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Frederick Kiesler Inside the Endless House…
Matthew Krissel
University of Pennsylvania ARCH: 611 History and Theory
December 16, 2003
Frederick Kiesler – 1960 – In Bedroom/study at home
“What are you my colleague architects
and engineers doing? How do you use
your super power given to you by the
universe? Why do you remain routine
draftsmen, cocktail sippers, coffee
gulpers and making routine love? Wake
up, there’s a new world to be created
within our world.”1
Frederick Kiesler’s call to all architects
and designers to challenge the forces of
the “routine” was a principle that Kiesler
spent a lifetime crafting. A conviction
that he would continuously articulate
through commissioned and non
commissioned architectural projects,
sculptures, paintings, poetry and
countless manifestoes. A lifetime that
was spent researching, developing and
building one core concept. A concept
that was not inline with the current
International Style modernist whose
formal language and ideas were
Frederick Kiesler – 1959 – In front of the Endless House
interested in extensive infinite gridded
space. For Kiesler rather, it was a
pursuit of intensive and endless space
based on continuous curvilinear vectors.2
Since Kiesler’s death in 1965, his notion
of Endless Space and his studies of the
Endless House in particular, have
resurfaced in recent architectural
discourse. New technologies have
emerged that are now provoking
different questions regarding the
tectonics and material potentials within
the concept of The Endless House.
What did Kiesler really mean by Endless
Space? How did Kiesler intend for The
Endless House to change the face of
architecture?
Frederick J. Kiesler was born on
September 22nd in Cernauti, Romania,
the son of Dr. Julius and Maria Kiesler.
Kiesler studied art and design at the
De Stijl, n. 10/11, 1924-25
Academy of Visual Arts in Vienna in
1910 but left without a diploma in 1913.
By the early nineteen twenties, Kiesler
was already well known as a stage
designer throughout Europe and
instigated such innovations as film-
projected backdrops and the theater-in-
the-round. In 1923, Kiesler was invited
to join the Dutch De Stijl and in 1925,
Josef Hoffmann invited him to design the
Austrian theater section of the Exposition
Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et
Industriels Modernes in Paris. Kiesler
described his installation in a manifesto
(“Manifesto of Tensionionism”, April
1925) as a design for the future mega
city (titled “City in Space”)3 and published
other essays in the journals G and De
Stijl. In his manifesto, Kiesler declared
“No More Walls”4 as he described the
floating framework and intersecting
planes of City in Space. Kiesler’s idea of
City in Space – 1925 - Paris
Kiesler arrives in New York City - 1926
a utopian city was the pinnacle of his
European career, while expressing his
attraction to themes of the architectural
avant-garde. City in Space was
applauded as one of the boldest
creations of the De Stijl tradition5 but was
also the beginning of his eventual
departure from this very tradition. His
declaration of “No More Walls” would in
actuality be foreshadowing for a concept
far more potent than his City in Space
exhibition.
In 1926 Kiesler and his wife (Stefanie
Frischer) arrived in New York to install a
section of the International Theater
Exhibition for Jane Heap at the Steinway
Building. Upon Kiesler’s arrival, he
published an essay titled “The Theater is
Dead” and lectured on his concept for
an Endless Theater based on a large
spheroid model of a four-dimensional
theater without a stage. Echoing back to
Endless Theater – 1925 – Steinway Hall New York
his earlier declarations, Kiesler’s
investigations into a multi-dimensional,
stage-less theater are in fact the
beginnings of what would become a
radically new concept of form and
content appropriately called “Endless
Space”.
Like Walt Whitman before him, who
spent a lifetime redrafting and perfecting
his only “book” (Leaves of Grass); Kiesler
embarks on a concept that he will
devote the last 35 plus years of his life
pursuing. Unlike Whitman however,
Kiesler would never see an actualization
of his tireless and often obsessive efforts
beyond drawings and models,
photographs and his writings
(manifestoes, essays and poetry alike).
The foundations of which the greater
concepts of Endless Space were shaped
Space House – 1933 – New York
are in a theory formulated by Kiesler in
the 1930’s entitled the “Correalist
Theory.”6 Kiesler believes that the
essence of reality is not in the “thing”
itself, but in the way it correlates and
orders itself to its environment. Kiesler
deemed that it was essential to
disregard the boundaries that separate
the different arts. These boundaries
need to be dissolved and Kiesler even
proclaimed that “painters, sculptors, and
designers, driven away by functionalism,
will return from exile to be welcomed by
architecture.”7 Kiesler believes that it is
in fact the static nature of the “box” and
the machine driven ideal of then current
modernist architecture (specifically Le
Corbusier) that forces a single guided
functionalism on man that is not his
desired environment. In an effort to
distance himself from these obstacles to
the body, Kiesler proclaims
Space House – 1933 – New York
Space House – 1933 – New York
“Functionalism is determination and
therefore stillborn. Functionalism is the
standardization of routine activity.
Functionalism relives the architect of
responsibility to his concept.”8 It is
through painting, sculpture, poetry and
architecture that man can create an
environment that is more fitting to his
agenda, his nature and not one that fits
into a box that is predetermined by the
functions pushed upon man by others.
Instead Kiesler envisions a concept that
“embraces man and his environment as
a globalizing system consisting of
complex reciprocal relationships”9 that
separate artistic genres.
Kiesler’s early developments of his
correalist theory find their greatest
fulfillment not in urbanistic concepts (a
departure from City in Space) but, rather,
in a simple single family house. Kiesler
Cut out from Architectural Record – 1939
sees the single family house as the
smallest unit of human coexistence and
is therefore the most important. His
notion of Endless Space as a catalyst for
correalism begins to come into focus
with the Space House project in 1933.
The Modernage Furniture Company in
New York commissioned Kiesler to build
a full scale “model” proto-type of a single
family house for the window displays of
the furniture company. With the aid of
new materials and techniques (pre-
stressed concrete, plastic and glass)
Kiesler aspires to create a unitary,
monumental space without foundations
in which the surfaces that typically act as
boundaries (floors, walls, ceilings) would
form a transition and continuum that
reflects the demand for maximum
flexibility in the layout of the interior
space.10 Kiesler’s “system of tension” in
City in Space and the three dimensional
Studies for cast aluminum table - 1935
Two part nesting table – 1935-38
possibilities of his earlier space theater
project were fundamental principals to
the development of the Space House
and opening up the potential for interior
space within the context of a house.
The Space House becomes the first
major departure from the formal
principals of functionalism based on the
rectangle of the international style and
Kiesler’s first real articulation of his early
developing theories of correalism and
theoretical notions for the single family
house. This refines Kiesler’s focus from
a concept of Endless Space to the
pursuit of the Endless House.
In 1934, Kiesler became the director of
scenic design at The Julliard School of
Music and in 1935/36; Kiesler designs
his famous Biomorphic Aluminum
Nesting Table. A table that expresses
some of Kiesler’s architectural ideas at a
Kiesler with “Correlation Chart” – 1937 – New York
new scale; a scale shift that enriches
Kiesler’s ideas on the correlations of our
environment (big and small) and its
relationship to the body. In 1937, Kiesler
begins to publish a series of articles in
Architectural Record discussing his
investigations on the idea of “design
correlation.” However, it wasn’t until
1947 that Kiesler drafted his Manifesto
on Correalism. This manifesto wasn’t
published until 1949 but it is within this
text that we really begin to understand
Kiesler’s ideas and developments on
correalism, the Endless House,
architecture, art and life in general.
Kiesler sets out to put down on paper the
historical evolution of the Endless House
which he sees as a work already 20
years in progress; but also to unify
architecture and the arts.11
Kiesler begins his manifesto by aligning
himself with the reader “We are living on
Manifesto on Correalism - 1949
the edge. We-you-me!”12 and setting
himself against “high-art”, “so-called
teachers” and the “false temples, for
architecture and the people’s art have
died.”13 Kiesler makes a call to look
back into ourselves “and become cave
dwellers.” To support the “boundless
edifice”14 and search for a dwelling of
“simpler construction and richer
inspiration.”15 Kiesler continues his
assault on modernism’s infliction on the
milieu and proclaims that “We have
become slaves to an industry lost in a
mechanical world. The house is neither
a machine nor a work of art. The house
is a living organism, not just an
arrangement of dead material: it lives as
a whole and in the details. The house is
the skin of the human body.”16 This is an
important statement for Kiesler who is
striving to define his ideas on space in
stark contrast to what he feels is closing
in all around him. A battle against the
Studies for Art of This Century - 1942
imitated “box” and Le Corbusier’s idea of
a house as a machine for living. Kiesler
does not see the house as a machine
that the body has to tolerate as a
complex organization of foreign parts.
Rather, Kiesler defines the house as the
skin for the body. An organism that
should be fluid, move and adjust to the
body and its movements.
Kiesler’s ideas on the (re)positioning of
the human body and architecture is I
believe, most evident in his 1942 design
and construction of the gallery Art of This
Century for Peggy Guggenheim. It is
here that Kiesler begins to question the
way art is displayed and the positions in
which the human body negotiates and
situates itself in a gallery. The space he
creates can change how the body
understands art and becomes a locust
for change in architecture and its
Studies for Art of This Century - 1942
context. Kiesler’s belief in the
importance of the gallery visitor’s active
role in experiencing art begins to shape
his notions into actual physical elements
to be engaged. Kiesler stated that when
man comes into contact with a work of
art, he must “recognize his act of seeing
– of ‘receiving’ as a participation in the
creative process that is no less essential
than the artist’s own.”17
Kiesler’s ideas are successfully
employed in this project for three main
reasons. First, he manipulated the “real”
space and created a sculptural
environment. Secondly, he took the
typically passive role of the viewer and
made them an active participant as they
moved through space. Finally, he
transformed the art from just objects in
space to real things in real space.18
Kiesler, searching for the correlation
between space, spectator, and art
Studies for Art of This Century - 1942
“object” tried to dissolve all of the
barriers that a traditional gallery design
imposes on the body. He constructed all
of the displays to be adjustable
individually in their heights and angles to
the observer’s desires. The displays
were also mobile and easily
dismountable so they could be quickly
and effortlessly rearranged. He removed
all of the frames because “the framed
painting on the wall has become a
decorative cipher without life and
meaning…“19 Kiesler believed the
frames actually cut off the work of art
from the space of life. “The frame was
suppressed and the painting liberated.
The removed frame was replaced by
another. That is: the general architecture
of the room. Painting became a part of
the architectural whole and was no
longer artificially isolated.”20 The rigid
walls of the gallery were bent and curved
to flow into the floor and the ceiling.
Art of This Century – 1942 – New York
Changing light patterns and sound
effects would illuminate and accentuate
different pieces of work so the gallery
would “pulsate like your blood. Ordinary
museum lighting makes painting
dead.”21 Kiesler goes beyond the optical
attempts of El Lissitzky’s galleries before
him by engaging the observers many
senses from optics, audible and physical
interaction. These ideas attempt to
bring equal harmony to all of the arts
within the gallery space and was
applauded and well received.
The 1942 gallery Art of This Century for
Peggy Guggenheim project in particular,
brought forth some of the greatest
developments and studies for the interior
of the Endless House, by negotiating his
ideas and sensitivities to the body in the
interior space as translated through his
ideas of correalism. Although the basic
concepts of the Endless House began
Plan study for Endless House - 1950
Section study for Endless House - 1950
arguably in 1924, it isn’t until 1950 that
we see a flurry of sketches and models
publicly giving an outward appearance to
the Endless House. The initial studies
show a flattened spheroid similar to his
Space Theater studies from 1925.
Kiesler’s first sketches are rather rough
and initially a dry translation of his
Manifesto of Correalism that was
published one year prior. Kiesler argues
that the spheroid shape is actually based
on a lighting system. A shape that would
allow light to reach the “shadowy corner
of his cave” and not get broken up by
the corners and interior walls of a
conventional building volume. Rather, it
is a shape that promotes the “social
dynamics of two or three generations
living under one roof… preferable for
group living demand double or even
triple heights in some areas.”22
Although Kiesler is inferring sectional
relationships, his plan sketch is actually
Model of Endless House - 1950
Endless House study - 1959
quite predictable and banal. A common
criticism on Kiesler is the discordance
between the potential his models
suggest and the static “architectural”
drawings (plans, sections, etc.) that are
unfortunately associated with them.
When Kiesler is freehand sketching his
interior visions we recapture the spirit he
touted in his manifesto, but as soon as
he tries to quantify and make “rigid” his
un-rigid lines and surfaces, he loses the
qualities of space continuum, the
‘system of tension’ he is after.
In 1952, along with Buckminster Fuller’s
geodesic dome, Kiesler introduces his
Endless house in an exhibition title Two
Houses: New Ways to Build at the
Museum of Modern Art. After the
exhibition, The MOMA commissioned
Kiesler to design a full scale prototype of
the Endless House for the museum
Kiesler’s studio with Endless House model in progress - 1959
garden where it would remain for two
years. This gave Kiesler the opportunity
to build large and small scale models of
the Endless House in which he hoped to
finally tackle some of the detail and
tectonics issues that he was questioning
from his earlier studies. Unfortunately,
the project never came to completion
and only his study models, drawings and
photographs were presented as a part of
the Visionary Architecture exhibit in
September 1960.
His models do however show us an idea
that has come a long way from his
drawings in 1950. We now see a rich
series of spaces, folding and unfolding
with internal stairs, private spaces,
sectional relationships and interior and
exterior walls that emerge seamlessly
with the same continuous surface
tension with all the surfaces working
together. In conjunction with his text
Endless House study - 1959
Endless House model in progress – 1959
based investigations, we understand his
intensions for the exterior of the Endless
House were to be one of reinforced
concrete on a wire mesh substrate. The
windows were to be irregular shaped
apertures that would be covered with a
semi-transparent molded plastic.
Bathing pools would be scattered
throughout, replacing conventional
bathtubs. The flooring was to have a
variety of textures. At times pebbles,
sand, rivulets of water, grass, planks and
heated terra-cotta tiles would
continuously stimulate the occupant
through touch. The interior walls would
be colored with frescoes and
sculptures.23
Till the end, Kiesler considered the
Endless House a total work of art. In
theory, the sense of Kiesler’s correlated
space to the human body in both form
and function cannot be denied but we
Endless House model - 1959
Endless House study
are only left with suggestions of how the
materials might have been treated.
Despite these limitations, Kiesler’s
studies did accomplish numerous other
notable advancements in architecture.
Kiesler did set out to challenge the
machined “box” that architecture was
trapped in and did put forth a series of
studies that seriously questioned the rigid
boxes and how the human body
interacts with it. Kiesler’s gallery spaces
opened up new questions of corners,
thresholds between floors and walls and
how the body engages them. Once he
tore the frames off of the paintings,
something profound did happen. Kiesler
revealed the frame as a trap, a static
container with points of negotiated
corners along its trajectory that always
cut the non-rigid body off from it. Kiesler
dissolved the rigid hierarchy of the
privileged corners and created a
Endless House model - 1959
continuous surface that has no beginning
and no end. An organic surface that he
argues fits more comfortable as the
environment for the urgent and eternal
need of the human body. Kiesler said
that “the ‘Endless House’ is called
‘Endless’ because all ends meet, and
meet continuously.”24 An idea, Kiesler
argues, that a surface with no beginning
and no end is more appropriate for a
house because it assimilates with the
human body (which Kiesler argues also
has no beginning and no end). With this
argument, Kiesler reasserted the human
body’s importance into an architectural
climate that had long been ignoring this.
Unfortunately, because he was unable to
build a full size version of the Endless
House, numerous opportunities of
unforeseeable negotiations of materiality
and surface transitions were under
developed. With the inability to draw and
Endless House presentation drawings at MOMA – 1959 –
New York
Nox Architects/Lars Spuybroek, Fresh Water Pavilion, The
Netherlands
model some of the discreet moments of
transition (no longer floor to ceiling but
between sand and terra-cotta for
example) the general tectonic strategies
are unknown. However, despite leaving
us wanting more, Kiesler’s studies have
taken architecture down a remarkable
path of desire and rediscovery of the
interface potentials of the human body
and architecture.
With the emergence of computer
technology, we are seeing more and
more the opportunities to explore vector
based curved surfaces with greater
refinement than that of Kiesler’s plaster
models. Kiesler’s ideas and
philosophies challenged the architecture
of the 20 century and continue to push
the current circles of the avant-garde
towards the explorations of a non-linear
architecture. Greg Lynn of FORM and
Lars Spuybroek of NOX Architects are
Nox Architects/Lars Spuybroek, Fresh Water Pavilion, The
Netherlands
Endless House model - 1959
two of the most notable current
architects who have openly discussed
Kiesler’s influences. From the obvious
formal and more intriguing conceptual
parallels, Kiesler’s impact on current
architectural discourse is undeniable.
With the core concepts of the Endless
House resurfacing and his Manifesto of
Correalism still profoundly relevant,
Kiesler’s research is still as rich and
tantalizing as it was forty years ago.
Advancements in material technologies
have allowed us to do with concrete or
steel, plastic or glass things that Kiesler
could have only dreamed about. Digital
media has allowed for photo-realistic
renderings and more accurate study of
material behavior within architectural
paradigms. In conjunction with
emerging technologies, we have really
only scraped the surface of what Kiesler
was truly after in his Endless House
Endless House model - 1959
studies; but in spirit, by virtue of pushing
architectural theory to its limits, by
challenging the everyday realities,
Kiesler’s vision of a form that does not
follow function but rather a function that
follows a vision25 may one day be
achieved. For it is Kiesler who
“convinces us that endlessness and
continuity are more than unattainable
ideals, but concepts that may lead us to
a transformation of what is merely given
as reality.”26 In accordance with Kiesler,
if we continue to challenge what is given
as reality, we will place ourselves that
much closer to the potential for what
architecture is capable of doing… a
potential that is indeed Endless.
Work Cited 1 Kiesler, Frederick., et al. “Continuity, the new principal of Architecture.” Endless Space. Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2001 pg. 54 2 Lynn, Greg., et al. “Rethinking Kiesler – Endless Space Symposium” Endless Space. Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2001 pg. 81 3 Bogner, Dieter., et al. Frederick Kiesler – Whitney Museum. The Whitney Museum of American Art, 1989 pg.48 4 Kiesler, Frederick, “Vitalbau-Raumstadt-Funktionelle Architektur,” De Stijl 6/10-11 (1925): 141 ff 5 Barr jr, Alfred H., Cubism and Abstract Art, Exhibition catalogue. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1936 pg. 144 6 Kiesler, Frederick, “On Correalism and Biotechnique,” Architectural Record 86/3 (September 1939): 60-75 7 Kiesler, Frederick, “Manifeste du Correalisme,” L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui (June 1949) 8 Kiesler, Frederick, “Manifeste du Correalisme,” L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui (June 1949) 9 Bogner, Dieter., et al. Endless Space. Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2001 pg. 11 10 Bogner, Dieter., et al. Endless Space. Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2001 pg. 16 11 Bogner, Dieter., et al. Endless Space. Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2001 pg. 14 12 Kiesler, Frederick, “Manifeste du Correalisme,” L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui (June 1949) 13 Kiesler, Frederick, “Manifeste du Correalisme,” L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui (June 1949) 14 Kiesler, Frederick, “Manifeste du Correalisme,” L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui (June 1949) 15 Kiesler, Frederick, “Manifeste du Correalisme,” L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui (June 1949) 16 Kiesler, Frederick, “Manifeste du Correalisme,” L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui (June 1949) 17 Goodman, Cynthia., “Frederick Kiesler: Designs for Peggy Guggenheim’s Art of This Centry Gallery,” Arts Magazine, 51 June 1977, pg.92 18 Phillips, Lisa., et al. Endless Space. Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2001 pg. 28 19 Kiesler, Frederick, “Press Release Relating to the Architectural Aspects of the Gallery,” Art of This Centry Gallery, 1942, typescript, Kiesler Estate Archives, pg. 1 20 Kiesler, Frederick, “Manifeste du Correalisme,” L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui (June 1949) 21 Quoted in Newsweek, October 2, 1942 22 Kiesler, Frederick., “Frederick Kiesler’s Endless House and its Psychological Lighting”, in:Interiors, November 1950, pg. 123-125
23 Phillips, Lisa., et al. Frederick Kiesler – Whitney Museum. The Whitney Museum of American Art, 1989 pg.125-127 24 Kiesler, Frederick, Inside the Endless House . New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966 pg. 566 25 Kiesler, Frederick, “Manifeste du Correalisme,” L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui (June 1949) 26 Woods, Lebbeus., et al. “Frederick J. Kiesler Out of Time” Endless Space. Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2001 pg. 66
All images in article are Copyright: Austrian Frederick and Lillian Kiesler Private FoundationSource: Archive of the Kiesler Foundation Vienna
The photographer: Art of This C.: Berenice Abbott, commerce graphics Ltd.Kiesler in front of Endless House model: Hans Namuth
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