Peter Eisenman: Feints Published by Skira. By Silvio Cassara. Impregnated with “culture” in the broadest sense, the works of Peter Eisenman reflect many years of important study on the meaning and sense of design. Architecture understood as History, as Philosophy, as Art, as Mathematics, as Literature, Architecture understood – as it should be that is – as a strict discipline that aims to recover its operational fields, defining with precision its limits and the potential for a profession that must constantly face destabilising visual and technological systems. Within history and yet outside it so that it can continue, within Tradition yet outside of tradition in order to avoid becoming sterile, the architecture of Peter Eisenman does not aim to console with the simple suggestion of a difficult-to-define aesthetic or the illusion of an evanescent technique. The unpredictability of his work anchors design to individuation and the clarification of its objectives by focussing on the value of the sign understood as a fundamental conceptual expression and not as simple formal distortion. The validity of this formidable theoretical system intended to return a renewed and personal linguistic system to fields of architecture, is confirmed by examining the continued expansion of the territorial system, as evidenced by projects on a territorial scale such as the Memorial of Berlin or the Cultural Centre of Galizia, the most recent projects which demonstrate the vitality of a design system that is constantly renewing itself.
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