by: Daniel Fox
Event: Screening of Michael Blackwood’s film, “Peter Eisenman: Making Architecture Move”
Location: The Paley Center for Media, 10.28.07
Speakers: Peter Eisenman, FAIA — Founder & Principal, Eisenman Architects; Michael Blackwood — Director, “Peter Eisenman: Making Architecture Move;” Ron Simon — Curator of Television, The Museum of Television & Radio
Organizers: The Paley Center for Media, The Architectural League of New York
Event: Dialogue: Jacques Herzog and Peter Eisenman
Location: Graduate School of Design (GSD), Harvard University, 12.04.07
Speakers: Peter Eisenman, FAIA — Founder & Principal, Eisenman Architects; Jacques Herzog, Hon. FAIA — Senior Partner, Herzog & de Meuron (Basel, Switzerland)
Moderator: Jeffrey Kipnis — Curator of Architecture and Design, Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus, OH)
Organizers: GSD, Harvard University
Though both events — a screening of the documentary “Peter Eisenman: Making Architecture Move,” and a dialogue between Jacques Herzog, Hon. FAIA, and Peter Eisenman, FAIA — were intended as debates between Eisenman and a relevant players in architectural practice, they focused mainly on re-examining Eisenman’s belief in architecture based on the design of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, Germany. During the Herzog discussion, the memorial served to answer the question: “What is architecture?” The screening used the memorial to highlight the maze of relations, characters, and politics of Eisenman’s vision.
Directed by Michael Blackwood, the documentary aptly captures the myriad voices and opinions that influenced the course of the memorial’s creation as well as its future. The first half of the film is a collection of opinions from German politicians, filmmakers, and writers that documents the obstacles to the memorial’s creation and interprets the controversy over the abstractly minimalist “memory-scape.” The second half views visitors’ responses to the memorial and each other. Acting as a silent observer, the film shows the memorial melting into society and history. In short, the film itself becomes a part of the formative process as well as a documentation of it.
At the Herzog debate, when the fundamental question of “what is architecture” arose, the discussion turned into self-reflection. Eisenman defined himself as a conceptual stronghold — someone who revels in theory over pragmatics. He recounted that sculptor Richard Serra, one-time collaborator on the memorial, stated it was Eisenman’s best work because “it does not have plumbing.”
In the end, Eisenman, as in all his works, presents a self-evaluation adding meaning and value to the creative process. For him, the transformation from his intellectual pursuits to his physical manifestations is anti-climatic. The finished product must be experienced and continuously evolve through visitors and inhabitants.
Harry Gaveras, AIA, is the principal of Propylaea Architecture, and co-chair of the Emerging NY Architects (ENYA) Committee, AIANY. Chi-Fan Wong is a visiting assistant professor and director of exhibitions at Pratt Institute, Department of Undergraduate Architecture.