Peter Eisenman
Theoretical architect of Wexner Center, using grids and fragmentation to challenge norms.
Most quoted
"The problem with architecture today is that it's too concerned with solving problems. It should be about creating problems."
— from Lecture, 1980
"Architecture is a language, and like any language, it can be used to say things that are not immediately obvious."
— from Book: House X, 1977
"I'm interested in architecture that makes you think, not just architecture that makes you comfortable."
— from Interview, 1985
All quotes by Peter Eisenman (102)
The surface is not a skin; it's a depth.
Architecture is a form of questioning the status quo.
The void is not empty; it's full of potential.
Architecture is a way of understanding the world through making.
The project is not an answer; it's a question.
I'm interested in architecture that challenges our perceptions.
Architecture is a form of intellectual provocation.
The past is not a burden; it's a resource.
Architecture is about the potential of what could be, not just what is.
The building is not an object; it's an event.
Architecture is not about solving problems; it's about posing questions.
The house is a diagram of nothing.
Deconstruction in architecture means breaking the rules of form and function.
I design buildings that resist interpretation.
Modernism failed because it believed in progress; I believe in disruption.
A building should unsettle the viewer, not comfort them.
Form follows fiction, not function.
Architecture is the inscription of absence.
I don't build houses; I build ideas.
The trace of the absent is more powerful than presence.
Contemporaries of Peter Eisenman
Other Architectures born within 50 years of Peter Eisenman (1932).