{{short description|American architect}} {{BLP self-published|date=November 2025}} {{Infobox person | name = Keller Easterling | image = Keller Easterling Laura Flanders Show 2015.jpg | caption = Easterling on ''The Laura Flanders Show'' in 2015 | education = Bachelor of Science, Princeton University, 1981, Masters of Architecture, Princeton University, 1984 | alma_mater = Princeton University | occupation = Architect - Professor | website = http://kellereasterling.com/ }} '''Keller Easterling''' is an architect, writer, and the Enid Storm Dwyer Professor of Architecture at Yale University, where she is also the Director of the Master of Environmental Design (M.E.D) program.{{citation needed|date=November 2025}} Her work often describes spatial infrastructures that impact architectural and social outcomes and the means, as a form of activism, to influence them.{{citation needed|date=November 2025}}
==Works==
Easterling's newest book ''Medium Design: Knowing How to Work on the World'' (Verso, 2021) rethinks approaches to temper power structures driving climate crisis, inequality, and other entrenched conditions.<ref name=":12">{{Cite web |last=Easterling |first=Keller |title=Medium Design |url=https://www.versobooks.com/products/2601-medium-design |access-date=2025-11-10 |website=Verso |language=en}}</ref> Her preceding book, ''Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space'' (Verso, 2014), seeks to make visible the invisible rules of infrastructure that order the built and social spaces of everyday existence.<ref name=":22">{{Cite web |last=Easterling |first=Keller |title=Extrastatecraft |url=https://www.versobooks.com/products/30-extrastatecraft |access-date=2025-11-10 |website=Verso |language=en}}</ref>
Her preceding book, ''Enduring Innocence: Global Architecture and its Political Masquerades'' (MIT, 2005) won Yale's Gustav Ranis Award for best faculty book, and Archinect's best book of 2005.<ref name=":02">{{Cite book |last=Easterling |first=Keller |url=https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262550659/enduring-innocence/ |title=Enduring Innocence: Global Architecture and Its Political Masquerades |date=2007-09-28 |publisher=MIT Press |isbn=978-0-262-55065-9 |location=Cambridge, MA, USA |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":32">{{Cite web |title=International Book Prize Winners Archive |url=https://macmillan.yale.edu/international-book-prize-winners |access-date=2025-11-10 |website=macmillan.yale.edu |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Easterling, Keller |url=https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/authors/easterling-keller |access-date=2025-11-10 |website=Verso |language=en}}</ref> In it she examines heterotopic spatial conditions such as cruise ship tourism in North Korea, agricultural formations in Spain, spiritual organizations, golf courses, automated global ports, and South Asian IT enclaves as examples of “nonnational sovereignty.”<ref name=":02" /> In the year following its publication, Easterling was granted tenure at Yale where she teaches a university-wide lecture course that positions spatial fluency as an essential component of general education.
Additional works include ''Organization Space: Landscapes, Highways and Houses in America'' (MIT, 1999) and ''Subtraction'' (Sternberg, 2014).<ref name=":42">{{Cite book |last=Easterling |first=Keller |url=https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262550406/organization-space/ |title=Organization Space: Landscapes, Highways, and Houses in America |date=2001-08-24 |publisher=MIT Press |isbn=978-0-262-55040-6 |location=Cambridge, MA, USA |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":8">{{Cite web |title=Subtraction |url=https://www.sternberg-press.com/product/subtraction-critical-spatial-practice-4/ |access-date=2025-11-10 |website=Sternberg Press |language=en}}</ref>
Her work has been exhibited internationally and recognized with numerous awards. In 2019, Easterling was named a United States Artists Fellow in Architecture and Design and received the Blueprint Award for Critical Thinking.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Keller Easterling |url=https://www.unitedstatesartists.org/artists/keller-easterling |access-date=2025-11-10 |website=United States Artists |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=ashas |date=2019-10-18 |title=Blueprint Awards 2019 Winners Announced! |url=https://www.worldconstructionnetwork.com/features/blueprint-awards-2019-winners-announced-7458952/ |access-date=2025-11-10 |website=World Construction Network |language=en-US}}</ref> The preceding year, she exhibited MANY, a commissioned exhibition for the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale that showcased “a digital mobility commons to facilitate global migration through an exchange of needs.”<ref>{{Cite web |date=2018-05-15 |title=Biennale Architettura 2018 {{!}} United States of America |url=https://www.labiennale.org/en/architecture/2018/national-participations/united-states-america |access-date=2025-11-10 |website=La Biennale di Venezia |language=en}}</ref> For the 2014 Venice Architectural Biennale, Elements, curated by Rem Koolhaas, Easterling supplied Floor, alternative histories and futures for surfaces underfoot.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2017-11-09 |title=Biennale Architettura 2014 2014 {{!}} Elements of architecture |url=https://www.labiennale.org/en/architecture/2014/elements-architecture |access-date=2025-11-10 |website=La Biennale di Venezia |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Elements of Architecture |url=https://www.oma.com/publications/elements-of-architecture |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250423155044/https://www.oma.com/publications/elements-of-architecture |archive-date=2025-04-23 |access-date=2025-11-10 |website=OMA |language=en}}</ref>
Easterling's work extends across multiple media formats, combining design research, writing, and digital experimentation, exhibitions, and web installations. In 1992 she co-authored a laserdisc on the history of suburbia in the US from 1934 to 1960 entitled ''Call it Home: The House that Private Enterprise Built'' (with Richard Prelinger).<ref name=":9">{{Cite web |title=Call It Home: The House That Private Enterprise Built |url=https://www.columbia.edu/cu/gsapp/projs/call-it-home/html/ |access-date=2025-11-10 |website=www.columbia.edu}}</ref> Her web installations include: ATTTNT: Land Reparations Infrastructure, ''Extrastatecraft, Wildcards: a Game of Orgman,'' and ''Highline: Plotting NYC''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=ATTTNT {{!}} Home |url=https://atttntproject.frb.io/ |access-date=2025-11-10 |website=atttntproject.frb.io}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=ESC |url=http://extrastatecraft.net/Projects |access-date=2025-11-10 |website=extrastatecraft.net}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=W E L C O M E - T O - W I L D C A R D S |url=https://www.kellereasterling.com/wildcards/ |access-date=2025-11-10 |website=www.kellereasterling.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Reclaiming the High Line |url=http://www.designtrust.org/projects/reclaiming-high-line/ |access-date=2025-11-10 |website=Design Trust for Public Space}}</ref>
Exhibiting internationally, Easterling's work has been shown at the Henry Art Gallery, the Istanbul Design Biennale, Storefront for Art and Architecture, the Rotterdam Biennale, the Queens Museum, and the Architectural League.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Gift City: A Project by Keller Easterling - Henry Art Gallery |url=https://henryart.org/exhibitions/gift-city-a-project-by-keller-easterling |access-date=2025-11-10 |website=henryart.org}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Exhibition – 3rd Istanbul Design Biennial |url=https://arewehuman.iksv.org/exhibition/ |access-date=2025-11-10 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Pascucci |first=Ernest |date=1996-04-01 |title=“City Speculations” |url=https://www.artforum.com/events/city-speculations-212325/ |access-date=2025-11-10 |website=Artforum |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Arverne: Housing on the Edge |url=https://archleague.org/exhibitions/arverne-housing-on-the-edge/ |access-date=2025-11-10 |website=The Architectural League of New York |language=en-US}}</ref> She has lectured and published widely in the United States and abroad, contributing to journals such as ''Domus'', ''Artforum'', ''Grey Room'', ''Cabinet'', ''Volume'', ''Assemblage'', ''e-flux'', ''Log'', ''Praxis'', ''Harvard Design Magazine'', ''Perspecta'', and ''ANY''.
Easterling's most recent book project, ''Your Land'', examines land activism after the civil rights movement and the attempts to forestall and reverse the precipitous drop in Black land ownership in the 20th century. In parallel, Easterling is collaborating with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) on cooperatives, urban farming, land activism, and reparations projects supported in part by grants from Yale's ASCEND program.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Keller Easterling |url=https://www.architecture.yale.edu/faculty/346-keller-easterling |access-date=2025-11-10 |website=Yale Architecture |language=en}}</ref>
== Books ==
* Medium Design: Knowing How to Work on the World (Verso, 2021)<ref name=":12" /> * ''Extrastatecraft: The power of infrastructure space'' (London: Verso, 2014)<ref name=":22" /> * ''Subtraction'' (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2014)<ref name=":8" /> * Enduring Innocence: Global Architecture and its Political Masquerades (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005)<ref name=":02" /> * ''Organization Space: Landscapes, Highways and Houses in America'' (Cambridge: MIT, 10999)<ref name=":42" />
== Discs/DVDs ==
* ''Call It Home: The house that private enterprise built'' (Santa Monica: Voyager Press, 1992) (with Richard Prelinger)<ref name=":9" />
== Exhibitions == *Seoul Biennale for Architecture and Urbanism, September 2019<ref>{{Cite web |last=staff |first=Dezeen |date=2019-12-04 |title=Thematic exhibition explored the "collective city" at Seoul Biennale 2019 |url=https://www.dezeen.com/2019/12/04/seoul-biennale-architecture-urbanism-2019/ |access-date=2025-11-06 |website=Dezeen |language=en}}</ref> *MANY, US Pavilion, 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale, May 2018<ref name=":5">{{Cite web |title=Many Venice Biennale 2018 |url=https://www.architecture.yale.edu/news/many-venice-biennale-2018 |access-date=2025-11-06 |website=Yale Architecture |language=en}}</ref> *Venice Biennale with OMA/AMO, Floor, Central Pavilion Elements Exhibition, 2014<ref name=":6">{{Cite web |date=2017-11-09 |title=Biennale Architettura 2014 2014 {{!}} Elements of architecture |url=https://www.labiennale.org/en/architecture/2014/elements-architecture |access-date=2025-11-06 |website=La Biennale di Venezia |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":7">{{Cite web |title=Elements of Architecture |url=https://www.oma.com/publications/elements-of-architecture |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250423155044/https://www.oma.com/publications/elements-of-architecture |archive-date=2025-04-23 |access-date=2025-11-06 |website=OMA |language=en}}</ref> *''Gift City'', Test Site, Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, Washington. 2016<ref>{{Cite web |title=Gift City: A Project by Keller Easterling - Henry Art Gallery |url=https://henryart.org/exhibitions/gift-city-a-project-by-keller-easterling |access-date=2025-11-06 |website=henryart.org}}</ref> *''Some True Stories,'' Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York. 2008<ref>{{Cite web |title=Storefront for Art and Architecture |url=https://storefront.nyc/ |access-date=2025-11-06 |website=Storefront for Art and Architecture |language=en-US}}</ref> *''Envisioning Power,'' “Corporate City” Rotterdam Biennale. 2007<ref>{{Cite web |title=Power |url=https://content.iabr.nl/en/biennales/power |access-date=2025-11-06 |website=IABR |language=en}}</ref>
== Papers == *“Maybe Something More Like Disposition,” ''e-flux.''<ref>{{Cite web |title=Positions - Keller Easterling - Maybe Something More Like Disposition |url=https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/positions/6782972/maybe-something-more-like-disposition |access-date=2025-11-06 |website=e-flux |language=en}}</ref> *“Trust Land,” ''Public Culture,'' May.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Easterling |first=Keller |date=2023-05-01 |title=Trust Land |url=https://read.dukeupress.edu/public-culture/article-abstract/35/2%20(100)/177/355116/Trust-Land?redirectedFrom=fulltext |journal=Public Culture |language=en |volume=35 |issue=2 |pages=177–189 |doi=10.1215/08992363-10575831 |issn=0899-2363 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240724201456/https://read.dukeupress.edu/public-culture/article-abstract/35/2%20(100)/177/355116/Trust-Land?redirectedFrom=fulltext |archive-date=2024-07-24|url-access=subscription }}</ref> *“Old New Deal,” ''Non Extractive Architecture'' (V-A-C Press).<ref>{{Cite web |title=Non-Extractive Architecture Vol. 1 |url=https://www.sternberg-press.com/product/non-extractive-architecture-vol-1/ |access-date=2025-11-06 |website=Sternberg Press |language=en}}</ref> *“No Normal,” ''Quartz,'' June 20.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Keller Easterling |url=https://www.unitedstatesartists.org/artists/keller-easterling |access-date=2025-11-06 |website=United States Artists |language=en}}</ref> *“Zone: The Spatial Softwares of Extrastatecraft,” ''Places Journal''.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Easterling |first=Keller |date=2012-06-10 |title=Zone: The Spatial Softwares of Extrastatecraft |url=https://placesjournal.org/article/zone-the-spatial-softwares-of-extrastatecraft/ |journal=Places Journal |language=en-US |doi=10.22269/120610|doi-access=free }}</ref>
== TV/webcasts == * New Models, Interview, May 13, 2021<ref>{{Citation |title=EP 36: HAPPY MEDIUM (Keller Easterling) |url=https://soundcloud.com/newmodels/ep-36-keller-easterling |access-date=2025-11-06 |language=en}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *[http://www.panix.com/~keller/ Easterling's personal site] *[http://archinect.com/features/article.php?id=41816_0_23_0_C Archinect Interview with Keller Easterling] *[http://www.panix.com/~keller/wildcards/Index.html Wildcards: A Game of Orgman]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Easterling, Keller}} Category:1959 births Category:Living people Category:21st-century American architects Category:Princeton University School of Architecture alumni Category:Pratt Institute faculty Category:Columbia University faculty Category:Yale School of Architecture faculty Category:American women architects Category:American women academics Category:21st-century American women