The American architect Peter D. Eisenman (born 1932) studied and made formal use of concepts from other fields--linguistics, philosophy, and mathematics--in his imaginative designs.

Peter Eisenman was born in 1932 into a middle-class setting in Newark, New Jersey. Although his grandfather had been a builder, Eisenman claimed that his decision to become an architect was not made until he discovered the world of architecture as an undergraduate at Cornell University. At Cornell (B.Arch., 1955) he studied under theorist/critic Colin Rowe, receiving the Charles G. Sands Memorial Medal awarded for exceptional merit in his senior thesis. Under the tutelage of Rowe, Eisenman was encouraged to re-examine the origins of modern architecture, particularly the early works of the French architect Le Corbusier (1887-1965), and thus was exposed to a set of ideas that were to form the core of his early practice and architectural philosophy. Following Cornell and a brief apprenticeship...