ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the work of Peter Eisenman, John Hejduk, Aldo Rossi and Oswald Mathias Ungers. A common characteristic of their approaches is their interest in redefining the concept of the user in architecture in relation to the tension between the individual and the collective. The analysis of how each of these architects treated the relationship between individual expression and civic responsibility through architectural design is pivotal for understanding their approaches. Central for this chapter is the idea that two concepts that are at the core of the thought of these architects are those of memory and rationality. Of great interest for comprehending the design strategies of Rossi and Eisenman, and how they introduced the critique of functionalism in their design process is their conviction that functionalism is reductive. The architects through the design process address the “observers”, who are going to interpret their architectural representations, and, to the “users”, who are going to inhabit the spaces they conceive. In the case of Eisenman, Hejduk, Rossi and Ungers’ approaches, due to a congruence of factors that are analysed in this chapter, the “observers” became more central than the “users”.
