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SS. CYRIL AND METHODIUS UNIVERSITY, FACULTY OF PHILOSOPHY

THE DISCOURSE OF PETER EISENMAN AND INTERVENTIONS BY JACQUES DERRIDA

Towards a new disposition of the subject

Written by:
MPhil. Dijana Omeragic Apostolski

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Content:
Introduction..............................................................................................................................3
1. Developments
I.

Theo

a d P a ti e.5

II.

Eisenman a d De ida6

Conclusion...............................................................................................................................12
Bi liog aph ....................................................................................................................14

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Introduction
Peter Eisenman is one of the stars on the architectural sky of the 20 th and 21st
century. Although he produces less architecture than his fellow leading architects, he writes
much more. This initiative towards expression in the medium of the written word may be
contributed to the fact that he is a professor at Yale University in the department of History
of Architecture precisely the period of the renaissance, a period in which the dominant
figures of the architectural discourse wrote masterpieces, it may also be contributed to the
realization that the material world of architecture takes in the ideas of the mind with
greater friction and lastly contributed to his friendship with Jacques Derrida. Writing. The
most important precondition 1(P.Eisenman). One of his strongest convictions is that the
written word produces the architectural discourse (rather than the architecture itself), due
to the ooks featu e of efle tio , its o

e ship of ti e o e ti e, he eas as he sa s

architecture is here and now. This paper will be a concise reflection on the practice and
theories of Peter Eisenman.
Architecture in all its forms has always been a relationship between the subject and
the object, when this relationship evolves, or transforms, it projects new paradigms in the
developing architectural discourse. In London on the 24th of September 2011, at the Victoria
a d Al e t Museu

a e hi itio ope ed u de the a e: The i st Tho ough

Retrospective of Postmodernism 1970- 99 . Post ode is

as offi iall

e og ized as

over. Soon, it came to follow that the intellect of architectural discourse was pressured by
consumerism, and the fever enthusiasm of the sense of f eedo

to a ds i e tio

of a

new paradigm versus the responsibility not to recreate the same chain mistakes of the past.
Most a hite ts that fa ed this

o ditio

ea ted nostalgically or reactionary and the

question how to act responsibly and sensibly in architecture persisted. According to P.

Eisenman the change in the discourse can almost always be detected in the deformations of
the subject-object relation, in the architectural language and the mode of communication in
architecture. One of his boldest claims is that we are still in the period of the modern,
specifically in the rococo period of the modern, the late-modern. Thus, the road out of this
mannerism does not insist upon a time frame, urgency and formal invention. He claims we
are not in a state of crisis, for as he puts it: the crisis that lasts is not a crisis. So, Eisenman
1

Peter Eisenman, A Dialog, Harvard University, Graduate School of Design Lectures, 2007

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still lingers in his late-modern, seemingly oblivious to the fluctuations in architectural style
and circumstances. He clearly gives the impression on working and writing in his own time
and space, under the guidelines of his own convictions, perhaps even slightly neglecting the
ancient and everlasting aesthetical and ethical aspects of architecture, which constitute the
complex historical consciousness of man and his arts.
P. Eise

a s i telle tual o t i utio to the de elop e t i the a hite tu al

discourse is located in the attempts to create spaces that critically, oriented towards
themselves, will lead us towards new understandings about them (hinting towards a spacecentric approach versus an anthropocentric). Spaces that dislocate the subject in
relationship towards the object in the process of creation and experience, that accept the
disharmonia pra-estabilita and thus move the discourse forward. It is an obvious similarity
et ee the esse es of Pete Eise a s a d Theodo Ado os philosophi al thoughts ut
that is an entire other subject that I would rather discuss separately in the future. A
hermeneutical approach to his architectural work may in a way translate them into the truth
of his time; we may read of them a distressed existentialist drama, however we will possibly
fail to find that i g edie t

hi h ises a hite tu e above styles and persuasions

transforms her into art - her quality of compassion, inspiration and composure, the
reference which sooths and ephemerally pacifies the participant (user, observer or owner).
The truth being, that the truth of a time depicted as it is, ithout p o ises , ith o
obtainable compassion, is almost useless, for as H.G.Gadamer puts it:
...i the disorder of the real, i all its i perfe tio s, e ils, depra ities, o e sided esss, dire
misconceptions, the beautiful, besides all, does not lie unattainable in the distance
instead, it intercepts us. The ontological function of the beautiful is comprised in its
ability to close the gap between the ideal and the real.

, . - . , ,

, . 9

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1. Developments
I.

Theory and Practice

The road to Eisenman is long, from the renaissance to the structuralists, forward to
the post-structuralists and/or the de-constructivists. But, if I dare simplify his method, I
would say that he is always in the midst of the spatial manipulation built on theoretical and
historical thought. His work - omnipresent in the idea of conceptual evolution of space, the
absolute opposition of the creators from the phenomenological/ material aspect of
architecture, such as Peter Zumthor or Herzog and De Meuron. Eisenman defines three
meta-critical dominants in current architectural creation: conceptual, phenomenological and
performative. e is ofte

iti ized due to his st i t di isio , ut e e the less, he la els

himself as a o eptual a hite t a d i sists o

la eli g his colleagues as well. Under his

conceptual dominant lies conceptual work that is born from an idea but always ends as a
product (never remains in the medium of conceptual work of art) and this product does not
gravitate around the meaning and experience of the subject in a traditional sense, instead
aims at challenging, upsetting and provoking the subject to defy his status quo. By
suggesting this he seems to closely follow a form of communication generally recognizable
in the art of the post-modern.
As was mentioned before, Eisenman defines the architecture of today as part of the
late-modern period. The late periods are a short moment of time before the birth of a new
paradigm. As such they are never fully understood in their own time, instead are
suggestions of what is to come in future developments. Late periods always give the
impression of existing out of the continuity of time, just for a moment, in separate time
outside time. Continuing from time, he then raises the problems of the communication of
today.
According to him, the idea of communication today is completely trivialized; there is
an abundance of information and lack of understating of things. Thus, it seems as he takes
upo hi self the task to hu iliate the ole of o

u i atio

de-emphasizing

experience itself, in the very moment of the encounter with the work of art. The visual
experience is obviously in the core of his rebellion against phenomenological approaches,
but he does not leave out the other senses as well. Respecting the decision, the urge that

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his work should not formally communicate, he detaches himself from the representative
quality of architecture. This is a strong and questionable aim, mainly because as history has
shown us even the one whose goal is not to communicate communicates, perhaps even
stronger so, it is an inevitable quality of rational beings and all we create. Even more so,
Eisenman here stands contra the traditional understanding of the sign, of the signifier and
sig ified. o hi , his o k does t ep ese t a d has o a

itio i e e doi g so. I am

absolutely indifferent when it comes to communication 3(P. Eisenman). With this he takes
us even further than De Saussure did by segregating the signifier from the signified, and is
totally negating the sing in communication in architecture. Thus, he seems to place himself
even deeper in the critical mainstream of the post-modern art movement of the 20th
century. Due to this claim, he develops space instead of its representation. The meeting
between Eisenman and Derrida happens here, even before their actual formal meeting.
They meet here, in the traces of their aporias. The encounter happens between Eisenman
with his buildings that do not communicate and dislocated spaces that disturb the subject,
that never advance meanings or answers but instead purely rhetorically exist, and, Derrida
with his process of deconstruction in which he aims to discover the aporias of a text, his
valorizing of new circumstances in which the new dislocated notion becomes, the realization
and appreciation of the impossibility of such a project and giving into simply asking the right
questions with no answers. Notion versus diagram.
II.

Eisenman and Derrida

Eisenman understands space not as something wrapped in four walls, rather as something
born from -in all its fluidity- the diag a , a d the diagram is not only an explanation, as
something that comes after, but it acts as an intermediary in the process of generation of
real space and time . 4 As was mentioned before, Eisenman looks for the change in
discourse in the change of the architectural language, thus he is not concerned with the
plan, section, column etc., instead focuses on the diagram. These limitations of the classical
app ehe sio of s ie e a d the e essities of la guage i s ie e, De ida dis usses i
Grammatology . Mo e e e De ida su t a ts the o k of a t f o

its o tologi al f a es

and is trying in the words of Prof. I. Dzeparoski to examine it from the aspects of pure
3
4

Of

Peter Eisenman, After Derrida there are no more corners, Cornell University Lectures, 2007
Peter Eisenman, Diagram: An Original Scene of Writing, Harvard University Press, 2008, pg.95

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fantasy5, as an illusion that represents nothing. Here I will allow another repetition
e i de of Eise

a s o ept that st i es fo his o k to not-represent. The essence of

this approach is to deconstruct the mythology of that which is the truth of the work of art or
that hi h is its esse e. Eise

a s ork, in his own words: have no secret, do not invite

but challenge, ask questions without the fear that those questions will not meet their
answers. Further, the two thinkers tangle also in the interpretation of presence, the present
and non-present, as individual critiques towards the western-European metaphysics and
centrism. De ida ith his de e t alizatio

i defi i g the Bei g as p ese e, hile

Eisenman by abandonment, in his treatment of architecture, abandonment of creating

whilst using classical elements (section, column, full-empty, symmetry-as

et a d

acceptance of decentralization of the process itself by primarily solely focusing on the

fluidity of space- and by doing so, in a way, he accomplishes Derrida by proving that the
center can be outside the whole. This conceptualizing of the non-present presence, not notpresence, is how he defines his space, the insides of the building which is everywhere. One
of the strongest and distinct attitudes and also the most abstract one, when it comes to
Eisenmans o k is this o eptualizi g of the o -present as the bearer of the idea
o st u tio . To put it i the o ds of De ida hi self: Nothing, not in the elements nor the
system, no place and never, nothing is simply present nor absent. Everywhere there are only
differences and traces of those differences .6
History of architecture teaches us of the relationship between the inside and the
outside, which through time have changed roles as initiators of creation. Today we are
thought to correspondingly develop oth. Eise

efe i g to Deleuzes The Fold

theorizes development of the Fold concept, the folding of the inside and outside in a duality,
each side with its own meaning and still the part of one of the same building. If one insists
on a visual image of the concept, the closest would be to imagine the Mobius strip as the
process diagram for the conceptualization of the inner space of the pli (interior, space,
non-material) and the outer space repli the

ate ial that tu s to a ds its i sides . There

is no such thing as an empty space; the empty is simply a space for subtle substances.

, , - ,
9 .
ak De ida, Razgovori, Novi Sad, 1993, str.26
7
Jacques Deleuze, The Fold, University of Minnesota Press, 1992, pg.236

5
6

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(Jacques Deleuz) Eisenman desired his spaces dual, or as a Zwiefalt fold8, the fold that is
ever changing whilst presenting and hiding each of its sides which co-exist in their whole.
That is the faade and interior of Peter Eisenman. He is also often criticized for his strong
belief in his conceptual approach by his colleagues, to refer only to one example and in the
o ds of Ja ues e zog: In the deep drives architecture is conceptual, but the visual is
always transcendental in the conceptual from a dialog at Harvard GSD, 12.IV.2007), with
which he wants to point out that in his findings conceptual architecture must not neglect
communication. The philosophy of Derrida has not been spared very similar critiques,
namely it is said that his philosophy does not offer any answers, solutions, that it is simply
enjoying and living its aporia (M.Baker)9, a e sio of

ethodologi al skepti is . Eise

a s

architectural legacy is a question, an endeavor, I dare say an experiment, for as we know the
greatest difficulty lies in the assembling of the undetermined, in the walking of the never
trotted paths of all creations of the minds, indefinable comprehensions, and the threat of it
all hides in the possibility that comfortably this enthusiasm will finally slip into a head ache.
Befo e I o ti ue to Eise

a s a hite tu al lega

I ould like to fo us sho tl o the

crucial formal collaboration between Eisenman and Derrida.

Pete Eise

a ofte sa s: After Derrida there are no more corners

10

to express

the meaning of their mutual influences and friendship as well as give an intellectual insight
on the relationship. In 1982 in Paris, France there was a competition for an architectural
project that as alled The U a Pa k of the

st

Ce tu

location was the last big empty lot of Pa is. The i

Parc de la Villette, and the

i g p oje t as Be a d Ts hu is

and he himself directed an initiative to give a piece of this vast project to the geniuses of
Eisenman and Derrida. Undoubtedly, he noticed their intellectual and theoretical
similarities, predicted an interesting ambitious cooperation that carried potential for more
than a simple architectural solution. Derrida has said that he was skeptical, with a hint of
prejudice when he accepted, or to put in his own words in a longer quotation:
I was not nave; I knew that discourse and language did not count for nothing in the
activity of architects and above all i Eise
8

a s. I e e had reaso to thi k that they

Jacques Deleuze, The Fold, op.cit., pg.236

Miroslav Beker, Poststrukturalizam u savremenoj americkoj kritici, Knjizevna mostra, Zagreb, 1983, br.51-52,
str.48
10
Peter Eisenman, After Derrida there are no more corners, Cornell University Lectures, 2007

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were more important than the architects themselves realized. But I did not understand
to what extent, and above all in what way, his architecture confronted the very
conditions of discourse, grammar and semantics. Nor did I then understand why
Eisenman is a writer

11

After the fall of the prejudices both may or not had, this collaboration began with
g eat e e g a d a

itio . The de o st atio of Eise

a s ho est desi e to pla

ith

words and to write, in an instance lead to reversal of their roles, namely it is at this point
when Derrida gives his first formal, hand drawn suggestion on the physical construction on
the small garden in the park. The drawing of his lyra becomes the basis of the tirelessly ever
growing palimpsest of their collaboration. I suppose partially also inspired by this exertion,
changing of roles, the first and most interesting intellectual debate between the two
thinkers happens. In October, 1989 Jacques Derrida canceled his presence at the conference
Post ode is

a d e o d: A hite tu e as a iti al a t i

o te po a

ultu e i

Irving, California where he was expected to attend together with Peter Eisenman. He sends
his excuse in a rather long letter to Eisenman, explaining his withdrawal and presenting a
u

e of i te esti g uestio s o e i g the esse e of Eise

merely scratch at the surface of the lette

a s dis ou se. I ill

ith this uotatio : I will not going to abuse my

absence, not even to tell you that you perhaps believe in it, absence, too much
lette full of ho est u iosit to a ds a hite tu e a d Eise

12

To this

a s dis ou se, Eise

replies a couple of months later with a letter in which he tries to elaborate a few answers,
deeming the other un-answerable or at least saying that they should look for answers
outside the a hite tu al dis ou se. At De idas a i g o

elie i g i the a se t

oe

than enough, Eisenman replies that he is consumed by the non-presence and that for him
every concept, every subject, has in him what is not written in him and in his traces. I am
preoccupied with absence because unlike language, the dominant in architecture is
presence, the true presence of the signified.

13

The letter continues with an in depth

discussio of the al ead a al zed aspe ts of Eise

a s dis ou se. Eise

a sa s: Only

when the thought-to-be essential relationship of architecture to function is undermined, that

is, when the traditional dialectical, hierarchical, and supplemental relationship of form to
11

Jacques Derrida, Why Peter Eisenman Writes Such Good Book, 1989, pg.3
Jacques Derrida, A Letter to Peter Eisenman, tran.Hilary P.Hanel, 1989, pg.7
13
Peter Eisenman, Post/EI Cards:A Reply to Jacques Derrida, 1989, pg.15

12

P a g e | 10

fu tio is displa ed, a the o ditio of prese e e addresses.

14

stressing that by then

he will continue to seek the aura of the third in the non-present, the aura that is not
nostalgic for meaning, rather in a non-dialectical state of being- the excess of the nonp ese t as opposed to De idas i

ui ies i to the o -existence of aura). Simply put, in this

project they aspired for the aura which is the presence of the non-present, the possibility
for the presence of something else.
That is how their formal collaboration unfolds, with both returning to their individual
discourses which had essential differences and made it difficult for them to fully accomplish
the similarities of their theories in the physical reality offered by the medium of
architecture. They however had a successful accomplishment in the folding of both
respectful theories in the medium of the written word, in the book Choral Works.
These ealizatio s o fo ta l take

e to the eal s of Eise

a s a hite tu al

legacy, the attempts of edification of his theory. A number of his projects, that is generally
his work, although attempts not to communicate, clearly ask the question: Why? Why such
architecture? Who has the need for experimentally disaggregated geometrical houses, or of
an entrance portal that aims to confuse, disorient and shock? (Well, other than Eisenman
himself). R. Scruton claimed that excluded space as an aim in architecture, as an approach
still edu es a hite tu e, as he

ites: Taken literally, the theory that the experience of

architecture is an experience of space is obviously indefensible.

15

In this segment of the paper where I am supposed to analyze his architectural legacy
instead of taking about his buildings that ask numerous questions I choose to devote myself
to his one creation that asks none. Most of his buildings are reflections of a growing, still
forming, not fully mature architect, all except one: The Memorial of the Murdered Jews of
Europe in Berlin. This work of art is a masterpiece and a true testimony of his. I will start by
saying this monument is in(side) and out(side) at the same time, function and form are
completely interwoven and both succumb to the absolute silence of the structure. The
Memorial truly asks no questions, simply exists in the heart of Berlin. Although it asks no
questions it clearly communicates. Communicating with the subjects in a way chosen by
14

Peter Eisenman, Post/EI Cards:A Reply to Jacques Derrida, 1989, pg.16

15

Roger Scruton, The Aesthetics of Architecture, Methuen & CO. LTD London, 1979. pg.43

P a g e | 11

the subject solely, here the children play hide and seek, the young read, the tourist take
photographs and all live between the omnipresent pillars of the fallen Jews. A dominant
which confidently is, stands and quietly witnesses its own existence. It is a true work of art
which proves once again that architecture can express more than it materially and physically
possesses, and by doing so elaborates an aesthetical and deeply ethical philosophical side
of architecture as an art. I may dare say that it even contradicts some of the ar hite ts
pe suasio s; a d if e o side this judg e t e e fo a

o e t, e ill fi d that this is

a state e t that just fu the e g a es the o ple it of the issue a d a ts e ellio agai st
reductionism of any and every kind. Eisenman said in an interview that the choice of
material and color was intended to de-materialize the space. Paradoxically enough this
search for -a material to de-materialize space- led them to choose the material from Berlins
insides and a material deeply interwoven in the it s histo : concrete. This monument can
be compared to a quantity of similar monuments (in purpose): The 9/11 Monument in New
Yo k Cit fo e a ple. No etheless, o pletel

o ta

to all of the , Eise

a s

monument has no inscriptions, no pit, and no aggressive domination of sorrow. It is selfsufficient. It takes in all who are willing to live around, in or by him. Spreading horizontally
around a large area its fluctuating movement finally finishes as a vertical longing towards
the skies, returning the cosmological reference into his architecture.

P a g e | 12

Conclusion
I De idas writing: Wh Pete Eise

ites su h good ooks he

akes a

immediate (even in the title) connection between Eisenman and Nietzsche by saying he is
the biggest anti-Wagnerian creator of our time

16

. He states that Eisenman is changing the

true axiom of architecture, the module of the human beings. By destabilizing the scale, the
present and the origin (the center) he inevitably brings the aesthetics of his buildings in
jeopardy, and shows complete indifference towards this notion. Eisenman as Derrida will
notice- plays. He seriously plays with words, grammar and with architecture. There at the
very end again Eisenman and Derrida meet in play. Derrida interprets the work of art, fully
in the sense of Nietzsche, as a free game beyond humanism, a game that is not oriented
towards the narratives of the center and origin.17 Although as Eisenman says so himself: no
game of words will distance architecture from its origins in history and its future. The
question remains whether in a deeply polarized western world, between the growing
strengths of the secular and the sciences on one side, and the saints and sinners on the
other, architecture as an art seems to be losing its inborn purpose to recognize and
alleviate- even for a moment. Is Architecture still an art, or has it turned into a technology of
uildi g? E a ples su h as the Memorial of the Fallen Jews of Europe p o e the e iste e
of architecture as an a t i toda s o ld, give hope and stand witness to our longing for
eloquent spaces of being, becoming and re-becoming. Perception, experience and
interpretation are inseparable, to elucidate further: Kant characterized the relation between
experience and concept as intimate and integrated under the faculty of the imagination, so
architecture cannot be an exception if it aims not to disappointing its primordial, the true
complex aesthetic experience and transform into a pure and simple technology of building.
The aesthetic experience of an object is always purposeful even when it lacks specific
purposes (Kant). Architectural objects are inseparable from purpose, architecture is a public
activity and whether architects truly include this aspect in their processes or not building
environments is a responsibility that should be seriously played and enjoyed not merely
pla ed fo ou o a o es sole a use e t.

16
17

Jacques Derrida, Why Peter Eisenman Writes Such Good Book, 1989, pg.1
, , op.cit., .

P a g e | 13

The difficulties of architecture today are apodictic; we have come to the state of bordering
empty allegories in our material expressions and underappreciating our spiritual needs.
Architects seem to flow with the current in their own individual capacities and ways, less
and less fighting fo the authe ti it of a hite tu es a ilit to e p ess

o e tha

hat it

materially possesses.
Eisenman in his own way seems confident in his convictions and even though he is, I
believe, fully aware his path tangents the impossible one, he enjoys ambitiously and
honestly working according to his persuasions, to add to this point, in his own words from
the letter to Jacques Derrida:
In the end, my architecture cannot be hat it should e, ut o ly hat it a

e. o ly

then you will see the play between presence and presentness, only then will you know
whether I have been faithful.

18

18

Peter Eisenman, Post/EI Cards: A Reply to Jacques Derrida, 1989, pg.17

P a g e | 14

Bibiliography

Beker, Miroslav: Poststrukturalizam u savremenoj ameri koj kritici , Knjievna smotra,

Zagreb, 1983
, -

, . - . , ,

Deleuze, Jaques: The Fold, University of Minnesota Press, 1992

Derida, ak: Razgovori, Novi Sad, 1993
Derrida, Jacques: A Letter to Peter Eisenman, tran. Hilary P.Hanel, 1989
Derrida, Jacques: Why Peter Eisenman Writes Such Good Books, Poststructuralism, 1992
Eisenman, Peter: A Dialog, Harvard University, Graduate School of Design Lectures, 2007
Eisenman, Peter: After Derrida there are no more corners, Cornell University Lectures, 2007
Eisenman, Peter: Diagram: An Original Scene of Writing, Harvard University Press, 2008
Eisenman, Peter: Post/EI Cards: A Reply to Jacques Derrida, 1989
Kant, Immanuel: Critique of Practical Reason, Trans. Thomas Kingsmill Abott, Dover
Publications, INC., Mineola, New York, 2004
Kant, Immanuel: Critique of Pure Reason, Trans. Marcus Weigelt, Penguin Classics, London,
2007
Scruton, Roger: The Aesthetics of Architecture, Methuen & CO. LTD London, 1979
, : , - ,