1995 Peter Eisenman

Peter Eisenman ’54, Bachelor of Architecture ’55, is a Cornellian. He also holds a M.S. in Architecture (’60) degree from Columbia University, and M.A.(’62) and Ph.D.(’63) degrees from Cambridge University (U.K). In 2003, he was awarded an honorary Doctorate in Architecture by the Università La Sapienza in Rome. He holds three honorary Doctorates of Fine Arts, from the University of Illinois, Chicago, the Pratt Institute in New York, and most recently from Syracuse University at graduation.  Eisenman currently holds the Louis I. Kahn Professor of Architecture Chair at Yale for a limitless term.  At Harvard, he was the Arthur Rotch Professor of Architecture from 1982 to 1985, and the Eliot Noyes Visiting Design Critic in 1993. He was the first Irwin S. Chanin Distinguished Professor of Architecture at The Cooper Union, in New York City.

Eisenman runs his practice, Eisenman Architects, in NYC. He has designed a wide range of projects, including large-scale housing and urban design projects, innovative facilities for educational institutions, and a series of inventive private houses. His recent and current projects include the yet unfinished six-building City of Culture of Galicia in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, the University of Phoenix stadium for the Arizona Cardinals which was the site for Super Bowl 2008, a railroad station in Pompeii still in development, and The Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, the winner of several architectural awards. Earlier projects include the Aronoff Center for Art and Design at the University of Cincinnati and the Wexner Center for the Visual Arts at the Ohio State University, both award winners.

Prior to establishing his architectural practice in 1980, Eisenman was primarily an educator and theorist. In 1967, he founded the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies (IAUS), an international think tank for architecture and served as its director until 1982. In 1969, through an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, he became associated with a group of young, emerging architects who quickly gained fame as the New York Five (the “Whites”).  This group, with Eisenman generally acknowledged as the leader, included Charles Gwathmey, Michael Graves, Richard Meier ’56, and the late John Hejduk. Eisenman studied and made formal use of concepts from other fields – linguistics, philosophy, and mathematics – in his imaginative designs. He is a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Eisenman has published widely. His most recent books are Code X: The City of Culture of Galicia (Monacelli Press, 2005); Eisenman: Inside Out, Selected Writings 1963-1988 (Yale University Press, 2004); Blurred Zones: Investigations of the Interstitial, Eisenman Architects 1988-1998 (Monacelli Press, 2003); Giuseppe Terragni: Transformations, Decompositions, Critiques (2003); Written into the Void, Selected Writings 1990-2004 (Yale University Press, 2007).

from: http://rhodesprofessors.cornell.edu/RhodesProfsEisenman.html