Stephen Phillips
Bereich: Architektur, Theorie
Key Facts
Nationalität
USABereich
Architektur, TheorieWohnort
Sierra MadreEmpfehlende Institution
Kiesler Stiftung WienZeitraum
Juni 2005 - Juli 2005EDUCATION
PrincetonUniversity, M.A., Jan. 2003, Ph.D. Candidate, History and Theory of Architecture
University of Pennsylvania, M.Arch., Graduate School of Architecture,May 1994
YaleUniversity, B.A. With Distinction in Architecture, May 1991, Magna Cum Laude
University of California, Berkeley Major in Architecture Aug '85-Aug '87, Honors
ACADEMIC SCHOLARSHIPS AND AWARDS
Butler and Cramer Prizes, Traveling fellowships in architecture; Princeton University2001, 2002, 2003
University Fellowship; Princeton University 2000-2004
Paul Phillippe Cret Award, for best studio thesis; University of Pennsylvania1994
Will Melhorn Scholarship, for best essay in architectural theory; University of Pennsylvania1993
Charles DuBose Scholarship, Connecticut Society of Architects /AIA1992-1993
DESIGN AWARDS
AIA Honor Award, for Best of the Bay, Singer Kapp Residence, (TGH);San Francisco Chapter AIA 2002
Merit Award, Western Home Awards, Singer Kapp Residence, (TGH); Sunset Magazine 2001
Honor Award, for the Environment, Lick-Wilmerding High School, (SMWM); I. D. Magazine 1997
SELECTED ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN PROJECTS
Stephen Phillips Architecture - Principal
San Francisco, California September 1997 – Present
Longwell Residence Renovation, Sea Drift, Stinson Beach, California
Oleksyk Residence, Claremont, San Diego
Dalla Valle Vineyard Winery Expansion & Caretaker House, Silverado Trail, Napa Valley, California
Knapp Residence Addition, Eureka Valley, San Francisco
Cohen Condominium Remodel, Oakland, California
William Turnbull Associates/ Turnbull Griffin Haesloop - Project Architect and Manager, Senior Designer
San Francisco, California Feb 1997 – June 1999
The San Francisco School Humanities Building, San Francisco
Singer Kapp Residence, San Francisco
Nueva School Library and Humanities Center, Hillsborough, California
Cathy Simon, Simon Martin-Vegue Winklestein Moris - Designer
San Francisco, California July 1994 - Feb 1997
St. Andrew Presbyterian Church, Marin City, California
Lick-Wilmerding High School Library and Humanities Center, San Francisco
Trans-Bay Urban Planning Masterplan, San Francisco
NCIS French/Chinese International School Gymnasium, San Francisco
Yerba Buena Sony Metreon Theater Complex, San Francisco
Charles Moore, Moore Ruble Yudell - Junior Designer
Santa Monica, California Summer 1992; Summer 1990
Santa Monica Ocean Hotel, Santa Monica, California
Nativity Church Classroom Building, Los Angeles, California
BOARD MEMBERSHIPS
PACA, President's Advisory Council on Architecture; Princeton University 2001-present
Graduate student representative to the President of the University for campus planning and architecture
LEAP, Imagination In Learning, San Francisco 1999-2001
Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors for non-profit Bay Area elementary in-school architecture program
SELECTED WRITTEN PUBLICATIONS
"Introjection and Projection: Frederick Kiesler and his Dream Machine," Surrealism and Architecture,
ed. Thomas Mical (New York: Routledge Press, 2004 publication pending)
“Plastic: MHOF,” Cold War Hot Houses, ed. Beatriz Colomina, et. al.
(New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2004 publication pending)
“The Open City,” Introduction to international conference at the University of Pennsylvania, ed. Tony Atkin
www.upenn.edu/gsfa/, 1994
SELECTED DESIGN PUBLICATIONS
“Urban Curtain Wall,” Singer Kapp Residence (TGH), Sunset Magazine, October 2001
“Outsidein,” Singer Kapp Residence (TGH), Home Magazine, September 2001
"Lick-WilmerdingSchool,” (SMWM), Architectural Record, October 1997
"On the Boards," Lick-WilmerdingHigh School, (SMWM) Architecture, October 1995
SELECTED CONFERENCES
"Elastic Construction: Frederick Kiesler and his Mobile Home Library," Architecture and Furniture: Approaching Objects in Space, the Society of Architectural Historians, Rhode Island, scheduled for April 2004.
"Frederick Kiesler and his Dream Machine,”Fantasy Space: Surrealism and Architecture, the AHRB Research Centre for Studies of Surrealism and its Legacies, Manchester, England. September 2003
Co- Chair, Room Conference, Co-Sponsored by Princeton University School of Architecture, Department of Media and Modernity, and Department of Art and Archeology. April 2002
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Southern CaliforniaInstitute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), Instructor, 2004
Temporalism: Time and Architecture: Advanced Architecture History, Theory, and Studio Design Seminar
Princeton University Department of Architecture, Assistant in Instruction, 2003
Synaptic Space--Infrastructure Matrix: Undergraduate Junior Design Studio in Architecture
Visiting Professor Douglas Gauthier
Princeton University Department of Architecture, Assistant in Instruction, 2002
Subdivision: Operating in atopia: Advanced Graduate Design Studio in Architecture
Visiting Professor Jane Harrison
Princeton University Department of Architecture, Assistant in Instruction, 2001
Shanghai: The World Fair 2010: Advanced Graduate Design Studio in Architecture
Professor Mario Gandelsonas
Princeton University Department of Art and Archeology, Preceptor, 2001
French Impressionism and Neoclassicism: Undergraduate Art History Discussion sections
Lecturer Laura Auriccio
University of Pennsylvania Graduate Department of Architecture, Research and Teaching Assistant, 1993
Metamorphosis in Architecture: Graduate History and Theory course in Architecture
Lecturer Tony Atkin
University of Pennsylvania Graduate Department of Architecture, Teaching Assistant, 1992
Structures II: Graduate level structures course in Architecture
Professor Richard Farely
University of Pennsylvania Graduate Department of Architecture, Teaching Assistant, 1992
Construction I, II: Graduate level construction courses in Architecture
Professor Lindsay Falk
LEAP, Imagination in Learning, ReddingSchool and SynergySchool, Architecture Teacher, 1995-2000
Architecture studio projects in collaboration with elementary school classroom teachers
Project Proposal: MuseumsQuartier
Artist-in-Residence Program
Stephen J. Phillips (Ph.D. Candidate, School of Architecture, Princeton University)
My dissertation explores Kiesler’s vision for an “organic” paradigm of “elastic” construction technology built on the principles of continuity, mobility, flexibility, multiplicity, and interactivity. It studies the intersection between art, architecture, film, and stage design in the 1920s and 1930s in order to examine concepts of time, space, and motion that informed Kiesler’s construction of his “mobile space enclosures.” My research focuses on the perceptions of time and motion studied in art and science during the early twentieth-century that directly informed Kiesler’s investigations into the contraction and expansion of space. I further examine how Kiesler created a biotechnological design process using time-motion studies to adapt his “static-flexible” spatial concept into an innovative architectural practice. The aim of my project is to consider the promises of architecture modulated to the actions of moving bodies and systems and to question the effect of adaptable “elastic” architectures on the habits of everyday life.
Kiesler belonged to a generation of artists and designers interested in the effects of time and motion on spatial perception. As a well-known Austrian-American theater and exhibition designer who published and edited in G and De Stijl magazines in the 1920s, Kiesler was highly engaged in European avant-garde circles throughout his career. His familiarity with the practices of a wide variety of artistic groups stimulated and enhanced his work. His architecture and theater designs were influenced by futurist Enrico Prampolini’s advancements in moving stage set design, constructivist Wsewolod Meyerhold’s time-motion theater studies, and avant-garde artist Hans Richter’s filmic explorations—among many others. In search of formal and spatial innovation, Kiesler synthesized numerous, and sometimes contradictory, images and ideas into his work. My project examines Kiesler’s hybrid design process that eventually brought him to explore bio-morphic forms and surrealist preoccupations in the mid-1930s.
Kiesler’s organic forms and methodological practices contradicted the normative modern ideology and technology of his time. Unlike architects J.J.P. Oud, Le Corbusier, and Gino Pollini, he did not study time and motion to rationalize the efficient use of space in the work place and the home. Instead, Kiesler advanced time-motion studies in his Laboratory of Design-Correlation at Columbia University in order to create flexible environments open to multiple purposes and needs. To this end, Kiesler opposed the static use of modern panel and frame rectilinear construction, and advanced technologies that might achieve curvilinear mobile-flexible typologies. Kiesler initiated a unique design methodology that investigated visual and tactile spatial perception in order to incorporate changing and varied psychological and physiological uses for his stage, furniture, and housing projects. My research examines Kiesler’s strategies for utilizing time-motion studies to advance alternative conceptions of dwelling, and considers why his approach and forms have become so appealing to contemporary architecture practice.
Although marginalized as an architect in his time, Kiesler has proven to significantly influence architecture over the past decade. In the mid-1990s, Kiesler and his work were brought to the forefront of architectural culture. Leading Dutch and American architects Ben van Berkel and Gregg Lynn—in praise of Kiesler’s “hybridized” persona and “continuous” constructions—appropriated Kiesler’s architectural project and design methodology in order to advance computer animation generated practices. Through the impact of their work—among others, Kiesler’s ideas have come to influence design techniques taught in architecture schools internationally. My project returns to the sources of Kiesler’s investigations in order to examine and theorize the promises and limitations of mobile-flexible architectures of organic typologies being favored by recent computer generated design practices.
This dissertation comprises seven chapters. The first chapter, “Plastic Forms of Glassy Balloon Materials (1924-1926): Frederick Kiesler and his Endless Theater,” explores European avant-garde influences on Kiesler’s theater designs. The second chapter—“Milieu-Suggestion shaft die Filmprojektion: Frederick Kiesler and the Applied Arts”—pursues Kiesler’s adaptation of avant-garde artistic practices to create atmospheric spaces in his New York projects during the late 1920s. The Third and Fourth chapters, “Elastic Space: Continuous Tension Shell Construction,” and “Elastic Construction: Frederick Kiesler and his Mobile Home Library,” examine Kiesler’s time and motion investigations in his housing projects during the 1930s. While the last three chapters of my dissertation, “The Space-Time Matrix: Frederick Kiesler and the Endless House,” “Introjection and Projection: Frederick Kiesler and his Dream Machine,” and “Elastic Architecture: Biotechnical Informe,” are an attempt to theorize the pseudo-psychoanalytic and scientific dimensions of Kiesler’s project with reflection upon similar interests being advanced by contemporary architects.
Although there has been significant original articles, essays, and books including a number of dissertations on Kiesler—none of that research has significantly responded to his technological and formal applications of time and motion. They have not recognized his elaborate discourse on expansion and contraction related to concepts of the space-time continuum that pervades his search for mobile-flexible elastic structures and spaces, nor do they substantially theorize his fascination with natural sciences and biomorphic forms that still influence the contemporary field.
While an artist-in-residence at the MuseumsQuartier I would like research, write, and present several chapters from this dissertation in multi-media format. This will entail researching approximately two days per week at the Austrian Frederick and Lillian Kiesler Private Foundation Archive in Vienna alongside extensive writing while in residence at the studio. After several weeks of writing, each chapter will be edited to a presentable format for a forty minute presentation. Multi-media presentations and demonstrations will include scanned images from the archive shown in Power-Point from my laptop. Expenses for this portion of the project will include projector rental, scanning costs per image, and a copying budget. Presentations will be immediately followed by a question and answer session.
Alongside the multi-media presentations I would also like to propose a furniture installation to be designed and presented while in residence. This will likely entail using available 3D software on my laptop computer to design the project. All of my architectural work over the past decade has been for private clients, and I would like to use this opportunity to formulate a more experimental conceptual furniture design that responds to Kiesler’s interest in time and motion using contemporary computer animation technology to achieve form. This is a unique opportunity for me to return to more creative explorations in furniture design in order to re-think my approach to the architecture profession. Access to computers at a local art and architecture school may be necessary to develop the design as needed using CAD/CAM software. The design at this time however, can remain virtual; it can be projected as an animation. Costs will include plotting expenses and projector rental. If time and budget permits—a scaled version (model)—will be made using available methods and materials and presented alongside the virtual design.
To participate as an artist-in-residence would prove an enormous opportunity for me to complete a significant portion of my dissertation in a productive environment among other artists and intellectuals. Equally, researching and developing a furniture installation piece while staying in Vienna would prove an enormous opportunity. Architects have held a long tradition of engaging in the art of furniture design as a means to explore ideas related to the professional practice. Joseph Hoffmann, Otto Wagner, Adolf Loos, Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Frank Gehry, Charles Eames, and Frederick Kiesler are only a few of the accomplished architects engaged in the art of furniture design. Vienna has been central to this tradition—recognizing the importance of the applied arts (Kuntswerbe) towards a total artwork of effects (Gesamtkunstwerk). As my own design work has readily accepted opportunities to design cabinetry, furnishings and lighting—it would be my honor to participate as an artist-in-residence at the MuseumsQuartier in pursuit of new creative approaches to artistic expression in design inspired by ideas discovered through continued research and writing on Frederick Kiesler.