View
0
Download
0
Category
Preview:
Citation preview
a
The Romantic Tone of Post‐Structuralism in Peter Eisenman’s Architecture
By Ruth Arunin
ABSTRACT
This paper develops a framework for reading Peter Eisenman’s work based on
Emanuel Petit’s Irony in Metaphysic’s Gravity: Iconoclasm and Imagination in Architecture,
1960s1980s, which maintains that the Yale‐affiliated deconstructionist critics including J.
Hillis Miller, Geoffrey Hartman, Harold Bloom, and especially Paul de Man, influence Peter
Eisenman’s Romantic tone of post‐structuralism.1 It is my contention that there are two
underlying influences that contribute to that Romantic tone in Eisenman’s work. First,
Eisenman’s theory, explicitly an amalgam of principles which by definition eliminate
anthropocentric and social considerations from his architecture, is in fact implicitly based
on the idea of a Cartesian self. Second, Eisenman’s alignment with de Man’s epistemology
of deconstruction departs from Derrida by emphasizing a human faculty of reading and
welcoming the Cartesian concept of a self. I further argue that these etiologies act
independently from each other and intensify each other to form the theoretical framework
that functions as the backdrop of Eisenman’s deconstructivist architecture. Seen from this
perspective, Eisenman’s deconstruction bypasses the philosophical fundamental of
Derridean post‐structuralism. This bypass is what is responsible for what Petit calls “the
American and Romantic version of post‐structuralist thought” in Eisenman’s works.
Since Eisenman internalized many interdisciplinary principles in his design
approach, each interpretation regarding it reveals the relationship between architecture
and other disciplines in his time. With this argument, I wish to contribute to the
architectural discourse another interpretation of Eisenman’s work in hope that it will give
us a better understanding of how the concepts of deconstruction from philosophy and
literary criticism entered architecture.
1 Petit, Emmanuel. Irony in Metaphysic’s Gravity: Iconoclasm and Imagination in Architecture, 1960s1980s. (Diss. Princeton University, Princeton, 2006) ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. Web. 16 October 2010, 327.
b
INTRODUCTION
Since Peter Eisenman’s agenda in architectural discourse springs from questions
regarding the metaphysics of architecture—the fundamental nature of architecture—it is
not surprising that his work has generated considerable scholarly interest. A study of the
metaphysics of architecture is needed for any deep understanding of his work. And in
return, an interpretation of his work generates a deeper understanding of the metaphysics
of architecture. There are certainly many alternative entry points into this scholarly
intersection between the interpretation of his specific architectural works and a theory of
architectural metaphysics. The present study is inspired by suggestions made by Emanuel
Petit in his doctoral dissertation Irony in Metaphysic’s Gravity: Iconoclasm and Imagination
in Architecture, 1960s1980’s (Princeton University, 2006.) Petit categorizes Eisenman’s
works as ‘irony’ because the works define themselves “as a distance from the literal and
make this distance thematic.”2 Based on Petit’s definition of irony, in creating an ironic
object, we use multiple modes of interpretation. Beside the literal mode of reading,
another mode must be given in opposition to define the distance between them.
Accordingly, Eisenman’s works, like other ironic works, are constituted by multiple modes
of readings: literal and non‐literal.
In his argument, Petit claims that many concepts from outside architecture influence
Eisenman’s irony, including: formalism in literary criticism, post‐structuralism in
philosophy, and Chomsky’s so‐called standard theory of deep and surface structures in
linguistics. Additionally, he maintains that Eisenman’s works can be characterized by a
Romantic tone of post‐structuralism—by which he means a shared interest with the Yale‐
affiliated deconstructionist critics who assert that a non‐coincidence of language and
meaning (irony) prevents art from becoming a positive truth. Noting a common origin in a
Romanticist belief that human emotions are the source of aesthetics, he sees architectural
objects emphasizing human elements and human types of cognition that transcend
intellect. I argue that the etiology of the tone of Romanticism in Eisenman’s works is
2 Petit. Irony in Metaphysic’s Gravity: Iconoclasm and Imagination in Architecture, 1960s1980s., 4.
c
directly engendered by two of major influences: formalist criticism and Chomsky’s
linguistics. These concepts encompass philosophical attitudes—often associated with
Emanuel Kant and Rene Descartes—that elevate human intuition over intellect.
Furthermore, I claim that although Eisenman’s House X is intended to demonstrate
Derrida’s post‐structuralism’s opposition to the idea of a self as the sovereignty of
individual, its design is executed according to the deconstructivist notion that an object is
intended to be read by individuals—even if they cannot arrive at its final signified. Thus,
even as a model of Derrida’s post‐structuralism, House X cannot ignore or depreciate the
human element in readings. I, additionally, maintain that Eisenman’s architectural objects
in order to be read by a human, must be systems of referentiality in which the semantic
aspect—though aiming away from referencing what Eisenman considers to be outside of
architecture—always points to the conventional areas of literary formalism: autonomy of
the self, deeper reality, and fiction. I also hold that de Man’s deconstruction, deviating from
Derridean post‐structuralism, provides the tools for Eisenman to formulate a design
methodology that intensifies the Romantic tone. Finally, I contend that, as these concepts
are the primary aim of Eisenman’s architecture, they are evidence of the prerequisite of
subjectivity in his works, just as they are evidence of subjectivity in all versions of literary
formalism. These positions lead this research to investigate how the three concepts—
formalism, Chomsky’s deep and surface structures, and post‐structuralism—in Eisenman’s
works, which are acknowledged by Petit, stain his works with subjectivity and its particular
mode of cognition, thus a Romantic tone.
The first influence, literary formalism, supports Eisenman’s multiple reading by
providing him the notion of autonomous objects. This is due to the fact that all literary
formalists share one position: they believe that literary texts are autonomous or
independent of normative reality. This dichotomy between normative and non‐normative
interpretations of reality creates the duality of form and content in literary texts. It follows
that the ironic duality of literal and non‐literal is analogous to the formalist duality of form
and content. This is the moment when Kant’s notion of intuitive reading, which elevates
intuition over intellect, penetrates Eisenman’s works, as it is pervasive in literary
formalism.
d
Second, Chomsky’s deep and surface structures are analogous to Eisenman’s notion
of conception and perception, where the former is a universally recognizable basis for a
culturally learned form. For Eisenman’s irony, the literal, which is the major problem of
contemporary architecture, is a stable version of the metaphysics manifested in the
modern architecture. On Eisenman’s position, a problem arises because the stability of
architectural metaphysics hinders the proliferation of architectural forms. Chomsky’s
duality of deep and surface structures, at this point, fits with Eisenman’s inclination to
ironically distant a formal reading from any stable reading of modern architecture, for it
substantiates the notion that architectural form has perceptual and conceptual attributes
that are linguistically intelligible. Similar to formalism, Chomsky’s structures are based on
the Cartesian tenet that the creative aspect of language use depend on distinct human
faculties that are free from exterior stimuli. As a result, in Chomsky’s theory, human
language is superior to other cognitive processes inherent in other thinking mechanisms
insofar as this type of cognition surpasses intellect. Eisenman’s notion of formal universals,
translated from Chomsky’s theory, is constituted on the same basis. Both present a picture
of human appreciation—of linguistic or of architectural expression—based on an ideal
universal embedded in a cognitive form in the human mind that is superior to other human
intellectual mechanisms.
In his later works, Eisenman’s theory is influenced by two versions of
deconstruction that follow from Derridean post‐structuralism: Derrida’s and de Man’s
deconstructions. In Derridean post‐structuralism, objecthood and selfhood equally result
from linguistics, so alignment with any concept originated from it should prevent
Eisenman’s works from acknowledging the role of human emotions and intuition.
Nevertheless, Derridean post‐structuralism is only an ontological concept and not a
framework for creating objects. The only way to use it to create an object is to use its
interrogative device called deconstruction. Spectators encounter Eisenman’s
deconstructivist works in two versions. First, in House X, Eisenman presents a model of a
Derridean linguistic model, derived from post‐structuralism. Insofar as it is a model of a
model, House X can be seen as a representative of something else, and thus expresses a
system of referentiality. In this way it is designed to signify deeper reality. Second, in his
e
series of projects, Artificial Excavation, Eisenman shifts his interest to de Man’s version of
deconstruction which deviates from Derrida’s. While Derrida deconstructs texts to arrive
at an understanding of how linguistics constitutes beings, de Man’s version of
deconstruction is focused on the literary domain. His position results from the fact that he
stands on the shoulders of the New Critics whose argument is that multiple meanings
within literary texts are reconcilable. De Man’s agenda is a particular attack on this New
Critical notion. In fact, it is evident that de Man’s deconstruction explains how
communicative intents and communicative errors stand at odds with each other in literary
texts. This fact shows that, for de Man, it is only through intents and errors that one can
understand the full meaning of literary texts. Since both intents and errors are properties
of human minds, de Man’s deconstruction promotes a humanism that also promotes the
Romanticism proposed by Petit.
What aligns Eisenman’s attitude with these concepts is his view that contemporary
architecture aspires to simulate ideas outside of itself. He consequently coins the term
“dissimulation” to designate a principle,3 which cuts architecture off from those ideas.
Although the principle of dissimulation governs all of Eisenman’s works, it is manifested in
different forms over time. I categorize Eisenman’s works into three different chronological
manifestations of dissimulation: early works and Houses I‐VI (1967‐1975), whose forms
reference autonomy of the self; House X (1975) which references a deeper reality; and
Artificial Excavation, (1977‐1988) which references fiction.
In my discussion of the early works before House I, I analyze Eisenman’s view of the
contemporary architecture, which leads him to prioritize forms in architectural design. I
argue that Eisenman’s generic and specific forms are analogous to Chomsky’s deep and
surface structures. Chomsky’s deep and surface structures are theorized to explain how
the human language is interpreted by humans. Eisenman theorizes how architectural form
is to be interpreted by resorting to an analogous system of referentiality. Eisenman’s
3 Eisenman, Peter. “The End of the Classical,” In Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture. Ed. Kate Nesbitt (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996) 219.
f
argument in his essay, Notes on Conceptual Architecture: Toward a Definition4 affirms his
handling of architectural form as a sign—to be interpreted by man. As a result, when his
process called dissimulation works, especially by purging exterior semantic elements from
his early houses, the forms, possessing the universal grammar, can be humanly read
without any support of preconceived meaning. In this early work, dissimulation is an
exclusion of any reference to anything beyond the present work.
In my study of Houses I to VI, I use Michael Hays’s discussion of what he calls
defamiliarization in Eisenman’s works to arrive at the claim that he imports via a school of
formalism, a Kantian belief that the world can only be understood through the combination
of intuition and intellect, where the former is considered a higher cognitive form. The
notion of a combined form of cognition is supported by the notion that art objects, since
they do not have practical purposes, cannot be rationalized by the faculty of intellect, and
thus they are autonomous and not understood in terms of normative reality. I argue that a
Kantian picture of dual cognitive forms is applied to the duality of syntactic and semantic
forms in Eisenman’s works. Eisenman’s design approach in this phase, as a result, is the
combination of Chomsky’s standard theory of deep and surface structures and the notion
that art objects are autonomous. The result is an architecture that refers to itself. These
houses continue to illustrate an internalized picture of dissimulation,
House X is a deconstructivist architectural object that introduces a second form of
dissimulation according to which the recognition both of external objects and of the self
depends on language. In this part, I examine the possibility of a translation of Derridean
deconstruction into architecture. Mark Wigley in “The Architecture of Deconstruction:
Derrida’s Haunt” shows us a possible way to achieve that translation. In the translation of
deconstruction into House X, I propose that Eisenman relies on the parallelism between the
relation of signified and signifier and on a relation of architecture and philosophy that
reflects Wigley’s suggestion on how to translate deconstruction to architecture. The
parallelism is, in fact, metaphoric; the house is designed to be read by a reading subject.
This fits Eisenman’s attitude on how architecture is to be perceived and conceived. I, 4 Eisenman, Peter. “Notes on Conceptual Architecture: Toward a Definition,” in Eisenman Inside out (New Haven: Yale University, 2004) 13.
g
additionally, observe how Eisenman eliminates the anthropocentric element from House X
by not allowing its form to be written or read logically by either the author or the reader.
House X refers to a linguistic theory about how meaning cannot be known without a deep
system of referentiality that refers to what Eisenman calls deeper reality.
A third phase/manifestation of dissimulation is inherent in the Artificial Excavation
projects of the late 1970s to late 1980s, when Eisenman allows external semantics to enter
his works. I claim this approach is a result of Paul de Man’s influence. (Eisenman has
acknowledged to me in a personal exchange of emails that he was reading de Man at this
period, although I have no direct evidence of what part of de Man’s work received his
attention.) In this phase, dissimulation appeals to fictional realities. Eisenman justifies
this approach by resorting to the notion that in literary texts, content equals form. This
notion entails that literary content is not to be judged as true or false; it does not, like a
form, reference the logical world. Based on this description, I claim that this notion is also
influenced by Kant’s theory that elevates intuition over intellect. A version of Kantian
Romanticism is evident in de Man’s two books that, in a departure from Derrida’s views,
acknowledge an author’s intent and a reader’s intent. Therefore language, from de Man’s
position, is something more like the traditional picture of a communicative device.
Eisenman’s Artificial Excavation, influenced by de Man’s deconstruction, has a Romantic
tone because its mode of reading value and content goes beyond logic.
1
REFERENCE TO AUTONOMY OF THE SELF: EISENMAN’S DISSERTATION AND
HOUSES I‐VI
Before House I.
“It is my thesis that architecture is essentially giving form (itself and element) to intent, function, structure, and technics, and in stating this I raise form to a position of primacy in the hierarchy of elements.”5
The above statement, excerpted from Eisenman’s Ph.D. dissertation, The Formal
Basis of Modern Architecture, 1963, is significant evidence of his conception of the major
problem of architecture. As a doctoral candidate at Cambridge University, he argued that
architectural formalism is symptomatically burdened by extraneous considerations.
Twenty‐one years later, he argues that architecture aspires to be something it is not;
something he calls a “paradigm of the classic.”6 Eisenman maintains that these imitations
of classical meanings have been the only motivations of architecture for over five hundred
years, and hitherto have never been changed. This tradition, he suggests, has been
maintained by equipping architecture with three fictions: history, representation, and
reason.7 These fictions, he maintains, are aimed at simulating timelessness,
meaningfulness and truth.8 Since this phenomenon only offers architecture its perceptual
—as opposed to conceptual— aspect that communicates by symbolizing the same agreed‐
upon idea, it limits the proliferation of architectural forms. Eisenman justifies prioritizing
the solving of formal problems by contending that forms that are pure from subjective
judgments—generic forms—are at the top of the hierarchy of architectural elements, for
they are absolute in the sense that they are not dictated by any other architectural element.
Being absolute, forms are the only constant variable for comprehending architecture in
changing contexts. At this early stage Eisenman’s position—generic versus specific
forms—was already allied with Noam Chomsky’s linguistic notion of deep and surface
structures. This, thus, suggests that his future design methodology would have a tendency
5 Eisenman, Peter. “Toward an Understanding of Form in Architecture,” in Eisenman Inside out (New Haven: Yale University, 2004) 5. 6 Eisenman, Peter. “The End of the Classical,” In Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture. Ed. Kate Nesbitt (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996) 212. 7 Eisenman. “The End of the Classical,” 212. 8 Eisenman. “The End of the Classical,” 213.
2
to be based on the notion of Kantian‐Cartesian subjectivity—the constituent of
Romanticism.
Noam Chomsky agrees with Descartes’s observation that the creative aspect of
language use defines human language. Unlike animals’ pseudo languages, human language
depends on distinctive human faculties that are free from external stimuli. This principle,
argues Chomsky, “leads Descartes to attribute possession of mind to other humans, since
Descartes regards this capacity as beyond the limitation of any imaginable mechanism.”9
Based on the notion that the creative aspect of language use substantiates the notion that
humans have a mind, this argument points to an aspect of language that is innate for all
humans. Chomsky further confirms his belief by postulating that language has two internal
structures: deep and surface structures: “The former is the underlying abstract structure
that determines its semantic interpretation; the latter is the superficial organization of
units which determines the phonetic interpretation and which relates to the physical form
of the actual utterance, to its perceived or intended form.”10 What is of relevance here is
that whereas different surface structures of different human languages differentiate them,
their deep structures are indistinguishable. Insofar as deep structure is a structure of
propositions, this cross‐language coherence is directly related to reasons produced by the
mind and undetermined by any grammatical manipulation of different types of linguistic
expressions. In other words, the deep structure is an innate property of creative subjects
that is universal to all types of human language. Deep and surface structures are associated
semantically by means of transformational rules—grammar.
Because a central problem of architecture, for Eisenman, resides in its mode of
expression, theorizing a new mode of architectural language is sensible insofar as this new
mode will offer architecture the capability of expressing a new type of meaning. At this
point, Chomsky’s standard theory of deep and surface structures enables Eisenman to
9 Chomsky, Noam. “Creative Aspect of Language Use,” in Cartesian linguistics: A Chapter in the History of Rationalist Thought. 3rd Edition (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009) 61. 10 Chomsky, Noam. “Deep and Surface Structure,” in Cartesian linguistics: A Chapter in the History of Rationalist Thought. 3rd Edition (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009) 79.
3
assume that his so‐called ‘formal universals,’ analogous to the deep structures 11, are
possible for architectural forms. The possibility of universalizing form is due to the notion
that the deep structure, which is universal to all humans, is a syntactic structure, thus
human’s most basic cognitive mode is syntactic. Since the syntactic aspect of linguistic
units allows them to articulate new linguistic expressions when being juxtaposed based on
different grammatical rules, the syntactic aspect of form must be able to do the same.
Because formal universals, being purely syntactic, can only communicate through an
understanding of their structural relationship or, in other words, they are conceptual, when
Eisenman prioritizes a conceptual architecture,12 we can assume that his solution for the
problem of architecture lies within formal universals.
Eisenman’s argument on the primacy of form in Toward an Understanding of Form in
Architecture makes evident how his architectural epistemology is geared towards
Chomskyan deep structure. Eisenman categorizes architectural forms as specific and
generic while prioritizing the generic over specific form—absolute over relative. The
absolute, he tells us, “is capable of encompassing change and growth while still retaining its
character as an absolute.” The primacy of absolute ends is critical, he argues, because “it
[form] alone can provide us with the basis for hierarchical ordering of the five elements
[concept, function, structure, techniques, and form.]”13 Although a shift in terminologies,
Eisenman’s discussions of formal universals and his discussions of generic forms are very
similar. It follows that the duality of absolute and relative form is analogous to Chomsky’s
duality of deep and surface structures, since Eisenman’s absolute end of form and
Chomsky’s deep structure are universal insofar as they are free from external
environments. Additionally, they govern Eisenman’s relative end and Chomsky’s surface
structure in the sense that they are the fundamental to them. To justify his formalism,
Eisenman’s reliance on paralleling with Chomsky’s notion of deep and surface structures is
11 For Eisenman, Formal universal in architecture is analogous to deep structure insofar as it prioritizes the conceptual mode of reading in which meaning is solely conveyed through an understanding of the structural relationship of form, and not through preconceived meaning inherent to form. 12 Eisenman, Peter. “Notes on Conceptual Architecture: Toward a Definition,” in Eisenman Inside out (New Haven: Yale University, 2004) 24. 13 Eisenman, Peter. “Toward an Understanding of Form in Architecture,” in Eisenman Inside out (New Haven: Yale University, 2004) 5.
4
evident because deep structure substantiates the notion that form alone is legible.
Eisenman’s formalism, like Chomsky’s linguistics, which is based on a Cartesian notion that
humans’ minds have a privilege of a special type of a linguistic device, therefore,
emphasizes on human cognition.
Influenced by Descartes via Chomsky, Eisenman’s architectural design approach,
attempting to reduce the semantic elements in his architectural forms to syntactic
structure, is in fact, for the sake of hermeneutics. Eisenman’s study of hermeneutics leads
him to his view that architecture is of necessity conceptual. To be conceptual, an object
needs to be conceived intellectually rather than perceived sensually, for in the latter
process, its semantics is already agreed upon. (He does qualify this claim: some
architectural objects are not necessarily conceptual inasmuch as they always contain the
“ideas of functional and semantically weighted objects such as walls, bathrooms, closets,
doors, and ceilings.14”) We have noted that Eisenman’s attitude toward the contemporary
architecture includes the criticism that architecture today is problematically designed to
simulate old values. One can say, accordingly, that Eisenman, by analyzing conceptual
architecture, and by resorting to the Chomsky’s deep and surface structures, seeks to
theorize an architecture whose formal structure is interpreted by being conceived of its
intrinsic meaning intellectually. To make architecture conceptual, he suggests, “would
require taking the pragmatic and functional aspects and placing them in a conceptual
matrix” where their reading as a notation in a conceptual context becomes primary.15 The
implication that conceptual architecture needs a reading subject to conceive it implies that
Eisenman’s preferred typology of architecture needs a Cartesian self as a prerequisite.
Eisenman is assumed here to reach the point where he was able to formulate an
architectural design approach that confronts the problems that arise from his opposition of
tradition and autonomy in House I. The way to depict this motivation is to observe his
reversion of the word “simulation” into “dissimulation.” Eisenman explains this so‐called
dissimulation in the following way:
14 Eisenman. “Notes on Conceptual Architecture: Toward a Definition,” 16. 15 Eisenman. “Notes on Conceptual Architecture: Toward a Definition,” 17.
5
Whereas simulation attempts to obliterate the difference between real and imaginary, dissimulation leaves untouched the difference between reality and illusion. The relationship between dissimulation and reality is similar to the signification embodied in the mark: the sign of pretending to be not what one is—that is, a sign which seems not to signify anything beside itself (the sign of a sign, or the negation of what is behind it.)16
When Eisenman talks about simulation, he speaks about the imitation of an element
residing within reality as we understand it. Thus, his dissimulation, one can deduce, is
either a non‐referential act or an act similar to imitating something exterior from reality as
such. It is imperative to note here that Eisenman is insistent that his dissimulation is aimed
at referencing something that yields a different cognitive type from representation of
reality as such. This attitude is well exemplified in his early houses; Eisenman’s
architectural forms in this period are self‐referential because, as a sign, they negate all
semantic considerations other than their internal one—the one, which results from their
syntactical aspect. Architecture, stemming from this concept, he claims, solves the problem
of value by representing itself, internal experience, and its own values.17 Since the
beginning of his career, Eisenman’s use of dissimulation as his underlying principle is
prevalent in all of his designs although its details, thus methodologies, shift chronologically.
Similar to the late Russian Formalist practice, in his early houses, the use of dissimulation is
undertaken by means of separation of syntactic and semantic elements in their textual
formalism. Furthermore, by occluding the exterior semantics from entering into the form,
the spectators are purportedly confronted with its internal meaning.
House I to VI
… in House I through House VI, Eisenman follows the modernist strategies of distancing, defamiliarization, and development of alienation effects to reorient our apprehension of architectural form away from standard perceptual conventions.18
16 Eisenman. “The End of the Classical,” 219. 17 Eisenman. “The End of the Classical,” 220. 18 Hays, Michael. “Allegory unto Death: An Etiology of Eisenman’s Repetition.” In Cities of Artificial Excavation: The Work of Peter Eisenman, 19781988 (Montreal: Canadian Center for Architecture and Rizzoli International Publications, 1994) 105.
6
In the above argument, Michael Hays observes that the trajectory of Eisenman’s
theory is a symptom caused by Eisenman’s failure to be optimistic when confronted with a
culture disposed of meaning. In this culture, argues Hays, an architectural form refers to an
external meaning, which is readily assented by any viewer, partly because its own mode of
production is repressed. Eisenman, continues Hays, uses the notion of defamiliarization to
activate the reading of the object’s mode of production as part of its content.19
Defamiliarization in House I to House VI can also be interpreted as a result of
Eisenman’s irony that tries to distance the reading of its architectural form from the stable
reading in modern architecture. It is a distance achieved by stressing a different mode of
representation. The notion is significant here inasmuch as it reflects the practice that has
often been used by formalists to activate a mode of reading that probes into literary texts to
understand how their content is constituted by a combination of forms. When formalism is
involved in a process, one can assume that the process is akin to Kantian idealism.
The term defamiliarization was coined by a literary critic, Viktor Borisovic
Sklovskij—one of the important figures who created the Russian Formalist movement in St.
Petersburg (Opojaz)—in On the Theory of Prose, 1925. The term, based on Ewa M.
Thompson, Professor of Slavic, Rice University, “is a method of presentation of things and
ideas; using it, we arrange the artistic elements in such a way as to make them represent
these things or ideas to us with strange clarity.”20 For Eisenman, defamiliarization results
in the revelation of duality of syntax and semantics in the architectural form. This duality is
evidently originated from the idea that work of art is autonomous. That is to say, wit this
duality, work of art, including literature cannot be paraphrased in logical discourse. This
Kantian view is adopted as the fundamental premise of literary nature by Russian
Formalists and the New Critics. The premise is derived from Immanuel Kant’s argument in
his essay, Critique of Judgment.
To delineate how Kant’s idealism influences the attitude of the duality of form and
content—duality of syntax and semantics—and consequently the notion of 19 Hays. “Allegory unto Death: An Etiology of Eisenman’s Repetition,” 105. 20 Thompson, Ewa. “Russian Formalism and AngloAmerican New Criticism: A Comparative Study” (The Hague: Mouton & Co., N.V. Publishers, 1971) 27.
7
defamiliarization in Russian Formalism, one can observe that for Kant, art objects are
purposive without purpose. This approach is based on his idea that man’s cognition of
reality occurs by means of ‘symbolic forms’ of intellect and intuition. The latter, argues
Kant, is the higher form, for it is a means to understand the unknowable essence of “thing‐
in‐itself.” This, in Kant’s view, can be observed in art objects especially in poetry, for such
an object can be considered an end in itself due to a lack of practical purposes, thus a lack of
connection to the practical world. Their raison d’être is to produce the intuitive form that
when synthesized with the intellectual form results in man’s complete knowledge of the
world. In conclusion, one can say, based on this Kantian tenet, that the synthesis of
intellectual and intuitive cognitions formulates the unity of human knowledge of the world.
This Kantian idea, adopted by Andrej Belyj, a Russian symbolist, is evident in Sklovskij’s
concept literary work when he contends that the content of literary work is the sum‐total
of all stylistic devices. This psychological function in Sklovskij’s principle leads to his
theorizing the concept of defamiliarization to explain how intuitive device in work of art
functions.
Eisenman’s Houses I to VI seem to align with this Kantian‐influenced formalism
because of their differentiation of form‐content counterpart. This is due to the fact that his
pursuit of divesting architecture of the classical burden has been implemented by his
attempt to completely eradicate extrinsic referentiality in architectural forms. Eisenman
achieves this elimination of external contents by treating the architectural objects as signs,
which signify their interior conception through a process‐driven design method. Eisenman
calls this a ‘process of transformation.’ In this method, each house can be understood as a
narrative record of the linear sequence of its design process from the beginning to the
completion. The justification of the methodology is that the designer orchestrates the
process without knowing its ending form; therefore, upon advancing the steps within the
process, the relationship between the designer and the object is distanced. This means that
the end result of the formal design is another possibility of the form, which is different from
the anthropocentric aim that man controls the end result. Eisenman claims that this
process is aimed at realizing the potentiality of the “objecthood” of the architectural form
8
when it no longer functions as a representative of any outside value, thus architectural
design is freed from it.
By observing Eisenman’s design approach in this period, one can see how the
formalist idea of autonomy of art object and Chomsky’s deep and surface structures are
combined. In a manner similar to how the Russian Formalists separate elements in
literature, the reading dimensions of the architectural objects are categorized into form
and content, and the latter is eliminated. Form, as a result, creates its content by means of
transformational process; this is similar to the process that multiplies the types of linguistic
expressions in Chonsky’s surface structure from the original concept in deep structure.
Although this methodology can be considered a neo‐positivist approach, for its aim, its
operation, and its result are rationally justifiable, one has to remember that it is originated
from the a priori notion that a non‐empiricist type of cognition constitutes factual reality.
Therefore, beside the fact that it already results in a system of referentiality, the
susceptibility of this methodology to gravitate deeply into the realm of Romanticism is
highly predictable.
9
REFERENCES TO A DEEPER REALITY: HOUSE X
Eisenman’s House X’s design method lends Derrida’s post‐structuralist concept of
linguistics as the genesis of reality. Although based on the Derridean notion, “il ne pas de
hors texte,” a sign cannot refer to anything outside of itself, in reading, as well as in the
architectural textualism of House X, the spectator experiences textual signs that signify
definite concepts—Derrida’s ontology, in the case of House X—in order to comprehend
them. This is internally problematic since a concept is understood as a reference to a
referent—an object as such—that can only be perceived as residing outside of linguistics.
Consequently, one can rightly assume, based on observation of House X, that Derridean
post‐structuralism, as a philosophical epistemology, cannot be logically apprehended
without the hermeneutic elements that constitute the so‐called deconstruction. As a result,
when it comes to comprehensibility of Derridean post‐structuralism in House X, it is
important to remember that a reading subject is present because the subject’s awareness is
the element that interprets signifiers in order to comprehend the meaning.
Eisenman’s design methodology for House X relies on the ability to translate
between two sets of relationship: <signified/signifier> and <architecture/philosophy>.
His methodology entails a departure from the traditional picture of the relation of signifier
and signified that was a tenet of Saussurean semiotics. How this relation is understood by
Derrida is well demonstrated in Mark Wigley’s book, The Architecture of Deconstruction:
Derrida’s Haunt, where he reiterates Derrida’s theory that architecture and philosophy
never simply reside outside of each other.21 And that the relation of signifier and signified
as well as the relation of philosophy and architecture are analogous. This analogy, implies
Wigley, is a basis of an approach to translate Derridean deconstruction to architectural
design. This suggested translation can be materialized when we recognize that
architecture is an entity that transpires within Derrida’s model of linguistics. However,
considering architecture a model of philosophy is, in a sense, metaphoric since an
21 Wigley, Mark. The Architecture of Deconstruction: Derrida’s Haunt (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1993) 22.
10
architectural object, as a sign, must refer to this idea of philosophly. Eisenman admits that
this is the case when he designed House X as he argues:
If the forms are signs at all now, and if they are not autonomous reflections of themselves, they are shadows or approximations of some deeper and more elusive reality, signposts that refer not inward but outward to some pre‐existent, more fundamental, perhaps more complex state with which they are inextricably linked. House X is not a metaphoric icon, a cultural and ritualistic artifact which refers to its place in society, history, etc., but rather, it is extra‐referential in—paradoxically—an intrinsic sense: it refers outside itself, but only to that more complex pre‐existent state which is still within the realm of architecture.22
Architecture in Eisenman’s view, according to this methodology, is to be read by a
reading subject. Architecture thus shows the hidden yet tortuous relationship between
post‐structuralism and subjectivity when objects of reality as such are accounted for. This
tortuousness occurs precisely because, in an ontological sense, the ideas of objects and of
man equally result from linguistics; nevertheless, on the existentialist interpretation, for
objects to be meaningful, man must read them. This complexity of how to apply Derridean
post‐structuralism to architecture is evident in both Wigley’s suggestion and Eisenman’s
methodology, for both tend to regard humanist aspect as on the same level of objects as
such, hence both deny that there can be any hierarchical order between them. However, in
order to communicate this idea in architecture, both rely on metaphorical hermeneutics,
though this metaphoric operation refers to the only notion that everything is linguistics. In
this Wigley‐Eisenman agreement on how to approach translation, we can find hints that the
dilemma of the humanist element in this operation is inevitable.
In The Architecture of Deconstruction: Derrida’s Haunt, Wigley argues that objects as
such transpire because of the need of the idea of truth, although they are never realer than
a concept. Inasmuch as philosophy, which constitutes both objects and concepts, is not
established on a stable ground, in order to be—or to look—meaningful, the fundamental of
concept must be structured. For that reason, man encounters objects as such—like
architecture or even himself. These objects, however, are elected on this unstable ground
22 Eisenman, Peter. “Transformation, Decompositions and Critiques: House X.” In House X. Peter Eisenman (New York: Rizzoli International Publication, 1982) 40.
11
in order to make the ground to look stable. To translate deconstruction to architecture,
argues Wigley, is to take apart the image of architecture and to show the unstable ground
of the linguistic ontology on which it is elected. This is Eisenman’s approach for House X: it
stands against the humanist attitude, for it is against the stability of human reasons, and
thus neutralizes the hierarchy of man over objects.
In his reading of Martin Heidegger, Wigley delineates the departing point of
Heidegger from traditional philosophy by postulating that while Kant, as the figure of
traditional philosophy, looks at metaphysics as edifice elected on the most stable ground,
Heidegger argues that metaphysics is the identification of the ground as supporting
presence; therefore, it is no more than the definition of ground as support.23 Wigley
explains that this ground as support can be understood in the sense that philosophical
rules cannot be institutional. In order to be operative, thus be possible, it uses its object to
fill this gap. It does so by choosing architecture to represent its institutional condition; a
condition that it cannot be. Wigley says:
At the very least, philosophy identifies with its object, seeing itself as a construction that reveals the construction of Being, not simply representing that construction but by presenting its essential condition. The rules that organize the institutional practices of philosophy supposedly provided by its object rather than by any sociopolitical system, which is to say that philosophy’s rules are not institutional location and sociopolitical function. It is philosophy’s claim on that which precedes or exceeds the social that gives it unique social authority—the authority, precisely, to define and regulate the social.24
Based on his argument, Wigley sees architecture as a constituent part of philosophy.
More accurately, architecture and philosophy is a duality, and it is the same sense as
Derridean duality of signified and signifier because they are the same thing in different
manifestations. Different manifestation, precisely, is in service of creation of truth—human
reason. To deconstruct signified, or to deconstruct architecture, is to emasculate the idea
of normative reality, whose ground is metaphysics, by means of investigation, and it results
in the degradation of the idea of human reason—truth—since what is real is determined by
23 Wigley. The Architecture of Deconstruction: Derrida’s Haunt, 8. 24 Wigley. The Architecture of Deconstruction: Derrida’s Haunt, 8.
12
human reasons. Nevertheless, as a sign, architecture inevitably signifies meaning, which
re‐salvages the humanist aspect in architectural deconstruction, and this is the point here.
The truth to be deconstructed is something meaningful to man. So to recreate a statement
that these truths are unstable is to be reread by man. If House X can be proven to have the
same nature as Wigley’s methodology, it too must be a model to be read.
Similar to Wigley’s methodology but different from his methodology in earlier
houses, Eisenman exclusion of the semantic from House X is an attempt to undermine the
notion of human reasons by eliminating all humanist aspects from his architecture.
Eisenman postulates that there are three changes regarding the attitude in House X. These
changes pertain to three design relations: how the design process relates to the
architectural object; how the architectural object relates to the architect and to man in
general; and how the object as an object relates to the object as a sign.25 The changes are
formulated to demonstrate that while the architectural form is a preexisting entity
independent from a human logic, it is also considered a sign that signifies “deeper and
more elusive reality.”26
The underlying idea that governs these changes is Derridean post‐structuralism
whose motif can be understood as linguistic determinism. This notion attracts Eisenman’s
attention because Eisenman theorizes architectural design is to proliferate possibilities by
liberating architectural forms from a being dictated by predetermined contents. As a
result, if the elements of man and his reasons, omnipresent in his process of transformation
in the earlier houses, are tantamount to Derrida’s centrality that limits freeplay, then
eliminating it from his design methodology is regarded as a good idea. Thus, Eisenman
modifies his formal design process to supersede the element of humanist logic, used in the
transformational process in the previous houses, by the object’s “own inner logic.”27 This,
Eisenman claims, suggests the new relationship between man and his object:
At each moment in the process [in House X,] the object looks away from the author toward the potential next aspect of the object which lies embedded in
25 Eisenman, “Transformation, Decompositions and Critiques: House X,” 36. 26 Eisenman, “Transformation, Decompositions and Critiques: House X,” 38. 27 Eisenman, “Transformation, Decompositions and Critiques: House X,” 38.
13
the nature of objecthood. And if the role of man in Western culture since the Renaissance vis‐à‐vis his object world has been a positivistic one—a kind of conical unfolding from anthropocentric man as a creator—perhaps the new role can be seen as an inversion of this folding.28
Observing the design process, one can interpret the reason that the object seems
able to undergo transformation even in the absence of an author’s logic. That phenomenon
occurs not as a consequence of how the design process automatically executes itself, but
rather insofar as Eisenman had made it obvious that each execution in designing the object
is an act of making an available choice from the realm of possible objects. Thus, one can
further argue that the main emphasis of this process is not exclusion of the author’s logic
but demonstration that this logic is obviously arbitrary. Therefore, it is a model that
represents how possibilities of objects predate human choices.
The nature of this object agrees with Eisenman’s implication that objects reside in a
pre‐existent and disjunctive universe.29 It thus alludes to deeper reality. The design
process is executed by integrating more than one logic into the form. Whereas in the
previous houses, the initial form is a simple Platonic solid, House X starts with a set of
forms whose heterogeneous parts belong to slightly different logical systems. Additionally,
when its mode of production is accounted for, each part does not start from a simple solid.
In its history, the logic of the chorological links between systems is destroyed, for there is
always one part that needs a different number of transformations to become logically
linked with the rest of the whole system. For example, say, while the right half of the set of
a form only needs to change location to assume its based condition, the left half needs to
change location and rotation to reconcile with the former half in order to arrive at the same
logic. The operation goes on in a number of sets of moves whose logical relationships are
neither completed nor completely frustrated. The process precisely suggests how meaning
as such originates from a matrix of illogicality. One is always tempted, by an object’s logical
look, to logically trace its history and then to eventually find that the logic governing each
link is a systematic fake. This process can be understood as the utilization of two
irreconcilable logics in one formal picture. The joint use of those logics enables the
28 Eisenman, “Transformation, Decompositions and Critiques: House X,” 40. 29 Eisenman, “Transformation, Decompositions and Critiques: House X,” 36.
14
elimination of the expectation of an arrival at a definite formal concept. Eisenman argues
that the process of decomposition creates otherness—another possibility of form that exists
in the universal realm of objects.
In this process, each execution is, in fact, picked by Eisenman as an example of the
execution of one option form the available preexisting options. What is at stake here is that
by casting doubt onto human logic, thus signifying an alternative reality, House X’s main
purpose is to be perceived as a reading statement. On the one hand, House X is an ongoing
theorizing operation to bracket off the so‐called content by ultimately getting rid of the
humanist element in it. This is, based on Eisenman, outside of the traditional formalist
canon because it acknowledges other possibilities instead of a preconceived picture.30 On
the other hand, a form as a signifier, resulting from the process of decomposition, must
involve a reading subject to achieve its goal. These two aspects of attitude, constituting
House X, are irreconcilable, for one promotes the concept of a self, but the other demotes it.
In short, Wigley’s translates the relation between signified and signifier into
architecture and philosophy by a means of metaphor, and House X is designed in the same
way; it results from an idea that is against anthropocentrism executed by a method
originated by Derridean deconstruction and results in a sign that signifies a deeper reality
for architecture. It is an attempt to eliminate the idea of man as the creator, but as a sign, to
be read by man. In other words, Eisenman’s House X signifies the definite meaning of how
meaning cannot be known.
30 Eisenman, “Transformation, Decompositions and Critiques: House X,” 44.
15
REFERENCES TO FICTION: ARTIFITIAL EXCAVATION
To depict the trajectory of Eisenman’s attitude in architectural design, the radical
shift between his design approaches for House X and a series of projects called Artificial
Excavation must be thoroughly examined. This importance is substantiated inasmuch as it
is the first time that elements loaded with semantics, external to the form, are allowed to be
part of the formal operation. In Eisenman’s recent works the spectators encounter an
embedded criticism of contemporary architecture, such as a critique of functionality in
House VI and a critique of notion of dense edge versus dense center in House X. These
semantic elements, however, are merely minor materials that compose the forms; they are
not part of the logical operations in the production mode of reading. This change of
attitude signals that Eisenman shifts his interest from syntactic to semantic operation in
designing his architecture, and it can be considered insensible, since Eisenman has
consistently declared himself to be a formalist ever since he began his doctoral work. He
must be about form and not content. There remains, nevertheless, some good reason to
doubt that Eisenman’s work is entirely consistent with his conception of how architectural
semantics demotes references external reality. Although the formal operations of these
projects are not syntactic when interpreted in the traditional sense, one cannot fully claim
that the new elements introduced into the form are semantics. This is due to the fact that
semantic elements, by definition, must allude to normative reality. Even in poetry, where
meaning is regarded as fictitious, these elements can be considered a form. For example, in
Sklovskij’s concept of sum‐total device as the content of literature, he sees all kinds of
content as a device that composes literary works. Additionally and importantly, for I.A.
Richards, an influential New Critic, a literary statement is, different from a scientific
statement, a “pseudo statement,” therefore, fictional. Not only is this fictional content
different from content traditionally understood but it is, in the New Critical view, also
considered a form. This consideration is based on a formalist notion that literary works are
autonomous, detached from reality as such. Although the literary notion that content
equals form is not always fully manifested in Russian Formalist works, it influences
16
tremendously the New Criticism and theorists operating on it, like Paul de Man.
Literature in the formalist sense differs from linguistics in Derridean sense, for in
the former, a subject constitutes it where in the latter, subjectivity is an accidental effect of
it. Since this disparity differentiates de Man’s deconstruction from Derrida’s
deconstruction, and since Eisenman’s Artificial Excavation is influenced by de Man’s
concept, his architecture in this period differs from House X by referencing fictions.
Consequently, it not only needs a reading subject to be operational but it also needs the
formulation of a Kantian self, whose origin needs no post‐structuralist explication. The
implementation of this attitude in Eisenman’s Artificial Excavation is responsible for its
full‐scale Romantic tone. When the literary content is considered an unreal statement,
intuition is elevated over intellect, and an emphasis on human subjectivity becomes clearly
explicit.
In Derridean post‐structuralism, biological desire preexists cogito. Selfhood, as well
as objecthood, is constituted when the biological desire is introduced with linguistics. As
self and other meanings are constructed by language, the ontology of subjectivity is
language. As a result, if all meaning is delusional, as Derrida argues, the concept of self
must be delusional too. This structure of meaning, based on a modification of Saussurian
model of linguistics, is, nevertheless, not the case in Paul de Man’s epistemology of
deconstruction. This is inasmuch as de Man uses deconstruction to exclusively attack the
mutually agreed formalist notion that literature is organic, for its internally heterogeneous
meanings are purportedly reconcilable. Though agreeing with Derrida that definite
meaning is unachievable, de Man’s deconstruction operates only in the literary sense—not
in the linguistic sense—, for the concept of some particular types of language, such as
poetry, criticism, and philosophical texts, different from general writings, are self‐
deconstructed. In other words, while he is clear that the tension between internal
meanings in literary text cannot be dissolved if literature is composed of linguistic units
such as syntax, signified, or sentence, de Man is unclear whether he considers the internal
meanings, conveyed by these linguistic units, to be definite meaning. In fact, de Man’s
agreement with the idea that language is referential is evident in his works, Blindness and
Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism and Allegories of Reading, in which
he treats signs as author’s intentional statements to be interpreted by a reading subject.
17
In The Rhetoric of Blindness: Jacques Derrida’s Reading of Rousseau, de Man argues
that because of the nature of Rousseau’s cognitive status of language, Derrida, as a literary
critic, misreads his intended meaning, for Derrida attacks his predilection for oral language
over written language as an inclination toward an absolute value that is symptomatic of “a
tradition that defines Western thought.”31 This misreading occurs, argues de Man, because
of the fact that Rousseau’s language, like poetry, forces his terminology away from being
governed by his consciousness. So Derrida critiques a parody of Rousseau. De Man
supports his postulate by differentiating between the author’s intent and what the same
author actually says about it in the context of language of criticism, which, claims de Man, is
beyond the author’s control. For de Man, Derrida’s reading of Rousseau is a paradigm of
“the rhetoric of crisis” that “states its own truth in the mode of error.”32 In principle, this
concept agrees with Derrida’s view that prior existence of error constitutes truth. But de
Man’s emphasis is different, for it is focused on subjective properties involving in the
process. The nature of this occurrence is well explained by Art Berman, an associate
professor of language, literature, and communication at the Rochester Institute of
Technology, as he argues, “The readers of criticism reorganize the blindness of their
predecessors, reorganize it, and thereby gain both the insight of the critics and a
knowledge of the contradiction that brings forth insight. Each reader, of course, has his
own blindness; and the criticism of criticism is not a matter of rectifying someone else’s
mistakes.”33 Therefore, for Berman, de Man’s approach is person‐centered, for blindness is
the property of a discrepancy between an author’s intent and his accomplishment where
insight is a state of mind of the reader.34
De Man seems to suggest that with the nature of a critical text and with the aid of
subjective interpretations of the author and the reader, two definite yet irreconcilable
meanings, residing within the text, self‐deconstruct it. His attitude toward critical texts 31 De Man, Paul. “The Rhetoric of Blindness: Jacques Derrida’s Reading of Rousseau,” in Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism. 2nd Edition (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988) 114. 32 De Man, Paul. “Criticism and Crisis,” in Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism. 2nd Edition (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988) 16. 33 Berman, Art. From the New Criticism to Deconstruction: The Reception of Structuralism and PostStructuralism. (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988) 240. 34 Berman. From the New Criticism to Deconstruction: The Reception of Structuralism and PostStructuralism, 240.
18
resembles Kant’s attitude about art objects, for both include two types of meanings, the
combination of which constitutes alternate reality when interpreted. Different from
Derrida’s deconstruction, which all language is the same, de Man deconstruction, evident in
this essay, elevating critical texts, justified by cognitive properties of a reading and writing
subjects, is obviously symptomatic inherited from the Kantian‐influenced formalism. De
Man favors critical texts because he believes that critics always have errors in their lines of
logic. The way de Man treats these texts, author’s intent and error coexist at odds with
each other. The spectators of de Man’s critique of critical texts, therefore, encounter a text
that consists of two types of literary devices, which he calls blindness and insight, and
because of this coexistence, the texts deconstruct themselves.
In his latter book, Allegories of Reading, de Man shifts his focus from critiquing
literary critics to critiquing poets and philosophers to draw the similar conclusion that
literature and philosophical texts, as another set of special language, consist of an
irreducibility between two literary devices called literal and figurative meanings. This
impossibility of arriving at a unity of meaning results in a radical suspension of logic by
rhetoric or what de Man calls semiological enigma.35 “This resulting predicament,” argues
de Man, “is linguistics rather than ontology.”36 Since de Man is clear that his agenda, unlike
that of Derrida, is not ontological, one can rightly conclude that these literary devices
pertain to a communicative intent. Thus, de Man treats literary and philosophical texts—
just as he treats critical texts—as intentional propositions. De Man’s attitude in this work
remains similar to his attitude in Blindness and Insight, since the internal oppositions
within the text that simultaneously assert and deny the authority of the own rhetorical
mode of the text are subjective. One can alternatively say that de Man’s literary text is
composed of intentional propositions that contain a tension between their literal and
figural meanings, and by not being able to unify, their logics are displaced by an enigma
called rhetoric. As a result, the readers are left with possibilities of a strange mode of
interpretation. What is at stake here is that their interpretation cannot be based on logic,
which, again, welcomes the idea of intuitive interpretation. It follows that a dependency on
reading subjects, as well as the goal to arrive at a meaningful mode of reading, is the result 35 De Man, Paul. Allegories of Reading. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1979) 10. 36 De Man. Allegories of Reading, 300.
19
of de Man’s operating on the literary platform. And this yields a Romantic tone in his work.
Similar to de Man’s attitude toward literature in which multiple meanings reside,
irony—multiple modes of reading—and the concept of rhetorical figures characterize
Eisenman’s Artificial Excavation. In this series of design projects, Eisenman remains
consistent with the concept of dissimulation, which is manifested by a means of
textualization. Sharply different from House X, nonetheless, Artificial Excavation is not
only textualized but is also poeticized so that this architecture, as a sign, dissimulates
factual reality by acknowledging its intrinsic quality as a fiction. The design operation of
these projects is attributed to two understandings. First, if traditional signs in architecture
work by representing an object that is absent from the presence, textual signs, since they
lack representational significance, then must work in a different way. This can be
understood by observing that different from representational signs, characters in a written
language do not obtain an aesthetic value; they merely become meaningful by being
juxtaposed with other characters. They neither act as an iconic representation nor act as a
metaphor for other objects. Eisenman calls this type of architectural sign rhetoric figures.37
Second, by spatially superposing two rhetoric figures, they loosen their remaining
significance because their hierarchical order—the order that favors presence over absence
in Derrida’s sense—is destroyed.38 The result is an inventive meaning, betweenness,
resulting from the blurriness of the twoness.
One recalls that an elimination of logical truth in de Man’s literary texts, as well as
critical and philosophical texts, originates a semiological enigma. Similar to de Man’s
process, the design process in Eisenman’s Artificial Excavation, whose elimination of what
he regards as the traditional truth of architecture originates a fiction. The results of both
processes are a type of meaning to be interpreted intuitively by a reading subject since
both products become available through the displacement of a logical reading. Therefore,
when both processes are interpreted in the Chomskyan sense, which human minds are the
only faculty that possesses “the creative aspect of language use,” they need as prerequisite
37 Eisenman, Peter. “Architecture and the Problem of the Rhetorical Figure,” In Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture. Ed. Kate Nesbitt (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996) 177‐178. 38 Eisenman, Peter. “En Terror Firma: In Trails of Grotextes,” In Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture. Ed. Kate Nesbitt (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996) 569.
20
the distinctive faculties of a human mind.
To understand the design methodology of Artificial Excavation is to understand
Eisenman’s “show and deny.” For him, the key nature that distances authors from their
literary texts is the assumption that neither objects nor subjects can be localized within
texts. This means that every text is composed mainly of previous ideas from previous
authors. As Eisenman’s objects are conceived as literary texts, they cannot escape this
nature. He resorts to the service of citations. Citation in Artificial Excavation is in the sense
that any design object is conceived as a text that cross‐references with texts—design
objects—that precede it. Eisenman understands that to communicate a meaning on the
Derridean deconstructivist approach is necessarily to execute by the means of a
logocentrism in which a definite meaning must be present with doubt. Derrida usually
does this by what he calls under erasure, where a word is present but is crossed out.
Eisenman’s citations, based on Derridean method, are to be purged of historical
significance as if they are signs without a meaning. By superposing these citations,
subsequently, the objects yield different readings.
In practice, the design executions are carried out by first allowing figures
purportedly accidently found in sites—such as Le Corbusier’s grid or the forms of his
previous Houses or the Berlin wall—to be external sources of semantics through a process
of distortion and ridicule achieved by means of scaling and rotation that hollow out their
loaded semantics. As a result, they become what Eisenman calls rhetorical figures, for they
are considered a type of signs without content. When more than one rhetorical figure is
superimposed, the result is analogous to literary irony because each meaning from each
figure tries to cancel out the other’s hierarchy, so they can no longer act as a dominant or
repressed text. It can be said accordingly that destabilization of meaning in architecture
creates a type of meaning that cannot be rationalized linearly, resulting in generation of
many different architectural fictions.
In conclusion, Kantian‐influenced formalism is, again, experienced as prevalent in
Eisenman’s attitude toward architecture. This time, its different manner leads his works to
be an extreme example of “the Romantic version of post‐structuralist thought.” Unlike the
previous works, their origin and consequence are saturated with semantic aspects. In
them, semantically loaded elements are allowed to enter in the form of rhetoric figures.
21
Then, as these figures are superposed, they produce fictional meaning to be intuitively
read. This results in a kind of indeterminacy of reading that can also be found in de Man’s
criticism, for both de Man and Eisenman, in contrast to Derrida, work on the level of
language as a communicative device.
If a Romantic tone in architectural objects is characterized by their emphasis on
human elements and their types of cognition that transcend intellect, Eisenman’s
architectural objects are Romantic, for they are designed based on the premise that
humans are equipped with a special and innate device that enables them to decode
messages embedded in the objects’ formal textuality. Additionally, Eisenman’s Romantic
tone is attributed to the fact that his objects are designed in such a way that their
production mode of reading is no longer repressed, so spectators confront a reading mode
that brackets off normative reality. This mode of reading results from the underlying
concept that intuition is an important part of cognition that enables humans to be able to
interpret the meaning of the world. This Romantic tone is apparently combined with
Derridean post‐structuralism, even though they are contradictory by nature, to create a
type of architecture, which is similar to the American version of deconstruction in literary
criticism. This combination begins to manifest in House X and reaches its climax in
Artificial Excavation with the service of de Man’s notion that multiple meanings in literary
texts are irreconcilable. This intensity of a Romantic tone in Eisenman’s latter works is
caused by the fact that de Man’s deconstruction is theorized to align with the New
Criticism, which is influenced by Kantian idealism.
22
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Petit, Emmanuel. Irony in Metaphysic’s Gravity: Iconoclasm and Imagination in Architecture,
1960s1980s. (Diss. Princeton University, Princeton, 2006) ProQuest Dissertations and
Theses. Web. 16 October 2010
Eisenman, Peter. “Toward an Understanding of Form in Architecture,” in Eisenman Inside out (New Haven: Yale University, 2004) Eisenman, Peter. “The End of the Classical,” In Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture. Ed. Kate Nesbitt (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996)
Chomsky, Noam. “Creative Aspect of Language Use,” in Cartesian linguistics: A Chapter in the
History of Rationalist Thought. 3rd Edition (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009)
Chomsky, Noam. “Deep and Surface Structure,” in Cartesian linguistics: A Chapter in the
History of Rationalist Thought. 3rd Edition (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009)
Eisenman, Peter. “Notes on Conceptual Architecture: Toward a Definition,” in Eisenman
Inside out (New Haven: Yale University, 2004)
Hays, Michael. “Allegory unto Death: An Etiology of Eisenman’s Repetition.” In Cities of
Artificial Excavation: The Work of Peter Eisenman, 19781988 (Montreal: Canadian Center
for Architecture and Rizzoli International Publications, 1994)
Thompson, Ewa. “Russian Formalism and AngloAmerican New Criticism: A Comparative
Study” (The Hague: Mouton & Co., N.V. Publishers, 1971)
Wigley, Mark. The Architecture of Deconstruction: Derrida’s Haunt (Cambridge: The MIT
Press, 1993)
Eisenman, Peter. “Transformation, Decompositions and Critiques: House X.” In House X.
23
Peter Eisenman (New York: Rizzoli International Publication, 1982)
Derrida, Jacque. “Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences.” In
Writing and Difference, tran. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978)
De Man, Paul. “The Rhetoric of Blindness: Jacques Derrida’s Reading of Rousseau,” in
Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism. 2nd Edition
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988)
De Man, Paul. “Criticism and Crisis,” in Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of
Contemporary Criticism. 2nd Edition (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988)
Berman, Art. From the New Criticism to Deconstruction: The Reception of Structuralism and
PostStructuralism. (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988)
De Man, Paul. Allegories of Reading. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1979)
Eisenman, Peter. “Architecture and the Problem of the Rhetorical Figure,” In Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture. Ed. Kate Nesbitt (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996) Eisenman, Peter. “En Terror Firma: In Trails of Grotextes,” In Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture. Ed. Kate Nesbitt (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996)
Recommended