Gerd Zillner - Böcker

The first publication of artist and architect Frederick Kiesler s epoch-spanning history of human architecture, largely unknown but still relevant. Magic Architecture was the architect Frederick Kiesler s most ambitious book project, an epoch-spanning history of human housing from prehistory to the atomic era and yet it was never published, as Kiesler moved on to other exhibitions and projects. Kiesler s comparative exploration of the quasi-'magical' effects of atomic technology and contemporary telekinetic military systems and the alternative epistemology of magic practices associated with cave drawings and protohistoric subterranean settlements reflects his profoundly interdisciplinary perspective on the evolution of art, architecture, and design. This edition preserves Kiesler s conception of the book as a neo-Vitruvian Renaissance treatise divided into ten parts or books that narrate an alternative history and theory of architecture. Also included are sixty composite illustrations, cut and pasted from books and popular science journals, with elaborate captions. The editors have reassembled the book s text and illustrations from archival material, supplementing them with notes that document the evolution of the work. Introductory essays provide a chronology of Kiesler s research and an interpretation of key themes. Appendixes offer additional textual and visual material gathered by Kiesler for the project.

Network of superlatives Frederick Kiesler was a committed networker and communicated regularly with the who’s who of the avant-garde. He was an important intermediary between the visionary ideas of the European Moderne movement and the up-and-coming New York art scene. About 20 contributions portray his colorful life and his multifaceted oeuvre in various contexts, and place Kiesler in a dialog with the most important artists and architects of his time. The publication on the occasion of the 20 year anniversary of the Friedrich Kiesler Foundation deals with his relationship with the Bauhaus, surrealism, and the New York School, as well as with personalities such as Richard Buckminster Fuller, Marcel Duchamp, Arshile Gorky, Theo van Doesburg, Piet Mondrian, Hans Arp, Sigfried Giedion, and others. An interwoven analysis of his life and work Contributions on individual and case studies Kiesler and Bauhaus, Mondrian, Buckminster Fuller, Duchamp, and many others