Edited by Grou Serra
Interview prepared with Agata Siemionow as part of the Illinois Institute of Technology Dean's Lecture Series. Photography Credits: Illinois Institute of Technology
Grou Serra How relevant do you think a project can be without being practiced?
Peter Eisenman Manfredo Tafuri said to me that "Peter, if you don't build, nobody will care what you think." Okay? And I think that's true. But conversely, if you don't think, nobody will care what you build. And I think that's really important to understand that. I'm so excited because we're doing, right now, we just turned in the construction documents of a 45,000 square meter museum in Istanbul. And I say to myself, hey, I'm really lucky. I'm 85 years old, right? I'm doing a big museum. I just published two more books on teaching, you know, what the hell, I'm doing what an architect should do. And it seems to me that you have to have both. In other words, to stop practicing and just concentrate on project would be a mistake. But I never worry about that because most people in this world are just practicing without a project. So my comment would be, worry about project more than worry about practice, right? It's all, it's easier to go into practice than it is to have a project, I think. So anyway, that would be my answer.
Grou Serra You frame project and practice as two different attitudes toward the world, arguing that “project defines the world and practice is defined by the world.” Yet when a practice becomes powerful enough, it defines the world. Can you comment on that?
Peter Eisenman I believe that there are two ways for power in architecture. One is through design, and the other is through intellection. That is, thinking. And when I got out of school, in the 50s in the United States, I thought that power was in design, for sure. And my models were Corbu, and Mies, et cetera. So what did I do? I went to work for Gropius. Because I thought, well Gropius is a, you know, designer. Turns out he was a hustler. He wasn't a designer. And after six months of working for Gropius, I said, I don't want to do this. And I met Jim Sterling. And Jim looked at my work and he said, "You know, Peter, you really are a very good designer, but you don't know anything about architecture." Okay? Which was true, I was innocent. And he said, you go and be with Colin Rowe, and you will learn about architecture. And being with Colin Rowe for three years. I learned another power, a power other than - doesn't mean you can't design, but knowledge of the discipline. And the way these guys, you know, Jim was a student of Colin, I was a student of Colin, and to me learning about what makes power is other than design. And I'm convinced now that you know from talking just today, all those kids downstairs could design well, but they can't think, they don't know. And if there's anything that this school should be able to give them is the capacity to think in design. And so to me, practice can only become powerful if you can think. And if you have knowledge of this, the discipline, and it's not taking a history course with a history teacher, you know, it's learning in the studio. It's being in the studio, and part of the studio is teaching project. And that means not just design but teaching the power of ideas. That is in the library. And this is how you teach project. You've got to have an integration of project through reading, thinking, etcetera. In the studio. That's the only way. You can't just have a history theory sequence and a design sequence. You got to have it together. And that's so great to have this library here. To me, so for me how you would have practice powerful enough would be through integrating theory, history in the studio.
Grou Serra Let me intervene here.
Peter Eisenman You can intervene. Hey, Go ahead. I'm happy! Come on. [Laughs]
Grou Serra The question what we wanted to try to say is maybe something else. It's not the question of how we can have a powerful practice. It's because the way you define having a practice in the project, you say that having a project is power in itself. Well, and it's defining the world.
Peter Eisenman Yeah, but project is power in itself. It's another kind of power than practice. Okay. Most practices, I mean, especially in this time in the world, are power practices that don't have a project. Okay? They're very few projects. They're no Mies van der Rohe's around there, there no Adolf Loos's around, there are no Hans Hollein's around, there are hardly anybody who has a project. So all I'm saying is, one way to do that is to integrate project and practice in a studio. Because in most schools, and I imagine here as well, they're separate. You don't. I remember when I was taught project I was taught at Cornell by Aldo Giurgola - maybe people don't even know him anymore. But he was an important Italian architect who came to the United States in the first year. He came, he taught in Cornell and I was there at nine o'clock Friday morning, hungover from Thursday night, which was party night. And at nine o'clock in the morning, they put this guy who could hardly speak English, and I didn't care. I mean, you know, because it didn't mean anything in my studio. Studio was everything. And I think until we bring project to the studio as an attitude, we're not going to have power. And to me, that's what I think is missing today. Now maybe I'm not answering the question? But practice doesn't ever become powerful by itself. I don't know any architect who has power but doesn't have a project. Koolhaas, Moneo, Ando, they have a project, and their practice becomes powerful through that project. To me Bjarke Ingels has nothing. He's just a charlatan, you know, he's not powerful at all. So there's a big difference between Bjarke Ingels and Rem Koolhaas, and that difference is important.
Grou Serra But maybe people like Bjarke Ingels, because of the practice they have, they also have some sort of power?
Peter Eisenman That's the trouble with our society. That we no longer have the need for authority. In other words, the reason why Bjarke Ingels is so successful is his clients don't feel the need for authority. And that comes about in the times we're in. Look, bottom-up thinking: what surgeon would go ask his client what way he should operate? What lawyer would ask the client which way to argue a case? What writer would ask the readers to tell him how to write? I mean, it's just - so why should an architect listen to bottom up? Why should we have crowdsourcing? Jesus. I mean, what a terrible idea. So we're in a time where authority is no longer thought to be. And we have it right tonight. Donald Trump - nobody has ever said he does the world's worst buildings, and hires the world worst architects. Okay. He doesn't care about project at all. He just wants to make money. And to me, he's a person not only without morals, without scruples, etcetera. I mean, I know because he hired my firm once to do a schematic for a high-rise building in New York. We signed a contract to pay us $100,000 we took the schematic to him. He said this is shit. I'm not gonna pay you and that's it. He walked away. What was I gonna do? Fight the guy? I mean, he had more lawyers, you know, it would have cost us a million dollars to sue him for $100,000. I wasn't gonna do it. I think that doesn't mean that we were in a good moment in time. And I don't want practice to be powerful. I want project to be powerful. And that's the way the history - don't forget all of the guys who were radical thinkers, like Bramante, and Brunelleschi, and Borromini, all of these guys were radicals. They were not powerful because of their practice. They were powerful because of their ideas. You think anybody would care about Venturi's practice, if we hadn't written Complexity and Contradiction? No! You think anybody would care about Palladio's awful villas, if he hadn't written the Quatro Libri? No! I've always said books last longer than buildings. Rem understood that really clearly, by the way, and Greg Lynn understands that, Rafael Moneo understands that. Oswald Mathias Ungers understands that. They all have a project. So, I don't mean to be disagreeing with you. But I'm saying is, I don't want practice to become powerful. I think Gropius had a powerful practice, but he didn't have a powerful project. And therefore he's going to disappear. When we discuss Mies, and Corbu, and Wright and Louis, Gropius won't exist. Gone.
Evelyn Wong What compromises do you make and what compromises do your clients make when they choose to work with you?
Peter Eisenman Let me try and say it as really clearly as I can. My clients - or clients, period, know the difference between Peter Eisenman and Frank Gehry. Okay? Frank has lots and lots of buildings. Peter Eisenman doesn't. The question is, does Frank Gehry have a project? And does Peter Eisenman have a project? I believe the clients don't want architects with projects. I think that a project is a contradiction to practice. That's why it's so difficult to do both because they stand as opposed. They're oxymoronic, if you want. Frank has a great practice, no project. I have, I think a very good project, no practice, right? That's why I'm so excited. I'm doing a 450,000 square foot building today. I thought Holy Jesus, you know? I don't get my projects from clients. I get them from competitions. Every project that I've done, I won in a competition. Because clients won't hire me. The mark of an architect with a project, one of the marks, is the clients don't want them. and I can't go to tell my client why he or she, or the City of Istanbul should be building this project. I don't think they know. Thank God, it looks like we're going to build it. I mean, we just turned in 600 sheets of working drawings. Do you think the client understands? No. Do you think that the builder is going to build it the way we drew it? No. Those are the kinds of compromises when you start fighting with, not only with engineers, with the builders, with the client. Our client hasn't a clue why we've done what we've done. And that's not important. As long as Wiel Arets understands, then I'm okay. Even though he's not going to get me a building, at least he understands I have a project.
Grou Serra Can you define your project?
Peter Eisenman No, that's for you to do. I don't need to define it, I do the project. [Laughs] I don't need to define it because I'm not an historian. I can define Rem's project, maybe or Moneo's project. But I can't define mine. So that's why I can't answer the question.
Grou Serra In your projects you introduce different ideas from the site which you arbitrarily use to generate the figure - for instance in the project in Santiago de Compostela or the more recent one in Istanbul. Can you talk about the notion of arbitrary in your work?
Peter Eisenman I don't like the question. Because you say "You introduced different ideas from the site, which you arbitrarily-" the minute they're from the site, they're no longer arbitrary. So I object to the term arbitrary. I don't know why, if I'm introducing things from the site, that it's arbitrary. Unless you say that the site has no relation to building, then I say, well, we're on a different page. Rafael Moneo always argues that my work is arbitrary in his book, the critique of my work, was that it's arbitrary. I don't think it is arbitrary. And if you go to Santiago, it certainly comes from the site. If you take Istanbul, the whole modulation of Istanbul comes from a modulation that we studied and found in Hagia Sophia. No one in the city administration knows that. But if you look at the gridding of Santiago, and I show you the gridding in Hagia Sophia, it's the same grid, only in an erratic fashion. It's not arbitrary at all. It's a grid that comes from a very important project in Istanbul, the Hagia Sophia. Our particular site, the reason why the building in Istanbul is long is because we started with a site, and we took the walls of the former harbor and use those as the figure to define the building. We brought the old wall back. Now you can say that it may be arbitrary, but I can't think of a better thing to do than to do that. The form that that building takes is the former wall of the harbor wall. And since we're doing ships that were found in the harbor for the project of the museum, I would have thought the ships which is the archaeological museum, and the wall being the form of the museum wasn't arbitrary at all. So, I reject the notion. There's nothing arbitrary in my work, and there's nothing arbitrary particularly in Santiago, or in Istanbul, so I stand categorically opposed to that question. Now, if you can show me why Istanbul, which you have never seen probably, is arbitrary, I would like to know.
Grou Serra In one of the panel discussion you had with Scott Cohen, you talk about arbitrary and you talked about how the grids are superimposed in Santiago. At some point you said so yourself, it is arbitrary.
Peter Eisenman Why is this table the shape in this room? Is it arbitrary? I don't think so. If it were a square table, would it be as effective in this room? I don't know. So I think the arbitrary plays a role in everything we do. There's no extreme logic, necessarily. Why don't you ask those questions of other architects? Speaking of arbitrary I'd say to Rem, why is the CCTV that shape? Right? I know why it's that shape, because I did a building that shape in Berlin. But I know why I did the building, it was against phallogocentric architecture. Phallogocentrism is a feminist idea from the 80's and 90's. That was a very strong feminist idea. We were saying that we now have women architects, they shouldn't be building phallic symbols. They should be building other kinds of vertical buildings. And so we made a project for a Mobius strip which can never be interpreted as a phallus because it's always twisted on itself. And so we did the first Mobius building in Berlin. And Rem CCTV tower has nothing to do with that. It's just a rip off as it were, of the Mobius we did in Berlin. He built his, my client died, and we didn't go ahead. But to me, I'm still wondering about what is the shape of the tower? And I think that's a really important question today. And I don't think that the project in Istanbul, or the project in Berlin, or any of the projects, I mean the Berlin holocaust project we did was not an arbitrary project. It was absolutely thought out and in a way related to the site. I cannot comment about the notion of the arbitrary in my work. I don't think compared to everybody else it ain't arbitrary. But that's to be debated.
Grou Serra You talk about the idea of lateness, as a critical moment in time and a late moment in your practice. Are you trying to evaluate your project in relation to the conditions of the present zeitgeist?
Peter Eisenman Here's what I believe. Beethoven, when he was a few years away from his death, wrote the Missa Solemnis. I don't know if you know Missa Solemnis, but if you know his concertos or his work at all - the symphonies, concertos, if you look at Missa Solemnis, it is a very differentiated kind of cording, thinking about music. It's a different take on music. I would argue that was his late moment. That is, throwing over the things that he had previously in his work, which led to the nine symphonies, and did this project. Had he lived beyond the Missa Solemnis, he would have done something different. I believe, again, through exigencies. I mean, hey guys, I'm 84. Right? I'm already playing with house money. People are not supposed to live to 84, they live to 76, 77. I'm already in, I'm already playing against time. So, what am I supposed to do? [Laughs] I'm in late style, whether I like it or not. I read Edward Said's book on the late style, I read Theodore Adorno's book on late style. I've looked at late style. I'm trying to find out what is my late style being. Because you can't just keep doing things until you die. You've got to put a capstone on your existence. You know, we all grow and change. And when you're 25, you're not thinking about late style or lateness. When you're 50 you're not thinking about it. I don't think I'm at 84 but I am. And I have to keep up with people like yourselves, young people with energy and ideas who say, hey, what is this business of late style? If you want to know about late style, go and read Adorno and go and read Said, they're much more beautifully articulate. Because that's what they do. They're philosophers. I ain't a philosopher, I'm supposed to be an architect. So late style is an interesting idea, and lateness especially is an interesting idea. The second part of the question, "...in relation to conditions of the present zeitgeist-" I'm really out of touch with the present conditions of the zeitgeist, that's for sure. I'm really out of touch with what I call the millennial project. And I'm not interested in crowdsourcing, I'm not interested in object-oriented ontology. I don't know if that's reached here yet? have you got OOO here? It's not my game. We're having a big OOO conference at Yale because we're up to the moment. I'm really interested in OOO, I'm not interested in crowdsourcing. I'm not interested in sustainability. I'm not interested in a lot of things that are in the air today. So what are you interested in? Well, since there's nothing I can teach of the present, I did an Palladio book, which is really interesting. I'm working on an Alberti book, which is going to be really interesting. I teach where Alberti, I just did a lecture on Alberti and I learn, every time I give the lecture, something new. I just assigned a new article by Rudolf Wittkower. Everybody should know who Rudolf Wittkower is. Wrote an article on Alberti in 1938 - fantastic article on Alberti. A different view of Alberti. I can't teach Jeanne Gang, because I wouldn't know how to do that. [Laughs] I can't teach Zaha, I loved Zaha. She was a great person, but I can't teach her architecture. How would I teach it? So I teach Alberti, and I teach Bramante. For example, I take my students to Vigevano. Now, I would argue that maybe out of the 600 students here, maybe five have been to Vigevano. To me, it's the best square in all the world. And it was done by Bramante. And - you should know this, Lobkowitz. The Polish Cardinal. [sic. Spanish, descendant of a Czech noble family.] Do you know Lobkowitz? he was in Polish geometer who did the church in Vigevano. What's great about the church in Vigevano, it has a facade of four openings, not three openings, and through the fourth opening come the cars and the people. So the fourth opening is the secular people, and the other three are the religious. And it's an amazing facade and Lobkowitz, Massimo Scolari wrote a book on strange geometry and Lobkowitz, which was one of the earliest Polish Cardinals, by the way, practicing architect. So you should know, Agata, this guy. You got to know him. He's a really interesting guy. Anyway. To me, I can't talk about today because I'm still learning about yesterday.
Evelyn Wong And can you talk about tomorrow?
Peter Eisenman How can I talk about it, tomorrow I'm dead! [Laughs] I can't worry about tomorrow. Jesus Christ. You know, I get up every morning I look in the mirror when I shave, like this morning, and I say, thank god I've got my whole life in front of me! Which is true. [Laughs] And I make use of it all the time. I'm the Energizer Bunny X. You know, I'm going all the time. I teach, I write, I build. And I have a family, I take care of my family. If you could teach, write, and build and have a family, I would say that's living. Anyway, I don't care about the future. Clearly. Back to the issue of compromise. For sure, any clients who chooses to work with me makes compromises. Doing things that the clients want, are compromises, for sure. Like we changed something in the East facade of our museum last week. And the client said, "look, Peter, you got 600 drawings. The change you made on East facade is going to change a hundred drawings. We want to go out to bid tomorrow, right? You want to go out to bid or you still want to change the drawings-?" And that's my problem. I still want to [mimics tinkering], and clients want to build things. And they got to spend the money before the end of the fiscal year 2016. So they got to go out to bid in October, because they have a two-month bidding period, etcetera. So they said "Peter, stop. We know it's not finished. It is never going to be finished. Let's stop." They told me that this morning. And I said, okay. So there's a compromise. The east facade ain't gonna be the way I wanted it. But do I want to build the building, or get the east facade right? And in my stage of life, I want to build it. I certainly want to build it. I'm not interested in the 600 sheets of working drawings going into an archive. And what's so interesting about this client, I say, what's the budget? Right? And I don't know what the budget is! You know, there's this thing of value engineering we have in this country. Today, everybody has to value engineer what they do, to make sure the client's getting the most of his money. This client has never said there's a budget, you just draw what you want. So we just drew 600 pages of drawings. Anyway, there are compromises, I promise. I don't know what they are right now, but they're coming.
Grou Serra You spoke of an epistemic paradigm shift in the next twenty years that will clear out space for the development of a new meta-project. What do you believe will drive that shift?
Peter Eisenman I believe there is an epistemic paradigm shift. And there will be a new meta-project, but I don't know what it is. And I don't know what will drive the shift. I know it's not global warming. That's never gonna drive anything. It will happen, but then we'll deal with it. But that's not going to be an architectural shift. It won't be sustainability, either. I think what, to be honest, what will make the shift is I don't think democratic capital, as a project, works any longer. Because it cannot afford security, it cannot afford healthcare, it cannot afford to sustain infrastructure. So capital as a system of politics and economics, I think is on its way out. I mean, look, the federal government is getting bigger. So they say we want to cut the federal budget. So, in a state, for example, the Governor of Wisconsin says, I can't afford anything, give it to the towns. The towns, like Flint, Michigan don't have money to purify the water. So, where are we? So people are being poisoned in the infrastructural system. That is going to change. How it's going to change? What worries me is, that we could be in for authoritarian politics and economics. That would be a problem. But that's also possible. And don't forget, that the major built accomplishments of the modern movement occurred in fascism, communism, and nazism. In other words, repressive, authoritarian regimes. So it could happen again. I mean, I don't know how to stop the war in Syria. I think there's a moral problem that the US has, because who do you think is giving them all the guns, tanks, airplanes? The US. That sustains our economy. So we are morally corrupt. There's a moral corruption in the situation. By the way, the Shia - Sunni problem is a big problem, right? The fundamentalist Muslims I mean... I think ultimately, there's going to be a clash between the Christian world and the Muslim world. There will be. And the Chinese will watch everybody go under. I mean, when you get the Italian soccer team of Milan and Inter belonging to Chinese nationals. How's that possible? How can they give away the patrimony of their country? The symbolic patrimony? And Americans own Roma, crazy. Anyway, I can't tell you any more than that. I think that we will see a big difference in the future of the socio political-economic structure. And that will affect architecture in a big way.
Wiel Arets Let us maybe ask a few questions.
Peter Eisenman Sure. Oh, I thought we had questions. I tell you what, go ahead.
Wiel Arets What would be the project, from Peter Eisenman, that people remember and talk about in 400 years?
Peter Eisenman It's a very good question, I would argue, the most unlikely project, which has nothing to do with my project, but has to do with my practice, is the Berlin Memorial. So that's going to exist for 500 years. I can't help that. But it has nothing basically to do with my project. It's a completely outlier. Same way, I think that the Phoenix Stadium is, in terms of the public eye. Everybody knows the Phoenix Stadium, right? And they say, oh, he did it. But to me, this is no architecture at all? It's pure nothing. So the projects that will be remembered by the public, like the Berlin Memorial, the Phoenix Stadium, I don't consider. So I'm going to put those out. For me, the most important projects other than the public projects, Santiago is one. I would say Cincinnati is two. And I would say either Wexner or one of the houses is three.
Wiel Arets Which house?
Peter Eisenman Two.
Wiel Arets Why two, Peter?
Peter Eisenman You can't ask me why two, why not two! [Laughs]
Wiel Arets But why do you think, out of ten, two is the one?
Peter Eisenman Because more theoretical things were attempted in two than any of the other houses I believe. The CCA has over three thousands of my drawings about developing this house. I just had a very sad moment, because some people in Vermont wanted to buy the house to save it and they said we need to raise $800,000. And I said, look, guys, you're not going to raise $800,000 to save this damn house. Would I like it? Yes. Would that be a nice thing? Yes. But nobody's going to do that. Forget it. So I was rather sad about that. Because the owner wants to sell the thing and, you know, do whatever they're going to do. But I think house two was dealing more with the dialogue between column and wall which is an Albertian project. Alberti says that the column is not structural, but is the residue of the wall. And the column is ornamental. And so in this project, the whole idea of the columns are not structural. The walls are structural. And so when the columns are ornamental, in no other of my projects is that the case. So the theoretical message is very much tied to the Albertian project as a precedent more than any other project that I did. So for me that's important, that kind of didactic nature of that house. I can tell you this, I did it for an American nihilist communist. He was in Hanoi, during the Vietnam War when I was doing his house. So you have to understand this. He said he hired me because he wanted me to do a Chomsky project that is on signification. Which was part of the idea. He comes back from Hanoi, he and his wife go up to see the house. And she says "Oh my god I thought we were getting a Heidi house". Now you have to know what Heidi is, I had no idea. And so they lived in the basement, they wouldn't occupy the house. They built a kitchen and a bathroom in the basement and just lived in the basement as a protest against the house. Which is great. And you know, the House was a protest against middle class values and whatever, bourgeois values. And of course, what one has to understand, Jeff Kipnis has just written a book, a beautiful essay on my work. About the conflict of Peter Eisenman - the bourgeois, a typical bourgeois American kid, running into the power of philosophic discourse. And fighting against myself. In other words, and falling back into bourgeois values, the struggle inside me against my own value system. And so it's a beautiful essay because it's absolutely true.
Vedran Mimica Peter, some years ago you talked about globalization with Jacques Derrida, and how you seek an idealistic philosophy. And then you said, "I cannot be an idealist" [Laughs]
Peter Eisenman Let me tell you the real problem. Rosalind Krauss wrote an essay called "The Death of a Hermeneutic Phantom". And what she said is that that modernist sculpture and painting is really more radical than modernist architecture. Why? Because modernist architecture had the problematic of idealizing structure, new materials, new ideas about social things. And this idealization, which is ultimately a Kantian project of the late 18th century and early 19th century architects. All of the architects that we admire, all had this idealist streak, unacknowledged. This is the hermeneutic phantom in architecture. And Rosalind's essay, which is brilliant, it's called Death of a Hermeneutic Phantom, talks about the unspoken idealism in modern architecture as the project of the modern. And it did not have the radicality of painters and sculptors, etcetera. Because it had this project of idealizing new techniques, new structures, new materials, new form. This was the idealization under it. I would argue, in the same way, that what Derrida was doing ultimately, was a moral idealization of philosophy. That is, the deconstruction of ideas. And I would say that Jacques was a moralist ultimately. An idealist. And Peter Eisenman, here I am, right? And of course this is what Jeff's saying, is that ultimately that's you. And you can't help it. And if the students then could understand what that meant, at least make it as an open problematic. That is, the latent idealism in all of what we're taught in school in terms of modern architecture, not painting and sculpture. And that's why I've always been fascinated by working with Michael Heizer, or working with Richard Serra, or working with Jacques Derrida. There's a filmmaker, we worked together, an Austrian filmmaker named Michael Haneke, who is a stunning filmmaker. You know, there's a film he did called Funny Games. And it is the scariest, most frightening film, which has nothing to do with scaring, that I have ever seen. And it's against middle class values, this Michael Haneke film. It's called Funny Games. Even telling you it won't matter, because when we were at a preview with all the film critics, and two thirds of all the film critics walked out, they couldn't take it. Michael Haneke, think about him. He is really some other filmmaker. And he's doing a film now with Michel Houellebecq. I don't know if you know Houellebecq. He's this crazy French guy who did elementary particles. I don't know if you know this book. Won the Prix de Goncourt, one of the great contemporary novelists.
Wiel Arets You didn't mention Giuseppe Terragni in this interview.
Peter Eisenman Go ahead. [Laughs]
Wiel Arets I would like you to say something about that, because you did this very interesting analysis, and book, on him.
Peter Eisenman Look. I was travelling with Colin Rowe.
Wiel Arets When you met Alvin Boyarsky?
Peter Eisenman That was the second trip, yeah. We met Alvin Boyarsky on the second trip. Anyway, I had been given Sartoris' book [Alberto, b. 1901-1998] six months earlier by Colin St. John Wilson. And in "Ordre et climat Méditerranéens" [Encyclopédie de l'architecture nouvelle] was the Terragni building. And I thought, holy shit, look at this. And so I said to Colin we got to go see this. So, we left Bernhard Hoesli [b. 1923-1984], who's another story. He was the dean at ETH and we drive down from Zurich to Como. And we come upon the square at Como. And Colin always used to say, "Peter Eisenman had a revelation when he saw that. He had an apocalyptic moment." It was- I had never seen a building like this. It was, and I still see it as, an amazing thing. When you come upon this white, half-cube in the sunlight. Anyway, so I decided I wanted to write a thesis, partly on this building at the time. And it was really important to me because I learned the power of, I mean- I had never written, I'd never wanted to be a teacher, nothing. I always wanted to be an architect.
Wiel Arets Which year was this?
Peter Eisenman 1961. And so I wrote this dissertation. And it was a period of my life that I, you know, I could never do another book like that. It was a little bit over the top. I mean, hundreds of drawings. I mean, you've seen the book. I think Terragni is a really important, as Rem used to say, you and Terragni are both B-grade architects. You know. B-movie architects. [Laughs] And I said, I love being a B-movie architect Rem! Because I like B-movies. Film Noir is my favorite genre of film. [Laughs] But that was a period of time I don't think about Terragni anymore. I mean, I don't teach it. I never teach it. I don't. You saw the 10 canonical buildings, that came out of a class that I taught where there was Rem, and Libeskind, and Venturi and Moneo, etcetera. But I don't think about Terragni anymore. That was a moment in my life, but I'm not there anymore. And I wouldn't know in today's climate that I'd teach Terragni.
Vedran Mimica You were in Asilo ? [Sant'Elia]
Peter Eisenman Yeah, I was. Yeah. The Asilo is amazing. But it's very different. I have a chair from the Asilo! Yeah, a little kids chair. No, the Asilo is much more complex and much more amazing. As is the Giuliani Frigerio's, which is also really important. As is the Cattaneo Cernobbio. Sure. So, I mean have I taken my students there? Yeah.
Wiel Arets Did you know that we asked Judith Turner to take pictures of the Cesare Cattaneo house, which was published in Wiederhall 6/8.
Peter Eisenman I have it. I have the Wiederhall. I have the whole collection of Wiederhall. I have a crazy collection of stuff! [Laughs]
Wiel Arets I would like to ask you about the journey from Judith Turner to the New York Five. I think it's important that we ask you about the New York Five.
Peter Eisenman Let's not talk about Judith Turner. [Laughs]
Wiel Arets Judith Turner was doing the book on the New York Five.
Peter Eisenman No. She didn't do the original book. The original book were five architects. She did a book on where, I think, I never liked her photography. She was a girlfriend of Michael Graves'. She was a girlfriend of my brother's. She was a girlfriend. Let's put it this way. I never liked her photography. Because she destroyed the buildings in an attempt to make photography. So, her book on the five architects, even though I'm on the cover, I really hate that book. So, the five architects is something else. The problem with the five architects to me, was my inability to be me. So I was always inventing structures that I could appear in. Like the institute, like the Case Group, like the Five Qrchitects, and like P3, the group we had when Ando came. I was always inventing things to be in, and I thought to myself, what am I doing this for? I had an idea and I first went over to George Wittenborn, who published the first edition and I said "George, I have the tapes from a meeting we had at Moma, case seven and eight" which were the basis of the five architects. And he said, okay. And I have the announcement of the book. And the first title was my title "Cardboard Architecture" because that's the title of my essays. and the group said, no, that's not our idea. That's your idea. We can't call this book Cardboard Architecture. And I said, "It's okay with me. What do you want to call it?" They said, "We don't want to call it anything! We're not a group. We don't like each other." You know, we just happen to be doing this building book. So we're just gonna have it Eisenmann, Graves, Haydek, Gwathmey, Meyer. Something like that. I said, Okay. It was Paul Goldberger who wrote this story about the book, and he called it the New York five. We weren't the New York five. We were nothing. And that's how the Five Architects. But we had nothing to do with each other, we're just friends, right? I mean, John was so different than the rest of them. Michael was, Richard was, I was, we were all different. We published 500 copies of that book. The original book. So we weren't interested in publicity. We wanted to make a nice book.
Wiel Arets Which turned out into something else.
Peter Eisenman Which turned out into something else. Yeah. But getting out from under that, for me was always difficult. Getting out from under the ideology of the Five, because that wasn't what I was interested in. So again, that's another part of my own history like Terragni, I want to get out from under Terragni. I want to get out from under the Five. I don't want to be- I want to get out from under the institute.
Wiel Arets What would be the book you want to be remembered by?
Peter Eisenman I haven't written that book. See, that's the thing. I've written a lot of books. But I haven't done my... Well, first of all, look. Complexity and Contradiction was the first book of American theoretical practice. Rem's book, Delirious New York, will be remembered long after any of his buildings. I believe that. It's a really important book. I haven't written the book that I want to be remembered by yet. And I don't know what that is yet. I'm trying to work it out. That's my late project to tell you the truth. Is get doing that book. It's not Palladio. It's not Alberti. It's not the ten canonical buildings. It's not Terragni. It's not the formal basis of modern architecture. I mean, they're all my books. But Corbu said, let me get this, Corbu said, "I want to do a book for every building I build". And he said - I didn't succeed. He did a lot of books. And I could argue I would like to do a book for every building I built, but I haven't been able to do that either. So that's one of my projects to do.
Wiel Arets So when is this book coming out? Does this book have a date?
Peter Eisenman No, you see, I don't know what it's going to say. That's the problem. I'm trying to understand what, honestly, I don't really know how to describe... I think I do something really unique. Whatever it is. When I'm working with the students, or I'm working in the office, I do something that nobody else does. I don't know how to theorize what that is. And I'm trying to get closer to understanding what it is that I do. And nobody that I know, understands what I think that is.