Frederick Kiesler

Frederick John Kiesler
F. Kiesler at the Internationale Ausstellung neuer Theatertechnik, Vienna. 1924.
Born	(1890-09-22)September 22, 1890 Chernivtsi, Austria-Hungary
Died	December 27, 1965(1965-12-27) (aged 75) New York City
Nationality	American
Known for	Architect, Designer
Notable work	Shrine of the Book (1957–65)

Frederick John Kiesler (Czernowitz or Tschernovitz, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Chernivtsi, Ukraine), September 22, 1890 – New York City, December 27, 1965) (born as Friedrich Jacob Kiesler). Austrian-American architect, theoretician, theater designer, artist and sculptor.

From 1908 to 1909, Kiesler studied at the Technische Hochschule in Vienna. From 1910–12, he attended painting and printmaking classes at the Akademie der bildenden Künste, both in Vienna. In July 1913, Kiesler quit the academy without having earned a diploma.

He married Stefanie (Stefi) Frischer (1896–1963) in 1920, and they moved to New York City in 1926, where he lived until his death. Kiesler collaborated there early on with the Surrealists, and with Marcel Duchamp. His writing was extensive, and his theoretical work embraced two lengthy manifestos, the article "Pseudo-Functionalism in Modern Architecture" (Partisan Review, July 1949) and the book Contemporary Art Applied to the Store and Its Display (New York: Brentano, 1930).

Stefi Kiesler died in September 1963. In 1964, the year before his death, Kiesler married Lillian Olinsey, his longtime secretary and confidante, as Stefi had advised him to do while she was still living. In May 1965, he traveled to Jerusalem for the inauguration of the Shrine of the Book; seven months later he died in New York City.

Kiesler was productive as a theater and art-exhibition designer in the 1920s in Vienna and Berlin. In 1920, he started a brief collaboration with architect Adolf Loos and, in 1923, became a member of the De Stijl group in 1923. Kiesler was friendly with many of the major figures of the European avant-garde, which may have influenced his heretical approach to artistic theories and practices.