ARCHIGRAM – 60s/70s Architectural Avant Garde

Architects (1961-1974)

“Bewitched by nomadic fantasies, Archigram argued that an architecture based on mobility and malleability could set people free. 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.” – Michael Sorkin, via the Design Museum

ARCHIGRAM dominated the architectural avant garde in the 1960s and early 1970s with its playful, pop-inspired visions of a technocratic future after its formation in 1961 by a group of young London architects – Warren Chalk, Peter Cook, Dennis Crompton, David Greene, Ron Herron and Michael Webb.

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 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.

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Critically, Archigram’s approach to architecture was fun, as illustrated by two of the group’s most memorable projects: Ron Herron’s 1964 cartoon drawings of a Walking City, in which a city of giant, reptilian structures literally glided across the globe on enormous legs until its inhabitants found a place where they wanted to settle; and the crane-mounted living pods that could be plugged in wherever their inhabitants wished in Peter Cook’s 1964 Plug-in City.

Equally irreverent were the ingenious devices that Archigram dreamt up to fulfil the functions of traditional buildings from miniaturised capsule homes like Ron Herron and Warren Chalk’s 1965 Gasket Homes and David Greene’s 1966 Living Pod, or Michael Webb’s 1966 Cushicle mobile environment and his 1967 wearable house, the Suitaloon. In 1968, the group proposed to transport all the entertainment and education resources of a metropolis in an Instant City airship, which would fly from place to place and temporarily ‘land’ in small communites to enable the inhabitants to enjoy the buzz of life in a city. Via the Design Museum

Take a look at some of Archigram’s cool work below.

SHOP ARCHIGRAM’S BOOK Topologies: The Urban Utopia in France, 1960–1970