Archigram was an
avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
architectural group formed in the 1960s that was
neofuturistic
Neo-futurism is a late-20th to early-21st-century movement in the arts, design, and architecture.
Described as an avant-garde movement, as well as a futuristic rethinking of the thought behind aesthetics and functionality of design in growing ...
, anti-heroic and pro-consumerist, drawing inspiration from technology in order to create a new reality that was solely expressed through hypothetical projects.
Based at the
Architectural Association
The Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, commonly referred to as the AA, is the oldest independent school of architecture in the UK and one of the most prestigious and competitive in the world. Its wide-ranging programme ...
in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, the main members of the group were
Peter Cook
Peter Edward Cook (17 November 1937 – 9 January 1995) was an English actor, comedian, satirist, playwright and screenwriter. He was the leading figure of the British satire boom of the 1960s, and he was associated with the anti-establishme ...
,
Warren Chalk
Warren Chalk (1927–1988) was an English architect. He was a member of Archigram. Amongst the group he was known as "the catalyst of ideas".
Early life and education
Chalk, (John) Warren (1927–1987), architect, was born on 7 July 1927 at 32 ...
,
Ron Herron
Ronald James Herron () was an English architect and teacher. He is perhaps best known for his work with the seminal experimental architecture collective Archigram, which was formed in London in the early 1960s. Herron was the creator of one of ...
,
Dennis Crompton
Dennis Crompton (born in 1935) is an English architect, lecturer and writer on architectural subjects. He was a member of Archigram
Archigram was an avant-garde architectural group formed in the 1960s that was neofuturistic, anti-heroi ...
,
Michael Webb and
David Greene. Designer
Theo Crosby
Theo Crosby (3 April 1925 – 12 September 1994) was an architect, editor, writer and sculptor, engaged with major developments in design across four decades. He was also an early vocal critic of modern urbanism. He is best remembered as a found ...
was the "hidden hand" behind the group. He gave them coverage in ''Architectural Design'' magazine (where he was an editor from 1953–62), brought them to the attention of the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London, where, in 1963, they mounted an exhibition called ''Living City'', and in 1964 brought them into the Taylor Woodrow Design Group, which he headed, to take on experimental projects. The pamphlet ''Archigram I'' was printed in 1961 to proclaim their ideas. Committed to a 'high tech', light weight, infra-structural approach that was focused towards survival technology, the group experimented with modular technology, mobility through the environment, space capsules and mass-consumer imagery. Their works offered a seductive vision of a glamorous future machine age; however, social and environmental issues were left unaddressed.
__NOTOC__
Archigram agitated to prevent modernism from becoming a sterile and safe orthodoxy by its adherents. Unlike ephemeralisation from
Buckminster Fuller
Richard Buckminster Fuller (; July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) was an American architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist. He styled his name as R. Buckminster Fuller in his writings, publishing more t ...
which assumes more must be done with less material (because material is finite), Archigram relies on a future of interminable resources.
The works of Archigram had a
neofuturistic
Neo-futurism is a late-20th to early-21st-century movement in the arts, design, and architecture.
Described as an avant-garde movement, as well as a futuristic rethinking of the thought behind aesthetics and functionality of design in growing ...
slant being influenced by
Antonio Sant'Elia
Antonio Sant'Elia (; 30 April 1888 – 10 October 1916) was an Italian architect and a key member of the Futurist movement in architecture. He left behind almost no completed works of architecture and is primarily remembered for his bold sk ...
's works. Buckminster Fuller and
Yona Friedman
Yona Friedman (5 June 1923 – 20 February 2020) was a Hungarian-born French architect, urban planner and designer. He was influential in the late 1950s and early 1960s, best known for his theory of "mobile architecture".
Early years
Born in B ...
were also important sources of inspiration. The works of Archigram served as a source of inspiration for later works such as the
High tech
High technology (high tech), also known as advanced technology (advanced tech) or exotechnology, is technology that is at the cutting edge: the highest form of technology available. It can be defined as either the most complex or the newest te ...
'
Pompidou centre
The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...
' 1971 by
Richard Rogers
Richard George Rogers, Baron Rogers of Riverside (23 July 1933 – 18 December 2021) was a British architect noted for his modernist and Functionalism (architecture), functionalist designs in high-tech architecture. He was a senior partner a ...
and
Renzo Piano
Renzo Piano (; born 14 September 1937) is an Italian architect. His notable buildings include the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (with Richard Rogers, 1977), The Shard in London (2012), the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City (20 ...
, early Norman Foster works,
Gianfranco Franchini
Gianfranco Franchini (December 17, 1938 – April 21, 2009) was an Italian architect.
Biography
Born in Genoa and educated at the Polytechnic University of Milan, Franchini is best known for his collaboration with Renzo Piano and Richard Ro ...
and
Future Systems
Future Systems was a London-based architecture, architectural and design practice, formerly headed by Directors Jan Kaplický and Amanda Levete.
Future Systems was founded by Kaplický and David Nixon after working with Denys Lasdun, Norman Fo ...
. By the early 1970s the strategy of the group had changed. In 1973 Theo Crosby wrote that its members had "found their original impulses towards megastructures blunted by the changing intellectual climate in England, where the brash dreams of modern architects are received with ever-increasing horror. They are now more concerned with the infiltration of technology into the environment at a much less obvious level".
The group was financially supported by mainstream architects, such as
David Rock of
BDP. Rock later nominated Archigram for the
RIBA
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally, founded for the advancement of architecture under its royal charter granted in 1837, three suppl ...
Royal Gold Medal
The Royal Gold Medal for architecture is awarded annually by the Royal Institute of British Architects on behalf of the British monarch, in recognition of an individual's or group's substantial contribution to international architecture. It is g ...
, which they received in 2002.
In 2019, the
M+ museum in
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
acquired Archigram's entire archive, despite purported attempts to block the sale to an overseas buyer.
Projects
Plug-in-City, Peter Cook, 1966
Plug-in-City is a mega-structure with no buildings, just a massive framework into which dwellings in the form of cells or standardised components could be slotted. The machine had taken over and people were the raw material being processed, the difference being that people are meant to enjoy the experience.
The Walking City, Ron Herron, 1964
The
Walking City is constituted by intelligent buildings or robots that are in the form of giant, self-contained living pods that could roam the cities. The form derived from a combination of insect and machine and was a literal interpretation of
Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , , ), was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was ...
's aphorism of a house as a machine for living in. The pods were independent, yet parasitic as they could 'plug into' way stations to exchange occupants or replenish resources. The citizen is therefore a serviced nomad not totally dissimilar from today's executive cars. The context was perceived as a future ruined world in the aftermath of a nuclear war.
Instant City, Peter Cook
Instant City is a mobile technological event that drifts into underdeveloped, drab towns via air (balloons) with provisional structures (performance spaces) in tow. The effect is a deliberate overstimulation to produce mass culture, with an embrace of advertising aesthetics. The whole endeavor is intended to eventually move on leaving behind advanced technology hook-ups.
Other projects
Tuned City, in which Archigram's infrastructural and spatial additions attach themselves to an existing town at a percentage that leaves evidence of the previous development, rather than subsuming the whole.
Sixpack France
Sixpack France, (also known as Sixpack), is a French clothing brand, created in 1998 by the couple Lionel Vivier and Fanny Baglieto.
Born into the French Graffiti Scene, the brand became well known for their clothes (mostly T-shirts), coming fro ...
dedicated their Summer Spring 2009 Collection to this movement.
See also
*
Neo-Futurism
Neo-futurism is a late-20th to early-21st-century movement in the arts, design, and architecture.
Described as an avant-garde movement, as well as a futuristic rethinking of the thought behind aesthetics and functionality of design in growing ...
*
Megastructures (architecture)
A megastructure is a very large artificial object.
Megastructure may also refer to:
*Megastructure (planning concept)
Megastructure is an architectural and urban concept of the post-war era, which envisions a city or an urban form that could be ...
*
Superstudio Superstudio was an architectural firm, founded in 1966 in Florence, Italy by Adolfo Natalini and Cristiano Toraldo di Francia, later joined by Gian Piero Frassinelli, Alessandro and Roberto Magris, Alessandro Poli.
Superstudio was a major part of ...
References
Further reading
*
Simon Sadler
Simon Sadler (b. 1968, UK) is a professor in thDepartment of Designand in the Art History Program at the University of California, Davis. His publications focus on histories, theories and ideologies of architecture, design and urbanism since the m ...
(2005)
Archigram: Architecture without Architecture'', MIT Press
* Hadas A. Steiner (2009) Beyond Archigram: The Structure of Circulation, Routledge, NY, 252 pages.
* Peter Cook and Michael Webb (1999),
Archigram', Princeton Architectural Press
External links
Archigram Archival ProjectOfficial websiteDesign Museum: Archigram*
Forbes article on Archigram's Walking City and Plug-in CityThe Plug-In City on ArchDaily
{{Authority control
Architecture firms based in London
Architectural theoreticians
Architecture groups
British artist groups and collectives
Recipients of the Royal Gold Medal