Week 11

The main takeaway I got from this week’s material is that Eisenman and Wolf Prix use architecture in a way that creates dissonance, and through it they can extend an understanding of what architecture is and means. 

Eisenman uses dissonance through his layered application of form. His purpose is to use such a conception of design “to change the primary intention of architectural form from the perception of space to understanding the relationship of marks in that space to what is called here a deep structure” (Cardboard 34). He wants to promote an understanding of form through our mental perception rather than our physical vision. In order to do so, he bombards the viewer with duplicities making them question if one is structural what is the other and vice versa. The viewer then breaks down the fragments from his gestalt composition which expands their understanding. From fragments, asymmetrical or incomplete, they perceive whole organized symmetrical systems. Their understanding of the work goes beyond what is physically presented.  

In a different application of dissonance, Wolf Prix and his firm Coop Himmelb(l)au use it as a tool to address program and form. Their work pushes the bounds on what is considered architecture, exemplified by the roof in Vienna and their burning building. They blend the lines between art and architecture in order to allow them to fulfill their designs. I also apologize that I don’t fully understand it so I can’t go into detail and I will ask about it in the discussion, but I think he brought up two interesting ideas which he used to define the spaces of his architecture. He used the phrases “liquid space” and “frozen air” in his descriptions of his projects, mainly on the UFA Cinema Center. These phases stood out to me because they make sense… but also don’t, I also thought the contrast of liquid and frozen as descriptions of space in the same project was curious to me, when they almost seem at odds with one being fluid and the other rigid. But it helps to convey his understanding of architecture. Liquid space is used to describe the flow through the building, as it was open to the public promoted movement from one shopping center to the other, it defined space but did not block movement. Whereas frozen air was in the context of architecture being something that is cut out of frozen air and are able to enter. To me, it was an interesting conceptualization of space, as removing the void air and willing it with material to define space. 

References

Eisenman, Peter. 1967. Cardboard Architecture.

Prix, Wolf. 1998. “Between Heaven and Hell: Architecture of Clouds.”