While reading Peter Eisenman’s “Cardboard Architecture,” I felt as though I could relate to his processes and ideas through things we have done in my studio classes. Currently in ARCH343 I am designing a children’s museum and I decided upon this program after we as a class analyzed what the City of Bethlehem could benefit from. One thing I have come across in this design is that I feel as though I do not need to constrain interior spaces because this would depend on the specifics of the exhibit placed inside. My idea was reinforced by Eisenman when he said “a museum as a program offers very little in the way of specific functional requirements which can act as either a suggestion for or limitation to a formal development” (Eisenman 29). He goes on to theorize that “this might account for the fact that many of the best museums are ones that have been created in buildings originally designed for other purposes” which immediately made me think of last Thanksgiving break when my family visited the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) in North Adams, MA (Eisenman 29). The MASS MoCA is housed in factory/warehouse buildings that were initially built for Arnold Print Works which I found very interesting and in some ways thought that the structure and how it was used was more interesting than some of what it housed. This is similar to part of Wolf Prix’s lecture when discussing the museum he had designed as part of Coop Himmelb(l)au in which he said in relation to museums, artists cannot be afraid of the confrontation of strong architecture and must have strong art pieces otherwise the architecture of the museum will overpower weak art pieces (Prix).
Additionally when Eisenman was discussing his process of transformations for House I, it made me think of the design process we used in Christine’s ARCH043 class for the semester artist studio project. We started with a simple square design and had to take it through different transformations in order to come up with a plan for another model. The theory behind this was not as developed as Eisenman’s yet it still aided in our design and helping develop an idea and processes.
Tying back to the initial question again of “What is architecture?” I found it humorous in Wolf Prix’s lecture when he was talking about the Rooftop Remodeling Falkestrasse in Vienna, Austria how you were not allowed to architecturally change the roofs but people saw Coop Himmelb(l)au’s proposal as just art which was allowed as an installation so they claimed it was art and were then able to build it. This illuminates the sometimes thin line between art and architecture and poses the question of what defines the difference? In my opinion, I would say that all architecture has the capacity to be art but of course not all art is architecture, similar to all squares are rectangles yet not all rectangles are squares.
Citations:
Eisenman, Peter. Cardboard Architecture, 1967.
Prix, Wolf. “Between Heaven and Hell: The Architecture of Clouds.” Architectural Association (AA). Lecture presented at the Architectural Association (AA), May 14, 1998.
Excellent consideration of the readings along personal experiences – and yes, I think MASS MOCA is an amazing place for art (and architecture), with minimal original relevance. In fact, many art galleries (often of contemporary art) are just warehouse/factory conversions. And I’m glad to read how you’ve retrospectively understood studio exercises in terms of Eisenman’s process – even without explicit mention, his approach permeates much of design education (though many wouldn’t like to admit it!).