Eisenman Quotes

#1. I am very different as a parent to new kids. My work changed from being rooted in the sky to being rooted in the earth.

Peter Eisenman

#2. The guy who sits in front of the TV set with headphones on has lost the capacity to react to the tactile environment.

Peter Eisenman

#3. Architecture is definitely a political act.

Peter Eisenman

#4. There arose a riot among the Jews and Scribes and Pharisees, saying that the whole people was in danger of looking for Jesus as the Christ. So they assembled, and said to James, 'We beseech you to restrain the people, who are going astray after Jesus as though he were the Christ.

Robert H. Eisenman

#5. There's no such thing as an absolute openness. Openness is relative, I think, in all societies.

Peter Eisenman

#6. I don't know how to use appliances. I mean, I use the coffee maker. But that's it.

Peter Eisenman

#7. I'm a Larry David fan, right? And it seems to me that Jewish history from the Talmud on has been a self-deprecating, self-critical kind of humor.

Peter Eisenman

#8. I don't design houses with the nuclear family idea because I don't believe in it as a concept.

Peter Eisenman

#9. Architects design houses. I live in a home.

Peter Eisenman

#10. I don't believe that classical architecture is enough to engage people anymore. They say: 'So what else is new?'

Peter Eisenman

#11. I'm not a fashion architect. I don't dress in Ralph Lauren and Gucci. When I buy a suit, I buy it at J. Press. I have a blue blazer that I wear 80 percent of the time.

Peter Eisenman

#12. I am not a finisher, I am a starter. And I am always thinking, what is the next project.

Peter Eisenman

#13. Clearly the anti-Semitism in Germany in the 1930s went overboard and it was clearly a terrible moment in history.

Peter Eisenman

#14. Endings are like, I always say, like a women's pregnancy. When she has a child, she is happy to have the child, but there is a thing called postpartum depression, that is that she is no longer carrying the baby.

Peter Eisenman

#15. Conservation destroys the present. If we are only busy preserving the past, we are not living in the present and unable to look forward. I am against conservation. We should let young people move forward, whether we agree with them or not. We should let new things happen.

Peter Eisenman

#16. I am immersed in architecture all day, working in my office or teaching.

Peter Eisenman

#17. I was in Jungian analysis for 20 years, 1976-96.

Peter Eisenman

#18. I would never live in anything I design. Life and art are different. My life is very precious to me - my art is precious to me. I love designing things for other people, but I don't like designing things for myself.

Peter Eisenman

#19. Stop making me feel good. If you are anti-Semitic, fine. If you don't like me personally, fine. But deal with me as an individual, not as a Jew.

Peter Eisenman

#20. If you want to show a picture, just show it - don't spend too much time arranging it.

Peter Eisenman

#21. I truly believe that the great heroes that create the history of architecture are people who take risks and write to tell about it.

Peter Eisenman

#22. I use the NordicTrack every other day for 20 minutes. I don't listen to music or watch TV while I do it. I count to myself. I count to 25; I count to 25 backwards, that sort of thing.

Peter Eisenman

#23. You cannot live with guilt.

Peter Eisenman

#24. If you were a son of mine, I wouldn't want you to be an architect, because it's a tough way to be in the world.

Peter Eisenman

#25. The architecture we remember is that which never consoles or comforts us.

Peter Eisenman

#26. The more centralized the power, the less compromises need to be made in architecture.

Peter Eisenman

#27. The world is too full of information.

Peter Eisenman

#28. My father went to Rutgers, and I grew up in New Jersey, so I'm a great Rutgers fan. I have season tickets.

Peter Eisenman

#29. The best clients in the world are the people who cause you to struggle.

Peter Eisenman

#30. I didn't know I was Jewish until I encountered anti-Semitism at the age of 10, when my best friend told me I couldn't come to their house because I was a Jew.

Peter Eisenman

#31. My wife has her stuff and her taste, and I have my stuff and my taste.

Peter Eisenman

#32. I really don't even think of myself as being Jewish except when I'm in Germany.

Peter Eisenman

#33. When looking at Germans, I have never felt a sense that they are guilty. I have encountered anti-Semitism in the United States as well.

Peter Eisenman

#34. Your illustrations are really good." "You've mastered another world than I.

Robert H. Eisenman

#35. The problem with digital architecture is that an algorithm can produce endless variations, so an architect has many choices.

Peter Eisenman

#36. In New York, a Jew is a Jew, an Italian is an Italian, a Muslim is a Muslim: Nobody's going out of his way to treat you in a special way.

Peter Eisenman