Archigram was defined less by a specific set of principles, than by an optimistic spirit. Its members shared a refusal to be shackled by the past – “The pre-packaged frozen lunch is more important than Palladio,” opined Peter Cook – and a belief that the potent combination of social change and technological advance would foster a more humane architecture equipped to embrace the complexities and opportunities of contemporary life. One of its strengths was the diversity of a group in which the six core members and their collaborators came from very different backgrounds with different skills and enthusiasms. “The overlap was an enjoyment of teasing,” wrote Cook, “teasing the architectural extremity, and most of the architectural language.”
The US critic Michael Sorkin defined Archigram’s influences as a combination of Britain’s heroic engineering heritage – Crystal Palace, the Dreadnought, the Spitfire, the Forth Bridge and the work of Isambard Kingdom Brunel – with Buckminster Fuller’s technocractic idealism and vernacular images of Marvel Comics and The Eagle, Meccano, sci-fi films, pop music, funfairs and pop art. “Bewitched by nomadic fantasies, Archigram argued that an architecture based on mobility and malleability could set people free,” he wrote. “This notion of consumer choice combined optimised technology, a post-Beat hitchhiker’s sense of freedom and the giddy styles of customisation found in Detroit.” Critically, Archigram’s approach to architecture was fun, ... | bang on! | http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=426&storyCode=3062193 | http://www.designmuseum.org/design/index.php?id=87 Archive of 1960s collective's material will appear on a special website By Charlie Gates After 40 years of being stored in garden sheds, under beds and in cupboards, the archive of the 1960s collective Archigram is finally being made available to the public. The archive of approximately 4,000 drawings, models and audio tapes produced during the group's creative peak will be catalogued and digitised over three years and made available to the public for the first time on a special website. The process will be funded by a £300,000 grant from the Arts & Humanities Research Council won by the University of Westminster. Cataloguing the treasure trove of drawings, models and tapes is also expected to unearth long-forgotten sketches and interviews from the group's hazy 1960s past. An early trawl through drawings stored in Archigram member Dennis Crompton's home has brought to light a lost sketch of the famous Plug-in City on the back of a page of Archigram's second magazine. There is also a tape of the Archigram Rally held in 1967 that has never been transcribed. "[Cataloguing the collection] is something I have been wanting to do for 30 years," said Crompton. "I found a drawing of the Plug-in City that I do not remember seeing before. It is drawn on the back of Archigram 2, so I assume Peter [Cook] did it. "There are also two days worth of interviews that only I have listened to. It is good to have the resources to work right through the archive. I am discovering things all this time later." Former Archigram member Peter Cook is also pleased the archive will be catalogued. "It will be documented properly, which it should," Cook said. "When we delve there is all sorts of stuff that is not the major stuff, but still has historic merit." The major drawings and models, which were displayed at an exhibition in Vienna last year, are stored in 43 packing crates in a basement room at the University of Westminster. The grant will digitise the collection for online access, and high-resolution images will be available to researchers. _______________________________________________ in-enaction mailing list http://mail.architexturez.net/mailman/listinfo/in-enaction + Architexturez collaborative at http://portal.architexturez.org/
