The study investigates the concepts of stratification, destratification and
restratification of the urban tissue in Peter Eisenman?s Cities of
Artificial Excavation projects. The main thesis of the study is that
Eisenman?s Cities of Artificial Excavation performs a transgression of the
three fictions on which classical and modern architecture were based by
introducing narrative layers of non-classical fiction using strategies of
relative destratification, that is, strategies of destratification and
associated restratification of the urban tissue. This is a specific type of
narrative de- and re-stratification based on a process, that is, on the
concept of the disjunctive synthesis of real and imaginary or artificial
narratives, which brings into question the traditional concept of
(narrative) stratification, the concept of origin, the question of the
beginning and end of a narrative line, and the question of true and
rational, namely, the traditional line of influences of layers of the past
on the layers of the present and potential future. For Eisenman, the layers
of the present and potential future do not have to be based on the
influences of fixed and unchangeable, a priori layers of the past. On the
contrary, they have the potential to change the structure, meaning and
significance of the layers of the past. In a wider context, this approach is
related to poststructuralist perspectives that aim to break down the
established mental structures of thinking and design and provoke different
approaches to architectural and urban design, that is, different physical
experiences, and the meaning and significance of the built environment.
De- and re-stratification of the urban tissue: Peter Eisenman’s cities of Artificial Excavation projects