“Whether the farthest plane encloses visual space in this or another manner-it is always there. We may therefore picture all the animals around us, be they beetles, butterflies, flies, mosquitoes or dragonflies that people a meadow, enclosed within soap bubbles, which confine their visual space and contain all that is visible to them. Each soap bubble harbors different loci, and in each there exist the directional planes of operational space, which give its space a solid framework. The fluttering birds, the squirrels leaping from branch to branch, or the cows that browse in the meadows-all remain permanently surrounded by their soap bubbles, which define their own space (Uexküll, 1957, p. 28, my emphasis).
What this means is that the environment (i.e., the organisation of all things defining the spatial milieu of an organism) exert an influence on the organism: and this includes inert items such as surfaces and objects, as well as active items; like other organisms. Consequently, organism/people, society, space and the (built) environment are intrinsically linked. What is important about this is the connection between space and constructing. As a framework enabling engagement in the world space is a mechanism by which organisms interact with, shape and form their environments. The parallel between life and architecture is that they are both concerned with artefact making (cf. Barbieri, 2016). For example, birds build nests, as do social insects. Some species of ant use their own bodies to construct artefacts to overcome obstacles (Anderson, et al., 2002). Likewise, cells self-organise and self-assemble to form the organism they constitute. (See Barbieri, 2003; Carroll, 1995; McGinnis & Krumlauf, 1992; Sander, 1982; Nüsslein-Volhard & Wieschaus, 1980; Garcia-Bellido, et al., 1979).
Life is concerned with the generation and persistence of organisms, and the structures they create, and architecture with the design, construction and maintenance of buildings. The distinction between the manner in which natural and human structures are built is that the former is fluid (in the sense that the steps involved are intertwined) whilst the latter is static (in the sense that one stage is completed before the next discrete step commences). As Frederick Kiesler observed: “Nature builds by cell division towards continuity whilst man can only build by joining together into a unique structure without continuity” (Kiesler, 1939, p. 67). The emphasis, behind Kiesler’s distinction, is that architects tend to make things through brute force (connecting parts together to form a whole) whereas nature tends to produce through a process of continuous construction whereby parts merge, overlap and conjoin one another. In a short text, The Electric Switch or the Switch to Process Architecture he writes, “The floor plan is no more than a footprint of a house. From a flat impression of this sort, it is difficult to conceive the actual form and content of the building. If God had begun the creation of man from a footprint, probably a monster, all heel and toes, would have grown up from it, not man. It is as though nature cast the first ball into the arena of life, and then stood by with folded arms to see what the play of circumstances would make of it” (Kiesler, 1949). We can sense here the distinction between the typical way designers work and Kiesler’s view that a designer deals with forces. For Kiesler, manipulating these forces, to mould new objects, is a process of perception: of interpreting the immaterial transcendental potentiality pregnant in material in correlation with life needs, and responding accordingly to bring the two together. Change and adaptation are key parameters to his design theory that inform this transformation (of space and materials) by moulding forces to influence life in a desired direction – and enforce well-being. This brings us back to Kiesler’s “law of creative transmutation”; mentioned earlier. An evolutionary design process whereby existing facts flow into a new objective resulting in a new object. In a sense he thinks in terms of evolutionary habits. Over time, the ideal process repeats, infinitely, informing new objectives that moulds new objects. Kiesler explains (to be read in conjunction with figure 2): Engendered by concrete facts (1) the idea of a new necessity (2) appears. From this new necessity there develops the new reality (3). This new object takes place among the old material realisations (1) and becomes itself the point of departure for a new cycle of transformation. […] Through a change in the preponderance of life forces the nucleus of interest and attraction will shift from materials facts (1) to the objective (2) or from the objective to the object (3), or any other shift in the continuous flow. Thus, two of the three components always become secondary members of the total structure, and even they will vary in their potential relationships according to their correlative position. However, at no time can the strength of all three be equal, for, continuity would then end in static equilibrium (retrieved from English version of Manifesto of Correalism: archive of Kiesler foundation)
In a later text he explains how “the cycle informs a new idea, which having become material, the creative cycle begins anew. Thus function appears not as a finite fact or standard, but as a process of continuous transmutation” (Kiesler, 1949). The similarity with Peirce’s evolutionary semiotic logic is evident not only in the triadic form of the sign model, and how the constituents inform one another to generate new “ideas”, but also in the pragmatic sense in which Kiesler describes the generation of new objects occurring from the correlation of existing circumstances informing new objectives. This not only echoes Peirce’s concept of the sign relation, but also his “Pragmatic Maxim”. The former “existing and materially consequential…is [likewise] recursive in that the action of an agent vis-s-vis a material sign vehicle and a material sign object manifests in a relation whose product, the sign interpretant, itself serves as a sign vehicle for the next act of semiosis” (Favareau 2007). Peirce’s Pragmatic Maxim, which, in principle, states the more one works with something the closer one gets to it, stems from his model of a sign, and how it “informs”. Any influence of Peirces semiotic logic is likely via the pragmatic philosophy of William James. Various books by James are held in Kieslers library, as well as Dewey’s seminal work Art as Experience. So it’s reasonable to conclude that Kiesler’s “Law of Transmutation” is a designers interpretation of the Pragmatic Maxim, to describe a process of design: perceiving possibilities and creating mental products shaped through the combining of influences and constraints moulded in a particular direction to inform new potentials, which a designer fabricates into physical form.
The distinction between architecture and natural structures mentioned earlier is also geometrical. Whilst not literal, human architecture, in a general sense, is planar and compartmented whilst animal edifices tend to be rounded and endless. The planar character of human architecture is due to practicalities (see Steadman, 2006), as is the organic quality of structures built by insects and animals: formed by and to the organism’s ability, physical composition and properties of the material manipulated. Kiesler recognised comparisons between human and non-human built structures. (See figure 3), and stressed that modern architecture, informed by Euclidean geometry, detaches inhabitants from their natural surroundings as a consequence of its planarity. Specifically, that the juxtapositions of planes (i.e., corners), provide points and establish coordinates by which an inhabitant can locate oneself “in space”; thereby alienating one from their natural state of being subsumed in their environment. Kiesler claims that architects should better understand the biological significance of their designs. Studies of animal behaviour in captivity (Hediger, 1955) and the psychosomatic effects of architecture on inhabitants (Heron, 1957; Soloman, et al, 1957) illustrate that boring environments, or structures ill-suited to inhabitants needs, tend to have negative effects on occupants. A seminal example, with regards captive animals, and which Kiesler pinpoints in an article (1937), is the penguin pool at London Zoo designed by Tecton, an influential architectural firm led by the pioneering modernist architect Berthold Romanovich Lubetkin (1901 – 1990). One of the first uses of reinforced concrete the innovative design was unusually elegant and playful. In 1970 the building was recognized as an exemplary sample of design and given Grade 1 listed building status: the UK Government scheme for protecting important buildings. However, to aid a refurbishment in 2004 the penguin colony was temporarily relocated to a nearby duck pond, during which the penguins were seemingly happier. Subsequently a new penguin pool was constructed and Lubetkin’s innovative penguin pool remains as an architectural exemplar: vacant.
Figure 3 Study of arches.
Ⅳ. From Architecture to Life
Architecture in the future, Kiesler predicts “will not be judged alone by is beauty of rhythm, juxtaposition of materials, contemporary style. It can only be judged by its power to maintain and enhance man’s well-being, physical and mental. Architecture thus becomes a tool for the control of man’s de-generation and re-generation” (Kiesler, 1939, p. 66). The Endless House is Kiesler’s seminal work (see figure 4). The physical manifestation of his notion of a “Correalistic Universe” (an ever-changing web of environmental forces and human life activities), articulating the intricate relationships between man, nature and technology. He paraphrased the Endless House as “a germ cell, a nucleus of new forms of life and coexistence with man’s mental, physical and social circumstances as the variable parameters determining and shaping his living space” (Krejci in Bogner, 2003, p. 12). So, we must understand the Endless House as an enclosure that transcends discrete structural elements, that operates as a vessel to concentrate and enhance human life energies, to promote and enhance his essential criterion “health” (from Endless House book, pp. 61-62). Kiesler worked tirelessly on the project (between 1945 and 1960 – though it was essentially a lifetimes work, because the Endless House stems from his early designs for projects such as the Endless Theatre and Space House), but he never built an Endless House. He was commissioned in 1958 by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, to construct an Endless House for the sculpture garden but this never materialised. He was later approached (1961) to construct an Endless House in Florida but, frustrated with the client, walked away from the commission. He died in 1965. Nevertheless, Kiesler’s Endless House is regarded as one of the most visionary projects in the history of C20th architecture, and has fascinated and influenced architects and artists more than many built C20th buildings.
Figure 4 Frederick Kiesler, Model for Endless House, New York 1959.
Now Kieslers pioneering efforts has informed many architects, artists and designers but I’d like to close with a project by Arakawa and Madeline Gins, called the bioscleave house, which is a house to defy death, to illustrate how a biological understanding of space, and the generation of shape and form, leads back to life, or the protection of life. The designers do not cite Kiesler, but the significance of the unity between inhabitant and environment is fundamental to this project and so exemplary (albeit an extreme case) of Kiesler’s notion of an architecture to provide humans with a space that protects them from fatigue. Neither do they refer to Uexküll. However, interested to see (1) how Uexkull’s model might be applied to interpret, or inform, built space and (2) of the correlation between the Bioscleave House and the Endless House I tasked architecture student “Michele Meneses de Amorim” to analyse the Bioscleave house according to Uexküll’s sign-based model of space.
The project presents an irregular arrangement, in which the central area is informed by an undulating and bumpy concrete floor. Bright colours, the lack of straight lines and absence of horizon promotes a stimulating environment. (See figure 5). All the details in the house are meant to perturb the user, to cajole an unknown and unsafe experience. As you enter the house, no former memory-signs equip you for the setting forcing the individual to pay attention to new sense-qualities that constitute the buildings reality. The unsettling nature of the project places the user in a position to constantly assimilate and accommodate sensory information. The body is the core of the space, and each individual has a different response according to their own perceptual and physical abilities. The inhabitant must be aware of each step, turn and direction. In so doing Gins and Awakawa emphasize the subject’s bodily activity, and thus highlight their spatiality with the intent of getting you back to your basic generative level of existence. An inhabitant cannot resolve their view to any one horizon, and so, they claim, becomes meditative. The project stands for the couple’s manifesto “Declaration of the Right Not to Die”. Interpreted through Uexküll’s model of space as a mechanism of engaging with one’s environment the continual stimulation of the senses becomes an insurance of life. The inhabitant is aware of itself because of sensory-motor perceptions, and to occupy this building is to continuously interact with the fabricated environment – whereby the individual is forced to constantly recreate his or her balance and movement. The buildings environment is uncompromising, acting as a formative force of space to enhance life. When asked about how an elderly person might manage to walk across the irregular ground, Arakawa replied that the age or body constraints don’t matter, for even if the person had to crawl over the mounds, he or she would be positively responding at a bodily level to the environment. Such a challenge, so rare in our planned and safe cities and houses, is engineered to prompt and trigger a new awareness of body, muscles and movement (see Bernstein, 2008).
Figure 5. Bioscleave House (Lifespan Extending Villa), Interior.
Ⅴ. Conclusion
Whilst the likelihood of Kiesler being pronounced a fundamental figure of the biosemiotic project is slim, his design theory, understood through a biosemiotics lens, has value for architectural thinking because it provides a concrete bridge between the sciences and humanities. It offers substance to unconventional and experimental design thinking and practice (sic. The bioscleave house) by demonstrating the worth and how scientific theory/knowledge can inform and enhance our state of being in its application to moulding the built environment. The practical application benefits science, through speculation. Importantly, the artistic articulation of scientific knowledge is typically qualitative, opening avenues improbable in the lab. This paper set out with the aim to establish the bio-technique design theory of Frederick Kiesler to be biosemiotic. The motivation was to illustrate the relevance of his thinking to the biosemiotic project, with the ambition that the biosemiotic field might open up to receive him a compatriot and understand his work to be a practical application of biosemiotic thinking. Kiesler was influenced by the writings of Jakob von Uexküll, a key figure in biosemiotics. He owned a well-worn copy of Uexküll’s A stroll through the worlds of animals and men. His design theory concentrates on the coupling of human and environment and he submitted to a notion of space that integrates man with his surroundings, consequential of forces that inform and affect him. These fundamental aspects of his design theory suggest that he was deeply inspired by the biological theory of Uexküll. The forces he refers to, it was argued, compare to signs, because (like a force) signs perceived by an organism influence and direct an organism to act in some way. Kieslers design theory has thus been shown to echo (1) Uexküll’s process of feedback between perception and action, which informs a functional cycle describing how organisms interact with their environment and (2) the behaviour-centric semiotic model of Charles Morris. That Kiesler proposed architecture to be a science of relationships further intimates a semiotic underbelly – one with which comparisons may be drawn with the semiotic project of Morris. However, it is incongruous to claim Morris had any impact on Kiesler. They were both alive and active, in the States, around the same time but this is not sufficient reason to imply an influence. More likely an influence is the semiotic logic of Charles Peirce, via the pragmatic philosophy of William James (of whom various books were found in Kieslers library). Kiesler’s “Law of Transmutation” seems to be a designer’s interpretation of the Pragmatic Maxim, to describe a process whereby design is the perception of possibilities, creating mental products shaped through the combining of influences and constraints in a particular direction to inform new potentials; which the designer gives physical form. This process of trans-mutation seems to mimic the Peircean sign model in such a way that the semiotic character of Kiesler’s design theory must be recognised. Much work remains to confirm the correlations identified and to establish the significance of Kiesler to biosemiotics, and vice-versa. A project is underway at the Kent School of Architecture to realise the Endless House and in so doing to substantiate the proposed influences and better understand how he translated his design theory into physical form.
The second upshot of this paper is the significance of biology to architecture – an issue Kiesler was all too well aware of, and advanced. The organism-environment coupling is fundamental and architects, such as Kielser, do well to recognise the impact of architecture on wellbeing. An understanding of the processes of life are therefore fundamental to the design of buildings, which in turn has the potential to support and enhance wellbeing. Consequently, an understanding of life informs architecture, which may promote life. Kiesler strove to promote such a cycle in his Endless House. Unrealised, the Bioscleave House by Gins and Arakawa was used to serve as an exemplar of an architecture to promote life. Professing man a nucleus of forces, and that the purpose of design was to interpret and mould these forces in a particular direction Kiesler declared the purpose of architecture to support and enhance wellbeing. The biological impetus behind the correlation between inhabitant, environment, art and technology to Kiesler’s design thinking coupled with the perceived semiotic undertone strongly suggests that, were Kiesler alive today, he would likely be an advocate of biosemiotics.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the Austrian Frederick and Lillian Kiesler Private Foundation for providing me access to their archives and for authorising the use of images, with particular note to Gerd Zillner (Archivist, Curator, Senior Researcher) who has been a great support in better understanding Kiesler’s work and design theory. I would also like to thank March student Michele Meneses de Amorim (Leicester School of Architecture 2014-15) for her analysis of the Biocleave House.
蒂莫西·爱尔兰，肯特大学肯特建筑学院数字建筑中心主任，高级讲师。他的研究是综合了几种不同的理论，包括对空间和空间性的概念化、再现和分析，以及开发仿生空间的自我组织的计算机代码。
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