Educated at Cornell and Columbia Universities, and recognized by the New York Museum of Modern Art in 1972 as one of The New York Five, Eisenman furthered the work of Modernists before him — Le Corbusier, for instance — by pushing the aim for universal form one step further toward extreme abstraction.

Eisenman's highly willful approach can be seen in his design for House VI, a suburban dwelling for Richard and Suzanne Frank. In it, a linear trench in the floor prevents the couple from sharing a bed.

His other built projects include the Wexner Center for the Arts and the Greater Columbus Convention Center. In 2005 Eisenman completed Monument to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a Holocaust memorial in Berlin, Germany. A sloping 4.7-acre field covered by over 2,000 rectangular concrete slabs, the site appears overwhelmingly blank, a memorial intentionally void of symbolism.