frederick kiesler

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



“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


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


“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


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


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


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

frederick kiesler

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