Wolf Prix’s example of showing how the moon of Mars “couldn’t exist” due to its rotation of its axis, that defies mathematics, is a wonderful example of how architects put too much into the “analyzation and calculations” when it comes to architecture, however, to Prix, “this shouldn’t be the only way to make architecture.” Prix lectures about urban development, city planning, and architecture, and tries to make the argument that the shift in architecture and architectural thinking can be related to a cloud and how “they form and transform themselves through the complex interactions of changing situations and are symbols for conditions that change rapidly” Eisenman’s essay can be related to the ideas’s of Prix, and this “post-criticism” or changing our views of the way we look at a piece of architecture and and relating it back to the human sense from “speaking about man” to one where man is “concerned with its own objecthood” This is essentially Eisenman’s explanation for cardboard architecture, or ways object can stimulate our senses at represent something in an “aesthetic and functional context”, into a more “marking or notational form”, or the integration and balance of both of these aspects. I feel like this relationship was lost somewhat with the rise of industrialization in the beginning of the 20th century, while Eisenman also attempts to figure out how the relationship between functionalism and humanism, and how functionalism is basically an extension of the humanistic phase architects had; basing things off of the human body. In conclusion, Prix and Eisenman both attempt to examine different ways of interpretation, and the “post-criticism” balance between the different ways in which humans can interperate and relate architecture to the human race as a whole and into smaller, more specific segments.
Eisenman, Peter. 1967. Cardboard Architecture.
Prix, Wolf. 1998. “Between Heaven and Hell: Architecture of Clouds.”
A good comparison between the two sets of ‘readings’, whose works may not always be amenable to direct comparison. You cover a lot of ground in your response, and it would have been good to drill down deeper into some ideas, particularly on the nature of ‘objecthood,’ ‘post-criticism,’ or the conceptual role of notation in formal processes. Moreover, I sense a general appreciate of the texts, however it would have been good to hear a more critical response, either in praise or criticism.