Kiesler and Magic
Academic, Columbia University, Fall 2017
Course: Art Apropos Architecture | Tutors: Steven Hall + Dimitra Tsachrelia
Description: Frederick Kiesler has always been difficult to categorize throughout the architectural history because he wasn’t neither stylistically consistent nor bound by the limitations of a single medium or discipline. He was never content to do one thing, his philosophy was all embracing even cosmic. He sought to make spaces beyond politics and economics, spaces of unbounded and expansive experience. He was a liberal progressive who was profoundly utopian about what architecture could accomplish. After an extensive research about Kiesler’s enigmatic yet deeply inspirational presence in various fields, a speculative collage is created to capture the idea of his experimental and cosmic practice/theory. It tries to capture this multidimensionality and the immersive environment that he wanted to achieve where art, building, stage, display are all blurred and it becomes a place of spectacle and uncertainty.