The Kenneth Dale Isaacs Papers were primarily created during his career as a designer and professor of architecture and design. The collection does include some records from Isaacs’ youth in Peoria, Illinois and from his college studies at Bradley University and Cranbrook Academy of Art (CAA), but mainly covers his work in design, in education, and as a writer from the time of completion of his master’s degree in 1954, through three decades as University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC) Architecture Department faculty (1970-2000). Especially in his early career, Isaacs documented his Matrix philosophy, in which designs are made up of modular components and design education focuses on experiential learning.

Materials cover Isaacs’ brief return to Cranbrook and his leadership of CAA’s Design Department. They also cover his freelance projects out of the Ken Isaacs, Ltd. Manhattan office, his experimental Microhouse building site called the Matrix Research Project at Groveland, Illinois, various teaching appointments including the Rhode Island School of Design and the Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology, publishing projects including two books and a contributing editorship at the DIY magazine Popular Science, and professional collaborations. Complementary creative relationships within his marriages are also well documented.

The collection includes presentation drawings and photographs from his design portfolios, as well as professional documents like resumes created between the 1950s and 2000s. The frequency of collaborations with professional contacts and students are documented in correspondence, drawings, prints, occasional maps of structures, and other student work, although creators are not always indicated, particularly for drawings, papers, works documented in photographic slides, 3-D sculptures, and models. Since many of Isaacs’ projects overlap, designs and concepts can often be found in multiple series. For instance, both Series 2: Early Career and Series 3: Mid to Late Career document Isaacs’ Microhouses, since he enlisted UIC students and others to build experimental Microhouses at Groveland, wrote about the structures for Popular Science Magazine (PSM) and in How To Build Your Own Living Structures, and funded the project through both UIC and PSM. They also appear in Isaacs’ books in Series 5 and are represented in visual formats in Series 7 and 8.

All three concepts for which Isaacs is best known (Living Structures, Microhouses, and Information Structures) have significant representation in his papers: in his journals and notes, in written and photographic documentation, in various drafts of his two books, and in files he kept of his press coverage. The collection also contains building plans and variations on Isaacs’ Living Structures; designs and faculty papers of his portable, affordable Microhouse; and designs of and materials used in his Information Structures, like the Knowledge Box, Matrix Drum, and Torus. AV materials in the collection include the 1962 Knowledge Box film by Isaacs’ then-wife Barbara Isaacs. A much smaller fraction of the collection are documents from Isaacs’ military service and subsequent work designing exhibits for the United States Information Agency in 1955. Some proposals and photographs of his ongoing interest and involvement in exhibition design and community planning are also present. From the late 1980s to the mid-1990s Isaacs saved correspondence, photographs, and other papers from the planned village Seaside, Florida, where his fourth wife Sarah Isaacs and he designed a vacation home.

Series 1: Personal (1910-1959, bulk 1942-1954) includes papers from his high school and undergraduate studies, identification cards, personal papers, and family letters. Series 2: Early career (circa 1954-1972) contains Isaacs’ early designs and promotional papers for Ken Isaacs Ltd, and records related to his temporally overlapping projects of building Microhouses at Groveland, Illinois, his tenure as contributing editor for Popular Science magazine (1967-1972), and the creation of his first book, Culture Breakers, Alternatives & Other Numbers (1970). The Groveland Subseries includes some press correspondence. The Popular Science Subseries includes article drafts and published copies, as well as internal magazine correspondence and letters from Isaacs' readers.

Series 3: Mid to Late Career (1970-2000) is the largest series in the collection and covers Isaacs’ years with the University of Illinois, Chicago. They contain both his independent writing and artwork; subject files; and university course readings, assignment handouts, student work, and administrative records.

Subseries 3.1 covers Isaacs' work as Director of Graduate Studies, including Stanley Tigerman's dismissal and supervision of the John Etenza scholarship. It also documents projects not tied to single semesters or classes and contains work by Isaacs’ students. Overlap of content amongst Sub-subseries occurs, because of how Isaacs himself filed the material.

Subseries 3.2 documents work by Ken Isaacs that was done independent of UIC but completed during his time there. It includes exhibit proposals, contest entries and correspondence.

Subseries 3.3 combines Isaacs' reference and reading files from both his UIC and home office.

Series 4: Retirement (2000-2016) includes correspondence with art historian Victor Margolin, with Wilma Keppel about grid beam construction, an oral history project conducted by Leslie Coburn, and correspondence regarding exhibits, including the rebuilding of the Knowledge Box for the Learning Modern show in 2009 and its inclusion in the Hippie Modernism show in 2015. Presentation binders collect thematic or retrospective materials put together by Isaacs and curatorial partners to represent different aspects of his work for completed and proposed projects such as exhibits and publications.

Series 5: Reference Material (1947-2007) comprises Isaacs’ personal reference library, used by him for in-house reference as well as in press kits. For business, he produced and kept documentation files including drawings, plans and photographs about his designs and copies of any media coverage.

Series 6: Notes (c. 1950-2001) are Isaacs own personal and professional notes, written in bound journals, diaries, daybooks, and on loose index cards. At the end of the index cards, a metal clip still holds some of his notes on index cards.

Series 7: Photographs and Recordings (circa 1900-2016) records Isaacs’ design work, including studio and process shots, and classroom activity and student work. There are also some personal photographs of Isaacs’ parents, his youth, and his family. Most photos were created by or for Isaacs, although some are copies by photojournalists covering Isaacs for newspapers and magazines. Photographic prints and transparencies make up most of the series, though there are recordings of lectures by and about Isaacs, audio notes, media appearances, and films by Barbara Isaacs.

Series 8: Oversize Material (1900-2009) contains Isaacs’ furniture and residential architecture designs, collaborations in environment design, and graphic design work for clients. Mainly comprised of large works on paper by Isaacs and his UIC students consisting of drawings, fliers, posters, and architectural plans. Also included are mounted presentation photographs from Isaacs' early career and other large photographic prints, as well as some documents and newspaper clippings. Some of these items were likely used as teaching tools in UIC classrooms.

Series 9: Objects (1950-1980) contains artwork, models, two inventions (tide clock and cartesian joints), and hardware and tools used by Isaacs. Artwork includes exhibit illustrations and some of Barbara Isaacs' abstract paintings, all mounted using Isaacs' system of Masonite squares with wooden backing for hanging.