Magic Architecture
The Story of Human Housing
Published on 18. November 2025
Book
Hardback
450 pages
978-0-262-04674-9 (ISBN)
Description
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.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge (Massachusetts)
United States
Publishing group
MIT Press Ltd
Illustrations
200
Dimensions
Height: 328 mm
Width: 255 mm
Thickness: 42 mm
Weight
1943 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-262-04674-9 (9780262046749)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Spyros Papapetros is Associate Professor in the School of Architecture at Princeton University and the author of On the Animation of the Inorganic: Art, Architecture, and the Extension of Life and coeditor of Retracing the Expanded Field: Encounters between Art and Architecture (MIT Press). Frederick Kiesler (1890 1965) was an Austrian-American architect, theoretician, theatrical designer, artist, and sculptor. Gerd Zillner is Senior Archivist Researcher at the Frederick and Lillian Kiesler Private Foundation in Vienna. He has lectured and published on Frederick Kiesler and curated shows on Kiesler and contemporary art.
Content
Introduction: The Unity of Vision and Fact
PART ONE
Chapter 1: The Eternal Preamble to Architecture
Chapter 2: Fear of the Unseen
Chapter 3: The Enigma of Death
Chapter 4: The Enigma of Birth
Chapter 5: Birth necessitates Shelter; Death inspires Architecture
Chapter 6: The Cave, first natural Shelter
Chapter 7: The Nest, first artificial Shelter
Chapter 8: The Universe as Architecture
Chapter 9: The Split in the Unity of Vision and Fact
PART TWO ANIMAL ARCHITECTURE AND MAN’S ABILITY TO BUILD
Introduction
Instinct, Memory and the Drive for Invention
Chapter 1: Man’s House is Animal Architecture
Chapter 2: The Building-Instinct of Animals: the Termitary of the Termites
Chapter 3: Animal Engineering: the Dam of the Beaver
Chapter 4: Building Tools of Animals
Chapter 5: Man a Composite Animal of Building Techniques
Chapter 6: Man’s first Invention: The (first) transformation of dead material into useful tools
Chapter 7: The (second) transformation of dead material into magic tools of physical attraction
Chapter 8: The (third) transformation of dead material into magic tools of spiritual Power
PART THREE AWARENESS OF THE MIRACULOUS
Introduction: From Animal Housing to Magic Architecture
Chapter 1: The Birth of Magic Design
Man discovers his capacity to convert his own body into a dream-image through make-up.
Chapter 2: Man discovers that the fingers of his hand are magic wands for the transformation of surfaces into images through the application of paint.
Chapter 3: Man discovers that by making grooves (engraving) hard stone objects held in his hand can transform soft stone surfaces into images.
Chapter 4: Discovery and Affirmation of the Superfluous
PART FOUR ART AND THE UNKNOWN
Introduction: The Superfluous becomes a Necessity
Chapter 1: The Meaning of Magic
Chapter 2: Man part of the Cosmos and Man apart from the Cosmos
Chapter 3: Artifacts, Symbols and Art
Chapter 4: Myth and Magic
Chapter 5: The psycho-plastic Era
Chapter 6: The ideo-plastic Era
Chapter 7: The Era of Metamorphosis
Chapter 8: The Era of Abstraction
Chapter 9: The Physio-plastic Era
PART ONE
Chapter 1: The Eternal Preamble to Architecture
Chapter 2: Fear of the Unseen
Chapter 3: The Enigma of Death
Chapter 4: The Enigma of Birth
Chapter 5: Birth necessitates Shelter; Death inspires Architecture
Chapter 6: The Cave, first natural Shelter
Chapter 7: The Nest, first artificial Shelter
Chapter 8: The Universe as Architecture
Chapter 9: The Split in the Unity of Vision and Fact
PART TWO ANIMAL ARCHITECTURE AND MAN’S ABILITY TO BUILD
Introduction
Instinct, Memory and the Drive for Invention
Chapter 1: Man’s House is Animal Architecture
Chapter 2: The Building-Instinct of Animals: the Termitary of the Termites
Chapter 3: Animal Engineering: the Dam of the Beaver
Chapter 4: Building Tools of Animals
Chapter 5: Man a Composite Animal of Building Techniques
Chapter 6: Man’s first Invention: The (first) transformation of dead material into useful tools
Chapter 7: The (second) transformation of dead material into magic tools of physical attraction
Chapter 8: The (third) transformation of dead material into magic tools of spiritual Power
PART THREE AWARENESS OF THE MIRACULOUS
Introduction: From Animal Housing to Magic Architecture
Chapter 1: The Birth of Magic Design
Man discovers his capacity to convert his own body into a dream-image through make-up.
Chapter 2: Man discovers that the fingers of his hand are magic wands for the transformation of surfaces into images through the application of paint.
Chapter 3: Man discovers that by making grooves (engraving) hard stone objects held in his hand can transform soft stone surfaces into images.
Chapter 4: Discovery and Affirmation of the Superfluous
PART FOUR ART AND THE UNKNOWN
Introduction: The Superfluous becomes a Necessity
Chapter 1: The Meaning of Magic
Chapter 2: Man part of the Cosmos and Man apart from the Cosmos
Chapter 3: Artifacts, Symbols and Art
Chapter 4: Myth and Magic
Chapter 5: The psycho-plastic Era
Chapter 6: The ideo-plastic Era
Chapter 7: The Era of Metamorphosis
Chapter 8: The Era of Abstraction
Chapter 9: The Physio-plastic Era