DAISY AMES

awesome lecture by peter eisenman in spain, 2008 - he begins speaking 6 minutes in…

he is frustrated with the increasing “mediation” of people who become disconnected from their surrounds, and instead chose to participate in meaningless and mindless activities fostered by media outlets - ie iphone, email, texts, mp3 players etc. he is concerned about people closing themselves off from experiencing the world around them.

he also addresses the fact that architects today cannot win competitions by building straight buildings; there is a demand to twist and turn, wind and bend. architects who design to achieve something avant-guard lack the desire to have a strong education about palladio and le corbusier. instead architects today want the “latest cocaine,” a quick fix to fame and production, which in the end lacks value and substance.

he continues… “they want to be zaha hadid” - build like her, have what she has, all the while avoiding the education created by intellectual discourse around architectural theory and practice.  he states that young people have created a “passive culture that has an enormous yearning for that which is easy, that which you can see in the moment and you don’t have to look at it again.”

modernism was a physical byproduct of the abstract, forward theories of its time ie when freud and einstein challenged behavior patterns and space-time, respectively. postmodernism grew from modernism in the late 60’s, and as a result of moma’s 1988 deconstructivist exhibition killed postmodernism but lacked idealistic framework to produce its own movement. consequently, deconstructivism soon died too, leaving us in a period in flux, without definition. post war critic, theodor adorno refers to it as “late style” in reference to beethoven. during this period in flux, beethoven did not focus on producing something new, but producing something complex. he faced the difficult challenges and organically responded to them in the same way that architects today may not be producing things that are comprehensible, but will later be viewed as the necessary step towards a new paradigm of architecture.

where is architecture going? what is the future? “the more you are concerned about the future,” eisenman says, “the more you are condemned to live in the past. please live in the present.”

he shows frustration with his students not knowing and not wanting to learn how to draw plans or sections, but are concerned with producing appealing facades. see also my december 19th 2009 post re: architectural writing is just as superficial as the work it “describes,”  and my december 2nd 2009 post re: the art of the facade.

as much as i think his critique is spot-on, there is a vestige of hypocrisy that is apparent at the end of the lecture (35 minutes into the video) where he needs assistance navigating his own powerpoint presentation. it is slightly concerning that a man whose genius - mathematically, architecturally and cognitively - falls short of his ability to perform tasks that are fundamental to lecturing. to use his own words of wisdom to “please live in the present,” are applicable here because he requests that we know our surroundings and be open to what is currently happening, yet he is guilty of similar notions.

just as important as it is for young people to study history and learn lessons from the past, it is also important for generations ahead of us to stay contemporary as well, in order to continue communicating in a way that is advantageous to all. i encourage our elders to not close their doors of curiosity, to not become passive about their own intellect, to not be shy or fearful of the future. but instead, share and teach us as they always have. being able to use technology (navigate a powerpoint) is simply an utility that makes the teaching and learning process more fluid and transmittable across various mediums. case and point: i located this lecture of peter eisenman in spain in 2008 and now providing broader view of it to others on my blog. in retrospect, it’s amazing, and i think peter eisenman would agree.