20’S REVIVALISM

THE NEW YORK FIVE

HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE
SEMESTER 6

LECTURE 9
An attempt was made in the second half of the 1960’s to
develop a theoretical and artistic production.
This effort crystallized around the work of the five

INTRODUCTION
architects practising in New York—Peter D.
Eisenman, Michael Graves, Charles Gwathmey, John
Hejduk and Richard Meier under the leadership of
Peter Eisenman.
While two members of this group were to ground
their work in pre-war avant-gardist aesthetic practice,
namely Eisenman and John Hejduk. The remaining three
Michael Graves, Charles Gwathmey and Richard Meier,
assumed the purist period (Purism was the antithesis of
accidental or emotional art, favouring total disintegration
of recognizable content which was evolving from
Cubism) of Le Corbusier as their point of departure.
 Purism was the movement
interested in a kind of utopian
vision of art and the modern
world. Purism was comprised

(1918-1925)
of only two artists: Amédée

PURISM
Ozenfant and Eduardo
Jeanneret (Le Corbusier).
Purist rules would lead the
architect always to refine and
simplify design, dispensing
with ornamentation.
While avant-garde originally
was used to describe only
cutting-edge movements, as

AVANT- GARDE
time has progressed many
movements have retained the
label of avant-garde long after
they have ceased to be novel or
groundbreaking. Dadaism and
modernism, for example, are
both considered examples of
avant-garde art — though both
have been around for nearly a
century. This has led many to
label movements as historically
avant-garde, stressing that in a
contemporary setting they are
no longer avant-garde forms of
expression.
 ANTICIPATING CRITICISMS OF THIS
The most vehement critique of the work of the New York Five
(referred to as the ‘Whites’) came in a group of essays, ‘Five on Five’
(1973).

‘TWENTIES REVIVALISM’
Denying the existence of a ‘school’ and very anxious to nullify the
possibility of Corbusian Modernism as a major tendency in the 1970s,
These five, known as the "Grays", attacked the "Whites" on the
grounds that this pursuit of the pure modernist aesthetic resulted in
unworkable buildings that were indifferent to site, indifferent to
users, and divorced from daily life.
The phenomenon of the New York Five is not to be seen as a school or
movement but as a tendency signaling a deliberate reworking of early
20th-century Modernism in the face of a counter-tendency later defined
as POST-MODERNISM. The work of the members of the New York
Five subsequently developed in different directions.
John Hejduk was primarily an educator, and died in 2000. The
remaining four of the New York Five have produced significantly
divergent work. Graves embraced postmodernism. Eisenman became
the architect most associated with Deconstructivism. Meier's buildings
remain truest to the modernist aesthetic and, true to Corbusian
form.
• John Hejduk, the oldest of the five, is known as a pedagogue
and the visionary composer of drawings, buildings, poetry,
and theoretical writings from the mid-1950s on.
• Charles Gwathmey is known for his prolific practice (a
partnership with Robert Siegel).
• While Gwathmey remained true to modernist style, the
purity of his work is tempered by the evolving capital
realities of corporate and public commissions.
• Meier is similarly prolific, yet known best for a continuous
refinement of the purist voyage on which they initially
embarked.
• Meier's buildings remain truest to the modernist aesthetic
and especially to a neo-Corbusier form.
• Eisenman, the most printed writer of the five was perhaps the
one who best navigated the line between theory and practice.
And along with this navigation came infamy as a critic.
Eisenman is famed for his associations
with Deconstructivism.
HOUSE I (BARENHOLTZ PAVILION)

PETER EISENMAN
HOUSE – II (HOUSE FALK)

PETER EISENMAN
THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

PETER EISENMAN
WEXNER CENTER FOR VISUAL ARTS

PETER EISENMAN
DIAMOND HOUSE

JOHN HEJDUK
 JOHN HEJDUK
BYE HOUSE
JOHN HEJDUK
JOHN HEJDUK
JOHN HEJDUK
DOUGLAS HOUSE

RICHARD MEIER
 RICHARD MEIER
SMITH HOUSE
RICHARD MEIER
RICHARD MEIER
RICHARD MEIER
 RICHARD MEIER
HIGH MUSEUM
RICHARD MEIER
RICHARD MEIER
RICHARD MEIER
 RICHARD MEIER
GETTY CENTER
TRAM & PASSAGES

RICHARD MEIER
RICHARD MEIER
Dramatic stairway silos punctuate the East Building

RICHARD MEIER
 RICHARD MEIER
Auditorium
MICHAEL GRAVE
DE MENIL RESIDENCE

CHARLES GWATHMEY
CHARLES GWATHMEY
CHARLES GWATHMEY
 CHARLES GWATHMEY
HAUDT HOUSE
CHARLES GWATHMEY