Frederick John Kiesler, a theatre designer, artist, theoretician and architect, was born on September 22, 1890 in Cernauti, Romania. His only built architectural works were the Film Guild Cinema (1929) in New York City and the Shrine of the Book (1965) in Jerusalem. Numerous critics claim that he was far in advance of his contemporaries.
FREDERICK KEISLER'S 'ENDLESS THEATRE' 1924 (unbuilt)
Kiesler presented the Endless Theatre design based on the concept of endless space in 1924. The design shows his thoughts on non-territoriality of space, as a rebellion against modernism-based functional space concept which overwhelmed the 1920s. Kiesler's design consists of a continuous curved surface, and showed that it could maintain a shape structurally without column or frame. In the 1920s, architecture showed a strong tendency to interpret space from a functional point of view. In general, buildings were shaped as square boxes, with four corners at the points where the ceiling adjoined the floor. However, there is no corner in the Endless Theatre concept, and all planes are connected into one plane with continuity. Kiesler’s idea brought a paradigm shift from the conventional thought that the floor, wall, ceiling and column, which are structural elements of construction, are primary elements in shaping space.
Kiesler’s endless concept accepts a dual structure consisting of meanings of time and space simultaneously. If one interprets endless as ‘without an end’, it means ‘the eternity of time’, while it also implies ‘there is no corner’ in an aspect of space.
Kiesler presented a drift of ‘Endless Theatre’ in 1924, which brought up the image of an egg which used the specific feature of its space as a metaphoric expression of the relation between a fetus and a womb. Egg-shaped curved figure proposed by Kiesler has no corner and its surface is a continued one, showing non-territoriality of space best. Most of the buildings based on International Style, which was reckoned as a mainstream at that time, applied three elements of buildings, including wall, floor and ceiling, to architecture based on Euclidian geometry. However, Kiesler recognized space as an original existence of the universe, and pursued the continuity of space under the belief that there is no eternal geometry.
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| Model of Theatre |
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| Floor plan of Endless Theatre |
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| Section of Endless Theatre |
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| Floor plan of Endless Theatre |
UTOPIAN THEATRES – RACHEL HANN
The objective was to form new insights on the historically significant theatre through the process of computer-based 3D visualisation.
_Based on the 1924 architectural plans along with an array of secondary sources, this interpretation of the Endless Theatre is inline with the following hypothetical scenario:
100,000 spectator capacity
Three rows of 'Upper Seating' and a 'Lower Amphitheatre' following the 'concentric circles' of the 1924 'Endless Plan’
Elevators included
Opaque and constructed inline with the internal structures of the Zeiss Planetarium for the outer shell.
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| Endless Theatre - 3D model by Rachel Hann |
FREDERICK KIESLER'S 'SPACE STAGE' 1924
The Space Stage of the Railway-Theatre, the contemporary form of
theatre, is floating in space. The ground floor is only the
support for the open construction. The audience is circulating in
electro-magnetic movements around the core of the stage.
[Excerpt of: Internationale Ausstellung neuer Theatertechnik,
Exhibition Catalogue, Vienna 1924]
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| Space stage, Vienna 1924 |
