EISENMAN COLLECTION
(Approved for use 1 April 2009)

Scope |  | Size |  Marking |  Classification |  Subjects

Scope
The Eisenman Collection of Modernism in Architecture, Design, and the Fine Arts consists of some 200 monographs, 200 periodicals (roughly 2000 issues total), and a small amount of manuscript material covering the development of modernist aesthetics in Europe during the first half of the twentieth century. While architecture is its center of gravity, most of the material in the collection addresses a much broader range of modernist activity, and the periodicals in particular include important contributions in the areas of painting, interior and graphic design, typography, literature, philosophy, and social/political agendas. Futurism, Dada, Constructivism, Devetsil, De Stijl, Bauhaus, Purism, the International Style, and other modernist movements are well represented in the collection, and its geographic scope is equally broad, including avant-garde material from Italy, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union.

The collection was put together in the 1960s and early 1970s by Peter Eisenman, a prominent New York-based architect (and Louis Kahn Visiting Professor of Architecture at Yale since 2008) , who has designed important buildings and monuments in the United States, Italy, France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, and Japan. “These magazines are as much of who I am, and how I define myself, as any essay I have written or building I have designed,” Eisenman has written of the collection and its relevance for his work. “In the end, I have always maintained that books are as important as buildings. This collection is a testimony to that idea.”

The general cataloging policies for monographs and serials are followed.

Size
The size boundaries are:

Octavo:

up to 25 cm. high

up to 23 cm. wide

Quarto:

between 26 and 37 cm. high

over 23 and up to 31 cm. wide

Folios:

over 37 cm. high

over 31 cm. wide

Marking
The following guidelines are used when marking volumes for Eisenman.

1. Mark on Yale bookplate when there is one, generally in the upper left corner.
2. Mark on verso of last page, lower right hand corner, when 1 or 2 don't apply. The lower left hand corner is the alternate location when the lower right hand corner is unusable.
3. If the last page is unmarkable (e.g. too dark or shiny or filled with text or illustrations), mark the verso of the first usable page from the end.

Classification

Monographs

Octavo	‡b beingen ‡h Eisenman ‡i 8
Quarto	‡b beingen ‡h Eisenman ‡i +3
Folio	‡b beingen ‡h Eisenman ‡i Folio 2

Serials

Octavo	‡b beingen ‡h Eisenman ‡i S3
Quarto	‡b beingen ‡h Eisenman ‡i +S7
Folio	‡b beingen ‡h Eisenman ‡i Folio S10

• Personal, topical and corporate subjects are always assigned.
• Make appropriate genre headings
• Make appropriate copy specific notes and local tracings for provenance. Make an ex libris note and tracings for Peter Eisenman if there is no physical evidence of ownership.

Example of book with no physical evidence of ownership:

590			‡a BEIN Eisenman 4: From the collection of Peter Eisenman.
692	1	4	‡a Eisenman, Peter, ‡d 1932- ‡x Ownership

Example of book with physical evidence of ownership:

590			‡a BEIN Eisenman 5: Autograph: Peter Eisenman.
692	1	4	‡a Eisenman, Peter, ‡d 1932- ‡x Autograph

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© Yale University Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Contact: Stephen Young
Last revised: 5/21/2002
http://www.library.yale.edu/BeinCatM/eisenman.html