FAMOUS

DESIGNER

Lalit Nagle | 21.04.2021

 Meet the Designer

Early Life

Education

Why he started designing?

OVERVIEW When he started ?

What made him Famous?

Famous works

Signature style

Furniture designed
PETER American architect
Considered one of the New York Five, Eisenman
EISENMAN is known for his writing and speaking about
architecture as well as his designs.
 EARLY LIFE
♦Full name : Peter David Eisenman
♦Birthdate : August 11, 1932
♦Birth place : Newark, New Jersey.
♦Background : Peter Eisenman was born to Jewish parents. Originally from New
Jersey, Peter Eisenman (1932) has always had a deeply-rooted cultural
connection with European intellectuals, historians and artists,
including Rowe, Tafuri, Chomsky and Derrida, who influenced his
design concepts.
 EDUCATION
♦As a child, he attended Columbia High School located in Maplewood, New Jersey. He
transferred into 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.
 WHY HE STARTED ?
♦His architectural and urban planning projects, and above all his long career in theory
and education, position him “close to conceptual art” and to deconstructivism, with a
strong experimental component and constant search for dialog between opposites
and disciplines apparently unconnected to conventional architecture.
♦A profound connoisseur of Italian rationalism. He has designed residential and town
planning schemes, innovative private houses and public buildings, always in search of
a dialog between opposites." (Treccani)
 WHEN HE STARTED ?
The link with Italy is particularly long-standing. Eisenman visited the
country for the first time in the summer of 1961, during his time as a
lecturer at Cambridge. He therefore came into contact with the work of
classical architects, such as Scamozzi, Vignola and Palladio, who
subsequently influenced his ideas. The last-mentioned was the subject of
his splendid exhibition at Yale University in 2012.
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.
 WHAT MADE HIM FAMOUS?
♦His early work was primarily theoretical. Eisenman later became known for his
numerous housing designs which caused heated debate (House I in Princeton, 1967-
68, House VI in Cornwall, 1972), due to "often controversial experimentation” which
culminated in the multi-disciplinary complex and international laboratory at the
Wexner Center for the Visual Arts, Ohio State University, Columbus (1983-89).
♦A further stage in his production began in the Eighties when he designed projects
such as the Greater Columbus Convention Center (1989-93), Koizumi Sangyo (1988-
90), Aronoff Center, DAAP - University of Cincinnati College (1996), Nunotani
Building (1990-92), Tokyo, Holocaust Monument in Berlin (1998-2005) and
University of Phoenix Stadium (2006, now State Farm Stadium).
 WHAT MADE HIM FAMOUS?
♦His numerous projects also include "the multi-block development on the
West Side, Manhattan (1999), Spree Dreieck Tower, Berlin (2000), FSM
East River project in New York (2001), new high-speed train station,
Naples (2003),and Sheikh Zayed National Museum in Abu Dhabi
(2007)".
♦Alongside his construction work, Eisenman has continued his academic
career, teaching at prestigious universities such as Cambridge, Princeton,
Harvard and Yale, where he is currently a lecturer.
 FAMOUS WORKS
♦House VI (Frank residence), Cornwall, Connecticut, Design: 1972.
 FAMOUS WORKS
♦Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, 1989
 FAMOUS WORKS
♦Greater Columbus Convention Center, Columbus, Ohio, 1993
 FAMOUS WORKS
♦City of Culture of Galicia, Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain, 1999
 FAMOUS WORKS
♦ Memorial To The Murdered Jews Of Europe, Berlin, 2005
 FAMOUS WORKS
♦University of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale, Arizona, 2006
 SIGNATURE STYLE
♦In an Interview with Peter Eisenman: "I Am Not Convinced That I
Have a Style"
♦But, Eisenman is known for his writing and speaking about architecture
as well as his designs, which have been called high modernist or
deconstructive.
 FURNITURE DESIGNED
♦ In 2008, Formica Corporation, an Ohio-based corporation that produces surfacing materials, asked ten designers
and architects to participate in the design of a collection of products made of their material, Formica. The only
prompt was “design an object that people could sit upon, lie upon, play upon.” One of the architects asked to
contribute a design was Peter Eisenman. His product was Chair #1.
♦ The chair inherently satisfies the “movability” feature of a cubic structure. Additionally the white color and
synthetic material (Formica) seem to bolster its status as a cube.