Career
Hejduk is associated with several schools, including the New York Five (from the MoMA publication Five Architects that also included works of the architects Peter Eisenman, Richard Meier, Michael Graves, and Charles Gwathmey), and the Texas Rangers (a group of innovative architects and professors at the Texas School of Architecture, Austin; other well-known participants include Colin Rowe and Werner Seligmann). Hejduk was Professor of Architecture at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, School of Architecture from 1964 to 2000 and Dean of the School of Architecture from 1975 to 2000. His arrival including the cooperation of many other influential professors (including Raimund Abraham, Ricardo Scofidio, Peter Eisenman, Charles Gwathmey, Diana Agrest, Diane Lewis, Elizabeth Diller, David Shapiro, 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's transformation of the Armor Institute into the Illinois Institute of Technology.
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 and Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe, 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. 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).
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 in Montreal.
Read more about this topic: John Hejduk
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