Peter Eisenman
American (Newark, New Jersey, 1932)House VI, Cornwall, Connecticut
Eisenman, an architect, educator, and theoretician, sought to develop a form of architecture not based solely on function. Stimulated by the formal structure of language, he became interested in a parallel approach to architecture in which its practical aspects (function and context) would be set aside in deference to its basic vocabulary: beams, walls, and stairs.
From the late 1970s to the 1980s, Eisenman demonstrated his theories in a series of eleven houses. Numbered rather than named, they exemplify his investigation into the nature and meaning of architectural form.
Through a deliberate process of transformation, House VI moves beyond a basic cube to a more complex and divided volume. The design of the building emerges from a sequence of developments (as shown in drawings like this) based on well-defined rules, just as one makes words from letters and sentences from words. In Eisenman's experiment, the process of design becomes the object of the design.
Keywords
design, houses, aerial views, diagrams, geometric
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