Chora L Works documents the unprecedented collaboration, initiated in 1985, between philosopher Jacques Derrida and architect Peter Eisenman on a project for the Parc de la Villette in Paris. Woven into the volume are discussion transcripts, candid correspondence, and essays, as well as sketches, presentation drawings, and models. Derrida and Eisenman's design process was guided by Plato's chora text from the Timeaus; their unique reciprocal relationship was an interchange - and transformation - of voices.

Essays and detailed descriptions are built along a central axis tracing Eisenman's career. Project profiles are organized according to their "generating motif": the interiority of architecture, or projects generated by the internal forces of shapes and forms; and the exteriority of architecture, projects governed by external forces such as site and scientific process.

Uses the architectural design of a house to show the principles of structuralism and a possible reaction against traditional functionalism.

Anhand ausgewählter Bauten von Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto, Frank Lloyd Wright und Giuseppe Terragni analysiert Peter Eisenman die Merkmale allgemeiner und spezifischer Form, deren Zusammenspiel er als Grundlage architektonischer Erfindung und Komposition ausweist. Gleichzeitig wird in seiner Studie der Ausgangspunkt des theoretischen und praktischen Werks von Peter Eisenman erkennbar..

Essais sur l'architecture par l'architecte Eisenman.

A study of the development of Eisenman's architectural theory, taken from the 'texts' which he himself wrote every time he designed a house.

A presentation of writings by and about Peter Eisenman, arguably the most significant architect working today. The book analyzes the whole spectrum of subjects covered in the architect/philosopher's oeuvre. Seminal texts are included that show how his theories have developed over time.

In 1963 at the University of Cambridge, Peter Eisenman -- world famous for his Holocaust Memorial in Berlin (2005) and respected and feared by his colleagues for his intellectual acuity and quick-wittedness -- wrote a dissertation on the formal basis of modern architecture. This striking document, with its idiosyncratic photographs, fully deserves to be published here, for the first time, in a faithful reproduction of the original. In an afterword, Peter Eisenman discusses this remarkable starting point of his practical and (...) theoretical work. (shrink)