La Maison Dom-ino:: Eisenman's Analysis

This analysis looks at the Maison Dom-ino through what Eisenman terms the “self referential object”. He explains Le Corbusier’s goal as the reconfiguration of the architect in relation to the object and viewer by a realignment of all three from their typical mediated relationship to an equal stage of existence. His claim is that all critiques of Corbusier's work, specifically Colin Rowe's, have been insufficient in their insistence in analyzing the work in the context of plan and section or through a Renaissance conception of space; that for the work to be truly understood as "self referential" it must be analyzed in a context which must understand the fundamental change between man and object. In reality, Eisenman is merely revisiting this work as a jusification of axonometric analysis and its relation to exhibiting 2 and 3-dimensional formal languages simultaneously. A sly ploy to explore the excessive bounds of formal language grammars and repetition. A good comparison is Rowe's analysis of Le Corbusier's Villa at Garche and Palladio's Villa Malcontenta in The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa in relation to Eisenman's analysis of Terragni's Caso del Fascio. In this Eisenman's point seems more obvious that an analysis in plan and section is merely resultant from an outdated understanding of space, and that because Terragni's formal moves work both in "elevation", "facade" (as Rowe defines them) and volume, the axonometric is the only possible form of analysis.

Paladio Above Right

Le Corbusier at Left and Bottom Right

Eisenman's analysis of Terragni's Caso del Fascio

Eisenman's use of the axonometric came from the work of James Stirling, the first architect to widely use it in the representation of concepts . His axon diagrams show assemblage development and techtonic relationships as well as formal moves operating in both plan, section
and volumetrically.
Village Project, 1955





Fogg Museum Addition, 1979




Seen by many as the apotheosis of his exploration of modernist technique and formal language, Eisenman's House VI is the result of his extensive axonometric exploration. Kenneth Frampton refers to the house and the axon's relationship as follows:

The building is as much an absence as presence, with slots standing for absent walls and vice versa. This dichotomous prescription surely favored the Archimedian Point of axonometric projection much beloved by the avant garde, which always allowed one to distance oneself from the immediate presence of space. Through this heuristic Eisenman could sustain the conceptual process of binomial subdivision that was the primary device determining the design of the house. -House VI, The Client's Respnse, 1994.

Here are some studies which resulted from and in the design of the house