Peter Eisenman “Post-Functionalism” Oppositions 6 (Fall 1976) The Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, an independent research, design, ‘and educational corporation directed by Peter Eisenman, was founded in New Yorkin 1967. Opposition, the institute's primary organ, first appeated in September 2973 and remained the single most important Journal of architecture theory untit 1982. In issues 4, 5, 6, and 7 of the journal, each of its editors, Kenneth Frampton, Mario Gandelsonas, Peter Eisenman, and Anthony Vidler, published an independent edito- rial that together marked out many of the major categories of architecture theory in the 39708 and 1980s. Frampton's reading ofthe Heideggerian Raum as a place of pos- sible resistance tothe techno-sclentifc and mass-cultural attacks on the fundamen- tally phenomenological aspect of architectural experience prompted his proposal for a dialectic of ends and means, of “place” and “production.” that already anticipated his later work Gandelsonas's “Neo-Functionalism categorized dialectcaly, for the fist time, the position epitomized by the work of Robert Venturi —"neorealism” — and that represented by Aldo Rossi, Peter Eisenman, and john Hejduk—“neoration {sm*—and identified modernist functionalism’s underdeveloped concer with the problem of meaning (since function i itself one ofthe meanings that could be aticu- lated by form”) as a possible third term. Vidle's apologia for Rossi and the Tendenza the “third typology.” identified its “ontology of the city” as a possible base for the restoration ofa critical role to architecture. Eisenman, in his editorial reprinted here, gathered up his preoccupations with structural linguistics, conceptual art, and avant- gatde avtotelic procedures, and characterized @ "postfunctionalist” position that ‘would recognize architecture's epistemological stats. As Its title suggests, Elsenman's essay enters into 2 mode of, thinking that Gregory Ulmer has called “post-citicism,” which is constituted primarily by the application of certain devices of modernism (such as the direct incorporation ‘of a formal fragment into a collage, or the aleatory process of montage) to critical ‘representations.: Rather than simply deriving its forms from functional needs, Eisen man sees modemism as "work on the language itself... It fundamentally changed the relationship between man and object away from an object whose primary purpose was to speak about man to one which was concemmed with its own objecthood”* A properly modernist architecture should be not so much a subjective innovation (on ‘the model of the atist-as-genius) as a search for objective knowledge that lies out- ‘side the artist, within the very materials and formal operations of architecture. Such a research discovers the new inthe given “language,” immanently, through an articu- lation and redistribution of ts elements, Hence the importance of representation: the architectural object, on this view, Is Justa representation of architectural logic itself. Eisenman earler called such a formal object-become-simula- crum-of process “cardboard architecture”: “Cardboard is used to shift the focus from ‘our existing canception of form in an aesthetic and fuctional context to a consider- ation of form as a marking or notational system. The use of cardboard attempts to istinguish an aspect ofthese forms which are designed to act as a signal or a mes- sage and at the same time the representation of them as a message." Further, heer 1973 982. In + Mario tedito veory in of pos- damen- asal for pated for the ational- ith the artiew- sdenza, for the dhere, ‘avant: on that vode of ‘imarly oration critical » Eisen banged urpose od A fon (on 5 out- 2, Such articu: on: the citself simula. as from nsider- apts to ames her, he associated cardboard architecture's effects with the defamilirization and alienation effects of a Brechtian modernism, In the present essay, he historcizes such-concerns. 2s part ofa new episteme, a posthumanist paradigm heralded by James Joyce, Armold Schénberg, Hans Richter, and others, and theorized in the antihumanism of Michel Foucault and Claude Lévi-Strauss, But as important as its effort to push architecture into this new paradigm is what is entalled when architecture represents the very process of “archi tecting”: that the effort to represent the inner logic of the abject in the object itself is made not because of some preordained decision to exclude other considerations bbut because of the felt consequence of ahistorical evalution crucial, if not unique, to the discipline of architecture itselt. This evolution, which began with modernism, fuses the practice of architecture with the critique of architecture and replaces the functional object with a theoretical one. Notes 1 Kenneth Frampton, “On Reading Heidegges" Oppositions g (October 1974). 12, Marlo Gandelsonas, “Neo-Functionalism,” Oppostions 5 (Summer 1976). 3+ Anthony Vide, “The Third Typology? Oppositions 7 (Winter 1977). 44 Grogory L Umer, "The Object of Post. Crctm:" in The Ati-aesthetic: £ssays on Postmod- 7m Culture, ed Hal Foster Port Townsend, Wash. Bay Press, 985). 5. See Peter Eisenman, *Postscrst to Alan Colquhounsk The Graves of Modernism Oppesi- tions 12 (Spring 1978). 6. Peter Eisenman, "Cardboard Architecture: House in Five Architects (New York: Witenborn, 1972). 16. See also Petr Elsenman, "Notes on Conceptual Architecture: Towers a Defi tion” Casobelo 359-360 (197). 7. “While the architectural system may be complete, the enronment “house Is almost a vld. ‘And quite urntentonally—tke the auclonce ofthe flm~the ownerhas been elenated from his environment. n this sense, when the owner frst enters ‘his house’ he is an intruders he ‘ust begin to regain possession to occupy a foreign container. Inthe process of taking possession the owner begins to destroy, albeit ina positive sense, the Initial unity and com pleteness ofthe architectural structure” Peter E'senman, "To Adal Loos & Bertold Brecht” Progressive Architecture 55 (May 3974), p. 92.1976 Peter Eisenman Post-Functicnalism “The critical establishment within architecrare has told us that we have entered the ‘era of “post-modernism.” The tone with which this news is delivered is invariably ‘one of relief, similar to that which accompanies the advice that one i no longer an adolescent. Two indices of this supposed change are the quite different manifesta- tions of the “Architettura Razionale” exhibition at the Milan Triennale of 1973, and the "Ecole des Beaux Arts” exhibition at The Museum of Modern Artin 1975. The former, going on the assumption that modem architecture was an outmoded functionalism, declared that achiteccure can be generated only dhzough a return to liselfas an autonomous or pure discipline. The late, seeing modern architecture as an obsessional formalism, made itself into an implicit statement thatthe fature lies paradoxically in the past, within the peculiar response to function that charac terized the nineteenth century's eclectic command of historical styles. ‘What is interesting is not the muwally exchusive character of these ovo diagnoses and hence of their solutions, but rather the fact chat bth of these views enclose the very project of architecture within the same definition: one by which the terms continue to be function (or program) and form (or type). In so doing, an atitude toward architecrure is maintained that differs in no significant ‘way from the 500-year-old tradition of humanism. The various theories of architecture which properly can be called “humanist” are characterized by a disletcal opposition: an oscillation be- tsveen a concern for imernal aecoramodation—the program and the way cis mate- rialized—and a concera for articulation of ideal themes in form—for example, as manifested in the configurational significance of the plan. These concerns were ‘understood as two poles ofa single, continuous experience. Within pre-industrial, ‘humanist practice, a balance between them could be maintained because both type and function were invested with idealist views of man’s relationship to his object ‘world. ina comparison fist suggested by Colin Rowe, ofa French Parisian hid and an English country house, both buildings from the early nineteenth century, one sees this opposition manifested in the interplay between a concern for expression ‘of an ideal type and a concern for programmatic statement, ahough the concerns in each ease are differently weighted. The French hd displays rooms ofan elaborate sequence and a spatial varievy born of internal necessity, masked by a rigorous, ‘well-proportioned external fagade. The English country house has a formal faternal arrangement of rooms which gives way to a picturesque external massing of ele- rents. The former bows to progrant oi the interior and type on the fagade; the latter reverses these considerations ‘With the rise of industialization, this balance seems to have been fundamentally disrupted. In that it had of necessity to come to terms with ‘problems of a more complex functional nature, particularly with respect to the ac- commodation of a mass client, architecture became increasingly a social or pro- {grammati at. And as the functions became more complex, the ability to manifest the pure type-form eroded. One has only to compare William Ken's competitionered the entry for the Houses of Parliament, where the form of a Palladian Villa does not variably sustain the intricate program, with Charles Barry's solution where the type-form inger an, 4 defers to program and where one sees an early example of what was to become anifesta- known as the promenade achteturle. Thus, in the nineteenth century, and continuing £1973, fon into the ¢wentleth, as the program grew in complexity, the type-form became 2 1975. dimninished asa realizable concern, and the balance thought to be fundamental to all, smoded theory was weakened, (Pechaps only Le Corbusier in xecen history has successfully exurn 0 combined an ideal grid with the architectural promenade as an embodiment of the tecture original interaction.) « furure ‘This shift in balance has produced a situation whereby, forthe charac. past fifty yeas, architects have understood design asthe produc of some oversim- plied form-follows-function formula. Thié situation even persisted during the acer of years immediately following World War I, when one might have expected it would 1 bath of be radically alrered, And as late asthe end ofthe 1960s, st was still thought thatthe polemics and theories of the early Modern Movement could sustain architecture. ype). In q ‘The major thesis of this atitude was articulated in what could be called the Eng je maifieant Revisionist Functionalism of Reyner Banham, Cedric rice, and Archigram. This sneo-functionalist attitude, with is idealization of technology, was invested with the can be same ethical positivism and aesthetic neutrality ofthe prewar polemic, However, tion be- the continued substittion of mora criteria for those of a more formal nature pro- ismace- Guced a situation which now can be seen to have created a functionalist predic. sample, ament, precisely because the primary theoretical justification given to formal ss were arrangements was 2 mol imperative that is no longer operative within contempo- dustrial, rary experience. This sense of displaced positivism characterizes certain current “oth ype perceptions of the falure of humanism within a broader cultural contet 1s object ‘There fs also another, more complex, aspect to this predica- hic and ; ‘nent, Not only can fianctonalism indeed be recognized a species of positivism, wyone | but like positivism, it now can be sen to issue from within the terms of an idealist pression view of reality, For functionalsm, no matter what is pretense, continued the idel- concerns ist ambition of creating architecture asa kind of ethically constituted form-giving borate But because it clothed this idealist ambition in the radially stripped forms of tech- ‘gorous, nological production, it has seemed to representa break with the pre-industrial internal past. Bu, In fic, functionals i really no more chan a ate phase of humanism, gof de- rather than an alterative tot, And in tis sense, it cannot continue to be taken as ade; the 2 direct manifestation ofthat which has been called “the modernist sensibility” ‘Both the Trisnale and the "Beaux Arts” exhibitions suggest, 310 bave Ihoweves, tha the problem is thought to be somewhere else—not so much with rms with fanecionalism pes as with the natare ofthis so-called modemissersibiliy, lence, othe ae: che implied revival of neo-dassicism and Beaux Arts academicism as replacements Lor Bo: fora continuing, if poorly understood, modernism, tis ue dat sometime in the manifest nineteenth century chere was indeed a crucial sift within Western consciousness: petition ‘ ‘one which can be characterized as a shift ftom humanism to modernism. But, forthe most part, architecture, in ts dogged adherence tothe principles of famction, did znot participate in or understand the fmdamental aspects that change. Its the poten tial diference in the nature of modernist and humanist theory that seems to have gone unnoticed by those people who today speak of eclecticism, post-modernism, for neo-functionalism. And they have falled to notice it precisely because they con- ceive of modernism as merely 2 stylistic manifestation of functionalism, and fimc~ tdonalism itself asa basic theoretical proposition in architecture, In fact, the idea of ‘modernism has driven a wedge inco these attitudes. It has revealed thatthe dialectic form and function is culturally based. 1n brief, the modernist sensibility has to do with a changed ‘mental attitude toward the artfacs of the physical world. This change has not only been manifested aesthetically, but also socially, philosophically, and technologi- cally—in sum, it has been manifested in a new cultural atitude. This sift away from the dominant atitudes of humanism, that were pervasive in Westcrn societies for some four hundred years, took place at various times in the nineteenth century in such disparate disciplines as mathematics, musi, painting, literature, lm, and pho- tography, It is displayed in the non-objective abstract painting of Malevich and Mon drian; in dhe non-narraive, temporal writing of Joyce and Apollnaire; the atonal and potytonal compositions of Schénberg and Webern; in the non-narratve films of Richter and Fageling ‘Abstraction, atonality, and atemporality, however, are merely stylistic manifestaions of modernism, not its essential nature. Although this is not the place to elaborate a theory of modernism, or indeed to represent those aspects of such a theory which have already found their way into the iterasure of the other Ihumanist disciplines, it can simply be said thas the symptoms to which one has just pointed suggest a displacement of man away from the center of his world, He is no longer viewed as an originating opat. Objects are seen as ideas independent of man. In this context, man isa discursive function among complex and already-formed sys- tems of language, which he witnesses but does not constitute, As Lévi-Strauss has said, “Language, an unrefiecting totlization, is human reason which has its reason and of which man knows nothing” Icis this condition of displacement which gives rise to design in which authorship can no longer either account for a linear develop- ‘ment which has a “beginning” and an “end!”——hence the rse of the stermporal—or account for the invention of form—hence the abstract as @ mediation between pre- existent sign systems “Modernism, asa sensibility based on the fundamental displace- ‘ment of man, represents what Michel Foucault would specify as anew fpiime. Deriv- {ng fiom a non-hmanistc atrude toward the relationship of an individval to his ‘physical environment, it breaks with the historical past, both with the ways of view= Ing man as subject and, as we have said, with the ethic! positivism of form and function, Thus, it carmot be related to functionalism. It is probably for this reason, ‘that modernism has not up to now been elaborated in architecture : ‘But there is clearly a present need fora theoretical investigation of the basic implications of modernism (as opposed to modem style) in architecture. In his editorial “Neo-Punctionalism,” in Oppasons 5, Merio Gandelsonas acknow!- ‘edges such a need. However, he says merely thatthe "complex contradictions” inher ‘ent in fanctionalism—such 2s neo-reaism and neo-rationalism—make a form of neo-functionalism necessary to any new theoretical dialectic. This proposition continues to refuse to recognize thatthe form/function opposition is not necessarily inherent to any archivectural theory and so fils to recognize the crucial difer- fence between modernism and humanism. In contrast, what fs being called post fanctioualism begins as an attitude which recognizes modernism as a new and distinct sensibility 1s can best be understood in architecture in terms ofa theoreical upe| 1976 | 239 aid base that is concerned with what might be called a modernist dsl, as opposed to fn the old humanist (ie. functionalist) opposition of form and function, rave This new theoretical base changes the humanist balance of sm, form/ function 10 a dialectical relationship within the evolution of form itself The on dialectic can best be described as the potential co-existence within any form of two ame- xnon-corroborating and non-sequental tendencies. One tendency is to presume ar- aof chitzctral form to be a recognizable transformation from some pre-existent geomet- vatie He oF platonic solid. In this case, form is usually understood through a series of registrations designed to recall a more simple geometric condition. This tendency is ged cerainly a relic of humanist theory. However, to this is added a second tendency only that sees architectural form in an atemporal, decompositional mode, as something ogi- simplified from some pre-existent set of non-specific sptial entities. Here, form is com ‘understood as a series of fragments—signs without meaning dependent upon, and > for without reference to, a more basic condition. The former tendency, when taken by yin itself, isa eduetivist atinude and assumes some primary unity as both an ethical and sho- an aesthetic basis forall creation. The latter, by itself, assumes a basic condition of fon- fragmentation and multiplicity from which the resultant form isa state of simplifca- onal tion. Both tendencies, however, when taken together, constitute the essence of this sof new, modern dialectic. They begin to define the inherent nature of the object in and of itself and its capacity to be represented, They begin to suggest that the theoretical ely assumptions of funcsionalism are in fic cultural rather than universal not Post-functionalism, thus, i term of absence. In its negation of sof fanctionalism i suggests certain positive theoretical alternatives —existing fragments ver of thought which, when examined, might serve as a framework forthe development just of a larger theoretical sructure—but it does not, in and of itself, propose to supply a label for such a new consciousness in architecture which T believe is potentially ‘upon us.