Ken Isaacs

{{Short description|American designer}}

{{distinguish|Ken Isaacs (executive)}}

Ken Isaacs (7 February 1927 – 8 June 2016),{{Cite web|url=http://cada.uic.edu/newsdetails/467/460|title=Architecture Professor Emeritus Ken Isaacs 1927-2016 {{!}} cada.uic.edu {{!}}|website=cada.uic.edu|language=en|access-date=2018-09-19}} born in Peoria, Illinois,{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lMQDAAAAMBAJ&q=Ken+Isaacs+Microhouse&pg=PA148|title=Ten things you should know about Ken Isaacs|date=May 2007|publisher=Dwell|accessdate=5 June 2012}} was an American designer. He is known for his creation of a matrix-based modular system to build living structures.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LhmCCTpEBvUC|title=The Politics of the Artificial: Essays on Design and Design Studies|last=Margolin|first=Victor|publisher=University of Chicago Press|year=2002|isbn=0226505049|location=|pages=60–77|quote="In 1956, he was called back to school (Cranbrook) to become the head of the design department"}}

File:Ken Isaacs, Fun House 1967.jpg

Isaacs described in 1974 how to build modular houses in a book called How to Build Your Own Living Structures. He was head of the Design Department at the Cranbrook Academy of Arts from 1956 to 1958. He maintained a design office and apartment in New York City between 1956 and 1972, often commuting from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

In 2019, a retrospective biography of Isaacs was written by Susan Snodgrass, who worked with him to exhibit his work during his lifetime. The book, Inside the Matrix: The Radical Designs of Ken Isaacs, was partially funded by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.{{Cite web |title=Inside the Matrix: The Radical Designs of Ken Isaacs |url=https://halfletterpress.com/inside-the-matrix/ |access-date=2022-12-21 |website=Half Letter Press |language=en}}