3/2/98

CONTACT: Diane Manuel, News Service (650) 725-1945;
e-mail dmanuel@leland.stanford.edu

Architect Peter Eisenman to speak at Stanford

Architect Peter Eisenman will be the second guest lecturer in the Stanford Presidential Lectures and Symposia in the Humanities and Arts, speaking at 7 p.m. Monday, March 9, in Kresge Auditorium.

He will sign copies of his book at 4 p.m. Monday at the Bookstore, and also will participate in a panel discussion from 4 to 6 p.m. on Tuesday, March 10, at the Humanities Center Annex.

All events are free and open to the public.

An architect and professor of architecture at Cooper Union in New York City, Eisenman is considered an innovator in large-scale housing and urban design projects. He has been honored for his social housing project at Checkpoint Charlie at the former Berlin Wall and his design of office buildings in Tokyo.

Eisenman was founding director of the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies and editor of its former journal, Oppositions. As a theorist, he has drawn on the disciplines of philosophy and linguistics, most notably the work of Nietzsche, Noam Chomsky and Jacques Derrida. He is linked to the post-Functionalist trend in architecture, and his theoretical designs often appear to be in a constant state of movement.

Recent Eisenman works include the Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State University, which has been described as symbolizing the deconstructionist movement in architecture, and the Aronoff Center for Design and Art at the University of Cincinnati.

Eisenman is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Brunner Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. He was one of two architects to represent the United States at the Fifth International Exhibition of Architecture of the Venice Biennale in 1991.

The presidential lecture series brings some of the most distinguished scholars, artists and critics of the day to the university for lectures, panel discussions and interactive events with faculty and students. Funded by the President's Office, the events are a part of President Gerhard Casper's plan to strengthen and revitalize the humanities and arts at Stanford by exploring new roles and relationships for the humanities and arts in the academic community on the brink of the 21st century.

"I believe that we need to strengthen the humanities further," Casper says. "I would like the humanities to be a more visible and dynamic participant in shaping, enriching and challenging the intellectual agenda across the university."

Eisenman will participate in a panel discussion titled "Interiors" at the Humanities Center Annex on March 10. Joining him for the discussion are philosopher Wolfgang Welsch of the University of Magdeburg, who is a visiting professor at Emory University this year; Robert Doran, a graduate student in the department of comparative literature; and undergraduate Eric Marshall.

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By Diane Manuel