Toward a General Architectural Theory of Magic (from Mauss to Breton to Kiesler)

Drawing from the theorization of magical practices, rites, and techniques by Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss in their 1902 essay on a “General Theory of Magic,” this brief response argues that the ethnosociological discourse on magic at the beginning of the previous century also charts an alternative theory of space that covertly informs modern theories and histories of architecture. A tentative alignment between anthropological theories of magic and architectural theories of habitable space was traced by the architect and theorist Frederick Kiesler in his unpublished book manuscript Magic Architecture (1946–47), which references a number of nineteenth- and twentieth-century texts on the histories of magic, art, and design and speculates on their continuing relevance for contemporary practice.