16. the Whites: Disciplinary Interiority Around Peter Eisenman
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THE WHITES: DISCIPLINARY INTERIORITY AROUND PETER EISENMAN DISCIPLINE: DISCIPLINE: The suppression of base desires; usually understood to be synonymous with restraint and self-control. Self-discipline is to some extent a substitute for motivation. PETER EISENMAN MICHAEL GRAVES PETER EISENMAN MICHAEL GRAVES FOUNDED THE CONFERENCE OF ARCHITECTS FOR THE STUDY OF THE ENVIRONMENT [CASE] IN 1964. PETER EISENMAN FOUNDED THE INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN STUDIES [IAUS] IN 1967. The New York Five (aka “The WHITES”) PETER EISENMAN MICHAEL GRAVES CHARLES GWATHMEY JOHN HEJDUK RICHARD MEIER PETER EISENMAN MICHAEL GRAVES CHARLES GWATHMEY JOHN HEJDUK RICHARD MEIER PETER EISENMAN THE FORMAL BASIS OF MODERN ARCHITECTURE 1963 GUISEPPE TERRAGNI CASA DEL FASCIO | COMO, ITALY 1936 COLIN ROWE TRANSPARENCY: LITERAL AND PHENOMENAL | PERSPECTA 8 1963 “...there is now introduced a conception of transparency quite distinct from any physical quality of substance and almost equally remote from the idea of the trans- parent as the perfectly clear. In fact, by this denition, the transparent ceases to be that which is perfectly clear and becomes, instead, that which is clearly ambiguous.” COLIN ROWE TRANSPARENCY: LITERAL AND PHENOMENAL | PERSPECTA 8 1963 “erefore, at the beginning of any inquiry into transparency, a basic distinction must be established. Transparency may be an inherent quality of substance - as in a wire mesh or glass curtain wall - or it may be an inherent quality of organization...and one might, for this reason distinguish between a real and a phenomenal or seeming transparency.” COLIN ROWE TRANSPARENCY: LITERAL AND PHENOMENAL | PERSPECTA 8 1963 VS. SIMULTANEOUS WINDOWS STILL LIFE ROBERT DELAUNAY, 1911 JUAN GRIS, 1912 WALTER GROPIUS BAUHAUS | DESSAU, GERMANY 1930 WALTER GROPIUS BAUHAUS | DESSAU, GERMANY 1930 LE CORBUSIER VILLA STEIN | GARCHES, FRANCE 1927 LE CORBUSIER VILLA STEIN | GARCHES, FRANCE 1927 LE CORBUSIER VILLA STEIN | GARCHES, FRANCE 1927 GUISEPPE TERRAGNI CASA DEL FASCIO | COMO, ITALY 1936 PETER EISENMAN HOUSE I | PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY, USA 1968 PETER EISENMAN HOUSE I | PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY, USA 1968 PETER EISENMAN HOUSE I | PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY, USA 1968 PETER EISENMAN HOUSE II | HARDWICK, VERMONT, USA 1970 PETER EISENMAN HOUSE II | HARDWICK, VERMONT, USA 1970 PETER EISENMAN HOUSE II | HARDWICK, VERMONT, USA 1970 PETER EISENMAN HOUSE III | LAKEVILLE, CONNECTICUT, USA 1971 PETER EISENMAN HOUSE III | LAKEVILLE, CONNECTICUT, USA 1971 PETER EISENMAN HOUSE III | LAKEVILLE, CONNECTICUT, USA 1971 PETER EISENMAN HOUSE III | LAKEVILLE, CONNECTICUT, USA 1971 PETER EISENMAN HOUSE III | LAKEVILLE, CONNECTICUT, USA 1971 PETER EISENMAN HOUSE IV (PROJECT) | FALLS VILLAGE, CONNECTICUT, USA 1971 PETER EISENMAN HOUSE IV (PROJECT) | FALLS VILLAGE, CONNECTICUT, USA 1971 PETER EISENMAN HOUSE VI | CORNWALL, CONNECTICUT, USA 1975 PETER EISENMAN HOUSE VI | CORNWALL, CONNECTICUT, USA 1975 PETER EISENMAN HOUSE VI | CORNWALL, CONNECTICUT, USA 1975 PETER EISENMAN HOUSE VI | CORNWALL, CONNECTICUT, USA 1975 PETER EISENMAN HOUSE VI | CORNWALL, CONNECTICUT, USA 1975 PETER EISENMAN HOUSE VI | CORNWALL, CONNECTICUT, USA 1975 PETER EISENMAN HOUSE X (PROJECT) | BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MICHIGAN, USA 1975 PETER EISENMAN HOUSE X (PROJECT) | BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MICHIGAN, USA 1975 Architecture as PURE SYNTAX (not semantics) Architecture as CONCEPTUAL ART (not POP art) Architecture as DEEP STRUCTURE (not surface aesthetic) Architecture as “POST-FUNCTIONALIST” PETER EISENMAN POST-FUNCTIONALISM | OPPOSITIONS 6 1976 “e critical establishment within architecture has told us that we have entered the era of “post-modernism.”...Two indices of this supposed change are the quite dierent manifestations of the “Architettura Razionale” exhibition at the Milan Triennale of 1973, and the “Ecole des Beaux Arts” exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1975. PETER EISENMAN POST-FUNCTIONALISM | OPPOSITIONS 6 1976 “What is interesting is not the mutually exclusive character of these two diagnoses and hence their solutions, but rather the fact that both of these views enclose archi- tecture within the same denition: one by which the terms continue to be function (or program) and form (and type). In so doing, an attitude toward architecture is maintained that diers in no signicant way from the 500-year-old tradition of humanism.” PETER EISENMAN POST-FUNCTIONALISM | OPPOSITIONS 6 1976 “It is true that sometime in the nineteenth century there was indeed a critical shi within western consciousness: one which can be characterized as a shi from humanism to modernism. But, for the most part, architecture, in its dogged adherence to the principles of function, did not participate in or understand the fundamental aspects of that change.” PETER EISENMAN POST-FUNCTIONALISM | OPPOSITIONS 6 1976 “It is the potential dierence in the nature of modernist and humanist theory that seems to have gone unnoticed by those people who today speak of eclecticism, post- modernism, neo-modernism, or neo- functionalism.” PETER EISENMAN POST-FUNCTIONALISM | OPPOSITIONS 6 1976 “In brief, the modernist sensibility has to do with a changed mental attitude toward the artifacts of the physical world...is shi away from the dominant attitudes of humanism, that were pervasive in Western societies for some four hundred years, took place at various times in the nineteenth century in such disparate disciplines as mathematics, music, painting, literature, lm, and photography.” PETER EISENMAN POST-FUNCTIONALISM | OPPOSITIONS 6 1976 “is new theoretical base changes the humanist balance of form/function to a dialectical relationship within the evolution of form itself.” PETER EISENMAN POST-FUNCTIONALISM | OPPOSITIONS 6 1976 PETER EISENMAN MICHAEL GRAVES CHARLES GWATHMEY JOHN HEJDUK RICHARD MEIER RICHARD MEIER DOUGLAS HOUSE | HARBOR SPRINGS, MICHIGAN, USA 1973 RICHARD MEIER DOUGLAS HOUSE | HARBOR SPRINGS, MICHIGAN, USA 1973 RICHARD MEIER SMITH HOUSE | DARIEN, CONNECTICUT, USA 1967 RICHARD MEIER SMITH HOUSE | DARIEN, CONNECTICUT, USA 1967 RICHARD MEIER SMITH HOUSE | DARIEN, CONNECTICUT, USA 1967 PETER EISENMAN MICHAEL GRAVES CHARLES GWATHMEY JOHN HEJDUK RICHARD MEIER MICHAEL GRAVES BENACERRAF HOUSE | PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY, USA 1969 PETER EISENMAN MICHAEL GRAVES CHARLES GWATHMEY JOHN HEJDUK RICHARD MEIER CHARLES GWATHMEY GWATHMEY HOUSE | AMAGANSETT, NEW YORK, USA 1967 PETER EISENMAN MICHAEL GRAVES CHARLES GWATHMEY JOHN HEJDUK RICHARD MEIER JOHN HEJDUK WALL HOUSE | RIDGEFIELD, CONNECTICUT, USA 1973 JOHN HEJDUK WALL HOUSE | RIDGEFIELD, CONNECTICUT, USA 1973 JOHN HEJDUK WALL HOUSE | RIDGEFIELD, CONNECTICUT, USA 1973 JOHN HEJDUK WALL HOUSE | RIDGEFIELD, CONNECTICUT, USA 1973 “For we are here in the presence of what, in terms of the orthodox theory of modern architecture, is heresy. We are in the presence of anachronism, nostalgia, and probably, frivolity. If modern architecture looked like thisc.1930 then it should not look like this today; and, if the real political issue of the present is not the provision of the rich with cake but of the starving with bread, then not only formally but also pro- grammatically these building are irrelevant.” COLIN ROWE FIVE ARCHITECTS 1975 Five on Five (“The GRAYS”).