Archigram

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This article is about an architectural group, for other uses, see Archigram (disambiguation).

Archigram was an avant-garde architectural group formed in the 1960s - based at the Architectural Association, London - that was futurist, anti-heroic and pro-consumerist, drawing inspiration from technology in order to create a new reality that was solely expressed through hypothetical projects. The main members of the group were Peter Cook, Warren Chalk, Ron Herron, Dennis Crompton, Michael Webb and David Greene. 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.

The works of Archigram had a Futurist slant being influenced by Antonio Sant'Elia's works. Buckminster Fuller was also an important source of inspiration. The works of Archigram served as a source of inspiration for later works such as the High tech 'Pompidou centre' 1971 by Renzo Piano, Richard Rogers, Gianfranco Franchini and Future Systems.

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If we consider for a moment Christo's seminal work – the 'wrapped cliff' – we might see it in one of two ways: as a wrapped cliff or; preferably, as the point at which all other cliffs are unwrapped. An Archigram project attempts to achieve this same altered reading of the familiar (in the tradition of Buckminster Fuller's question, 'How much does your building weigh?'). It provides a new agenda where nomadism is the dominant social force; where time, exchange and metamorphosis replace stasis; where consumption, lifestyle and transience become the programme; and where the public realm is an electronic surface enclosing the globe —David Greene^[1]

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[edit] Projects

[edit] Plug-in-City, Peter Cook, 1964

Plug-in-City is a mega-structure with no buildings but just a massive framework into which dwellings in the form of cells or standardised components could be slotted into. The machine had taken over and people were the raw material being processed, the difference being that people are meant to enjoy the experience.

[edit] 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 Corbusier's aphorism of a house as a machine for living in. The pods were independent, yet parasitic as they could 'plug in' to 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.