4.0 KiB
| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Archigram | 4/4 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archigram | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T16:38:11.381677+00:00 | kb-cron |
Archigram has its ties to another avant-garde movement in the 60s like the Italian Radical Design movement. The most prominent groups include Superstudio and Archizoom. Its groups used visionary projects to start critical discussions in design. Superstudio was focused on "[T]he natural environment, and [...] the use of space and how architecture could be a catalyst for social change. In their manifesto they stated: 'envisaging the progressive impoverishment of the earth and how the now nearby prospect of ‘standing room only’ we can imagine a single architectural construction with which to occupy the optimal living zones, leaving the others free.' This vision manifest in the application of a grid system to the urban context in which every point on the grid was the same as any other point and all people existed equally." In contrast, Archigram was focused about the role of cities and how architecture might address this with an inclination to highly fictional megastructures. In Jencks's estimation, "the great contribution of the British avant-garde"—of which Archigram is perhaps the most exuberantly iconoclastic exponent, in architecture—"has been to open up and develop new attitudes towards living in an advanced industrial civilization where only stereotyped rejection had existed before, to dramatizing consumer choice and communicating the pleasure inherent in manipulating sophisticated technology. If these strategies will not solve the deeper social and political urban problems, at least they open up new alternative routes for thinking about consumer society and urbanism." Archigram stood out among other avant-garde architecture as a result to their inventive visual and graphic representation. Through their magazine's use of "editorial graffiti," a choice to not only show the designs, but in a way that reflects a futuristic "architectural milieu" beyond space age design. The pamphlet's organization also rejected past "best practices." Through techniques that used the representational layout to reflect the idea of design. According to Hadas Steiner, "In addition to its role as a document that lays out fundamental beliefs, the small magazine was itself a literary genre replete with a history pertaining to layout, representational techniques and typology, as well as the subversion of written and visual language. [...] The result was a kind of international framework, a conceptual network, which flew in the face of the previous generation's desire [...] to domesticate modernism to the specificities of locality." The group was supported by mainstream architects, such as David Rock of BDP. Rock nominated them for the RIBA Royal Gold Medal, which they received in 2002, describing the group as "a necessary irritant". In 2019, the M+ museum in Hong Kong acquired Archigram's entire archive, despite purported attempts to block the sale to an overseas buyer.
== See also == Neo-Futurism Megastructures (architecture) Superstudio
== References ==
== Further reading == Peter Cook and Michael Webb (1999), Archigram, Princeton Architectural Press Simon Sadler (2005) Archigram: Architecture without Architecture Archived 24 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine, MIT Press. Andrew Higgott (2008) Mediating Modernism: Architectural Cultures in Britain ISBN 978-0-415-40178-4. Todd Gannon (2008) "Return of the Living Dead: Archigram and Architecture's Monstrous Media."Log (13/14): 171–180. ISSN 1547-4690. Hadas A. Steiner (2009) Beyond Archigram: The Structure of Circulation, Routledge, NY, 252 pages.
== External links == Archigram Archival Project Official website Design Museum: Archigram "Archigram: The Walking City, Living Pod and the Instant City". Architecture. Victoria and Albert Museum. Retrieved 15 March 2011. Forbes article on Archigram's Walking City and Plug-in City The Plug-In City on ArchDaily Archigram Archive: M+ Collection