Villa Cornaro was designed by Andrea Palladio in 1552 when symmetry and ideal geometry dominated architecture. Many of Palladio’s works followed this, but we start to see these principles of classical architecture relaxed in Palladio’s later designs, such as the Villa Cornaro, which Peter Eisenman would notice. Eisenman was a pupil of Colin Rowe and was heavily inspired by his essay, “The mathematics of the Ideal Villa”. Where Rowe analyses the similar geometrical grid of Palladio’s Villa Malcontenta and Corbusier’s Villa Stein, stating that classical proportions were key to Corbusier in designing Villa Stein. Eisenmann would later analyse Palladio, “Palladio Virtuel”, and acknowledge Rowe’s influence in the preface.

Eisenman highlights Palladios divergence from ideal symmetry and goes as far as to name Palladio an anti-classical architect. The concept that is noticed in Villa Cornaro is the shift of centre. Palladio made a series of displacements and misalignments to create secondary rooms and direct circulation, which pushed the central space off its axis. This asymmetry, can

be seen by rotating the plan causes a destabilization of the idea of centre. And destabilization is the exact theme of Eisenman’s House VI, where the notion of symmetry is only acknowledged in the first stage of Eisenman’s design process. He takes a cubic framework and displaces and superimposes it onto itself, resulting in a complex armature. If this same process was applied to Palladio’s Villa Cornaro, a similar type of movement can be seen, resulting in the displacement of both central spaces.

A heightened sense of living can also be observed in both designs. The portico creates access to the first floor, a piano nobile, rather than the ground floor. The axial symmetry reminds one of a temple designed to raise the user to a ‘higher level’, creating a connection between man and god to dominate its surroundings by rising above ground level. Similar attributes can be seen in House VI, it hovers just above ground level, and its geometry interferes with the user’s comfort, such as the columns that straddle the dining table and complicate interaction during dinner. It can be seen as an arrogance that strips the home from house VI.