Michael Webb, Experimental Architect and Founding Member of Archigram

Michael Webb (born 1937) is an English architect. He was a founding member of the 1960s

Archigram Archigram was an avant-garde architectural group formed in the 1960s ⁠that was neofuturistic, anti-heroic and pro-consumerist, drawing inspiration from technology in order to create a new reality that was solely expressed through hypothetical ...

Group.

Biography

Webb was born in

Henley-on-Thames Henley-on-Thames ( ) is a town and civil parish on the River Thames in Oxfordshire, England, northeast of Reading, west of Maidenhead, southeast of Oxford and west of London (by road), near the tripoint of Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buc ...

and studied

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

at the

Regent Street Polytechnic The University of Westminster is a public university based in London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1838 as the Royal Polytechnic Institution, it was the first polytechnic to open in London. The Polytechnic formally received a Royal charter in Aug ...

in London, taking seventeen years to complete a five-year curriculum. He was a founding member of the 1960s

Group, a collection of six young radical

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

s. They used a magazine format, Archigram inflatable structures, clothing-like environments, bright colors and cartoon-like drawing techniques. Webb moved to the United States in 1965 to teach at

Virginia Tech Virginia Tech (formally the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and informally VT, or VPI) is a Public university, public Land-grant college, land-grant research university with its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia. It also ...

, and has since taught architecture at the

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the ...

NJIT {{Infobox university , name = {{nowrap, New Jersey Institute of Technology , image = New Jersey IT seal.svg , image_upright = 0.9 , former_names = Newark College of Engineering (1930–1975)Ne ...

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...

Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (Cooper Union) is a private college at Cooper Square in New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-supported École Polytechnique in ...

University at Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 1846 ...

Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York (state), New York. It has a satellite campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The school was ...

and

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

. Webb taught a summer semester in Barcelona, Spain to University at Buffalo Master of Architecture students along with Professor Bonnie Ott in the summer of 2001. He has also put on exhibitions in Europe, Asia, and North America. His latest exhibition, ''Two Journeys'', opened in the fall semester, giving Webb an opportunity for students to learn about him and his work. The exhibit was mounted and read like the pages of a book. It centered on two main themes: a train of thought deriving from the

Reyner Banham Peter Reyner Banham Hon. FRIBA (2 March 1922 – 19 March 1988) was an English architectural critic and writer best known for his theoretical treatise ''Theory and Design in the First Machine Age'' (1960) and for his 1971 book ''Los Angeles: Th ...

article ''A Home is not a House'' (1965) and a study of linear perspective projection. His monograph ''Michael Webb: Two Journeys'' Lars Muller Publishers. Webb is married to his archivist and technologist, Nancy McCoy Wozniak. Though retired, he continues to present at Schools of Architecture around the world. He lives in Rhode Island.

References

External links

Two Journeys The Lifetime Projects of Michael Spider WebbDesign Museum: Archigram
*Cook, Peter
"Two Journeys reflects on Michael Webb’s jack-of-all-trades career"
(October 19, 2018). ''The Architect's Newspaper''. Retrieved October 24, 2018. *Cushicle and Suitaloon. Hidden Architecture. (4/3/17) http://www.hiddenarchitecture.net/2017/03/cushicle-and-suitaloon.html *Archigram. Visual Conversation on Urban Features. (4/3/17) http://www.hiddenarchitecture.net/2017/03/cushicle-and-suitaloon.html *The Archigram Archival Project: http://archigram.westminster.ac.uk/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Webb, Michael 20th-century English architects 1937 births Living people People from Henley-on-Thames Architects from Oxfordshire University at Buffalo faculty