eisenman -travels with colin rowe

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Yale University School of Architecture

Interview with Peter Eisenman: The Last Grand Tourist: Travels with Colin RoweAuthor(s): Peter Eisenman and Colin RoweSource: Perspecta, Vol. 41, Grand Tour (2008), pp. 130-139Published by: The MIT Presson behalf of Perspecta.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40482322.

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3/11

INTERVIEW WITH

PETER

EISENMAN

THE LAST GRAND TOURIST: TRAVELS

WITH

COLIN

ROWE

P41

Where did

you go?

PE

The idea of the

grand

tour

n

architecture s an

English

if not a Euro-

pean

tradition,

n

which

an

older

experienced

traveler nitiates

young

person

to the cultural

plendors

of southern

Europe.

In

the

mid-eighteenth

century,

obert

Adam established his architectural

ractice

n

London

after

raveling

xtensively

n

taly

with

his

tutors,

nd Goethe described

his

1786-87 travels o

Italy

n his book Italienische

Reise,

published

in

1816-17. While he Grand

Tour has come to be seen as an essential

part

of

an architect's

ducation,

my

ravelswithColin Rowe were

part

of an "acci-

dental"

education,

but

they

had a

profound mpact

on the manner

n

which

would

subsequently

practice.

In

the

spring

nd summer of

1959,

I

was

working

orThe Architects' ol-

laborative n

Cambridge,

Massachusetts. At the time t eemed like

heaven,

working

orWalter

Gropius

and

living

n

Cambridge.

This

was

supposedly

the summa of an architect's

ife,

ut soon realized

that even

Gropius

and

his associates

had no real

ideological

or

philosophic

commitment o what

I

thought

was architecture. AC was

so

unsatisfying

hat went to see a

former

mployer,

he architect

ercivalGoodman.

Percy

aid,

"Look

Peter,

why

work

yourway up

the

ladder

in

an office o become a

junior

partner

r

maybe

a

partner?Why

don't

you

come back to

graduate

school at Colum-

,

bia?"

At the time was

twenty-seven

ears

old.

I

had been

in

the

army

for

two

years

in

Korea,

I had done

my

hree

years

of

apprenticeship,

nd

I

was

studying

or

my

rchitectural icense. Because

I

was

in

Boston,

I

applied

to

MIT as well as Columbia.

I

was

accepted

at

both,

but Goodman wanted

me

back at Columbia. He

said,

"You

can

graduate

in

one

year

rather han two."

At the

time,

his was

important

o me.

But

I

need

to

go

back to the fall f

1959,

when

Jim

tirling

ame to Yale for

his first isit.

tirling

ame down to New York nd

I

was introduced o

him

throughmy

hen

roommates,

John

owler

who

went on to work

with

Paul

Rudolph)

and Michael McKinnell. im

aid,

"You

know,

you ought

to

go

to

England.

That's where

things

re

happening."

New Brutalismwas

in

vogue,

and the Smithsons and

Team

1

0 were

generating

new

energy

n

England.

In

the

spring

of

1960,

I

applied

for

Kinney raveling ellowship,

which

was

worth

$7,500,

which

n

today's

dollars was a lot of

money.

At

the

same

time also

applied

for

Fulbright

o France.

I received both

fellowships

nd

decided to

go

to France.

My

brotherwas

living

n

Paris

at the time. arrived

on the Flandre

in

Le Havre and took

the "boat train" o the Gare du Nord.

When

I

asked a taxi

driver,

n

French,

o take me to Rue

Git-Le-Coeur,

here

my

brotherwas

living,

he driver

urned o me

and,

in the most conde-

scending

tone

possible,

suggested

that twould be better

f

spoke English.

Atthat

moment,

realized that France was not forme.

I

spent

a

night

with

my

brother,

hen turned round and

accepted

this other

fellowship

t Cam-

bridge

to be a research assistant.

Unwittingly,

f

course,

this decision would

lead me to Colin Rowe.

I remember ur first

meetings.

would

go

to Colin's flat wo or three times

a

week,

and he would

pull

out

books,

Campbell's

Vitruvius

ritannicus,

Letarouilly's

dificesde Rome

Moderne,

and other books with series of

fantastic

lans

from he Renaissance.

I

was

taught

how to read these

plans

and to see that

specific plans

showed certain deas.

I

was

taught

how to

understand he nuances of these

plans,

how

they

constituted

he essence

of what is

architectural,

f what has become the

persistencies

of architec-

ture.We were not

analyzing

their unction ut rather he architectural ela-

tionships

n

these

plans.

This

lay

the

groundwork

or he

trip.

After

everal

months,

Colin

suggested

that was the "noble

savage"

to his Robert

Adam,

and

proposed

thatwe travel

n

Europe

for he summer.

I was the one who researched the

trip.

As

I

was interested

n

De

Stijl

nd

the

Bauhaus,

we started off

n

Holland,

gainst

Colin's better

udgment.

We

The Last Grand Tourist 1

1



4/11

saw

all of

Rietveld,

Van

Tijen

and

Maaskant,

Bijvoet

nd Duiker t a

time

when

rarely nybody

had

gone

to see this work.We saw the Van Nelle

Fac-

tory,

he Oud

Siedlung, Bijvoet

nd Duiker's Zonnestraal

Sanatorium,

nd of

course the Schroeder House.

It

was then that realized how much Colindid

not ike modern architecture.

After

Holland,

we went down the

Rhine,

topping

nKrefeld o see Mies's

Lange

and Ersters

houses,

which Colin had

never een.

In

Stuttgart,

e

saw the

Weissenhofsiedlung.

did all the

driving

n

my

white

Volkswagen

Bug

while Colin read

incessantly

o me. Twelve

hours,

night

nd

day,

we did

nothing ut ook,and Iwould drivewhile he read,muchof ituseless trivia,

like he shields of

popes,

the

number f Piccolomini

popes,

etc. Itwas a

total mmersion

xperience.

Next

came

Zurich,

where Colin wanted to visit

one of the old Texas

Rangers,

Bernhard

Hoesli,

who had worked

with

Le

Corbusier nd had

taught

t Texas with

Rowe.

In

Zurich,

we had

dinner

with

Hoesli and his wife.

Hoesli

had

taken us

around to see Le

Corbusier's work

n

Zurich,

nd then showed us his own

work

n

his office.

Hoesli was a

very

bright

erson,

but on

this

occasion,

I

became Colin's attack

dog.

Bernhard sked

me,

"Well,

what do

you

think f

my

work?" We had seen that his

workwas a cross between

Wright

nd Le

Corbusier.

immediately

aid,

"Bernhard" and this s what endeared me to

Colin

"Bernhard,

have never had a more

exhilarating

ay.

t

was the most

amazing

experience

looking

t Le Corbusier with

you.

But

I

cannot under-

stand how a person who knows so much about architecture an do such

bad work."And there

was silence. Boom... itwas

arj amazing

moment.

Leaving

Zurich,

we

proceeded

south

through

witzerland o Como. Now

we need to

go

back to Como because

that s a

major

part

of

my tory.

Unlike

Goethe,

who reveled at the

Lago

di

Garda,

Colin said it was to be

avoided

at

all

costs,

except

for brief

top

in

Sirmione t the foot of the

lake,

because it was now full f Tedeschis of a

somewhat different

lk

han

Goethe. Mussolini had

ruled from

alo,

on

Lago

di

Garda,

in

1944-45,

just

north f Sirmione.Such was the kindof

history

hat Colin would read as

we traveled.

,

this so-called

noble

savage

who did

not know

anything,

ven

though

had been

reading

AD

duringmyyear

at Columbia and had learned

about

Brutalism,

nd even

though

had been

meeting regularly

ith

Stirling,

Smithson,Banham,

and other

members of the

English

cene

in

London,

was still neophyte.

When

Sandy

Wilson

had come back from

ale,

he

gave

me,

as a

present

for

illing

n

for

him,

he

Encyclopdie

de

L'Architecture ouvelle

by

Alberto

Sartoris.

n

that book

I

saw

Giuseppe

Terragni

s workfor he first ime

his Casa del

Fascio,

the Asilo

Infantile,

nd the

Giuliani

Frigerio

partment

block. There was also

Cesare Cattaneo's

apartment

block inCernobbio

ust

up

the road from omo. This

fired

my magination

nd

my

desire to see

these

buildings.

Thus,

when

we arrived

n

Como,

we

immediately

went to

the

square

in

front f Casa del

Fascio, and,

as

Colin

said,

I

had a revelation.

After

aving

een De

Stijl,

Mies, Corbu,

the

Weissenhofsiedlung,

ll of these

monuments f modern

architecture,

o see the

Casa del Fascio

in

the flesh

was

amazing.

I

was blown

away.

After

omo,

we

drove to

Milano,

where we

saw the

Terragni

partment

buildings

which

nobody really

knew at the time.

Theywere only nthe Sartoris book. We also saw Terragnis two houses in

Seveso and Rebbio on the

way.

My

mania for

ollecting

rchitectural

magazines

from 918-39

began

in

Milano.

Much

of

what was modern

prewar

rchitecture ad been

pub-

lished

in

Giuseppe

Pagano's magazine

Casabella. This was the focus of

my

earch

in

used bookstores.

I

would walk

in

and

say,

"Vecchie riviste i

Casabella della

prima

della

guerra?"

I

looked

in

every

ittle ookstore from

Milan o

Naples

and back to

Torino.

During

hat

time we discovered

many

small

antiquarian

bookstores,

ome of which can stillvisit o

this

day.

But

itwas

only

on our last

day

in

taly

hat we hit

he

ackpot

in

the

galleria

n

Torino,

ut that s

another

tory.

1 2

The Last Grand Tourist



5/11

How were

you documenting

the

buildings?

Were

you taking

slides or

drawing?

After

Milan,

Colin

programmed

he rest of the

trip

with

High

Renaissance

and

Mannerist rchitecture

nd

painting,

ut

very

ittle

aroque.

I

was not

allowed to look at Borromini r Bernini.

he workwe had to see was

the

basis of the

Cambridge

course thatColin was

giving,

alled "From

Braman-

te

to

Vignola,"

hat

s,

from

520 to

1

570

in

northern

taly,

oth

painting

and architecture. f

course,

thiswas all new material

orme.

We went east to

Bergamo

to see the citta alta and

the Scamozzi

loggia

on the

way

to the Veneto. We also detouredbelow the Milano-Venezia

autostrada to

Mantova,

where we

stayed

for hree

days.

We were

now

in

the heart of Colin Rowe country.We saw Giulio Romano's Palazzo del Te, ,

with he faux

rustication

nd the

giant

frescoes

bursting

ut

of their

panels.

We

spent

an afternoon

ipping

San

Pellegrino

Aranciatas

n

front f Albertis

facade for an

Andrea.

We went to see the little-known

hurchof San Bene-

detto

Po,

with

ts nterior

y

Giulio Romano

and its

baptistery

overed

with

his

frescoes.

Twentyyears

later,

when I

returned,

here were no

frescoes,

only

restored

"original"

Romanesque baptistery.

he work

by

Giulio

Ro-

mano had fallen

victim o

the "restoration"

mpulse.

Next came the Veneto

and the Pal ad an villas. At that ime none of the

villas had been document-

ed or

catalogued,

but Colin knew their ocations fromhis

previous

visits.

We

would ask fordirections

n

our

primitive

talian nd we found and

I

stillhave the slides ten or twelve Palladian villas that had been

previously

undocumented

n

any

books

at the

time,

ertainly

ot

n

the old Baedeker

and MichelinGuida Rossa

guides

that were our constant

companions.

I

was

taking

lides,

but not

drawing. Learning

o see

requires

something

other han

slides or

drawings.

My

most

important

esson inarchitecture

was the first

ime saw a Palladian

villa. cannot rememberwhich

one,

somewhere inthe

Veneto.

It

was

hot,

probablyninety-six

r

ninety-seven

degrees,

and

humid,

nd

Colin

said,

"Sit

in

front f that facade until

you

can

tell me

something

hat

you

can't see. In other

words,

don't want to know

about the

rustication,

don't want to know about the

proportion

f

the

windows,

don't want to know about the ABA

symmetries,

r

any

of those

things

hat

Wittkoweralks about.

I

want

you

to tell me

something

hat s

implied

n

the

facade."

I

remember his moment

s

if

t were

yesterday.

his

is how Colin

began

to teach

me

to see

as an architect.

Anyone

can look

at window-to-wall

elationships,

ut can

anyone

see

edge

stress,

the fact

thatthe Venetianwindows are moved outboard from he center to create

a

blank

pace

-

a void between the windows which acts as

a

negative

energy?

Such ideas are not found

n

any

books.

They

are found

n

seeing

architecture.

In

this

way

I

began

to understandhow

to

look

at

Palladio,

at a

portico

n

relationship

o the main

body

of the

building,

t

the

flatness

of the facade

and its

ayering.

f

course

it

was

very

different

rom

ooking

t Giulio

Romano's Palazzo

del

Te,

which

displayed

different inds of architectural

tropes:

a

different

latness,

different

ayering,

he

implied peeling away

of the

stone,

and

the real stone

making

tone

appear

thin.We talked about

frontality,

otation,

nd the difference etween Greek and Roman

space.

All

of these lessons

I

learned

through

ooking

t the subtleties of the Palladian

villas. nVicenza we

saw

the

Palazzo

Godi,

which Scamozzi finished fter

Palladio's death. We saw how much drier camozzi was than Palladio. To

be able to see

dryness

was as

important

s

being

able to taste

dryness

in

a wine.

We then went to

Venice.

In

retrospect,

n

Venice,

interesting

ifferences

between Rowe and Tafuri ecame clear. Tafuri

hought

hat Sansovino was

important,

hile

Rowe

infinitelyreferred

camozzi.

We saw two

Palladian

churches,

San

Giorgio

nd

Redentore,

nd

the

layering

nd

compression

that occurred on the

facades,

their

rontality.

ow

I

was

beginning

o see

things.

And of

course we were still

doing

twelve hours a

day.

said,

"Hey

Colin,

come

on,

let's

go

to the beach." But

no,

we could not

go

to the

beach.

For

Colin,

t

had to be total mmersion. his kind f

mentoring

would

be

absolutely mpossible

today.

The Last Grand Tourist 1 3



6/11

He walked

back?

We went

nto he

Veneto,

then

down to

Vicenza,

to Verona to see Sanmi-

cheli's

citygates,

to Padua

to see the cathedral. This is where the

story

also

gets

interesting,

s far

s Colin is concerned.

He said we could not

go

to Florence untilwe had

seen

Rome,

because

I

needed to understand

he

influence f Rome

on Florentine nd

Bolognese

painting,

what

he would

latercall Mannerist

ainting.

nother

words,

we had to see

Raphael,

Michel-

angelo,

and

Peruzzi before

going

to Florence. On

the

way

to

Rome,

we went

to Urbino

o see the cortileof the Ducal Palace

and the Piero della

Frances-

cas.

The next

top

was

Arezzo,

where we ate

in

the Buca di San

Francesco,

across from he Vasari

Loggia.

We went

to

Borgo

San

Sepolcro

another

one of the

things

hat

only

Colin would know which s a little own near

Arezzo,

with

small

church,

not

yet

restored,

with

frescos

done

by

Piero

della

Francesca.

Many years

later

went back and saw them when

they

were

completely

restored.

But who had been

to

Borgo

San

Sepolcro?

Colin

was meticulous

n

knowing

what to see and where to see

it.

Down

through

oscana we went.

We made an

importanttop

in

Gubbio,

which

s a

tough

hill

own

lacking

he saccharine

qualities

of Assisi

and

San

Gimignano.

From

here we went to

Todi,

where

I

had

my

first

paghetti

carbonaro

in

a restaurant

alled Da

Umbria,

with

magnificent

iew of the

valley.

Of

course,

we made the

obligatory

top

at

Sangallo's

Santa Maria

della Consolazione.

FromTodi we went to

Perugia,

Orvieto,

nd

Viterbo,

o

the

Villa

Lante, o,

finally,

ome,

which was a literal

east forColin. We

saw

the Stanze di

Raffaelo,

n

which

began

to understand

he three

periods

of

Raphael's paintings,

nd The Fire n the

Borgo

by

iulio Romano. I

began

to understand

how this ate

period

led

to the

painting

f

Parmigianino,

Pontormo,

nd Bronzino. Painters

were an

integral

art

of understand-

ing

the architecture. iero della

Francesca was the

first o

bring

certain

layeredfrontality

f

space

that architects ike Bramante

pick

up.

Rome

is a

chapter by

itself.

ncluded

in

our tour was

every

Roman wall churchof

the

sixteenth nd seventeenth

centuries,

ncluding

arlo Rainaldi's

Santa Maria

in

Campitelli.

t was

in

Rome that

got my

first ntroductiono

Luigi

Moretti.

We

went to the

Fencing

Academy,

which was

in

pristine

ondition,

hen

to Casa Girasole and Casa

Astrea. Colin had been

impressed by

Morettis

magazine,

Spazio.

After detour to

Naples,

we started north rom

Rome.

I

remember

his was

one of

the

highlights

utside of Siena.

By

this time was

pretty

eat,

really

exhausted,and

particularly

iredof

being

lectured, ead to,and told what to

do twelve hours of

every day.

We were

driving long ust

outside of Siena

when Colin said and this was

the

way

he would

say

things

"In 2 kilo-

meters we're

going

to take

the

right

ifurcation."

couple

of minutes ater

he

said,

"Now

remember,

n 1

kilometerwe're

going

to take the bifurcation

to the

right."

nd

I

began

to steam. So when we reached

the

bifurcation,

went

speeding by

to the left. had had

it. twas done. And Colin

said,

"I

said

right."

said,

"I

heard

you."

He

said,

"I

said

right," gain.

I

said,

"I

heard

you."

He

said,

"Stop

the car." So

I said OK. I

stopped

the car. And he

got

out,

closed the

door,

nd

I

continued

on.

No,

he hitchhiked o

Siena,

where we met

up

at the

hotel,

both

having

cooled

off.After iena we went to

Florence,

hen

Bologna. Bologna

is

memorable because we looked at Vignola's Loggia dei Banchiand at the

Carracas and Guido Reni

n

the

Bologna

Gallery.

hen we

went to Lucca

to see the Pontormos.

We looked at a lot of

painting,

ut at

the same

time,

I was

trying

o collect issues of Casabella. We arrived

n Torino n our

last

day

in

taly.

remember

his

distinctly.

e went to a

shop

in

the

glass

galleria

n

Torino,

n old

white-hairedman

with

fascist

beard,

split

n

the

middle

clearly

n old fascist was

sitting

utside the

bookstore. We asked

him f

he had

any

old

Casabella

magazines,

and he

replied

that

yes,

he

did. And

I

said,

"Could

we see them?" So he

goes

into he

store and tells

the assistant to

go

downstairs

o the basement. And he

said, "Look,

I

don't

want

to

bring

hem all

up,

which ones

specifically

re

you

looking

for?"

And

I

said,

"Why

don't

you ust bring

up

some

magazines

from 932?" So

he

bringsup

a

complete year,

n mint ondition. o

I

asked

if

here

were

more,

1 4

The

Last Grand Tourist



7/11

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9/11

What

happened

when

you

returned

to

Cambridge?

How did the

trip

with

Rowe influence

your

work?

and he

said

yes.

So

I

said,

"Why

don't

you

bring

hem all

up?"

He

brings

up

a hundred

plus

issues. Itwas

amazing.

I

mean,

a troveof mint-condition

magazines

from he 1930s.

Now,

knew

they

were worth

$10

apiece,

that

is, 6,000

lire.But

if

bought

a hundred

magazines,

that would be

$1,000.

I

didn't have that much. was

making

he

equivalent

of

$2,000

a

year,

nd

with

myfellowship

or

7,500

we had

bought

a

car, raveled,

tc. We did

not have

much

money

at

that

point.

So

I

asked what he wanted for hem.

He

said,

really uickly,

0 lire

piece.

Not

600

but 60.

I

said,

"Too

much,

I'll

give you

20." We

agreed

on

20

lire

copy.

He

had

never old these

magazines,

nobody

had ever asked for hem. could have

bought

the

entire

store,which had all of the Futurist nd Fascist material ne could ever want.

After

orino,

we went back

up

through

France,

to

Chambry

nd

Nancy

a

city

Colin loved. Then we went

into

Paris and looked at what he considered

to be French

neoclassical architecture

y

the architectsDue and

Duban,

people

who are

hardly

known.We looked at Le

Corbusier,

f

course.

And I

remember,

lso

going

to his office t

35,

Rue de

Sevres.

We stood outside

on the

doorstep,

and I looked at Colin and

said,

"What he hell am I

gonna

say

to

this

guy?"

He

said,

"Ring

he

doorbell,

come

on,

come on." And

I

said, "No, no, no,

I

can't do

that,

don't know what to do." So we turned

around and walked

away.

Leslie

Martin,

sked me

if

would

stay

on to teach a second

year.

At

the

time did not want to be a

teacher,

wanted to be an

architect,

o

I

asked

if could work s an architect.Martin

uggested

that ince I

already

had

my

icense,

I

would not want to work s a

draftsman,

nd that

t

would

be difficulto find

ny

other rchitectural

ork.

Then

he

said,

"I will

do

something

which is

highly rregular.Why

don't

you

do a Ph.D.? You

can do

it ntwo

years

instead of three and still each first

ear."

Being

a teacher

at

Cambridge,

one was

supposed

to be

sitting

t

high

table

in

college,

but

as a research

student,

ne was

supposed

to be

sitting

with esser mortals.

Martin,

with

his

political

cumen,

was able to work

t

out,

suggesting

I

do a

Ph.D.

under his

guidance.

I

had never

thought

bout

getting

Ph.D.,

but

decided

to

do the thesis.

This was

perhaps

another

example

of

my

ccidental education. I

also saw

that here would be some

problem

forme

in

establishing

my

distance from

Colin Rowe. Rowe's last

year

in

Cambridge

was from he fallof 1961 to

the

spring

of 1962.

During

hat ime decided to write bout the formal

basis

of

modern architecture s an

analytic

work on fourdistinct rchitects:

Terragni,

e

Corbusier,Aalto,

nd

Wright,

much to Rowe's

chagrin.

finished

my

Ph.D. in

1963,

the

year

after

Colin

left.

Without

t,

would not be

who

I am

today.

There is no

question

that

my

education made it

mpossible

forme to

be what

I

would call an

ordinary

practicing

rchitect. he two

trips

Colin

and

I

made a second tour

n

the

summer of 1962

-

and the

Ph.D.

were all

part

of it.

My

dea of what

it

was

to be a

practicing

rchitect

hanged completely.

ven

today,

am amazed

that have done

major

buildings.

Being

mentored

by

one of the three

great

historians nd critics f the latter

part

of the twentieth

entury

those

being

Banham, Rowe,

and Tafuri was

the most intensive

xperience

I had. The time

spent

withRowe was

my

education.

In

those two

years,

those two

trips,

received

an

education that

would be

impossible

to have

in

any

other

way.

both carried

this education

forward nd needed to react

against

it.

Later,

here were other

mentors,

afuri nd

Jacques

Derrida.PercivalGood-

man had been

my

firstmentor. was

open

to

being

mentored,

nd the times

were such that

mentoring

was

possible.

This would be

impossible today.

With

Rowe

I

learned about much more than

architecture,

rom he Carracas

and Guido Reni

n

the

Bologna gallery

o the

Vignola loggia

in

Bologna.

This was the time that

Rowe was

writing

bout Le Corbusier's La Tourette.

He took

me to the Cistercian

monastery

Le

Thoronet,

which s the

formal

The Last Grand Tourist 1 7



10/11

Why

did

you

decide to leave

England?

Is

this kind of

learning

still

possible? Why

don't

you

travel with

your

advanced

studios,

if

you

are

trying

o teach

your

students to

see

in

the same

way

that Colin

taught you?

Or

maybe you're

not

trying

o

do

the

same

thing?

You

said

earlier that

this kind

of travel

is

no

longer

possible,

that

you

cannot travel

today

the

way

that

you

traveled with Colin Rowe

as

your

"cicerone.

"

Is it not

desirable,

or is it

simply

not

possible?

And

if

t s not

possible,

why

is that? What has

changed?

underpinning

f La Tourette.How

many

tudents even know about

this,

much ess have been there?

Allof this

nformation as

practically mprinted

on

my

brain,

because

it was

passed

to me

in

a

very

passionate

way. truly

was a "noble

savage,"

like

sponge soaking

up

this material. he

thought

of

having

Ph.D.,

the

thought

f

teaching

had never ever occurred

to

me.

I

also did not realize that twas

going

to

put

me off f the conventional oute

to

becoming

a

practicing

rchitect.

First f

all,

t

was too

claustrophobic,

oo

homogeneous.

I

missed a certain

sense

of

humor

hatwas American. also missed a certain

capacity

to

be

able to be "me." I could not ive forever s an

expatriate.

Even

though

could have

stayed,

never would have

practiced

architecture

n

England.

knew

I

wanted

someday

to build

buildings.

That

was

very mportant.

could

not become a historian ike

Colin.

The

first-year

lass that teach at Yale is an

attempt

o teach students

how

to see architecture s architects. t s

something

hat does not come natu-

rally.

ale's Dean Robert Stern has said there s

a

disjunction

between the

first nd third

ear

in the studio. We needed to find course that mediated

between

first

ear

and third

ear.

How does that

knowledge

move into he

studio?

I

am

trying

o set

up

a series of case studies to show

how Rem Koolhaas

moves from alladio and Schinkel o Le Corbusier o Rem Koolhaas.

I

am

trying

o define he

persistencies

of architecture.What are those

things

that do not

change,

what

things

have

changed,

where

aje

the fertile reas

for

hange?

How do

you

take the

knowledge

of Bramante nd Palladio

and

use

it n

a studio

with

Zaha Hadid?

How

does Hadid

do it?

How

does Frank

Gehry

do

it? I

want to show

examples

where masters

have been able to

take material

rom he

discipline

of architecture nd

manipulate

t o that t

becomes

present.

How do

you

produce

work hat does not

rely

n

graphics

or

Photoshop

or

computers,

work hat relies on the

capacity

to

integrate

architectural

nowledge

into he

present?

In other

words,

what are the

present

situations?

Venturi,

Moneo,

Koolhaas,

Porphyrios,

rier, raves,

all

these architectshave had

verygood

educations

and have

integrated

hat

education into heir

practice,

whether

you agree

or not with heir urrent

directions.

The world was much smaller

n

those

days,

and slower. One knew

every-

body

that there was to know.One does not know

everybody

n

the world

anymore.

n

those

days you

eitherwent to

college

at

Harvard,Yale,

or

Princeton,

r

you

were out. When I

applied

to

college,

for

xample,

I

applied

to Harvard nd Cornell that was it. did not

apply

to six

schools

or

eight

schools. The world has become more varied and diffuse nd the old

days

of what it was like t Yale are not same as what it s like

oday.

Peter Eisen-

man,

for

ne,

does not have the time or

money

to take off nd travelfor wo

or three months.And

I

am married.You have to be an unmarried rchitec-

tural riticwho is

willing

o

spend

their ime for

nothing,

or

nothing,

o do

this.

Nobody

paid

Colin

to do it.

We each

paid

our own

way.

Do

I think

hat

it s a

way

to learn?

Absolutely.

o

I think

ne should be

paid

to mentor?

Absolutely.

ut think he world

has

changed.

What s

interesting

s that married

my

firstwife hat summer fterRowe

left.We were on the road

going

from

lorence

to

Arezzo,

repeating,

s our

honeymoon,

he

trip

hat Rowe and

I

had taken. We driveoff he main road

to a little

lace,

and there s a side road

coming

in from

ortona. We

go by

and

I

pull up

in

the

parking

ot of this restaurantwhere

there are no other

cars,

and

I

look

in

the rear view mirror nd

there s

a

little

reen

MG,

which

is what Rowe was

driving,

nd

I

said to

my

wife, Liz,

you

won't believe this

but Colin Rowe has

just

pulled up

behind us " And itwas

true. Rowe was

withAlvin

Boyarsky,

ho was then the next n

ine

to

take this

grand

tour.

The

danger

about

mentoring

s

the

risk hat

you

never

get

out from nder t.

1

8 The Last

Grand Tourist



11/11

Because the mentor is

doctrinaire,

or be-

cause it

s

an

intellectual

shadow?

It

seems that architects

today

are

traveling

out of a

professional

rather

than an intel-

lectual interest. For

example, many

architects

from ur

generation

are

building

their careers

in

European

offices.A

stop

in Rotterdam has

become de

rigeur.

Do

you

think hat travel

has become more of a tool for

professional

advancement than

intellectual

development?

Meaning

the source material that

supports

the intellectual

position

of these architects?

Usually

he mentor

produces

an

intellectual

hadow. Colin Rowe

was never

doctrinaire. e never nsistedon

anything

ut the

way you

learned. The

way

the

trip

was

programmed

was

according

to an attitude hat Colin had

about

Mannerist

ainting

nd architecture nd the

way

it related to modernism.

still

ee

through

Mannerist

yes.

For

example,

when we were

in

Rome the

first

ime,

we saw no Borromini nd no Bernini.

nstead,

we saw Carlo Ra-

inaldi

nd

Vignola.

We went to Santa Maria

n

Campitelli, y

Rainaldi.

t

was

only

few

years

ago

that realized that Rudolf

Wittkower,

owe's

mentor,

had written

long

article on the intersection f Palladio and Borromini

ith

Rainaldi

n

1935. Rainaldi had haunted

me without

my understanding

ntil

read Wittkower'srticle,which Rowe never told me about.

If

t had not been for

Rowe,

I

would not be who

I

am

today.

But

also,

if

had

not

escaped

from

Rowe,

I

would not be who

I

am

today.

There is a reason for his kindof

travel,

nd that s because

people

do not

know how or what to

see

today.

know

people

who have

spent

a

year

in

Rotterdam nd have never

gone

to see the

Zonnestraal,

for

xample.

They

would not even know where the hell

t

s.

They

haven't

gone

to see Oud's

houses in

Scheveningen

because for ome reason that

history

as eluded

them.

Nobody

has

taught

hem about those

things.

n

other

words,

nobody

has

analyzed

Johnson's nternational

tyle

show and asked "Where did he

get

these

things?

Where did he

pick up

these

pieces?

Johnsonwas so liter-

ate,

he saw and knew

everything.

ust

eing

around

Philip,

learned a lot

about the 1930s in

Europe

and his travels nd

why

he made the choices

he made for he 1932 show. Students

today

can

go

and workwith

Rem,

Zaha,

Herzog

and

de

Meuron,

but

students are

not

curious

as to

how these

architects

put

this nformation

ogether.

How else does one become free of

stylisms

f

convention,

nless one has

an education? To me education is the most

important

hing.

The Last Grand Tourist

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9

eisenman -travels with colin rowe

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