Win “Elastic Architecture: Frederick Kiesler and Design Research in the First Age of Robotic Culture”!

2017-07-28T10:30:00-04:00

“Elastic Architecture: Frederick Kiesler and Design Research in the First Age of Robotic Culture” is the first scholarly book on the architecture of Frederick Kiesler, who was once dubbed as the “the greatest non-building architect of our time” by Philip Johnson back in 1960. Authored by Stephen Phillips, SPARCHS principal and an architecture professor at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, the 384-page hardcover book delves into Kiesler's interdisciplinary research and design practice.

Thanks to publisher MIT Press, Archinect is giving away five copies of “Elastic Architecture” to our readers! Read on for more.

Frederick Kiesler, concept of “expansion.” Saks Fifth Avenue show window, New York, 1929. Photograph by Karl John Worsinger. From Frederick Kiesler, Contemporary Art Applied to the Store and Its Display, 1930.

According to Phillips, Frederick Kiesler “established a new career trajectory for architects not as master builders, but as research practitioners whose innovative means and me...

Book Launch: "L.A. [TEN]: Interviews on Los Angeles Architecture 1970s-1990s" author in conversation with Aaron Betsky, Sylvia Lavin

2014-02-06T12:34:00-05:00

Last Tuesday's book launch for L.A. [TEN]: Interviews on Los Angeles Architecture 1970s-1990s at the A+D Museum brought author Stephen Phillips in conversation with the book’s publisher, Lars Müller, and architecture critics (among other things) Aaron Betsky and Sylvia Lavin. The book is a collaborative effort, culling work from students in Cal Poly’s L.A. Metro Program in Architecture and Urban Design, Wim de Wit and Christopher Alexander of the Getty Research Institute, and Phillips himself. As an initiative that pits students alongside practicing professionals, combining oral history with journalistic investigation, L.A. [TEN] is both the artifact of an educational performance and a signpost in the continuing attempt to historicize L.A.’s messy architectural identity.

Lavin and Betsky kicked off the launch with miniature lectures, riffing on L.A.’s environmental and cultural context during the book’s era. Lacking the institutional validation of a strong publishing culture, archite...

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Win “Elastic Architecture: Frederick Kiesler and Design Research in the First Age of Robotic Culture”!

Book Launch: "L.A. [TEN]: Interviews on Los Angeles Architecture 1970s-1990s" author in conversation with Aaron Betsky, Sylvia Lavin