In the brief revolutionary spark of the 1960s, the almost linear development of the supposed modernizing and rationally-planned Modern architecture -- as defined by the International Style -- began to wither from the inconsistencies of its own assumed harmony. Frowning on... [more]

In the brief revolutionary spark of the 1960s, the almost linear development of the supposed modernizing and rationally-planned Modern architecture -- as defined by the International Style -- began to wither from the inconsistencies of its own assumed harmony. Frowning on a Modern architecture apparently co-opted by corporate and capitalist interests, many architects moved into the previously marginal spaces of the profession -- schools, galleries, and journals became the bastions of innovative critical work. The retreat to the academy spurred a new approach, one in which the utopian future promised by Modernism gave way to a more maverick, less complete vision of social harmony. Disillusioned by the disjunction between the values of the architect and the needs of society, certain architects, particularly those in Europe, devised strategies based, not on building, but on a method of critiquing the profession. These architects -- with styles ranging from the anti-consumerist impulses of Superstudio, to the more underground, Performance art spirit of the Hans Rucker Co., to the spacey Pop fetishism of Archigram -- projected an architecture that celebrated a technologically optimistic future while remaining ironically critical of the industrial means needed to achieve it. In the end it proved to be a futile effort, but one that wasn't devoid of an impulse to change the nature of the role of the architect. The critique offered by these groups challenged the highly rationalized and functional impulses of post-war architecture. The projects emphasized a futuristic urban fabric that would respond to humanity's primordial needs, in which action and impulse prescribed the development of architecture. In a series of projects rendered through the deft use of collage, Superstudio produced a vision of architecture that, through the exclusion of buildings, promised a non-threatening and non-repressive future. Their seminal "A Journey from A to B" of 1960 featured a flat landscape superimposed with an endless grid, occupied in the foreground by a strolling hippie couple. Devoid of any signs of contemporary consumerist culture, the project represents the group's call for a world in which "we will need' only flags or talisman, signals for an existence that continues or simple utensils for simple operations." It postulated a nomadic lifestyle, which was, interestingly enough, far removed from the more "rooted" impulses of the American commune movement. Eschewing the nostalgic sentimentality of the larger hippie culture, the projects confronted the bureaucracy of the modern capitalist state, the narratives of the drawings suggesting a radical departure from contemporary society. [show less]