Peter Eisenman's The End Of The Classical

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In The End of the Classical, Peter Eisenman has enlightened the architecture community to his idea of the three fictions that have influenced architecture since the fifteenth century. These fictions are representation, reason, and history. Fictions are not inherently bad, but when it does not recognize itself as fiction and when it tries to simulate reality, it becomes a simulation. Representation created the simulation of meaning, reason created the simulation of truth, and history created the simulation of the timeless.

The first fiction is representation. Before the Renaissance, language and representation were congruent. The meaning of architecture was within itself. The Renaissance attempted to revive classical architecture, and that caused for the current architecture to derive its value from another architecture. Renaissance architecture became simulacra, or a representation of a representation. After the Renaissance, that congruence was …show more content…

This begs the question, that if representations, rationality, and timelessness were all simulations, what can be the model for architecture? Eisenman claims that an alternative model will not answer this question. Instead, a list of absent characteristics can help to explain it better. In other words, they come from that which cannot be. Instead of a simulation, it is more like a dissimulation. It does not attempt to merge reality and illusion; it leaves them be. However, dissimulation is not the inverse of simulation, it just is not simulation. Therefore, if the classical is simulation, then the “not-classical” is dissimulation. The purpose of dissimulation is also not to overthrow simulation, but just to end its dominance. It reveals new values and it also proposes to read architecture as a

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