Architecture without meaning
I’m still on the fence about whether or not architecture should be autonomous or if “good” design should always be 100% contextual and have meaning behind it. Personally, I don’t relate to a lot of Peter Eisenman’s work, but he and his architecture have sparked an interesting debate. Why does architecture need to be so meaningful? Like we discussed in class, why does everything we design and what we have been taught in school need to have a narrative? On one hand, I think that architecture can definitely just be something “cool”- isn’t design subjective anyway? But perhaps in designing something without meaning or context, therein lies the meaning. Shouldn’t architecture be a vessel to make its users feel a certain way, good or bad? In my opinion, there doesn’t seem to be any meaning or purpose behind Eisenman’s house experiments other than to do just that: experiment and make people feel a certain way and debate about it. His architecture exists in its own reality, completely disconnected from everything around it, but is that really such a bad thing?
I agree with you--I think Eisenman designed for the purpose of form, not for users to inhabit the spaces (especially in the house experiments). Also, your statement about architecture making users feel a certain way, good or bad, really is a neat question, because I have always thought of it in terms of good vs bad design, so it forces the user to examine it from a personal level instead an aesthetic level.
ReplyDeleteI think it is okay to not have an opinion one way or the other about Eisenman's work. There are so many ideologies we can't take a hard stance on them all, but it is good to understand the basis of them.
ReplyDeleteI agree and think we place so much importance on the overall good and bad that we sometimes have a hard time seeing past the narrative and actually experiencing the space. Can re really judge a building that we haven't experienced?
ReplyDeleteI agree as well - design is 100% subjective. I know it is important for us as students to have history/theory classes to understand architecture, but we get too caught up in "analyzing" stuff - who cares. Who are we to judge Eisenman's work? We can think what we want about House II or the Wexner Center at tOSU, but they are still there. They still exist. Why don't we worry about our own projects and our own design principles?
ReplyDelete