(Thinking Architecture), perhaps the most telling of his thoughts on architecture, as compared to the thoughts and preoccupations of many others (Eisenman?):
"The world is full of signs and information, which stand for things that no one fully understands...Yet the real thing remains hidden...Nevertheless, I am convinced that real things do exist, however endangered they may be...objects, made by man...which are what they are, which are not mere vehicles for an artistic message, and whose presence is self-evident."

via

Nice quote.

Why does anyone still care about what Eisenman says?

It's not so much that I care about what Eisenman says. Personally I don't really like his work. I am a big fan of Zumthor. This is an attempt by myself to more fully understand why exactly I don't like Eisenman. I think he has his place, and maybe by playing his views off of Zumthor I can develop some appreciation for what he says. Eisenman is still a pretty smart guy, and has accomplished quite a lot, so I figure he deserves a deeper look.

you dont like Eisenman because he is a shitty architect who designs (and builds) shitty buildings.

you like Zumthor because he is a good architect who designs (and builds) good buildings.

no need to waste 15 pages on the topic...

btw, what has Eisenman really accomplished....

That's a fine question, mdler. Perhaps that will become part of my research.

AP's quote above is exactly right about Zumthor - while Eisenman in his writing about House IV says:
"our present knowledge of form and meaning is derived from the PERCEPTUAL environment, it does not probe the CONCEPTUAL limits of the environments. It presumes these are known.
This work is an attempt to study these limits, ao study the CONCEPTUAL DOMAIN OF ARCHITECTURE"

These two completely opposing views are a natural for a simple research paper.
mdler - I hope you will be assuaged when I say that it will more likely than not be an indictment of Eisenman and fully support Zumthor's approach.

the choice seems sort of odd to me (no offense), the two are so opposite in their theoretical approach and built works it seems like it would just be a lot of "zumthor does this, contrarily, eisenman does this." sort of an apples and oranges situation. I'd find it much more interesting to compare them with architects with similar trains of thought, Zumthor to early H&deM, Eisenman of the houses phase to Libeskind before he built anything phase, etc.

mdler - are you suggesting that Eisenman hasn't accomplished anything, or are you simply asking cayne to explain his statement?

Good point phuyaka - I think the challenge will be finding the simlaritiies, after all they are bound be the same sorts of material & physical restrictions (pesky physics and all).
Again, this is all very initial research - but I think Eisenman's House III can be compared with Zumthor's effort to cover the Roman ruins or his absorption / expansion of the Diocesan Museum in Cologne. Not necessarily the same program, but the intersecting of two forms, and how each treated these situations.

where is the compare? in the compare and contrast?

a couple months ago the GSD sponsored a dialogue (fight?) between eisenman and jacques herzog, moderated by jeff kipnis, and with the substitution of herzog for the zumthor role, this was basically the core of most of the discussion. there's some coverage of the event on one of the GSD archinect school blogs (can't remember if it's quillan's or brian boyer's), and since the lecture was recorded you may be able to get a copy of the video from the GSD.

i saw part of it, i don't remember either looking at the other...

Personally, i like experiential architecture and therefore prefer Zumthor's built work and theoretical/methodological approach.

yeah but you need a common point of reference. for example, if they worked under the same master? something to frame the discourse.

thanks snarkitekt - that's the kind of thing I'm looking for. I knew there was something like that out there, I hear it was somewhat heated.
While I appreciate the snide attitudes and demeaning comments from others, I'm just a student investigating these theoretical approaches of those who have come before me and (regardless of the opinions of some) have accomplished much professionally and personally in their time.
As I've said, I'm not an Eisenman fan - but i would like to find out why that is so, rather than just having someone say "he sucks" and taking it for the gospel truth. I look at his work and I don't like it, but I need to know why on a deeper level than just not liking the way it looks or the fact that he makes museums where you can't hang art on the non-vertical walls.
A possible approach is to tie this into the older philosophical basis for their thinking. Zumthor quotes Heidegger as an influence and Eisenman notes Karl Becker's investigation of epistemology, of the basis of knowledge in his early theoretical approaches. I think there is possibly some depth there.

Eisenman held the architecture world in thrall for twenty or thirty years, from the late sixties to the late nineties.. He was architecture's figurehead, spokesman, and eminence grise. You could argue that he gave rise to the approaches of deconstructive architects such as Libeskind, Tschumi, et al.

He was firmly rooted in the academy, he spoke in the rarefied language of the intellectual, he engaged with the elites, even while alienating the average architect. The university system was dominated by deconstructivist and semantic theory, and it crept into architecture through people like Eisenman.

In a sense, what theorists like him were doing was playing word games. They were twisting reality through linguistic manipulation.

But then a couple of interesting things happened: Alan Sokul, a physicist, submitted a hoax article to a leading theory journal Social Text called "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity." It was a re-evaluation of gravity from a semantic standpoint, and it was gibberish. They accepted it, even debated it in their pages, before he revealed that it was a hoax. The language of postmodern theory, he argued, was a sham. People started to reconsider whether postmodern theory was even relevant.

Also, 9/11 happened. That sobering dose of reality called into question all of these attempts by theorists to make reality fictitious.

Since then, we've moved toward what might be called a more empirical way of making architecture. It's based on sensory, construction and programmatic realities. Zumthor seems to be at the forefront of this shift.

On one level, I would argue that there is no "theory" to Zumthor's work. The buildings are the recognizable manifestation of his tectonic thought—they are his theory embodied, with no need to discuss any further.

But he also does draw from phenomenology as a way of engaging with the world. Our current milieu of architecture reminds me of two quotes, one from Sartre: "No reality except in action." and another from Rem Koolhaas: "thank god the semantic nightmare is over," a reference to Eisenman and people like him.

language is content. content is reality. therefore language is reality...

Brilliant post farwest.

I'm not that familiar with decon as a theory, but didn't the whole thing arise from Derrida's intellectual probings into language and how imperfect a medium of transmitting ideas/messages it is? How that in order to understand any kind of message from a language standpoint, one has to deconstruct the message to find its "true" meaning? I think there is a sweet irony in the fact that Eisenman has concealed meaning using a theory based in notions of of discovering it.

Language is a part of reality, but isn't the whole of reality.

language IS everything.

regardless of whether your paper topic is good/bad etc, i agree that as a student it's important to know your history and understand how you feel about it.

a good place to start in eisenman's work is diagram diaries--he basically explains methods of each of his earlier works. he also talks a bit about the role of semiotics/language here. and it is a good idea to research derrida and the collaboration between the two.

in terms of phenomenology, alberto perez-gomez's built upon love is a good one. or holl/pallasmaa/perez-gomez in question of perception.

just a warning, it does seem like a broad topic for a 15 page paper.

I actually think it could be easily distilled into a 15 page paper, just keep the bullshit to a minimum.

Mdler managed to sum up the whole thing with 2 sentences.

Zumthor builds, Eisenman talks.

For you and I as humans, language may be very important, but I suspect it's not everything. There is an empirical reality that exists regardless of us and whether we are able to form it into a linguistic system.

But this is all debatable, using language of course. And lots and lots of philosophy, cognitive neuroscience, physics, epistemology, etc.

You can try to convince me that language is everything, though, if you want. Or point me to some readings. Where or how did you form the opinion that language is everything? I'd like to be convinced of this.

but Eisenman (like Derrida) used obfuscation to gain power in their respective academic circles. In this case, language is everything.

I think vado means "language is everything" in the sense that reality is based on messages. If all language is simply a means of communicating a message, than anything can become language, sensory perception becomes a way of receiving messages.

In a basic sense i think he has a point, but then again I also think he's oversimplifying the definition of language.

then again, vado loves to post cryptic/thoughtful one-liners and disappear.

Thanks farwest1 - I didn't know any of that, good background to have going into this.
kyo-ko - it's still early in the process for me. Part of the reason I was soliciting opinions / thoughts here was in an attempt to find a narrower focus within this proposed topic.
There has been some good stuff here, I appreciate all the comments.

cayne1, maybe your paper can focus specifically on how eisenman and zumthor view communication/language? what is "real" or "meaning" to each of them, what is actually conveyed through communication?

i think kipnis' effect/affect is appropriate for that conversation as well.

I'd like to amend Vado's comment:

Language WAS everything.

But luckily people don't listen to Peter Eisenman much any more.

"Thank god the semantic nightmare is over." Rem Koolhass

I think that Jeff Kipnis's new authentics might relate to your question. It might also add the structure of an existing theoretical discussion to your research.

Good luck with the paper, cayne, it is an interesting topic and I'm sure you will learn a lot researching it, which is the most important thing. As others have worried, since it IS only 15 pages, you may consider framing (sort of as vado suggested) the comparison within a smaller area, say, as their ideas relate to one building apiece, not the whole of their work.

I'm not really qualified to join this discussion... but I'd be curious to see someone refute or sustain the "language is content" comment relative to the current situation of culture as described in the book "On Bullshit" (which I have not yet read).

It seems more and more to me that language, especially as used publicly ("Mistakes were made", for example), is meaningless, which means actions and objects *should* have more weight.

cayne1

despite my earlier post I think your topic is a very valuable one. In it could trace the paradigm shift that has taken place in the past years form that of post-modern theory to that of material and practice.

It is a big task but I think you have chosen exactly the right protagonists for your paper. You should probably narrow it down to one aspect - one possibility would be the roots of the current 'reaction' to the theory approach. Zumthor's background as son of a cabinet maker and having worked on historic preservation projects were probably a major factor in this development.

I have not read Zumthor's "Thinking Architecture" cover to cover, mainly because (in the original German edition) it was such a terrible read. In my opinion there is no shaping theory in his work just good instincts, experience and skill. This traditional understanding of the architectural profession is what has given it new vigor.

is on 'authentics' now? Geez!

I think George Carlin has devoted his entire career to the probing of bullshit LB.

if anything, Zumthor's following could be attributed to people getting tired of the Eisenman camp and their theoretical BS

Wow, some great suggestions here. Thanks to all for the help in narrowing a (too) broad subject. You should've seen my first topic - that was way bigger & totally unmanageable, but it did lead to this one.

yes, kipnis writes about it, eisenman's projects fall into the category 'conceptual' project i.e. something not to be experienced, but thought about or read. I would look into his analysis of tehrani for evidence of this , although his projects have transitioned in the recent past, so would be careful which project you cite. kipnis wrote an essay called 'peter's progress' that describes this.

zumthor i think falls into the category of 'post-post-modern' or 'super-modern' that is concerned with how buildings are experienced rather than read. the new authentic is something without historic reference or typology, and purely based on sensory experience.

some readings (this was a major theme in my theory class last year):

'critical regionalism'
'supermodern'
'peter's progress' by kipnis
'art in the age of mechanical reproduction' by benjamin
'brandscapes' by klingmann

Yeah, I can imagine the texts cited. I'm just amazed that this is (in Kipnis' view, anyway) a new angle to the discourse. How're you gonna talk about authenticity when you've been a down-with-the-ship formalist for most of your career? Is this some Scully-style crisis of conscience or a sly lookout on some changing wind? I hope he's being taken to task on this ...

^Nominee for "Best Screen Name" for the Archinect 2007 Awards

liberty bell said, "It seems more and more to me that language, especially as used publicly ("Mistakes were made", for example), is meaningless, which means actions and objects *should* have more weight."

To which I can only say: YES!

"Talk is cheap motherfucker!"

there is a post in one of the GSD blogs that links to a lecture at harvard where Kipnis lays out the basic idea of new authentics in relation to the conceptual. He uses the relationship to land/datum/landscape to draw an oversimplified diagram of the progression. might be a good place to start with him. Also, he's lecturing about new authentics specifically at sci-arc next week.

wow, this is a great thread.

for those interested in language, i recommend s.i. hayakawa's language in thought and action.

Modern Postmodern Supermodern Hypermodern Deconstructivist Critical Regionalist Metabolist etc etc.

Rather than always trying to fit every trend and architect into an historical category with predefined limits, we should think in different terms. One could argue that there is only one trend—the continual evolution of something called Modernity.

Modernity evolves as technology evolves, and each phase of its evolution elides into the next. There are no boundaries, limits, or endpoints to these transitions, only a continual and seamless kind of transformation.

Luckily, I feel that architecture has moved on from the discourse that wanted always to categorize movements, and therefore delimit them. Charles Jencks was the ultimate embodiment of that tendency.

hey jiminy cricket, when is the lecture happening? i checked the sci-arc site and didn't see it listed...

farwest, that's called hetero-modern (i just made that up).

kyo-ko - the pub lecture by kipnis was a month a ago at sci-arc. however, he is currently teaching a class here related to this topic.

good one!

Such brillant postings these are!!!

I like farwest1's optinion.
Language Was everything, but not now.
In derrida's theory, language is very important, but that's in order to say that "Language" cannot say anything in the end, so the premodern era has been gone.
In foucault and Deleuze, language is, among many others, just one thing to explain the contemporary.

In my opinion, difference between Zumthor and Eisenman is not just about "who build" and "who talk".
In deeper levels, it's about how to recognize the Reality or realities.

Sorry for my unpolished english.

dot

i think that Zumthor is actually post-post-post-modern