House VI by Peter Eisenman
House VI by Peter Eisenman
The House VI also called the Frank Residence is an important building that was designed by Peter Eisenman and constructed in Cornwall, Connecticut in 1976 for the Frank Family. At the time of its construction, Eisenman was known almost exclusively as a “paper architect” and a theorist. His architectures had a rather formalist approach, a system he called “post functionalism”. His designs opposed the aesthetic form following action, but rather emerged from a conceptual process and remained pinned to the conceptual framework (Eisenman 1987).
Eisenman’s limited construction however meant that the building experience of the entire construction was poorly detailed. House VI was built for 3 years and as a result went over budget before reconstruction in 1987. The Franks loved living in the house nonetheless. The design of the building was meant to be a “record of design process," whereby the resulting structure is as a result of the methodological manipulation of a grid. Designed majorly as a weekend house on a small rural site, House VI featured the first clear depiction of Eisenman’s architecture whereby the trace of a form that is represented with a void is the most important factor over the form itself. Eisenman’s House VI divided the master bedroom and the bed into two with a missing beam trace (Eisenman 1987). This cut a void through the floor and hence separating the married couple. Eisenman’s houses have most of their initial patterns transformed into easily seen layered traces. Together with House II and IV, House VI has a medium complexity design.
Figure 1
Peter Eisenman's architecture sparked a lot of comments within the design circles over the past few decades. However, until recently most of his commissions were small residential houses that had subordinate livability such that they were mostly considered performance rather than art. The floors for instance were designed in such a way that occupants could easily fall of front ne the first floor as was the case of an occupant of House VI. Eisenman’s house had an ambiguity in its axonometric techniques determining its divergence from other dynamic conceptual arts as it however maintained its material and spatial properties (Eisenman 1987).
With each successive design that Eisenman made from his first House I, he came closer to achieving his goal of generating a non- representational architectural design that rejects contemporary semiotic, phenomenological and semiotic approaches which are typical of domestic houses. In his House VI, the entry façade was not as complex since all the differences between the facades was eliminated.
Work cited
Eisenman, Peter (1987). Houses of Cards. New York: Oxford University Press.
