John Hejduk
Encyclopedia
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, USA. Hejduk is noted for his use of attractive and often difficult-to-construct objects and shapes; also for a profound interest in the fundamental issues of shape, organization, representation, and reciprocity.
Hejduk studied at the Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture, the University of Cincinnati
University of Cincinnati
The University of Cincinnati is a comprehensive public research university in Cincinnati, Ohio, and a part of the University System of Ohio....
, and the Harvard Graduate School of Design
Harvard Graduate School of Design
The Harvard Graduate School of Design is a graduate school at Harvard University offering degrees in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Planning and Design.-History:...
, from which he graduated with a Masters in Architecture in 1953. He worked in several offices in New York including that of I. M. Pei
I. M. Pei
Ieoh Ming Pei , commonly known as I. M. Pei, is a Chinese American architect, often called a master of modern architecture. Born in Canton, China and raised in Hong Kong and Shanghai, Pei drew inspiration at an early age from the gardens at Suzhou...
and Partners and the office of A.M. Kinney and Associates. He established his own practice in New York in 1965.
Career
Hejduk is associated with several schools, including the New York FiveThe New York Five
The New York Five refers to a group of five New York City architects whose work appeared in a Museum of Modern Art exhibition organized by Arthur Drexler in 1967, and the subsequent book Five Architects in 1972.These five had a common allegiance to a pure form of architectural modernism, harkening...
(from the MoMA publication Five Architects that also included works of the architects Peter Eisenman
Peter Eisenman
Peter Eisenman is an American architect. Eisenman's professional work is often referred to as formalist, deconstructive, late avant-garde, late or high modernist, etc...
, Richard Meier
Richard Meier
Richard Meier is an American architect, whose rationalist buildings make prominent use of the color white.- Biography :Meier is Jewish and was born in Newark, New Jersey...
, Michael Graves
Michael Graves
Michael Graves is an American architect. Identified as one of The New York Five, Graves has become a household name with his designs for domestic products sold at Target stores in the United States....
, and Charles Gwathmey
Charles Gwathmey
Charles Gwathmey was an American architect. He was a principal at Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects, as well as one of the five architects identified as The New York Five in 1969...
), and the Texas Rangers (a group of innovative architects and professors at the Texas School of Architecture, Austin
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
; other well-known participants include Colin Rowe
Colin Rowe
Colin Rowe , was a British-born, American-naturalised architectural historian, critic, theoretician, and teacher; acknowledged as a major intellectual influence on world architecture and urbanism in the second half of the twentieth century and beyond, particularly in the fields of city planning,...
and Werner Seligmann
Werner Seligmann
Werner Seligmann , was an architect, urban designer, and educator.He was born on March 30, 1930 in Germany. His father was a violinist; Seligmann inherited a lifelong taste for music and the arts in general. He family spent much of their life in Braunswieg Germany, until they were captured by the...
). Hejduk was Dean of the Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture
Cooper Union
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, commonly referred to simply as Cooper Union, is a privately funded college in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States, located at Cooper Square and Astor Place...
from 1972 to 2000. His arrival including the cooperation of many other influential professors (including Raimund Abraham
Raimund Abraham
Raimund Johann Abraham was an Austrian architect.- Life :Raimund Johann Abraham was born in Lienz, Tyrol. He studied architecture at the Technical University in Graz and in 1959 established an architectural studio in Vienna, where he soon emerged as a leading avant-gardist. In 1964 he moved to the...
, Ricardo Scofidio, Peter Eisenman
Peter Eisenman
Peter Eisenman is an American architect. Eisenman's professional work is often referred to as formalist, deconstructive, late avant-garde, late or high modernist, etc...
, Charles Gwathmey
Charles Gwathmey
Charles Gwathmey was an American architect. He was a principal at Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects, as well as one of the five architects identified as The New York Five in 1969...
, Diana Agrest, Diane Lewis, Elizabeth Diller, David Shapiro
David Shapiro (poet)
David Shapiro is an American poet, literary critic, and art historian. He has written some twenty volumes of poetry, literary, and art criticism...
, Don Wall and many others) transformed the practice and critical thought of architecture in ways that might be compared to Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was a German architect. He is commonly referred to and addressed as Mies, his surname....
's transformation of the Armor Institute into the Illinois Institute of Technology
Illinois Institute of Technology
Illinois Institute of Technology, commonly called Illinois Tech or IIT, is a private Ph.D.-granting university located in Chicago, Illinois, with programs in engineering, science, psychology, architecture, business, communications, industrial technology, information technology, design, and law...
.
His early work and curriculum grew from a set of exercises exploring cubes, grids, and frames, through an examination of square grids placed within diagonal containers set against an occasional curving wall, towards a series of experiments with flat planes and curved masses in various combinations and colors. To aid his research he was awarded a grant from the Graham Foundation in 1967. Eventually, John Hejduk's "hard-line" modernist space-making exercises, heavily influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
and Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was a German architect. He is commonly referred to and addressed as Mies, his surname....
, moved away from his interests in favor of free-hand "figure/objects" influenced by mythology and spirituality, clearly expressing the nature of his poetry. The relationship between Hejduk's shape/objects and their surroundings is a controversial subject, raising questions similar to those raised by the early houses of Peter Eisenman
Peter Eisenman
Peter Eisenman is an American architect. Eisenman's professional work is often referred to as formalist, deconstructive, late avant-garde, late or high modernist, etc...
. The built work of Hejduk began to appear in the 1980s (Mask of Medusa, Brazil; Kreuzberg Tower, Berlin; House for Two Brothers, Tegel Harbor - Berlin; Security (Interventions), Berlin; etc...) and continue beyond his death. (Wall House 2, Groningen, NL; and Hejduk Tribute Towers, Galicia Cultural Center - Santiago de Compostela Peter Eisenman
Peter Eisenman
Peter Eisenman is an American architect. Eisenman's professional work is often referred to as formalist, deconstructive, late avant-garde, late or high modernist, etc...
).
Contemporary theorists, researchers, and academics publishing work and research by and about John Hejduk include K Michael Hays, Mark Linder, R.E. Somol, and Renata Hejduk.
A large portion of his work is archived at the Canadian Centre for Architecture
Canadian Centre for Architecture
The Canadian Centre for Architecture is a museum of architecture and research centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Phyllis Lambert is the Founding Director and Chair of the Board of Trustees, and Mirko Zardini is the Director and Chief Curator....
in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
.
Important buildings
- House For a Musician (1983)
- House of the Suicide and House of the Mother of the Suicide
- Kreuzberg Tower and Wings (Berlin, Allemagne, 1988)
- Tegel Housing (Berlin, 1988)
- La Máscara de la Medusa (Buenos Aires, 1998)
- Wall House II (Groningen, 2001)
- Tribute Towers
