Frederick Kiesler Foundation

The Frederick Kiesler Foundation wishes you happy holidays and all the best for the new year!

Between farewells and new beginnings, we’re checking in one last time in 2025 – right in the middle of moving preparations at Mariahilfer Straße 1b. Many boxes have already been packed, and we’re eagerly anticipating our new location in the Kenyon Pavilion at Apollogasse 21/3.

2026 will be especially exciting for us. We can hardly wait for the new premises to fill with life. Of course, we’ll keep you updated via our newsletter and our Instagram account.
We look forward to seeing you again in 2026!

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Frederick Kiesler, Galaxy of Wishes
(design for a Christmas card), 1956

We thank our partners at hs art service for their tireless efforts!

We mourn the loss of architect Frank O. Gehry (1929-2025), the winner of the very first Frederick Kiesler Prize.

In 1998 the jury, consisting of Odile Decq, Phyllis Lambert, Harald Szeemann, Robert Wilson and Hans Hollein, awarded the Kiesler Prize to Gehry for „[h]is constant manifestation of courage, his intuitive and apolitical way of creating and the obvious pleasure with which he develops his buildings [...]. The image and reality of his work are the result of a choreography of the unpredictable, a dialogue of both static and destabilizing elements. They are metaphors, arrested moments of a ‚correlating‘ fantasy able to create sensuous and mental spaces that constantly seek new surfaces.“

The image shows Frank O. Gehry with Lillian Kiesler and Austrian chancellor Viktor Klima at the award ceremony 1998.

ANNOUNCEMENT

Please note: the Austrian Frederick und Lillian Kiesler Private Foundation is temporarily closed.
We are moving to the Kenyon Pavilion at Sophienpark.
The new address is:
Apollogasse 21 / Top 3
1070 Vienna, Austria

Stay tuned as we look forward to our grand reopening
in early April 2026.

Details will follow soon.

INVITATION FAREWELL MaHü
* NEW PREMISES 2026 *

On November 14th 2025, the finissage of „Frederick Kiesler. The Endless Search“ will take place in the course of VIENNA ART WEEK.
This event marks not only the conclusion of an exhibition, but also the end of a chapter in the foundation’s history, as it bids farewell to its location on Mariahilfer Straße.
In 2026, the Frederick Kiesler Foundation will move into new premises on Apollogasse, located on the grounds of the former Sophienspital in Vienna’s Neubau district. We already look forward to welcoming you to our new location in April 2026!

To mark the festive conclusion, we invite you to an evening programme that brings together art and sound:

with texts by Frederick Kiesler,
read by Miriam Stoney,
music by Stefan Grimus.

The evening will be hosted by Director Gerd Zillner.
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Cultural Nomads

We are nomads—cultural nomads. Or better: Nomads of civilization.
Moving from one apartment to another, from one town to another, or across borders into different lands.
Seeking opportunities and quitting them if they fulfill their promise fast.
We live an emergency life, a deadline life.

– Entry for Friday, January 22, 1960, p. 249
Frederick Kiesler, Inside the Endless House
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1966)
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Photo credits:
Eliana Kirkcaldy
Robert Bergmann
Flyer design:
Nina Ober

LAST WEEK

SCHÖNER WOHNEN
ARCHITECTURAL VISIONS FROM 1900 TO TODAY

Through October 19th, 2025


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The theme of habitation (Wohnen) is more topical than ever. How and where we live influence our sense of well-being and shape our behaviour and our identity. Since time immemorial, artists and architects have captured their initial ideas of a future architecture in drawings. Architectural drawings from past eras, however, are not only a means of generating ideas or a medium for documenting building projects. As “catchment organs of internal and external life” (Aby Warburg), they also provide information on the attitude of the architect and on the spirit of the time. Adopting this cultural-scientific approach, the Kunsthalle Tübingen is focusing on the artistic architectural drawing as an art form of the past one hundred years.
On the basis of sketches as well as selected models and sculptures dating from the 20th century to today, the exhibition will highlight how social and technical change influenced artists’ and architects’ new habitation concepts and urban visions. For modernist architects are increasingly taking individual lifestyles and living spaces into account in their social contexts and, as it were, broadening the view—out of one’s own four walls in the direction of collective living contexts in urban surroundings.

(Kunsthalle Tübingen)

Concept and curator: Dr. Nicole Fritz
Curatorial assistant: Zita Hartel
An exhibition organised by the Kunsthalle Tübingen in collaboration with the German Architecture Museum, Frankfurt am Main, as main lender.
(Director: Peter Cachola Schmal)

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📸: Exhibition views, SCHÖNER WOHNEN, Kunsthalle Tübingen, DE, 2025 Photo 1: Anette Cardlinale, Photo 2: Ulrich Metz

COMING UP

Vienna Art Book Fair #3
October 17–19, 2025

The Frederick Kiesler Foundation is delighted to announce its participation at the VABF 2025!
We will be presenting a selection of the foundation’s publications from the last 27 years, as well as hand-picked catalogs and artist books.
Particularly exciting: there will be an opportunity to preview the compendium “Frederick Kiesler, Magic Architecture. The Story of Human Housing” (ed. by Spyros Papapetros, Gerd Zillner, Chicago: MIT Press, 2025) , which will be published on November 19, 2025, and to pre-order it at a discount.

Venue:
Die Angewandte – University of Applied Arts Vienna
Vordere Zollamtsstraße 7
1030 Vienna, Austria

Opening Hours Fair
Friday, October 17, 2025, 5 PM–9 PM
Saturday, October 18, 2025, 1 PM–7 PM
Sunday, October 19, 2025, 12 PM–6 PM

UPCOMING

ORF - Lange Nacht der Museen 2025
Saturday, 4th October
6PM until midnight
Tickets available at the Frederick Kiesler Foundation
Regular 19,- €
Reduced 16,- €

Curators tour at 7PM and 9PM

Gerhard Zillner guides visitors through the exhibition "Frederick Kiesler. The Endless Search" he curated, recounting anecdotes about the stories behind the individual exhibits in order to vividly convey the work of the artist-architect.

COMING UP

Frederick Kiesler. The Endless Search

Curator tour and apéro
at the Frederick Kiesler Foundation Vienna
Thursday, 2nd October 2025
6PM
free admission
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In his final years, Frederick Kiesler worked on a collection of diary-like notes, poems and reflections on art and architecture, which he called "The Endless Search." The book remained unfinished and was published posthumously under the title "Inside the Endless House." Art, People and Architecture. A Journal."
The exhibition picks up on these ideas and takes its visitors on an "endless journey" through visionary architectural projects, iconic stage sets, Galaxy sculptures and portrait drawings. Highlighting the rich diversity of the Kiesler Foundation's archive, the presentation encompasses a wide range of media types—including glass plate slides, diaries, and small models—many of which have rarely or never been shown before.
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© Austrian Frederick and Lillian Kiesler Private Foundation, Vienna
Photo: Lukas Gaechter

SUMMER BREAK

Please note we will close today at 3pm,
as the foundation will be on summer break and will remain closed from
01 to 15 August 2025.

We wish you a wonderful and relaxing summer!

We wish you a
a beautiful and relaxing summer!☀️

The team of the Frederick Kiesler Foundation is still there for you and looks forward to your visit to our current exhibition
Frederick Kiesler. The Endless Search
during the usual opening hours (Tuesday to Friday 10 am to 5 pm).

When planning your visit, please note that the foundation
will remain closed during summer break
from August 1st to 15th, 2025.

📷: Frederick Kiesler, Leo Castelli and Salvatore Scarpitta on the beach in East Hampton, NY, around 1960
© Austrian Frederick and Lillian Kiesler Private Foundation, Vienna

ON VIEW

SCHÖNER WOHNEN
ARCHITECTURAL VISIONS FROM 1900 TO TODAY

Through October 10, 2025


___________________

The theme of habitation (Wohnen) is a more topical than ever. How and where we live influence our sense of well-being and shape our behaviour and our identity. Since time immemorial, artists and architects have captured their initial ideas of a future architecture in drawings. Architectural drawings from past eras, however, are not only a means of generating ideas or a medium for documenting building projects. As “catchment organs of internal and external life” (Aby Warburg) they also provide information on the attitude of the architect and on the spirit of the time. Adopting this cultural-scientific approach, the Kunsthalle Tübingen is focussing on the artistic architectural drawing as an art form of the past one hundred years.
On the basis of sketches as well as selected models and sculptures dating from the 20th century to today, the exhibition will highlight how social and technical change influenced artists’ and architects’ new habitation concepts and urban visions. For modernist architects are increasingly taking individual lifestyles and living spaces into account in their social contexts and, as it were, broadening the view – out of one’s own four walls in the direction of collective living contexts in urban surroundings.

(Kunsthalle Tübingen)

Concept and curator: Dr. Nicole Fritz
Curatorial assistant: Zita Hartel
An exhibition organised by the Kunsthalle Tübingen in collaboration with the German Architecture Museum, Frankfurt am Main as main lender
(Director: Peter Cachola Schmal)

_____________________

📸: Exhibition views, SCHÖNER WOHNEN, Kunsthalle Tübingen, DE,
June 8th - October 19, 2025 Photos: Ulrich Metz

ON VIEW
Varian Fry – les chemins de l’exil
opens today at the museum in France

The Frederick Kiesler Foundation loans our 1:3 model of the Surrealist Gallery
(part of the Art of This Century Gallery by Peggy Guggenheim, 1942).
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Credit: Exhibition view Tensta Konsthall, Frederick Kiesler: Visions at Work, 2014