created
spaces that were quirky and well-lit, but
rather unconventional to live with.
• • He made it difficult for the users so that
they would have to grow accustom to the
architecture and constantly be aware of it.
For instance, in the bedroom there is a
glass slot in the center of the wall
continuing through the floor that divides
the room in half, forcing there to be
separate beds on either side of the room.

20. • Another curious aspect is an upside
down staircase, the element which
portrays the axis of the house and is
painted red to draw attention.
• • There are also many other difficult
aspects that disrupt conventional
living, such as the column hanging
over the dinner table that separates
diners and the single bathroom that is
only accessible through a bedroom.
• • Eisenman was able to constantly
remind the users of the architecture
around them and how it affects their
lives.

21. • He succeeded in building a
structure that functioned both
as a house and a work of art,
but changing the priority of
both so that function followed
the art.
• • He built a home where man
was forced to live in a work of
art, a sculpture, and according
to the clients who enjoyed
inhabiting Eisenman’s artwork
and poetry, the house was very
successful.

22. WEXNER CENTER OF
ARTS

23. INTRODUCTION
• The firm of Peter Eisenman and Richard Trott won the design competition for
Wexner Center of Arts.
• • Eisenman wowed the Jury with his bold ideas for the art center, which were
aimed at linking the past to the present (“Timeless Earth 1), through the use
of unconventional means.
• • The end result became both Peter Eisenman’s first large public commission
and one of the first large scale constructions of Deconstructivist Architecture.
• • The building is tucked in between the Mershon Auditorium and Weigel Hall
both of which are home to programs that were to be consolidated into the
Wexner Center.

24. Design process
• The literal use of the rotated grid is
used by Eisenman as an extensive
method of giving the architecture
its own voice.
• • The identification of the dialectic
grids stems from conditions that
exist at the boundary of the site,
Eisenman then grafts one grid on
top of the other and seeks
potential connections or ‘event
sites’ at the urban, local, and
interior scales.

25. • Scalar operations are performed as a
means of mediating the scale of the
urban grid towards a pedestrian or
human scale, lastly, the results of these
operations serves as a map that is used
to locate program, pathways, structure,
interior forms, excavations, and views
along the newly afforded possibilities of
‘event sites’ in both the horizontal and
vertical planes.
• • The results of these operations are
visible in almost every aspect of the
construction, from the module in the
curtainwall, the tiling of the pavers,
planters and trees on site.

26. • To add to the depth of possibilities afforded by this
excavation of the immediate condition of the grid
Eisenman grafts figured scaffolding onto the site and
integrates this figure into the primary circuit or
pathway of the building.
• • The scaffolding is scaled to represent the module
of the grid that is interpretable at a human scale.
• • The scaffold is reduced to its raw type, to the
essential condition that signifies the essence of its
existence that being an impermanent accessory to
architecture that allows its construction, but does
not necessarily shelter.
• • This architecture of non-shelter is aligned directly
adjacent to an interior pathway within the building
that does enclose and protect.

27. • Eisenman coupled his grid abstractions with
a series of figures that would play a key role
in his aim of linking the past with the
present.
• • The most prominent of these figures exists
as a reconstruction of a part of the armoury
that occupied the site from 1898 until it was
terminally damaged by fire on May 17th
1958.
• • The figure of the armoury Eisenman has
presented along the south pedestrian access
(the most visually accessible elevation of the
building) has been reduced to a series of
fragments of armoury-like forms that
indicate the ‘essence’ of the armoury
without reproducing any of the original
intricate detail.

29. • Within the armoury forms the negative space
carved out of the solid brick masses that
make up these figures is cast with a dark
tinted curtain wall, within which is an
aluminum mullion pattern evocative of the
use of grid.
• • The contrast created by the anodized
aluminum of the mullions intensifies the
impenetrable depth of the glass.
• • The lack of historical fidelity in the
reconstruction of the armoury, the
fragmentation of the form, and the insertion
of dark glass into the voids left between
these fragments seems to speak of the
disjointed manner in which we reflect the
past, and in turn, it serves to remind us of a
past we have lost and can never return to.

30. • SITE SECTION
SITE

31. THANK YOU