ALEKSANDRA KASUBA, environmental artist
Born in Ginkunai, Lithuania, 1923
Attended The Art Institute in Kaunas 1942-43, Art Academy in Vilnius 1943
Immigrated to the United States in 1947
Lived and worked in New York City from 1963 to 2001
Moved to New Mexico in 2001.
NOTE: The documentation of the artist’s works from 1942 to 2000 is in the Smithsonian
Institution, Archives of American Art.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2014 “Spectrum, an Afterthought” at The National Art Gallery, Vilnius, Lithuania
1989 “Shaping the Future,” a retrospective, University City Science Center, Philadelphia
1979 “Suspended Structure,” Colony Square, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia
1976 “Fabric Structures,” Cranbrook Academy of Art Museum, Cranbrook, Michigan
1975 “The Spectral Passage,” M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, Calif.
1973 “Fabric Structures,” Art Gallery of State University, Potsdam, New York
1971 “Shelters for Senses,” Live-in Environment” at 43W90, New York City
1965 “Black Marble Mosaics,” Waddell Gallery, New York City
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
1990 “American Women Artists: The 20th Century,” Knoxville Museum of Art, TN
1979 “Transformations in Modern Architecture,” Museum of Modern Art, NYC
1978 “Art-in-Science,” The Philadelphia Art Alliance
1977 “Women in American Architecture,” The Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York
1973 “Spectrum Environment,” Temple University, Pennsylvania
1970 “Contemplative Environments,” American Craft Museum, New York City
1968 “Experiments in Art & Technology,” The Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY
1962 “Artist/Architect Collaboration” American Crafts Museum, NYC
1954,5,6 Syracuse Museum of Art
1953 “NY Ceramic Association” Museum of Natural History, NYCity
INSTALLATIONS AND STUDIES Fabric structures
1980 30,000 sq.ft. installation for International Furniture Exhibit in Paris, France
for The US Air Force, with CRS Group+Metcalf & Eddy
1978 “Suspended Shade Structure,” 124 ft. span, Jacob Riis National Park, New York
1975 Office renovation study for Lepercq de Neuflize & Co. Paris and New York with
Warnecke Associates / not realized
1975 Environment for children, 300 sq.ft., University of Delaware Reading Study
1973 “The 20th Century Environment,” The Carborundum Museum of Ceramics Niagara Falls, New York
1973 Roofdeck study for Manhattan Community Rehabilitation Center, New York City Not realized
1973 “Learning Environment,” 2,000 sq.ft. Wave Hill Center for Environm.Studies, Riverdale, New York
1972 “Wiz-Bang Quick City #2,” Woodstock, New York
SELECTED ARCHITECTURAL INSTALLATIONS in brick, marble, or granite
1986 Granite Wall 4,000 sq.ft., 7 World Trade Center, New York City, with Emery Roth & Sons, architects
1985 Granite relief with water, James Plaza, Richmond, Virginia with Paul Friedberg
1983 Brick Relief 1,000 sq.ft. Amhurst Station, Buffalo, New York, Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority
1981 Brick Relief, 1,750 sq.ft. 560 Lexington Avenue, New York City with The Eggers Group
1981 Old Post Office Plaza, 7,000 sq.ft. Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC
Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation
1981 Marble Relief, New Dorp High School, Staten Island, New York
1973 Brick Wall, 3,000 sq.ft. Lincoln Hospital, The Bronx, New York with
Max O. Urban, architect
1971 Marble Mosaic Relief, 520 sq.ft., Clifton High School, Baltimore, Maryland
1969 White Marble Mosaic 750 sq,ft. Container Corporation Headquarters, Chicago
1967-71 Four Brick Walls, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York
with Edward L. Barnes, architect
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE
1977 Philadelphia College of Textile & Science, Art-in-Science I
1976 Cranbrook Academy of Art
INVITED SPEAKER
1985 ”3rd International Symposium on Wide Span Structures” Stuttgart University 1984
“The Design Process: International Symposium on Architectural Fabric
Structures, Orlando, Florida
AWARDS
1983 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship
1981 IFAI International Award for excellence, with FTL Associates
1972 WAA &AIA NY Chapter citation 1971,
1973 AIA Artist-Architect Collaboration, with Edward L. Barnes
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
By Aleksandra Kasuba
Books self-published
On the Way to America, 2010 / manuscript
The Seven Faces of Time, iUniverse Inc. 2005
In the Wake of Dreams, Authors Choice Press, an imprint of iUniverse, Inc., 2001
Child Ticking, Authors Choice Press, an imprint of iUniverse, Inc., 2001
Private Heresies, Authors Choice Press, an imprint of iUniverse Inc., 2000
Utility for the Soul, Didymus Press, San Francisco: 1975
Articles
“The Physics of Metaphysics,” The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Vol.19, No.1, Winter 1998
Media Works
Curved Surfaces, Web Site: www.curvedsurfaces.com, 1998
Not-So-Still-Life, Digital video, 2000
Reinventing the Self, Digital video, 2001
Kasuba Works, Web Site: www.kasubaworks.com, 2001
Kasuba Books, Web Site: www.kasubabooks.com, 2005
Books and Catalogues
About Aleksandra Kasuba
Acrylic for Sculpture and Design, Clarence Bunch (Van Nostrand Rainhold, 1972)
Das Mosaic, Peter Fisher (Verlag Anton Schroll & Co., 1969): p.104
Objects: USA, Lee Nordness (The Viking Press, 1970): p.248-9
The Rainbow Book (exhibition catalogue). The Fine Arts Museum, San Francisco, 1975, 222-3
Report on Art & Technology Program, 1967-1971, Maurice Tuchman, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art: 144-5
Underground Interiors, Norma Skurka & Oberto Gili, Quadrangle Books, 1972: cover & p.30-3
Women in American Architecture & Design: A Historical and Contemporary Perspective, Susana Torre, Whitney Publications, 1977
European Design Guide for Tensile Surface Structures, Brian Foster/Marijke Mollaert, TensiNet, 2004 p.75
New York 2000, Robert A.M.Stern, David Fishman, and Jacob Tilove, p. 519
Spaced Out, Radical Environments of the Sixties, Alastair Gordon, Rizzoli, 2008
Articles and Reviews
Barnhouse, Nan, “House of Peaceful Existence” The Plain Dealer (December 21,1971)
Crane, Catherine, “Space Shelters for Senses,” Interiors (July 1971): p.22-26
Donohoe, Victoria, “Art in Science,” Philadelphia Inquirer (May 26,1978).
Drewes, Caroline, “The Spectral Passage,” San Francisco Examiner (October 1975): p.25
Klosek, Judy, “Present Future,” editorial. The Designer (October 1971)
Lewin, Susan Grant, “A Truly Sensuous House,” House Beautiful (November 1971): 4p.
Malcolm, Janet, “About the House,” The New Yorker (September 25, 1971): p.115-17
Morgan, James, “Interiors,” Architectural Record (August 1971): p.93-5
______ “Shelters for Senses,” Architecture Plus (November 1973): p.50-55
______ “Fabrics for the Future,” Interiors (January 1979): p.84-85
Najman, Roland, “Sheltering the Senses,” The Saturday Review (August 12, 1972): p.46-47
Plank, Richard, “Setting up Tension,” Interiors (July 1979): p.72-75
Reese, Ilse Messner, “Sensuelles Environment,” MD/Germany (January 1973): 94-99,120
Reif, Rita, “Background for Living,” The New York Times (May 11, 1971)
Shorr, Mimi, “The Self in Chambered Space,” Craft Horizons (August 1971): p.26-29,71
Smith, Lissa, “Space Shelter for Senses” Home Furnishings Daily (May 11, 1971): p.1&4
Thomspon, Mary Lee, “Aleksandra Kasuba,” Woman’s Art Journal (Winter 1984): p.35-39
WORK IN NEW MEXICO
2002 Rock Hill House
2003-05 Two Shell Dwellings
2005 The K-method
About SHELL DWELLINGS
Olmstead, Donna, “No Corners,” Albuquerque Sunday Journal (July 3, 2005): p.50-1, 53
Weideman, Paul, “The Art of Space,” The New Mexican Weekly (April 16-22, 2004) p.
Pol Oxygen, International Design Art Architecture Quarterly, (Issue 17, 2006) Australia, p.100
Alastair Gordon, “The Home Stretched” DWELL (May 2007) pp.198,199,200,202,204
Alastair Gordon, “SPACED OUT / Radical environments of the Psychedelic Sixties”
Rizzoli International, NY 2008, pages 4, 86, 95-9, 234-9
VOLUME 24, Archis + Amo + C-Lab/ Columbia edu, 2010, p.88-91
STUDY MODELS
2006 Private Residence, Smart Village
2007 Resort Complex, Fuel Station
2008 4 models / k-method applied to larger buildings, Civic Center
2008, Pyramid, Residence/office, A Building
2009 3 Buildings / after seashells, 5 boxes / re-imagined sites
2010 Winged / self-supporting structure, Cube / unfolding summer house
2011 Habitats evolving
BOOKS self-published
Kasuba Works 1942-2010
Habitats Evolving 2011
A Life 2012-2013
Time Fractured 2014
Born in Ginkunai, Lithuania, 1923
Attended The Art Institute in Kaunas 1942-43, Art Academy in Vilnius 1943
Immigrated to the United States in 1947
Lived and worked in New York City from 1963 to 2001
Moved to New Mexico in 2001.
NOTE: The documentation of the artist’s works from 1942 to 2000 is in the Smithsonian
Institution, Archives of American Art.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2014 “Spectrum, an Afterthought” at The National Art Gallery, Vilnius, Lithuania
1989 “Shaping the Future,” a retrospective, University City Science Center, Philadelphia
1979 “Suspended Structure,” Colony Square, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia
1976 “Fabric Structures,” Cranbrook Academy of Art Museum, Cranbrook, Michigan
1975 “The Spectral Passage,” M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, Calif.
1973 “Fabric Structures,” Art Gallery of State University, Potsdam, New York
1971 “Shelters for Senses,” Live-in Environment” at 43W90, New York City
1965 “Black Marble Mosaics,” Waddell Gallery, New York City
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
1990 “American Women Artists: The 20th Century,” Knoxville Museum of Art, TN
1979 “Transformations in Modern Architecture,” Museum of Modern Art, NYC
1978 “Art-in-Science,” The Philadelphia Art Alliance
1977 “Women in American Architecture,” The Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York
1973 “Spectrum Environment,” Temple University, Pennsylvania
1970 “Contemplative Environments,” American Craft Museum, New York City
1968 “Experiments in Art & Technology,” The Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY
1962 “Artist/Architect Collaboration” American Crafts Museum, NYC
1954,5,6 Syracuse Museum of Art
1953 “NY Ceramic Association” Museum of Natural History, NYCity
INSTALLATIONS AND STUDIES Fabric structures
1980 30,000 sq.ft. installation for International Furniture Exhibit in Paris, France
for The US Air Force, with CRS Group+Metcalf & Eddy
1978 “Suspended Shade Structure,” 124 ft. span, Jacob Riis National Park, New York
1975 Office renovation study for Lepercq de Neuflize & Co. Paris and New York with
Warnecke Associates / not realized
1975 Environment for children, 300 sq.ft., University of Delaware Reading Study
1973 “The 20th Century Environment,” The Carborundum Museum of Ceramics Niagara Falls, New York
1973 Roofdeck study for Manhattan Community Rehabilitation Center, New York City Not realized
1973 “Learning Environment,” 2,000 sq.ft. Wave Hill Center for Environm.Studies, Riverdale, New York
1972 “Wiz-Bang Quick City #2,” Woodstock, New York
SELECTED ARCHITECTURAL INSTALLATIONS in brick, marble, or granite
1986 Granite Wall 4,000 sq.ft., 7 World Trade Center, New York City, with Emery Roth & Sons, architects
1985 Granite relief with water, James Plaza, Richmond, Virginia with Paul Friedberg
1983 Brick Relief 1,000 sq.ft. Amhurst Station, Buffalo, New York, Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority
1981 Brick Relief, 1,750 sq.ft. 560 Lexington Avenue, New York City with The Eggers Group
1981 Old Post Office Plaza, 7,000 sq.ft. Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC
Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation
1981 Marble Relief, New Dorp High School, Staten Island, New York
1973 Brick Wall, 3,000 sq.ft. Lincoln Hospital, The Bronx, New York with
Max O. Urban, architect
1971 Marble Mosaic Relief, 520 sq.ft., Clifton High School, Baltimore, Maryland
1969 White Marble Mosaic 750 sq,ft. Container Corporation Headquarters, Chicago
1967-71 Four Brick Walls, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York
with Edward L. Barnes, architect
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE
1977 Philadelphia College of Textile & Science, Art-in-Science I
1976 Cranbrook Academy of Art
INVITED SPEAKER
1985 ”3rd International Symposium on Wide Span Structures” Stuttgart University 1984
“The Design Process: International Symposium on Architectural Fabric
Structures, Orlando, Florida
AWARDS
1983 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship
1981 IFAI International Award for excellence, with FTL Associates
1972 WAA &AIA NY Chapter citation 1971,
1973 AIA Artist-Architect Collaboration, with Edward L. Barnes
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
By Aleksandra Kasuba
Books self-published
On the Way to America, 2010 / manuscript
The Seven Faces of Time, iUniverse Inc. 2005
In the Wake of Dreams, Authors Choice Press, an imprint of iUniverse, Inc., 2001
Child Ticking, Authors Choice Press, an imprint of iUniverse, Inc., 2001
Private Heresies, Authors Choice Press, an imprint of iUniverse Inc., 2000
Utility for the Soul, Didymus Press, San Francisco: 1975
Articles
“The Physics of Metaphysics,” The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Vol.19, No.1, Winter 1998
Media Works
Curved Surfaces, Web Site: www.curvedsurfaces.com, 1998
Not-So-Still-Life, Digital video, 2000
Reinventing the Self, Digital video, 2001
Kasuba Works, Web Site: www.kasubaworks.com, 2001
Kasuba Books, Web Site: www.kasubabooks.com, 2005
Books and Catalogues
About Aleksandra Kasuba
Acrylic for Sculpture and Design, Clarence Bunch (Van Nostrand Rainhold, 1972)
Das Mosaic, Peter Fisher (Verlag Anton Schroll & Co., 1969): p.104
Objects: USA, Lee Nordness (The Viking Press, 1970): p.248-9
The Rainbow Book (exhibition catalogue). The Fine Arts Museum, San Francisco, 1975, 222-3
Report on Art & Technology Program, 1967-1971, Maurice Tuchman, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art: 144-5
Underground Interiors, Norma Skurka & Oberto Gili, Quadrangle Books, 1972: cover & p.30-3
Women in American Architecture & Design: A Historical and Contemporary Perspective, Susana Torre, Whitney Publications, 1977
European Design Guide for Tensile Surface Structures, Brian Foster/Marijke Mollaert, TensiNet, 2004 p.75
New York 2000, Robert A.M.Stern, David Fishman, and Jacob Tilove, p. 519
Spaced Out, Radical Environments of the Sixties, Alastair Gordon, Rizzoli, 2008
Articles and Reviews
Barnhouse, Nan, “House of Peaceful Existence” The Plain Dealer (December 21,1971)
Crane, Catherine, “Space Shelters for Senses,” Interiors (July 1971): p.22-26
Donohoe, Victoria, “Art in Science,” Philadelphia Inquirer (May 26,1978).
Drewes, Caroline, “The Spectral Passage,” San Francisco Examiner (October 1975): p.25
Klosek, Judy, “Present Future,” editorial. The Designer (October 1971)
Lewin, Susan Grant, “A Truly Sensuous House,” House Beautiful (November 1971): 4p.
Malcolm, Janet, “About the House,” The New Yorker (September 25, 1971): p.115-17
Morgan, James, “Interiors,” Architectural Record (August 1971): p.93-5
______ “Shelters for Senses,” Architecture Plus (November 1973): p.50-55
______ “Fabrics for the Future,” Interiors (January 1979): p.84-85
Najman, Roland, “Sheltering the Senses,” The Saturday Review (August 12, 1972): p.46-47
Plank, Richard, “Setting up Tension,” Interiors (July 1979): p.72-75
Reese, Ilse Messner, “Sensuelles Environment,” MD/Germany (January 1973): 94-99,120
Reif, Rita, “Background for Living,” The New York Times (May 11, 1971)
Shorr, Mimi, “The Self in Chambered Space,” Craft Horizons (August 1971): p.26-29,71
Smith, Lissa, “Space Shelter for Senses” Home Furnishings Daily (May 11, 1971): p.1&4
Thomspon, Mary Lee, “Aleksandra Kasuba,” Woman’s Art Journal (Winter 1984): p.35-39
WORK IN NEW MEXICO
2002 Rock Hill House
2003-05 Two Shell Dwellings
2005 The K-method
About SHELL DWELLINGS
Olmstead, Donna, “No Corners,” Albuquerque Sunday Journal (July 3, 2005): p.50-1, 53
Weideman, Paul, “The Art of Space,” The New Mexican Weekly (April 16-22, 2004) p.
Pol Oxygen, International Design Art Architecture Quarterly, (Issue 17, 2006) Australia, p.100
Alastair Gordon, “The Home Stretched” DWELL (May 2007) pp.198,199,200,202,204
Alastair Gordon, “SPACED OUT / Radical environments of the Psychedelic Sixties”
Rizzoli International, NY 2008, pages 4, 86, 95-9, 234-9
VOLUME 24, Archis + Amo + C-Lab/ Columbia edu, 2010, p.88-91
STUDY MODELS
2006 Private Residence, Smart Village
2007 Resort Complex, Fuel Station
2008 4 models / k-method applied to larger buildings, Civic Center
2008, Pyramid, Residence/office, A Building
2009 3 Buildings / after seashells, 5 boxes / re-imagined sites
2010 Winged / self-supporting structure, Cube / unfolding summer house
2011 Habitats evolving
BOOKS self-published
Kasuba Works 1942-2010
Habitats Evolving 2011
A Life 2012-2013
Time Fractured 2014
Kasubaworks, 2011
Introduction by Nicholas Goldsmith
With the advent of the be-ins and happenings in the 60’s, there was a departure from the hard edged architecture of the 1950’s to more organic and softer forms inspired by nature.
Some of the first documented interior environments using two way stretch nylon fabric were conceived and built by the Lithuanian born American artist Aleksandra Kasuba in the late 1960’s and early 70’s. Her “Live-in Environment” of 1971 shows the use of a nylon knit honeycombed fabric called “two way stretch”, which Kasuba had patterned to take three dimensional warped surfaces. Her 20th Century Environment at the Carborundum Museum in Niagara Falls in 1973 is a perfect example of multi-layered complex spaces where wall, column and ceiling join into one sensuous enclosure, breaking down our traditional concept of building and creating a fluid whole environment.
In the introduction to her work in Volume Magazine #24, Fall 2010, it describes: “Aleksandra Kasuba’s designs express many of the preoccupations of the counterculture: a desire for flexible and reconfigurable structures, expanded sensory experiences, nomadic mobility, and the efficient use of available means. Her most well known works, The Live-in-Environment (1971) and Whiz Bang Quick City #2 (1972), prefigure the curvilinear aesthetics of the recent resurgence in tensile architecture, making her a pivotal case-study in the relationship between psychedelic architecture and the modernist dialogue on structure and form. Her projects embody the free-form, intuitive designs that came out of a culture of pure emotion and response.”
I first met Aleksandra in 1972 at Whiz Bang Quick City in Woodstock New York which was an event organized by Works, a group of architects, designers and educators to bring people together who were interested in avant-garde design and architecture. Each group or individual was to build a dwelling in 24 hours and live in it for the duration of the event. I was a student at Cornell at the time and with my future partner we set up one of our first tensile structures made out of glued polyethylene films patterned to stretch into curved surfaces. Across a pond from us at the ‘City’, a stretched cocoon-like structure emerged from the landscape.... We went to find out who was the designer of this building and found an energetic woman who was both working on a fabric section in front of her and giving directions to her students from the School of Visual Arts in New York City who came out with her to Woodstock. What impressed me most was that this artist was creating her own vocabulary of shapes.
After finishing university and working for Frei Otto in Germany for a few years, I came back to New York and had a chance to reconnect with Aleksandra. Aleksandra’s house on West 90th Street was a virtual gymnasium of tensioned fabric forms... balanced and in harmony. The different models surrounding the walls showed a great range and variety of forms. I realized that fabric was not just a roof or walling system but an integrated building skin.
As we became friends and eventually colleagues, I worked with Aleksandra on a few occasions including a three floor 30,000 sq. feet interior installation in Paris for the US and Saudi Arabian Air force in 1980... Here I had a chance to watch her approach to form-finding, a process in which she conducted signs of tension circulating in the membrane as if encouraging the shape to just “happen”. I was always struck by Aleksandra’s description of how she saw the surface tensions as a liquid force that moved over the structure much like water in a stream bed.
In his introduction to the catalogue of Aleksandra’s show “Shaping the Future”, at the University City Science Center in Philadelphia 1990, Frei Otto, then Director, Institute of Lightweight Structures, University of Stuttgart wrights: “In the field of fabric structures the work of Aleksandra Kasuba stands out as a strong personal vision. It is about the permutation of forms, natural to things in states of tension. Kasuba’s inspiration comes from organic structures and forms of nature. The structures she has created reflect the forces and factors that went into their making.... The results of her investigation are among the most extraordinary to have emerged in years. Besides their sculptural beauty, the structures display a mature sense of tension dynamics. The simple forms she has derived from complex geometries is her vocabulary, their range and variety a testament to Kasuba’s artistic creativity.”
In a letter of January 13, 1978, Horst Berger, then the President of Geiger Berger Associates in NYC, wrote about Aleksandra’s work: “When I had an opportunity recently to see the work she is now doing... I was surprised and delighted to find that she had advanced to a totally new stage. She had created several families of closed system shapes of unbelievable richness and coherence. Their nature was now much more structural, systematic, disciplined. And her understanding of the underlying patterns of stress and strain was beginning to be of a scientific nature.”
In 1980 after the Paris installation, Aleksandra and I formed a research group, Surface Forms, and although we weren’t very successful in getting research dollars, it allowed us to discuss the role of tensile structures, develop and critique our sketches and offer support to each other in this esoteric field. But my window into her fabric structures was only one of Kasuba’s passions. As this fine book shows, Aleksandra worked simultaneously in stones and bricks to create a series of public spaces which like her fabric creations contained three dimensional surfaces, forms and spaces in an abstract manner. Once again, many of these surfaces remind me of flowing water broken by a series of earthquakes ... a power intersected, reconfigured and posted in architectural facades, each in motion and in stasis at the same time.
When I look at Aleksandra’s recent work, it seems that in New Mexico both the masonry and fabric forms have merged in the use of multiple building materials which highlight Aleksandra’s unique forms. Materials such as aluminum sheeting, stucco on metal lath, and wood are assembled to create a new personal vernacular. Beside the shell buildings she has developed a series of models which suggest that this approach to building curved surfaces can be applied to a larger scale, creating multi level buildings which incorporate lightweight sensuous elements into the more massive walls. I look forward to seeing where this integrated approach develops.
Kasubaworks is a treasure chest of an amazing life, one which I’ve enjoyed participating in and one which describes Kasuba’s career as an artist, sculptor and builder developing her personal set of images and poetic forms derived from a natural world. The biomimicry evident in the forms and liquid tensioned surfaces are coupled with a utopian sense of other worldly space. Far from the messy urban mixture of divergent buildings Aleksandra’s pure forms suggest spaces of repose and reflection. They are uplifting oases which are defined and complete. They are isolated by themselves, suggesting a place which we aspire to…a natural world in harmony and peace. Are they comments on our world or paths to new building morphologies or possibly both?
Nicholas Goldsmith FAIA LEED AP
Senior Principal,
FTL Design Engeneering Studio NYC
Introduction by Nicholas Goldsmith
With the advent of the be-ins and happenings in the 60’s, there was a departure from the hard edged architecture of the 1950’s to more organic and softer forms inspired by nature.
Some of the first documented interior environments using two way stretch nylon fabric were conceived and built by the Lithuanian born American artist Aleksandra Kasuba in the late 1960’s and early 70’s. Her “Live-in Environment” of 1971 shows the use of a nylon knit honeycombed fabric called “two way stretch”, which Kasuba had patterned to take three dimensional warped surfaces. Her 20th Century Environment at the Carborundum Museum in Niagara Falls in 1973 is a perfect example of multi-layered complex spaces where wall, column and ceiling join into one sensuous enclosure, breaking down our traditional concept of building and creating a fluid whole environment.
In the introduction to her work in Volume Magazine #24, Fall 2010, it describes: “Aleksandra Kasuba’s designs express many of the preoccupations of the counterculture: a desire for flexible and reconfigurable structures, expanded sensory experiences, nomadic mobility, and the efficient use of available means. Her most well known works, The Live-in-Environment (1971) and Whiz Bang Quick City #2 (1972), prefigure the curvilinear aesthetics of the recent resurgence in tensile architecture, making her a pivotal case-study in the relationship between psychedelic architecture and the modernist dialogue on structure and form. Her projects embody the free-form, intuitive designs that came out of a culture of pure emotion and response.”
I first met Aleksandra in 1972 at Whiz Bang Quick City in Woodstock New York which was an event organized by Works, a group of architects, designers and educators to bring people together who were interested in avant-garde design and architecture. Each group or individual was to build a dwelling in 24 hours and live in it for the duration of the event. I was a student at Cornell at the time and with my future partner we set up one of our first tensile structures made out of glued polyethylene films patterned to stretch into curved surfaces. Across a pond from us at the ‘City’, a stretched cocoon-like structure emerged from the landscape.... We went to find out who was the designer of this building and found an energetic woman who was both working on a fabric section in front of her and giving directions to her students from the School of Visual Arts in New York City who came out with her to Woodstock. What impressed me most was that this artist was creating her own vocabulary of shapes.
After finishing university and working for Frei Otto in Germany for a few years, I came back to New York and had a chance to reconnect with Aleksandra. Aleksandra’s house on West 90th Street was a virtual gymnasium of tensioned fabric forms... balanced and in harmony. The different models surrounding the walls showed a great range and variety of forms. I realized that fabric was not just a roof or walling system but an integrated building skin.
As we became friends and eventually colleagues, I worked with Aleksandra on a few occasions including a three floor 30,000 sq. feet interior installation in Paris for the US and Saudi Arabian Air force in 1980... Here I had a chance to watch her approach to form-finding, a process in which she conducted signs of tension circulating in the membrane as if encouraging the shape to just “happen”. I was always struck by Aleksandra’s description of how she saw the surface tensions as a liquid force that moved over the structure much like water in a stream bed.
In his introduction to the catalogue of Aleksandra’s show “Shaping the Future”, at the University City Science Center in Philadelphia 1990, Frei Otto, then Director, Institute of Lightweight Structures, University of Stuttgart wrights: “In the field of fabric structures the work of Aleksandra Kasuba stands out as a strong personal vision. It is about the permutation of forms, natural to things in states of tension. Kasuba’s inspiration comes from organic structures and forms of nature. The structures she has created reflect the forces and factors that went into their making.... The results of her investigation are among the most extraordinary to have emerged in years. Besides their sculptural beauty, the structures display a mature sense of tension dynamics. The simple forms she has derived from complex geometries is her vocabulary, their range and variety a testament to Kasuba’s artistic creativity.”
In a letter of January 13, 1978, Horst Berger, then the President of Geiger Berger Associates in NYC, wrote about Aleksandra’s work: “When I had an opportunity recently to see the work she is now doing... I was surprised and delighted to find that she had advanced to a totally new stage. She had created several families of closed system shapes of unbelievable richness and coherence. Their nature was now much more structural, systematic, disciplined. And her understanding of the underlying patterns of stress and strain was beginning to be of a scientific nature.”
In 1980 after the Paris installation, Aleksandra and I formed a research group, Surface Forms, and although we weren’t very successful in getting research dollars, it allowed us to discuss the role of tensile structures, develop and critique our sketches and offer support to each other in this esoteric field. But my window into her fabric structures was only one of Kasuba’s passions. As this fine book shows, Aleksandra worked simultaneously in stones and bricks to create a series of public spaces which like her fabric creations contained three dimensional surfaces, forms and spaces in an abstract manner. Once again, many of these surfaces remind me of flowing water broken by a series of earthquakes ... a power intersected, reconfigured and posted in architectural facades, each in motion and in stasis at the same time.
When I look at Aleksandra’s recent work, it seems that in New Mexico both the masonry and fabric forms have merged in the use of multiple building materials which highlight Aleksandra’s unique forms. Materials such as aluminum sheeting, stucco on metal lath, and wood are assembled to create a new personal vernacular. Beside the shell buildings she has developed a series of models which suggest that this approach to building curved surfaces can be applied to a larger scale, creating multi level buildings which incorporate lightweight sensuous elements into the more massive walls. I look forward to seeing where this integrated approach develops.
Kasubaworks is a treasure chest of an amazing life, one which I’ve enjoyed participating in and one which describes Kasuba’s career as an artist, sculptor and builder developing her personal set of images and poetic forms derived from a natural world. The biomimicry evident in the forms and liquid tensioned surfaces are coupled with a utopian sense of other worldly space. Far from the messy urban mixture of divergent buildings Aleksandra’s pure forms suggest spaces of repose and reflection. They are uplifting oases which are defined and complete. They are isolated by themselves, suggesting a place which we aspire to…a natural world in harmony and peace. Are they comments on our world or paths to new building morphologies or possibly both?
Nicholas Goldsmith FAIA LEED AP
Senior Principal,
FTL Design Engeneering Studio NYC