Humans continue to advance at rapid rates and at some points, creative walls are hit. Wolf Prix and Peter Eisenman explore different outlooks and techniques to get past this barrier. Prix suggested exploring different design methods like ones more used in art, to look at abstract “liquid designs” from many different angles while Eisenman’s study of cardboard architecture focuses on the “fundamentally changed the relationship between man and object away from an object whose primary purpose was to speak about man to one which was concerned about its own objecthood” (Eisenman 1976, 1). What I see from these techniques is disparity to be unnecessarily new and different. I do not find it necessary to look from different radical angles when ultimately it is the populace designers are working for, for their reactions and interactions with the works. Objects should not be about man or for its own object hood but things should be designed for man. The delicate combination of functionalism and aesthetics should be met with interesting ergonomic solutions. Eisenman says that the form of a museum is often realized as a very ideal shape” and “the making of form in this sense is more than the satisfaction of functional requirements and more than the creation of aesthetically pleasing objects, but rather the exposition of a set of formal relationships” (Eisenman 1967, 2). But the basis of being able to explore these formal relationships resides in the building’s first ability to be functional and aesthetically pleasing for the people. People cannot appreciate formal relationships between objects and its surroundings if they are struggling with the functionalism of the building. It is the architect’s first job to design a building to meet programmatic functions that people do not need to struggle with the basics, and can more freely exist in the space to then appreciate the other aspects. With this, architecture should continue to be designed with ergonomic, human needs in mind first then create interesting structures from that base, instead of the other way around with the idea of museums where interior programmed space has to accommodate pre existing constraints. If people think it is so easy to throw in programming after a space is created, the so called easy part should just be addressed first for it is the basis/ most important part of buildings that architects are now pushing to the side.
Eisenman, Peter. Cardboard Architecture, 1967.
Eisenman, Peter. Post-Functionalism, 1976.
Wolf Prix- Between Heaven and Hell: The Architecture of Clouds. AA School of Architecture, 1998. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS-FknvSOEg&ab_channel=AASchoolofArchitecture.
Excellent responses Mia – admittedly, I have some argument with a number of statements you’ve made, but I’m thrilled that your staking your position in response to those laid out by the readings. Am I to assume that there is a certain privilege that you’re reading in ‘intellectual’ architectural theory, whereby we’ve become ok with buildings that do not function so well (if at all)? A lot to discuss for tomorrow…