Calculating visual complexity in Peter Eisenman's architecture: a computational fractal analysis of five houses (1968-1976)

This paper describes the results of the first computational investigation of characteristic visual complexity in the architecture of Peter Eisenman. The research uses a variation of the “box-counting” approach to determining a quantitative value of the formal complexity present in five of Eisenman’s early domestic works (Houses I, II, III, IV and VI all of which were completed between 1968 and 1976). The boxcounting approach produces an approximate fractal dimension calculation for the visual complexity of an architectural elevation. This method has previously been used to analyse a range of historic and modern buildings including the works of Frank Lloyd Wright, Eileen Gray, Le Corbusier and Kazuyo Sejima. Peter Eisenman’s early house designs–important precursors to his later Deconstructivist works–are widely regarded as possessing a high degree of formal consistency and a reasonably high level of visual complexity. Through this analysis it is possible to quantify both the visual complexity and the degree of consistency present in this work for the first time.