Burning Farm Issue 22 - Editorial note and essay on John Hejduk’s Texas Houses

Nov 4, 2026

Burning Farm Issue 22 presents editorial context and a republished long essay by Peter Eisenman on John Hejduk’s “Texas Houses,” a seven-house drawing series executed in graphite between 1954 and 1962. The text explains how Hejduk’s nine-square grid supports a didactic method and an “architectural commitment” communicated through drawing vocabulary. Eisenman’s close-reading approach treats architecture as “work on language,” challenging slogan-driven consumption and using detailed deconstruction to reveal ideological power, while framing the republication as a preview of a forthcoming book on related conceptual projects.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages15

Reading Time23 min

AccessFree to download

Editorial note

Close reading and architectural “work on language”

Architecture versus building: elements and program

Burning Farm Issue 22 July 2025 Page 01 of 15 In My Father’s House Are Many Mansions: On John Hejduk’s Texas Houses Peter Eisenman John Hejduk, ‘somewhere between Texas 1954 and New York 1980’. From Kenneth Frampton (editor), John Hejduk: 7 Houses (New York: Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, 1980), 3. EDITORIAL NOTE John Hejduk’s ‘Texas Houses’ are a set of drawings for seven houses executed in graphite pencil 8H and 9H between 1954 and 1962. Originally, Hejduk planned to work on one house per year over a ten-year period. All the houses are variations on the ‘nine-square grid’, a design methodology that Hejduk used as didactic device in his teaching at the University of Texas, Austin and later at Cooper Union. Hejduk conceived of the series as an effort to comprehend basic principles in regard to “architectural commitment.” He insisted that the conceptual positions were evident in the architectural vocabulary of the drawings. In 1980 Peter Eisenman curated an exhibition of these drawings at the Institute of Architecture and Urban Studies (IAUS) in New York and produced a small catalogue. For this publication, besides transcribing excerpts from a conversation with Hejduk, Eisenman penned the long essay ‘In My Father’s House Are Many Mansion’, a formal close reading of Hejduk’s houses which is republished here. This essay can be considered one of the most intense and rigorous examples of close reading in architecture. Originated in literary criticism, close reading consists in the careful interpretation of a text in which its formal characteristics are described in detail. As such close reading emphasizes a discrete passage over the general narrative. Close reading is a patient and at times obsessive search for the elemental aspects of language itself. Employed by the Russian Formalists and later by the Burning Farm In My Father’s House Are Many Mansions Page 02 of 15 American New Critics, close reading defamiliarize texts by suspending their obvious messages, while revealing their techniques and formal dy namics. In his approach to architecture, Eisenman embraced close-read ing to suspend the more commonplace aspects of architecture—use and program—in order to focus on what he called work on language. With their rigorous and inventive form, Hejduk’s Texas Houses offered to Eisenman the ideal text upon which to exercise the art of close reading. Hejduk’s subtle moves in plan and elevation—which are clearly informed by a wide range of precedents—are unpacked by Eisenman’s precise wording. The challenge of close-reading is an old but still persistent problem for archi tecture: to what degree is possible to use words to describe the design moves of an architectural project? In a world where architecture is re duced to slogans and the instantaneous consumption of images is its main modus operandi, close reading can be understood as a form of resistance in which the detail takes its revenge on the whole. Yet the whole is not forgotten or erased, it is deconstructed in all its infinitesimal components so that its ideological power is diminished, made visible, and perhaps mo mentarily tamed. Against reducing the discourse on architecture to strong and often predictable narratives—a tendency evident today—close reading offers the possibility of looking at things carefully, giving them the neces sary time and space to reveal themselves. The republication of this essay is a teaser for a book that Pier Vittorio Aureli and Michael Robinson Cohen are preparing on John Hejduk’s houses, that focuses on the period from 1954 and 1974. In this period Hejduk produced an exceptional body of drawings defined by a sequence of ‘conceptual projects’: the Economy Houses, the Texas Houses, the Diamond Houses and the Wall Houses. This body of work represents one of the most important reflections on the nature of architectural form. Pier Vittorio Aureli and Michael Robinson C

FAQs

What are “Texas Houses” in John Hejduk’s work?

They are drawings for seven houses executed in graphite pencil between 1954 and 1962, organized around variations of the nine-square grid.

How does the essay connect close reading to architecture?

It argues that close reading suspends ordinary aspects such as use and program to focus on architecture as “work on language,” revealing formal techniques through careful interpretation.

Why does the text distinguish architecture from building?

It notes that shared elements and program content are not sufficient to separate them; the critical distinction requires looking beyond mere physical components.

Nov 4, 2026

Uploaded by Nguyễn Văn Học