Endless House by Fredrick Kiesler
Who is Fredrick Kiesler?
Friedrich Kiesler was born on September 22, 1890, in Chernivtsi (then Austria-Hungary, now Ukraine). His father, city councilman Dr. Julius Kiesler worked as a municipal clerk for several decades; He was also the secretary of the Jewish Community. His mother, Rosa Kiesler, née Meisler, died in 1891, so Kiesler was probably raised in the care of her siblings who are brother Emil, 9 years older, and sister Marie, 17 years older.
From 1908 to 1909 Kiesler studied at the Technische Hochschule in Vienna. Between 1910–12 he attended painting and printmaking classes at Akademie der bildenden Künste, both in Vienna. In July 1913, Kiesler left the academy without earning a degree.
He married Stefanie (Stefi) Frischer (1896–1963) in 1920 and they moved to New York, where he lived until he died in 1926. Kiesler has previously collaborated with the Surrealists and Marcel Duchamp there. His writings were extensive, and his theoretical work included two lengthy manifestos, the article "Pseudo-functionalism in Modern Architecture" (Partisan Review, July 1949) and Contemporary Art Applied to the Store and Its Display (New York: Brentano, 1930).
Upon the outbreak of the First World War, Kiesler was drafted into the military. After completing his first year as a soldier, he was assigned to the Imperial and Royal Infantry Regiment 95 as Landsturm-infantry in the military reconnaissance platoon. In September 1917 he was transferred to the military press office (art group). So, one of the things that affects him was the First World War.
Ideas as manifestos: Kiesler
Kiesler was qualified as a theatre and art exhibition designer in Vienna and Berlin in the 1920s. He began a brief collaboration with the architect Adolf Loos in 1920, and in 1923 became a member of the De Stijl group 1923. Of course, being in such a position gave him strength, but it seems, for his career, the most important and most impressive thing could be because this period coincided with after the wars and illnesses.
The world was tired and fed up with the wars and the diseases found at that time, whereupon the plain walls and un-poetic attitudes of modern architecture had already tired the people of that period. It would not be too late to reflect on this boredom in architecture. The white walls that came with the breezes of the modern era, which is currently used in architecture, were flat, 90-degree angles were colorless, and people who were already fed up with the pompous life were infuriated and the social structure was badly affected by this situation.
Apparently, this bad influence was reflected not only in society but also in architecture. The architecture of the people who voiced these would be extraordinary. Kiesler, who took these as a manifesto, may have preferred to refer to old experiences for new searches for tired humanity.
Old Experiences, New Searches: Endless House by Kiesler
The Endless House is in the form of a cell, an organ where all aspects of life can be seen inside and outside. In the project light and energy, inside and outside, living and unliving spaces come together in a single cosmic form. Kiesler designed a giant cell with no ceiling and no windows, divided into small cells to be used for different functions, large enough to accommodate three generations of the family. When the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) asked him to rework his thoughts on the subject for a sculpture to be placed in the museum's garden in 1958, Kiesler expanded his Endless House by combining multiple cells; To let light and air in, and to ensure the contact between the inside and the outside, he made slits in places. With the chicken wire and cement model placed on top of the pillars, the house looked as if it could be able to float away like Noah's Ark. Water was flowing inside, too. Instead of bathrooms placed in separate compartments in the house, there were small pools surrounded by plants that could be refreshed at any time with water at the desired temperature. The inhabitants of the house could be connected to the universe through light, air, water, and warmth.
The slits on the project's facade were resembling a mother's womb that should be understood as a house of a baby. That is a significant point to understand some main arguments of not only the project but also to understand surrealism. In my point of view, people were depressed because of wars and diseases and they were questioning life. That would bring new understandings and styles of architectu
re.
The project, which cannot be fully constructed, has many models, and with the ideas and questioning attitude it has put forward, it seems to be leading the way to the perception of the metaverse, which is trying to establish new universes and experiences today.
Modern Surrealism?? The Metaverse Architecture
The term Metaverse would be the reflections of human desirings nowadays to a new world that is real or digital. Indeed it is a world of a mixture where digital and real can be experienced at the same time. After the pandemic and today's economic conditions, people had hard times and that can result in searching for new experiences and meanings of life like was happening in surrealism time. Kiesler, with Endless house and other projects of him, tried to make people experience and with the metaverse, now, it is possible to create new experiences and styles. Moreover, those can get real thanks to today’s technologies like VR/ AR technologies.
People can even feel like it is real or mixed when the spaces were built with those technologies. Thus, new experiences, architectural styles, and life cycles would be created.
Reference List
"Sürrealizm Mimarlık" written by Nur Altınyıldız Artun
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