Eisenman Beyond Eisenman: Language and Architecture Revisited Amir Djalali ∗ Abstract Until the 1990s, architectural criticism was based on the idea that architecture could be compared to language, and the tools for inter- preting architecture were similar to those of linguistics and literary criticism. Such a view was rejected by post-critical architecture, which started looking at architecture as an asignifying, performative and af- fective phenomenon. However, language philosophy after the ‘linguistic turn’, in particular what Felice Cimatti has called the ‘Italian language theory’, provides new tools for rigorously addressing the parallel be- tween language and architecture. The architectural trajectory of Peter Eisenman’s Houses will be re-interpreted through the lens of these the- ories. Better a good idealist than a bad materialist. (Attributed to Lenin) Introduction Is architecture a language? Of course, architects use language. Architecture is not only made of buildings and projects, but also of a corpus of written texts which are sometimes used in explanation of buildings and projects. Often, texts by architects are projects in themselves which have a certain degree of autonomy from designed or built architecture: the architectural treatises of the Renaissance, the modern architect’s polemic manifesto, the ‘complete works’ book or the architectural theory essay, are literary genres which can be approached through the tools of literary criticism. At the same time, architects use a specific language in architectural drawings. More precisely, architectural drawing is a code, a system of conventions which presents a high degree of standardisation, in which each sign has a specific ∗ The version of record of this manuscript has been published and is avainable in The Journal of Architecture, 7 November 2017, www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/13602365.2017.1394350 1