Workshop Frederick Kiesler. Arts and Correalities

Frederick Kiesler Foundation, Vienna

In collaboration with the University of Applied Arts Vienna the workshop focuses on Kiesler’s theory of Correalism, which he developed in the 1930s and 1940s as a transdisciplinary research method in architecture and design. It was based on the latest findings of systems theory, biology and the technical sciences and has called for a holistic human-centered design of the built environment as well as the practical testing of emergent knowledge. Referring to the interrelation of three environments: the natural, the human and the technical environment. The human being is at the centre of these interrelations, which Kiesler also refers to as interacting forces. Having published the ground-breaking article “On Correalism and Biotechnique” in 1939, Kiesler’s research in the 1940s and 1950s focused on the critique of what he called “pseudo-functionalism”, which he saw as favoring the “arbitrary separation of architecture into art, technology and economy.” With his work at the Laboratory for Design Correlation at Columbia University (1937-1941), Kiesler is considered a visionary pioneer of trans-, inter- and cross-disciplinary work and as a creator of spectacular spaces.