11 Only Architecture Will Be O u r Lives
Peter Lung and \Y/ill~ar~ Menkiig 31
Suicidal Desires
Peter Long 53
The Revolt of the Object
~vrllifl~>r r~Ier1kir1g 65
Memories of Superstudio
Cristiarro k r a l d o d i Frarrcia 73
A House of Calm Serenity Adolfo Na~alini
79 Journey to the End of Architecture
Piero Frassirrelli 84
Reflected Architecture Superstudio: Historic Projects
95 119
1 9 6 6 6 8 . Superarchitecture: to the Rescue! 1969-71. Superprojects: Objects. Monuments, Cities
175
1972-73. Superesistcnce: Life and Death
213
1974-78. Supersimple: Elementary Architecture
228
Superstudio: Biographies
229
Superstudio: Exhibitions and Bibliography
Peter b n g
Only Architecture Will Be Our Lives
a ~ i dI V ~ l l t a mMenk~ng
111 thore years i t becarrrc uery clear that 10 contirrue t o dcsigr~ fiirrrrrr~re,ob~ecrsarrd similar household decorariotrs ruas rro solutiorr t o problnrrs of liuirrg arrd 1101 euerr t o those of life, arrd cue12 less could i t serue t o save one's otun soul.. . I t becarrre clear that rro beautrfication or c o s ~ ~ ~ e~rui ce r entfficiio7t t o rerrredy the darlrage of tinre, the errors ofnrarr arrd the bestiality of architecture.. . The oroblern therefore was that o f irrcreasirr~delac/~rrrenl frorrz , those activities ofdesigrr adopting perhaps the theory ofrrrinirrral force i n a ~ e r r e m"process l of rrdrrctiorl".
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For those w l ~ o like , ourrelues, are conuirrced that arcl~itecturcis one ofthefew wags t o realize cosrrric order on earth, t o put thir~gs
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frrture irr w h i c l ~a l l arcl~itec~ure tuill be created w i t h a s i r ~ ~oct, le
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frorrr a srrigle desrgn capable o f c l a r r ~ r n gonce arrd for a l l the rrrotiue.r ruhich have irrdrrced rrran t o build dolrrrens, nrrtlhirs, pyrarrrids, and bstly t o trnce (ultirrra ratio) n luhrre line rn the desert. SUPERSTUDIO, The Corrfirruous Morrunrenr: Atr Arrhirec~ural Model for Total Urbanrzation, 196Y
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t o order arrd abouc a l l t o affirtrr hrrrrrarrityi capacityfor acting accordir~gl o reasorr, it is a "rrroderate utopia" t o frrragirre a riear
In ,ronl
most g r a p h ~ caspects of these 1960s protagonists to today's pub11c The collect~veshows lack, ho\r,ever, suffic~entspace to explore ~ndlv~dual groups or speclfic actlons In greater deta~l'Though the many e ~ h ~ b ~ t l and o n sdustrated catalogues have done a respectable
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job of d ~ s s e m l n a t l nand ~ consequently revlvlng the works of a predoni~nanrlvEuropean Rdd~calarchttecture movement over the last
the world's apparently boundless resources is now having to fight to retain that dubious right. And just as Italy's cconomic miracle
mary materials from this period are simply hard to come by: This is particularly unfortunate for SUI'BKIUDIO who seem to have acquired the role as the Radical movement's cover-child.' Scant little
ning of the new millennium. N o better moment, then, to turn back the pages of history to that previous era when a similarly ample crisis ripped through rhe world economies: welcome to Italy in the
understanding SUPEIISTUDIO'S provenance and the group's relationship to the many cultural currents evolving through the European avant-garde in the 1960s. Since none of these takes place in the distant past, most of the original protagonists are still very active on the scene, though their current identities are not always transparently linked to their epic endeavours of youth. While clearly a thirty-year hiatus suggests a certain amount of aging many of the principal actors remain highIv enereetic and active in the field while their works remain tucked
we are ironically trawling into a new kind of pop-~rpculture! What remains to be seen, however, is whether the recent 1960s' revival emerging in the schools and in some of the more progressive of- $ P fices goes beyond mere fashion trends.' H A definitive and momentous transformation took place in the design and architectural environment by the late 1960s: the increasingly debilitating crisis in Modernist architecture would find some of its most laconic last acts played out on the drawing boards :, ~reciselvhere in Florence. Each group challenged and eventuallv
cia. Roberto Maeris. Piero Frassinelli and Alessandro Magris were
sewed to indoctrinate society into an irrelevant culture of con-
rators were trusted with their time and given open access to their remaining collection of projects and library. This publication has therefore been planncd and organizcd to seme as a portable reference focusing primarily on s u ~ e n s r u ~ r o ' s critical writings i ~ relation r to their better-known body of designs and architecture. O n e of the most unexpected conclusions we as curators can draw from our invo~vementwith SUI'ERSTUDIO is just how conscious the group was from the outset of the historical importance of its investigations: SUPElUTUDlO maintains an impressive archive that from the start nieticulously docutnents the unfolding process of its critical research. While it's evident upon examining the material presented here that their most renowned images describe the momentous steps in thc group's philosophical development, these inlages can only partly convey the complete historical passage. For this reason we have decided to initiate an operation of recovery, restituting in the process those projects and writings -critical texts and storyboards - that are far less familiar but entirely necessary in providing a more complete understanding of the group's oeuvre. 'l'he timing for this revived interest in the 1960s' counter-culture is not that arbitrary either: we are again at a point where the convergence of technology and consumeristn, in its current socalled free market state is spinning steadily out of control: the small percentage of the global population still able to command
evocative images, the series beginning in 1969 titled The Conlinuor~sMonumen~,spread its glacially translucent grid structures throughout entire regions of the planet enveloping buildings and entire cities, creating a monument to end all monuments. s u l m STUDIO'S renouncement of architecture, their conscious withdrawal from the perverse system based on the con~mercialisationof popular demand, was deliberately intended to strip architecture of everything except its most naked living truth.
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This publication is structured into two basic parts. Part I features the nvo curators' essays exanlining SUPEIUTUDIO'S history within the Florentine context ("Suicidal Desires", Peter Lang), and an essay on s u ~ e ~ u r u ~ rpenultimate o's moment on the larger international sccne ("The Revolt of the Object", William Menking), and includes the retrospective testimonials and critical reflections from three of S U I ~ E I ~ T U Dnlembers: IO'S Adolfo Natalini, Cristiano Toraldo di Francia and Piero Frassinelli. Part I1 is divided into the following four chapters: E the Rescue! 1. 196G68: S U I ' E W ~ C ~ ~ I C C I U ~to 2. 1969-71: SUI'Ellproj~ctr:Objects, Monuo1cnts, Cities 3. 1972-73: SUI'ERexlsle~lce: Life and Death 4. 1974-78: s u ~ > e ~ i ~ n Elementary ple: Architecture In Part I1 each chapter engages in a specific historical moment and providcs related documentation on SUI~E~STUDIO'S theoretical and
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practical responses. The goal is to publish the group's niost significant projects along with a related collection of images and their accompanying writings, storyboards and photos. While this publication is nor intended to become a catalogue raisonnk on the works of SUI>ERSTUDIO, it has been conceived as a work of consultation and reflection. Here every atteliipt has been made to pair significant texts and storyboards to their corresponding architectural projects. This introductory essay will navigate through some of the peak episodes that mark SUPERSTUDIO'S architectural pro-
the catchall phrase used to regroup the variety of tendencies that have aspired to shake off the liegemonic grip of modernist archius tecture in the 1960s. Radical architecture is an a m b i g ~ ~ omultive. lent term that suggests different and clearly contrasting meanings. Andrea Branzi, one of the founding members of Archizoom, writing in 1973, gave this impression on the breadth of Radical movement: "Today the term 'Radical' architecture assembles at the international level all of the eccentric experimentation with regard to the straight line of the profession: counterdesign, conceptual architecture, primitive technologies, eclecticism, iconoclasm, neodadism. nomadism..."' Gianni Pettena, another Radical player active at the time in Florence, insists on giving the movelnent a more sinuously fluid radiance, albeit with continental distinctions, weaving the 111g o r ~ o ~experiments ir of the Californian Radicals to the more self-conscious language emerging in England, Austria and Italy, whose works result from far deeper frustrations characterizing the profession in Europe.'" In effect. Pettena's panoramic view of the movement correctly depicts the international exchanges, through publications, encounters and exhibitions, while devoting considerably less time to the msny provincial accents buried in the chaos of translation, misreading, and local cultural wrangling. Finally Emilio Ambasz's conception for T h e Neru Dorncrtic Lorzdrcope makes the point that even \\,ithin Florentine circle of visionary architects there \\.ere several contradictory positions regarding the role of ilrchitecrurc and design -let alone radical politics. T h e weakness in establishing ;In umbrella definition for the Radical architecture movement therefore remains, we believe, in the often-contradictory positions held by these distinctive activist groups. The Radical bind between the groups does not necessarily imply that there were common denominators linking one to another, as clearly those who saw themselves as neodadists were not necessarily willing to also act as nomadisrs. Branzi's intent was to underscore just how insidiously the work of such a diverse num14 ber of subversive credos were penetrating the 1960s' mainstream
The quickest link between the two groups
SUPERSTUDIO
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coming out of a particularly Florentine phenomenon that could, we
the scenes, the story of just how the two groups were founded is tied as much to circumstances as it was to a prescient vision.'' circle in the early 1960s, was asked by the Jolly gallery in Pistoia to mount a second show of his paintings in November 1966. In-
to Corretti, Paolo Deganello and Massimo Morozzi chose the des-
his exhibition manifesto.
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first date would have turned out to be catastrophic. O n 4 November, an Italian national holiday, the Arno river overran its banks, flooding Florence and the rest of the valley. Natalini recounts how he found himself almost under water as he worked through the night on the graphics for the Modena exhibition poster." In need of a dry place ro work, Natalini went to his friend Cristiano Toraldo di Francia, who knew of a place to rent on high ground. Shortly aftenvards they founded together the first SupERSTuDlo office at Via Bellosguardo 1. SUPERSTUDIO really only appears in some kind of recognizable form some time after the second show in Modena, lagging a bit behind Archizoom." In fact, it would take roughly a year for Adolfo Natalini and Cristi:mo Toraldo di Francia to collectively gather their forces to give a philosophical foundation to SUPERSTUDIO. Natalini's thesis project on an art centre for Florence, begun in 1964 under the direction of Leonardo Savioli, influenced him to study Louis Kahn. From Kahn, Natalini immersed himself in the history of monuments, a work that he himself has qualified as a work benveen "pop and the monumental".'~oraldodi Franciak thesis presented in 1968, a "Machine for Vacations", represented a dialectical investigation into technology and the evolving social realm. In 1967 Roberto Magris entered the Bellosguardo office, adding his experience in working within the industrial design field. Piero Frassinelli joined SUPERSI'UDIO in early April 1968. Fmssinelli's university research combined anthropology with architecture, a background that provided him with exceptional skills in writing and storytelling.'' Over the course of 1967, SuPERSTuDIO laboured to establish three categories for future research: the "architecture of the monument"; the "architecture of the image"; and "tecnomorphic architecture". Natalini's 1966 thesis on the Palazzo dell'Arte served as the initial genesis for the group's work on the architecture of the monument, later developed with greater refinement in the competition for the Fortezza da Basso completed in 1967. The second category, on the architecture of the image, inspired the graphic-visual research behind the beguiling renderings that became the group's renowned signature. The architecture of the image provoked an extensive visual experimentation into techniques and appliques, appropriating from diverse sources, such as collage, pop art, cinema and dada.ln Toraldo di Francis's university thesis set the stage for a scientific-based research, using technology as an interface medium for architecture." From these preliminary three categories developed the first major critical project proposed by SUPERSTUDIO:the Journey info theRea11n ojReason, an illustrated storyboard created to serve as "maps for orientation ..." describing the unfolding relationship benveen natural and artificial environments. This pictorial exege-
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P~sloia.December 196G Adolo Nalalnl. Andrea Bran28 and Masslmo Morozz, ICr#rliano Toraldo dl Francla 1s laklng the p ~ c ~ u r e l
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office, in that they attempted to create more than a semblance of a legitimate practice, while all the while seeking to enzlsperate the per" charged actions. The "super" code of conduct required that homes and offices of a prospecrive well-off clientele. They were "super-operators", and as such producers of designs and objects that would be over-loaded with symbolism and poetic content. As SUPERSTUDIO'S designs confounded the sense of scale and objective significance, the unsuspecting user \vould find him or herself bccoming part of the critical process of the design. The making and shaping of these objects were consistently related to bricolage techniques, assemblies from exisring manufactured productions, or adaptations from outside industries, such as
suporr~d~o tn ,ha vfa ~ C I I L
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these subvers~veobjects they reallzed " l n ~ t ~ a t ea dnew level of con sumerlsm, and consequently another level of poverty" '"Havlng recoenlzed the futllltv of the strategy, S U P E ~ T U D I Oretrenched.
Mantcllato olllce 1981
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e m in had become powerful tool for all 11s bare slmJust l ~ k the pllclty, SUPERSTUDIO called for people " to live l ~ k eone long protest ", to engage In a life long " be in Every object has a 4 pract~calfunctlon and a contemplative one and ~tIS the latter that evasion d e s ~ g n1s seeklng to potentlate Thus there 1s an end to the $ 19th-century myths of reason as the explanation of everything, the 5 thousand varlat~onson the theme of the four leaned chalr, aero
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s u P c n s T u D r o made yet another leap foniard, abandoning the last
vestiges of a market-driven architecture, erasing once and for all
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plest a physlcal bar graph, the addltlon of the histograms to the
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for other more pressing activities. "We prepared a catalogue of tri-dimensional non-contin"ous diagrams, a catalogue of histograms of architmure with reference to a grid transportable in diverse areas or scales for the edification of a nature both serene and immobile in mhich we might finally recognize (re-know) ourselves. From the catalogue of histograms followed effortlessly objects, furniture, environments and architecture... . But all these things didn't matter much, nor have they ever mattered much. The surface of such hisroarams was homo-
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were also called 'the tombs of the architects'"."
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with the four members posing at its base, and an owl in the forefront gliding straight towards the viewer. The image, a morbid group critique, nonetheless came in the shape of a riddle. A sort of death wish so beautiful and entrancing that the message really didn't seem to matter.
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nntive para
sewe~l:'' ..SUPLRSTUDIO. led by Adolfo Nntalinl, started in 1966 ~~y'~,",:$'~~,",","~~,",':"I ro produce a body of work which was more or less divided betwecn representing the form of .I 'Continuous Monument' as a mute ur- s - o e ~ ~ ~ ~ n : ~ c l - ~ e e 2 h D ' c " """e"" ' 'I ban sign and proclucing a scricr oivignertcs illustrating ,I world from which consumer goods had !xen elilninated Their work varied from the projection of v ~ s ~t m ~ c n e t r n bmeg.~l~rhs, le f ~ c e din mirror-&ss. to thc
Lrlcr /or C'l,rirtm.lr: I'rr~ttronitio,rro/thr. .\lyrticol RL.birrhu/ Ur. bfitrrmi, appe~ringin the D ~ e l n b e rI971 I S S U ~of AD. 111ahnost evcry "lded" city the pre
hobitants, exccpt ~nsome cast. \!.here one might think of d c v i a ~ ~ n .g . . "'l'he i n h ~ b ~ t a nIlve t s ~n the machine endlessly drugged along Ijy conveyor bclrs, by chutes and pneulnaric tubes from tllc time of birth to rhc rilnc of death The machine takes c ~ r of e cvc~thing. along the innumcrJbls routcs \vliich intersccr, unltu and divide 3ccording to the ~ncolnprehensit,lcprogrnmming o l the m ~ c h i n c . Thc inhi~bitnntsf ~ n dfood and (car, sleep an11 juy, sex n l ~ dhope. l solnetimes also rcbcll~on,bur thcy know very death ~ n l anger, well 11131if they get off r l i e o b l ~ g ~ r rou:es o r ~ established by the InJchine, they will rncvitat>ly bc crushucl by 11s mach~nery."" g 7ir r9lve 7 ~ l r , rthcy , Once SUPLKS'rLDIO finlshcrl p r o d ~ l c ~ nthe
lislicd a short uns~gneclreview on pagc 29 titlcd '12 Citti dcl futuro" ( I 2 cities of the future^.'. 'l'he revieu~errum~rkccl."l'hc 21ternativc 1)rol)os3lsby Super-studio' appear in succusslon Inscd on ar! im~ginary,iml)oss~ble:lnJ playfid archirectu~"An i n r c w . u.~tIi ~ A~lolfoNat~linifollowed. Natal~ni,in any event, hncl sent our scvera1 dozcn copies of the 7ir;,lvL, 7hlr.r to Italiar p ~ p e r s including , I1 .\lotrdu. I1 .\lutrdu's cultural c
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Though the connection remains speculative - what kind of influence would the svPEllsruD1o piece have had on Calvino if he had indeed read it in 1971 - the coincidence nonetheless renlains intriguing. Calvino's short stories had a vast influence on the general public, not to mention a whole generation of architects. Another cautionary tale? Also durine this time sulJaHs.ruolo began the production of its
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background In one rnemorable scene w h ~ l ethe rhythlns are heard n~elodlcallvIn the backeround the astronauts. seen feedme on
reconsideration of domestic space. SUPERS.rUDIOcollage their slick drawings of satellites, desert landscapes and people in the act of fa-
the effects arc indeed at times simplistic, but nonetheless powerful precisely because the hypcr-gadgetry of space-capsule life is suddenly reduced to a tribal ritc." A poetic re~niseerr sci.~iein which the real protegonis;~are the histogram objects that penetrate the galaxy. SUI'ERSTUDIO'S incursion into the world of film begins far from earth: evcrvrhinn, "from the moon to the planets is archi-
"no intention of doing withoutn."She is depicted sadly marooned amid her appliances on r small grass island in the middle of a plane "wirhout any messages in bottles". In the catalogue this image is the foil for another, T h e Disinril Mou,lroin, urhich portrays a youthful sybarite world of nomadic pleasures not enslaved to designed objects of mass consumption but free to experience their
a nostalgia precisely for primal knowledge on earth. In 1972 I;UI'EIISTU!JIOoarticioated in thc Museum of Modern
to remove all commercially driven clutter from the object, o r the architecture: as in their FiueSuburbor~I'illos project, each super-
Their ~ n s s f l o rplastic ~ lamp was selected by the show's c u n t o r Emilio Ambasz for the "Obiects" section of the exhibit. In addi-
titr~rorrsr M o , ~ a , ~ e rindecorously i~ neutralized layers of gratuitous his-
logue.'" This project, which took the form of a small plastic model, repeated ro infinity in a cubed light box. As they describe it is " . . . a reconsideration of thc relations between the process of design and the environment through ;In alter~lativemodel of existence"." The images reproduced in the catalogue ore nine variations from their film project Life, Srrpcrsurfnce and remain one of their
outside this burdensome dichotomy. SUIXI&UDIO, beginning with the MOCIA show, sought to re-conceptualize the position of urchitecture altogether They discarded the role of the c r e n o r the d e signer, the architect. Instead, the group moved to espouse the complete reversal of the normative condition, to switch roles, co find architecture in one's olun life.
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tempts to rake arcliitccturc onto n dlffcrent philosophic~lplnte.111. Renvecn 1972 2nd 1973. Carrhrllo published $I'PEIL%TL'DIO~ ttor y b o ~ r d s~ n texts d for t l ~ cF I I CF1~11da,,:r,it.7l , Bctr: I.r/c. Edtica!to,:, Ct,n,,~to~ty, Lo1 C, and Death. The prolecr, of tre~nc.ndousscope ~ n vision, d conternplntes the existence of rhc architect, the W I I II ( , co~~tplrt on Iifc. Coriccivcd as :an experimental film opus, orily I.r/e, St~prrrt~r/acc and Ccre,~o,r) were completed in f ~ l ~version. n SNpr,rrt,r/.rn,, a collage anllnntion with its flnnl scquencc filmcd outdoors in nature with n )oung couple, was screened for the MO\IA exhibition TI>?Nero Do,~rrtrcLn~~drcapc ~n 1972.' C P ~ L ~ I Iwns IOI~) shot IIVC ~n Florcncc the follo\v~n; year: The illustr:~tedtcxts for thc Frfih Ftorda111e,,t.11Act Death wns set to a slidc show a t t h nn audlo soundtrack. 'rhc FILCF ! l ~ ~ d r ~ t ~Acts ~ ~ ~\\,ere t . 7 1published In series in rtor) honrd forrnx. Llke the one for T/>/,r~Co~tt~~tt,~trr Alo~tIO?IPN~, the stor)boards for the I:r~cF I O I ~ ~ I I I Lwere ~ Nd~~ ~d ~/ c~t ~i cC ~ T In nnturc. sUllEalulIto's rn3nifcsto states: "Architecture never touches the great thelnes, the fundnrnen131 tliclncs of our lives. I\rcliitecturc relnains 3t the limit, arid Intcrvenes only 31 3 ccrta~ripoint in tlic process, usually when hchnviour 113s dreadYbeen entlrely codified, furnishing answers to rigidly stated problems Even if 11s answers .Ire nberr:lnt or evn.
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strurncnts nccuratcly predisposrd to avold nny dev~arion 'rhc working-class holnc rcsernbles a st3tcly vllln in the sarnc 1t13y3s tlie dcsi
Solo charr
dcrnically founded stilrl) on the making of peasnnt tools and sheltcrj. The move cotr~cidedwith rhe co-tounding ot Global Tools 111 1973, a sliort-IivcJ but s~gri~ficont mcctlrlg of niirids bcrwccn rlic far flurig rncmbcrs of the Radical .~rchitccturelnovemcnt. Their collecrivc s t r ~ t c g ~ ethough s, never renl~zcdw:rhln r h ~ ss:lmc enselnble, nonetheless moved parallel with the S U I ~ C R \ur~ro's I sccond phase oiproduction. Rut it should be c l e x that \\,hat S L I ' E R ~ T U D ~ ~ brought to their phase of research was the intcrisivc desire not to repeat the forrnul~t h ~ would r onl) serve to prolorig the conuncr~ 1 3rnnrkct.oriented 1 cxplolt3tion of the deigrl profession Of course tlils would he hy riow irnposs~blcto persevere, liowcver, given the
rnentir~griot just the style of life 111 the far renchcs of the Italian cour~tryslde,hut nlso the rigours of poverty. It Iielpcd to dcvclop liantly creative i r i the use of rcc)cled matcri~ls,energy conscrvntion, distributed recourses. 3 r d multiple uses. The resc3rcli and
tcrial Cultt,rc project suggests some very inrerest~ngaltcrnntive p ~ h to s folio\\, now.
If SUI~EWTUDIOhas succeeded in contributing to any particure it would be not so much lar lesson to inventing a f ~ ~ t uarchitecture, the individual "pieces" as it would be the process itself, the strict critical vision focused on their own roles in the much larger chain of production. This process of repeatedly and critically re-esamining the normal drifts and currents moving across the domestic landscapes has led them to design, or perhaps more appropri;~tely to un-design their surroundings like no other group before or after them. We are far enough along again to perform similarly criticnl interrogations and we hope as the editors of this project that SUPCRSTUDIO'S contribution may be to take another, c r i t i c r ~look l at the objects that surround our lives.
' Sar.th Dcyong plsced roo hlonumenrContinu 1969". s u ~ r t a - r u ~ > ~'His~o. o. mucll emphasis on thc L.iUo,sr~~,~a(no.115.l'.1n: CdiS. Dcyonp. "M~.moricao f ciun". ~n1.' Nuvoncand R. r m n i Print. 1972. 19). I~L. Urban Foturc", i n T. Orlztndini, Archr/c~!~,rd 1 Kad?c~lr.iblilun: Docu. aut~t.t~~iuoto. 'The Con- Riley. ed.. The (%d,igbrg 0 tinuourMonluuc~~t".Du,~~irrbc,lvu,rr.G~rrdc; \/I/iria,,un. tnenti di C;lr.thclla, 1974. (no. 481, Dccember 1969). Arcl~irccrrrriDnirm,,~g~/n,~,,14). Brrnri strc>serlin ;I rc~l,i(/r,c. ,r cent ~nrervieu,rh.1 It~clical ' 'I'he ~ u m "lndicitl", ~ f ~ r r ~r b c l l o r ~ w r d G i / ~ ~<.;,l rion (Ne\r. York: a!oat,\, rrcbi~cc~urei~~;lr "not ;lrcc. coined by Ccrmnno CrLnr to describc ;) \rhole r n n ~ e 2002. 31). opniznble lungudgc" r n d rhdr ir encornpurred "... of arustic pracricer, i r too A aut,r.siuoto. dirbdndcd g~ncrrl.~ h e r u r h o nbeliwc, i n 1986, rcconsrirured ir. m;my rmdly:oups a,ithour t ~ d ~ c r i h t h c s p e c ~ f i c r n ,elf i - in rhc 1990s lo b c r ~ c r a bix rhcmc . Percr L ~ n y l i ~ ~ ~ l 0 f ~ u 1 ~ 1 3bucn,c 6 1 ~ ~ 1 Oadminirrcr : ixr current and 1Villi.lm Menkinx. in'
'
28
ic.11~:Design and Archifoundcn in 1966. Roberto "'C.Pcrrenu, "Archicer~uia rccrurc 1960/75", i n VI b b g r i r joincd i n 1967. Redicale", i n Arc11,r~clrrre ,Lf\.lortr"l,rrenirrri,~~~nI~~ del- Picro Fr.~rsinelliin 1968 mdicdcnle icir. 11). m d Almsandm M a g r ~ s ~ ~ n"d Roben Vcnruri. Dcnisc It B;e,,rrolc , dr Ve,iez,n. cx. hibirion cnr;llogoe (Flo- Aleaarndro Poli i n 1970. Sco~rBmunnndS~wcLen1' 011 lcfi rhc group in 1972. our. \vho,c writlngr \r.erL. rcnce: Ven~ll;~bro.1996); Arch,rrcrrrr nalrnb,eshi. Frb~nces Urunror 1rdns1;ttcd highly respec14 nnlong [he b l ~ i o ocnh~logue.Villcursulan.\ruolc tcrts from Radical community, wcrc b.>nne. Inrritut d i r r con- l e l i a n ro C n ~ l i r hfor thc qu~cklocriricire~hcmoveI C I ~ I ~ M ~ I > - ~,i(.,Jt~nuoryinternrrionsl journals and metx: 'IIo\r,e\,er. no erclliblay ZOO1 iBlrcclon;l: Di. magazines. l e c t ~ r e l 6~ O he L PIIS\YCI 10 agon;llc, 2001); D . Sourif, : Pop-ups ure thole n;~p t o o n ~ u c b n r c h i ~ e c ~ u r e . ~ e ed.,C,,:~rr,,,~?rd:Arrr ?brc,i. xlng lirrle lnrerner rdver- rerction of thc anti-archi,ru IY68-IY8Y, cxh~hirlon tisenlenrr chsr ere increar. rm~rof~iDirp.rl~~pri~sfuc.tr,dogue(Ilorrncc:iM&IM, ingly jumping onto the ~ i l ear the endless fondling 2002): 7'brCl~n,rgbigo/~/1~~computur screens. ofiirelev;mr rubdccicr rr chc Ava~ir-Gurdc, e x h i b i ~ i o l l " F o r n de~uileddircuns~on other excrmlc i n the orhcr on the contemporaly Icgil. mafizinm, though il is porC.ICJIO~~~, Ne\v York, Thc cy o f aut'altiruolo rec D , sibly Ins h r r n ~ f uonly l bcMureurn o f Modern Arr (New York: ,~~ostn. 2002). Rouillard. "Supcrr~udio: c u r e ir seldom gels builr.
hibir. concetved ro displt~y primsrily thusis projec,s. l'ct~.r L;mg, inturvieiv a.ir11 Adolfo h';t,;lli[~i iFlorcncu. I4 Decembcr 2002) " For rhe lncn>hcrs o f
1982. L.lng. inrcr!,iew wtrh Crnstl;~noTorsldo d i Fr.lncl;~ (Filotrfilno. 7 December 2002). : ' , u t ~ ~ a m o ~ "Invendon o,
:" I'erer
b~.com,ngits ~pllyscc~l em-
York:
bodimenr. This is onc oi rlie srgumcncr developer1 in Peter Lnnx's essay "Sui.
1973. X r 5 7 ) . " {hid ". lb,d
Anchor
Uookr.
to its soundrmck, and requires further res~omcion.
Irrrerplioi~~~u~,I~chitcc~~~r(~,
1r;llion voice avcr. !r.ilh soundrrack, producerl by
" lhrrl 248. "
rbrd 2.18--19.
32
Fascist regime contributed to the invention of Italian mass society, but did not construct a mass consumer culture. That \vould be the accomplishment of the post-war governments, whose laws were designed to promote private investments to the exclusion of all else. Private initiatives in housing were given a "free hand", urith no co~itrolsplaced on land uses, adequate service facilities like parks or parking lots, nor sufficient safety regulations to ensure proper building methods.' The results were catastrophic, with sl>eculative buildings spm\rrling randomly through the urban peripheries and under reinforced buildings tragically collapsing in known high-risk earthquake zones. Italians were becoming more mobile, more urban, more enatnoured with their object world, but adapting to this new consumer-oriented lifestyle inevitably meant ruptures to traditional habits. Economic expansion came late relative to other European countries, but the symptonls of estrangement among the post-war Italian middle classes bore the common traits of similar Western industrialized countries. The gro\\~ingprosperity within the Italinn society exposed ever-deepening rifts urithin the communities at large, as well as intergenerational conflicts. During the 1960s the student population in the national university system doubled to half a nill lion students, providing sufficient momentum behind the rise of a mass student culture.' This gradual slide towards social breakdown was brought into explicit view through the work of some of the country's most creative cinematographic artists. As Siegfied Kracauer noted, "the more life is submerged, the more it needs the artwork, which unseals its withdrawnness and puts its pieces back in place..."' Aesthetic manifestations depicting the general malaise of Italy's upwardly mobile classes and alieliated youth increasingly surfaced in the arts and in cinema by the mid-1960s. After La r l o b vita was released in 1960, Federico Fellini turned the camera on himself and his profession, creating in 1963 Eight and a Hnlf, a spectacularly personal inquiry and psychological confession on the existential state of cinema and society. Michelangelo Antonioni in his 1964 film Red Desert, constructed a spiritually deprived vision of postlinked to a devastated landscape war Iraly that was her~neticall~ of smog-choked fiactories and polluted landscapes. As the characters move with empty gestures through Red Desert's world of manufactured sensations, only a siren-like song seems to penetrate the ambient stupor. The primal recall remains an insidious reminder of a simpler past, a symbolic metaphor that would find its echo in the reflections on che builc environment among the young generation of architects who would form the nucleus of sUl%l
derlying critique that constituted the group's thoughts and actions from the initial founding in 1966 to thelate 1970s. But these epic themes also can be seen to reflect tnore formulative life trajectories. The story of SUPEilSTUDfO,whose beginnings are announced in the historical staging of the 1966 Superarchitectnre exhibit in Pistoia, finds its inception in Florence's rebellious youth culture. SUPLRSTUDIO'S genesis, in fact, cannot be linked to a specific student movetnent - the six members of the group did not come from the same ideological background or belong to the same student
tablished its characteristic identity.' In many aspccts SUI'ERSTUDIO was formed just as their name implied, as a "super-office", a design and architectural office that happened to have an extremely deep and foreboding sense of history and belligerent behaviour. Yet to understand SUI~LRSTUDIOit remains essential to understand the university climate that existed in Florence during the 1960s, precisely because the generation of students who completed their e d u ~ l t i o nthere were marked much differently than else-
modernization; the university administered itself as the pedantic gatekeeper of this very same cultural legacy, and thc more innovative faculties found themselves isolated if not removed from participating in the city's architectural and urban development. The
different directions. These are therefore the issues to follow in order to get to the heart of suPel?srumo's deeply internalized rebellion against architecture. 'rlie entire national university was put to test in the 1960s, pressured by students and many of thc faculties to renovate the archaic
36
gree. Zevi's American connections and deep dedication to reforming Italian architectural culture had immediate impact on post-war debates. H e quickly established under the aegis of AI'OA the first "organic school" in Italy inspired largely by Frank Lloyd Wright. Many younger Italian architects joined efforts with Zevi in reconstituting the Roman scene. O n e of the challenges was to re-evaluate and re-conceprualize a contemporary architectural style that could reconcile both Modernist and Neo-classical contaminarion from rhe Fascist period. Over thc next decade. Mario Kdolfi, Adalberto Libera and Luigi Moretti among others, developed an urbanistic architectural language that, through the sponsorship of IN,\-Casa, the State-subsidized housing authority, succeeded in promoting the development o f a n urban-scale hybrid Modernism combining labour intensive craft-work with advanced concrete frame technol~gies.~ The urban fabric in and around Milan was heavily damaged during the drawn-out allied bombing campaigns. As the country's major economic centre, reconstruction proceeded quickly. T h e development of the city's regional master-plan, conceived with the participation of the Milanese members of CIAM, went largely unchallenged by the city's traditional planning strategists. The MoveInent. for Architectural Studies (MSA) was founded in Milan in 1945 with the goal of opposing a traditional academic education. The Lombard city was already predisposed to developing a Functionalist and Neo-rationalist style of architecture to plug the many damaged sites. Milan's publication houses quickly became the principal platforms for national debates on the future of Modernist architecture. Ernesto Narhan Rogers took over Dornrrs from G i o Ponti in 1946 and then moved over to launch an improved Casabella-Corrtinuit in 1954 (the magazine remained under his direction until 1967). In 1947 the Milan Triennale opened its VIII edition featuring the most recent post-war developments in social housing and urban reconstruction. Florence would also have its opportunities to grab the centre of the debate, but it seems that each occasion was squandered by internecine quarrels among bitterly competing interests. There are three kcy aspects that when collapsed together help explain the peculiar condition of Florence's conflictual artistic and architectural culture in the post-war period. The first was the failed reconstruction of Florence's city centre, heavily darnaged during the German wartime withdrawal on 4 August 1944; the second concerned the equally disappointing manner in which the city expanded to ~iieetthe growing populatio~iand manufacturing needs in rhe same period; the third was the significance of the student activist lnovements in directly and indirectly contributing to reconstituting the School of Architecture into one of the most openly receptive - if also least recognized -grounds for architectural
commercial districts abandoned to more ad hoc rebuilding meth-
Benedetto Croce, while Leonardo Savioli's more timid Micheluc-
Ricci, did not gain much public support." In Manfredo Tafuri's opinion the ensuing proposals for the heavily damaged areas "...led to feeble and greatly colnpromised reconstruction of the histori-
e j o sa[d!su!~d aql 01 Injql!q aq 01 panu!luos uert\l a1!qmZsanss! [elnlsal!qsJe aless-ucq~nuo pasnsoj blled!supd Bu!u!ema~ aruox 'so961 aql q 8 n o ~ qploq l saqxls aqJ .Jaq,oue auo m o ~ ~su!ls!p j Ll!luap! [eJnlsal!qsJe 10 les!%oloap! alq!Ba[ i([qeuosea~e pamas
-laA!un s!eqsJe pus paleplno aql 1su!e8e sa188n~lss!da asaqJ
soo!~el!Be pal-luapnls aql uo pr1n~ruo-~~ll~qoso3q~s~ u! a u y aql le 8u!
aql B u ! ~ n ~ ! ~ s u'asmoss!p os [eJnl[ns L ~ e ~ o d r u a l u oasq ~ u! sluaAa 1ues!j!u8!s lsom aql pu!qaq aJam ue1:Ty pue aruox 'payad JEA\ -]sod a,e!parum! aql U,I :pauasqo !AaZ o u n q .uo!lsnJlsuos pus u%!sapBu!p[!nq '8u!uueld ueqm ,sa!l!s aA!lsadsal l!aql u! pa8eBua a ~ o m~ eSEA\ j kqnsej qsea uept\l pue aruox q o q UI dllnsej am1 -sal!qsle au!lualols aql j o asueAaIa1aql pampa1 Kla~ahasa m q 01 smaas 'asuaJolg j o uo!]snllsuosaJ aql uo 'csuossa[,, ye!lua~odaql j o I n o a8~ama01 asmoss!p lelnual!qsJe ulapom lusnalal j o pu!y bue l u a ~ a 01 ~ dpa~!dsuosl a q l sasuelsmnsl!s j o ]as aBue1ls aqJ ,;a~aqmas[a suo!l!sod ~ olja[ j 01 -ohauaa opleuoa? Kq pamo[[oj ' $ 9 6 ~u! ! u o ~ e n oo s p o p n ~ ' z 9 6 1 u! e l a q q ollaqlepv auo b q auo puc 's046r ale[ aql Xq eu3o[og u! luaml~edap8u!Jaau!8ua aql 01 a[!xa-j[as olu! luam !ssn[aqs!Ty : s ~ o s s a j o ~luau!ruo~d d sou S!I j o kuuru so961 a q l j o p o ! ~ a d b~ea s!ql u! lsol asualo[;I ,;,,a~nlsal!qs~e ~I!A\ op 01 Bu!qlou seq qs!q~\ssaso~de qBno1ql jlasl! palsn~lsuos-olne...,,Ll!s aql se sJ!ns -1nd 1es!laJoaql ~ a d a a p - ~ aolu! ~ a slaqssal s,1ooqss aql j o palualel lsom aql Bu!qsnd e p u e l s !p o p l e ~ oue!ls!~3 o~ 01 Bu!p~osse' a ~ n l n j s&lp aql m o l j slsal!qsle Bu!pea1 s,asuaJolj j o luawa8eBuas!p PI -01 aql aq p p o m sa!l!unl~oddo pass!m asaql j o u y j a Jau aqJ .ha -qd!~ad8u!puadxa L[p!de~aql j o uo!lsnllsuos pup Bu!uue[d aql 10 ' a ~ l u a saql j o uo!lsnllsuosal aql Jaql!a u! aloJ ~eluamnJlsu! ue j o padd!~lspue ap!se paqsnd sayasruaql punoj slsal!qsJe au!luaJ -old ~ u a u ! u o ~Isom d aql ' u ~ a l l e dle!y!mej X[Bu!sea~su!ue amos -aq p[nom leqm UI .]uarudola~aplale[ s'i(l!s aql j o qsnm l o j pallns -uos b [ a ~ eam,%\ ~ sIsal!qxe aqJ ,;an[eA [elnlsal!qsJe l u e l ~ o d m ! s,~sa!o~d aql InsJapun 01 pamaas k[uo 'auoz @!nsnpu! yea[q e m o J j ssolse Lpsa~!pK a l l e ~OUJV aql j o l e o l q l aql le 'a~!saql j o uo!~sal -as paz!ql![od K l a l e u n ~ ~ o j u aql n 'aue8~os'Ll!unmmos mau leap! ue qsle~ssm o l j 8u!deqs u! paassns p!p !JJX PUB !IO!AES U a w \ . s y ~ e duaa18 j o luamdola~apl o sa>!hlas alenbape u! I S ~ A -u! 01 8u!nsq Inoql!m 'a1nlsal!qsle j o bl!lenb a q l au!mJalap pue sal!s j o as!oqs aql a ~ e u ! u o p01 alqe aJam sJolsai\u! L l ~ a d o ~ pue d [C!~UWU'J aql ,u!e8e a s u o .uo!s!~ ysel p[non\ osle Bu!le~luasuos mou sem payad em-]sod aql u! q u \ o ~ % p a l aql j o qsnm alaqm 'h!s aql j o scale l e ~ a q d ! ~ aaql d j o uo!lsnJlsuos pus Bu!uucld aql 'arqA\
bly energetic, with extensive meetings, assemblies, all-night sit-
Kaprow, the sound artists from l3uxus." But in less than a flash,
more events and experimental projects." Piero Frassinelli opined: "...Radical architecture is born in the occupied university. One lives there and one sleeps there ..." Over the Ions term, the point may in fact not have been whether the reforms to the university system ever were entirely successful; some reforms were achieved, others never came close.'" T h e students and the faculty engaged in a decade-long ideological battle over the substance of a contemporary architectural education and this critical discourse undoubtedly succeeded in recasting the fundamental issues of the Florentine school. The prolonged struggle for educational reform is to be credited with furnishing the powerful rhetorical ammunition exploited so proficiently by the Superarcbiterlure generation. And then of course there is the historically rich city of Florence, whose entire economy functioned outside of major industries like Milan or the huge bureaucracies like Rome. Florence was primarily an artisan-manufacturing centre with a very powerful shopkeeper middleclass. Students attending the School of Architecture in Florence in the 1960s had a much harder time finding work, o r getting swept into working class struggles, or protesting national policies. Without the distractions of the big city setting, students moved in smaller circles: but one event in 1966 would act to pull the \\thole architectural community together
the past, now buried deep under metres of mud and debris. Scenes ments of artifacts from the river? sediment and painstakingly handling them like birds caught in an oil slick were emotionally stirring, but ultimately a setback to the cause. The planning for the first Superarcl~irecrr~re exhibition in Pis-
the Arno valley as an enormous lake.
dle class were incapable of seeing beyond the city's customary traditions. With all the talented artisans and small manufacturing in a state of existence that was neither reliably authentic nor confurniture and leather luxury goods for the upper classes. Alessandro Mendini's land of "Good design" could be almost anywhere
42
If in fact Florence was hopelessly blocked by traditional conventions, the city's artistic community had been taking important steps towards building a receptive place for an alternative contemporary art culture. Florentines were gradually becoming acquainted with the most important players on the European art circuit. Maria Gloria Bicocchi's gallery Centrodiffusionegrafica on Piazza Saltarelli (later to become a d t a p e s 22, the pre-eminent video centre featuring the likes of Bill Viola) was one of the first galleries to bring internationally acclaimed artists like Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol, performance artists like Allan
tions threw the two events out of sequence. There would be little time for Archizoom and sUPER5'TUD10 to evolve between the two
sentative medium itself, as it does from their subversive message. SUPERSTUD~O from beginning to end stripped architecture down to i n most essential meaning. SUI'ERSTUDIO requires additional levels of reading, precisely because there are degrees of deception constantly present in their elaborately assembled images and projects. Their highly seductive and visually pleasing visions tend to veil a biting critique collaged just below the surface. Each stage of their work is meant to eel back another layer of social paralysis, of futile dreams and debilitating social infrastructures. SUPERSTUDIOworked from positions of deep familiarity, destabilizing from within each and every aspect of the architectural discourse. Florence, as one of the most significant artistic destinations o n the 19th-century Grand Tour, finds itself transported in the work of SUPERSTUDIOinto a dimension of science fiction, history's other." Twelve Carrtionary Talesfor Christmas: Pren~o,ti!io~ts of the M)~sticalRebirth of Urbanism, apart from its anti-utopian visions and very personal form of inquisitiveness, refuses to celebrate the role of architecture and urban design in the construction of city lile.'" The exquisitely drafted sections, axonometrics and illustrations depicting the twelve cities reassure the
Piero Frassinelli, seem in the end to be much closer to a critique o n the present than evocations for the future: the twelve scenes unfold like exaggerated projections on some of o u r most common obsessions, where consumer culture goes blind, bureaucracies go mindless, high-technology pacifies. This may also be interpreted as a critique of Americanization, a rising hen omen on in the contemporary Italian scene. The suggestive subtitle, "SUPERSTUDIO evoke nvelve visions of ideal cities, the supreme achirvement of twenty thousand years of civilization, blood sweat and tears. The Final Heaven of Man in possession of Truth, free from contradiction, equivocation and indecision; totally and forever replete with his own PERFECTION ...", implies just such a world specially made for you, with no need to do anything except to find the button. The project was not really about anti-utopias, but was SUPERSTUDIO'S stark premonition on where contemporary trends were leading. office had schizoFrom 1966 to 1973 the SUPERSTUD~O phrenically advanced by pursuing o n one hand pragmatic and successlul furniture designs, train cars, residential and commercial buildings (the group could count o n the industrial design experience of Roberto Magris), and on the other by progressively dissecting those very same projects to reduce the variations, to streamline the waste, to eliminate all clutter. The process devel4s oped into a series of checks and balances, whereby the theory en-
trolled and modified. This is what Adolfo Natalini referred to as "theory
+
practice
+
theory check", that ran into all sorts of
This may well have been an inevitable outcome for a research project that began with the typological ordering of architectural monuments, images and ambient technology; and gradually spread farenough out to bring into its orbit a world of objects and buildings, of monuments and landscapes, until nothing remained untouched by its reductive powers. SUPERSTUDIOdutifully maintained
us want to change ... but also allow us to retreat back to the con,. fort of our real homes, our heavy objects, our annoying lives. But from 1973 on, coinciding with Adolfo Natalinii teaching appointment at the School of Architecture in Florence, the group moved in hvo different directions. It was a moment of deep reassessment. The individual members began working more independently on different types of projects, but also moved into the academic research and teaching. Natalini's class, taught with the assistance of Alessandro Poli, Cristiano Toraldo di Francia and Piero Frassinelli, investigated the everyday use of objects in contemporary culture. Under the title of Ex~ra-UrbanMa~erralCukure,students were asked to return to their local family origins, and help anthropologically document the material culture slowly disappearing in the countryside. Natalini's famed lectures on the walking stick -he boasts a large collection of handmade and manu-
48
The course in effect initiated a second phase in the SUPERSTUDIO oeuvre; whereby there is a concerted attempt ro find a way to reconstruct the bare elements of a new architecture. T h e anthropological research on primitive Italian peosanr culruse, its tools and shelters, was one of the few projects of its kind going on during these years. Considcring the massive scale of the fami exodus into the 1960s, the real risk, that has since proved founded, was the permanent loss of a highly sustainable lowgrade human ecology. E s t ~ < r - U r b o1'4oter;ol ,~ C ~ ~ l t r ibears re little resemblance to the fanfare and hoopla created around the 1973 Global Tools symposium, which remaincd transfixed by consumer culture. SUPERSTUDIOinitiated Histog~a171s,back in 1969, with the intention of reducing design and architecture to a single threedimensional manipulation of surfaces. When SUPERSTUDIO began its study on the design of silnple multi-functional utensils in 1973, it w:~snot to design a better and more marketable product bur to de that were uniquely versatile. find proven l ~ w - ~ r a technologies The peasant farmer Zeno, in his native home in Tuscany, rebuilt a bent-wood chair from the turn of the century, piecc by piece, over the course of about fifty years. Every reiteration presenled the chair's proportions and function, though each time thc artifact was slightly modified. The goal of the research was to documenr and le:~rnfrom these extraordinary human experiences; but this phase of SUIJEI(STUDI~'S research lacked the checks, balances and earlier ironies that might have successfully lifted this project back on to a more international platform. A broad overvie\\, of the project including many examples drawn from tlie student research was later mounted at the 1978 Venice Biennale to exhibit the category of Architecture, under the title of l'roject Ze11o. This strangely Heideggerian vision of the new world, a familiar revisiting of van Gogh's contemplation on a pair of peasant shoes, suggests a project that nonetheless reconnects with the r e c l ~ r of t ~ architecture. SUI'ERSTUDIO also presented The WiJe o J L o t , consisting of a welded iron table and moving tower designed to hold a fluid pouch filled with water. A tube dripped water over five salt nloulds representing the historical stages of architecture: the pyrsmid, the coliseum, the basilica, Versailles and the Villa Savoye. With time, as in fact was the case, each of the salt moulds disappeared, a demonstration on archirecture's inevitable dissolution. This project more than anything else physically embodied the dilemma of ;~rchitecture'sephemeral existence, \vith the additional tension (hat such a delicately framed iron and s;llt structure produces by sitting at the edge of Venice's Grand Canal. The artifact has since been lost, but its idea lives on as the anti-monument dedicatcd to the mother of all monuments. The strange combination of professional practice and theoretical insurrectionism; of profitable industry contracts and sarcastic
I
assaults on consumerism; of global fame and peasant culture, are the conflictual relationships in a body of research committed to engaging mainstream society. Thc members of S U I ~ E R S T U Dhave ~~ sought t~ discover the way towards making a better society, made up of individu:~lsresponsible to their communities, critically cog. nizant of their natural resources and shared cultures. The fundamental issues from the group's early beginnings Xrcere all directed towards a c r ~ t i q i of ~ ea hegemonic modernization: N ~ .
If the architect cannot become architecture, is there anything left but to take one's leave of the stage?
' P Ginsbow, ,I Hirtnn $ Corilc~,~pomn lia(i8 (Lon. rlon:l'cn~tlinhoks, 1990.
' D . Gi;~che~ri, ,l,ini SCI. r.r,,lt, cr,anac;n 1" c/ti,,ai (Pis% BTS. 2002. 191 ' S Krlr.tocr. "Thc Horel Lobby". In 'The ~ L l o ~Orr Jirlnr.nl: IY1c.inirr &*!)a, ~rtlnsl.Thonl:>s Y L c r i n (Ca~nbridpc,Mnsr.: t l n r -
1970 imld 19721, h u I~L I ~ I rrsctlich n.as oor get porriblc l a d o in l he school. l'eIcr Lang. inlcrrir\v x i t h hlc5smdro Poli Iflorcncc, Deccmher 20021.
and minorron~lccrionrbc. ' Ilornc war bombitrdcd I" ~\r,eenthcm, bo, rhcr were m d ;trotand #hc st;,. onlike Archiroom. who 11on ; ~ n d y;trds. mainly (corn he beginnin): e ~ l r ~ c ddrnluging t h e a . o r h p d;~u ns s right and Iamncliar r c ~ i d c ~ ~distTiCI ~ i i l l Of San group of fricndr or cohonr. L ~ ~ ~ ~ , ~ ~ . " According ro Irl.lrca L ,-fie,,,.een Grirpigni, sutdcnr> rcvolr. Conrinuilgnnd Crisis: t l i s r d bec;>oscthes were con- w r y md I'rojecc in L ~ l i ; ~ ~ rciously ;~s..trct h ~ soclcly r ArchlrccrurJ CUI,,,~~in ,Ilc \vould nor be sblc ro proP O ~ C Uperiod.., ,~~ 2~ (no, ridcthcm\\,i~hworkur rhc 15. B ; ~ C I ~ 2000. ~ J , 7).
.
M.
(;rispigni.
"GLWC~. (venice. ~ I . , C ~ , I , ~ .
~ r i o n e poliric;~ , c violenrn. 11 '6R a I < O ~ ~ "in , A.
Agarti. L. P;>,serln~,md N. Tr~tnfi~glin, edh. lri ' i r 1 r ; ~ m e i bragbr Jd '68 (Milan:
194-951.
1999.
,', so lirrle hiSroric ccnrre. in Lcr, can bc con.
3idered h i r ~ o r i ~ ~ l l ~ uc, bur for chc ~ c nmillion
denrr from a v;tri region from RcFSioCmilie. Genoa and thc South. ar well as r " Fontan2 (cit. 1951, '' IM. T;lfuri, H,rtnn,o/l/nl. largcnumbcrof fore~jinrnlimr Arrbiiecl,,rc, 1944dcncn O f the porriblc iuc198.7, rirnrl.JerricaLcvinc tors thsc lily behind Fla~ n c e ' rgrowing ppulnriry. (Cin,brdFe. M~rr.:Thc \r.nr orld admission by btlr Press. 1990. 71. " h l i n ~ o r cFanfmi \\,as ~ h e rhe school's prcridenr. national-levcl policicisn Con.t h a ~the city hsd l e s who sough[ f:~t,o~rs \ v i ~ b reridcnrisl Iproblcmr than rhc \lorking cli~rrcs,thcrc- rhe olhcr grca,er merropoby focu,ing his or~cntionr lirer and bccnure rhc !pro. fessorr wcrc n,ore iaccorion \\,orking cl;er districts blc having I n r professionto begin w i ~ h But accord ;,I ,vork l o rlirrrncr rhcn?. ingtoCrirri;lnoToraldodi And here \\.as ,~l\vayso f Franci;,, the destiny ofFlo. rcncr war and remains counerhecirs'r;inirric h c r locked i n the hitndr of rhe itngr IL?Nt~:tone.R o m ~ c c , 7 Dcccmbcr 19661. rhopkeepcrr. n,ho nrc on. \villing lo alloiv erperi- " "In his iwopural lerrurc for the new year, rc\,enlml: mentarion inro the cir?. 1%. rei L%!ng, interview with ,hat rhere w r n lack of
this ii.a trivis~lobrema~ion
p h r . Dcripns b y Arch!. zoom and Supciscudio". M Filer (no. 47. London, 20021. Aho see M . Capo. biunco. " G l i Anni Qui~rnnvn', i n M . Cnpobianco and C. Cilrreri. cdr. Ar. chirct~ami~rliilrrn: 191019.79 IN;~pler: Elecra Napoli. 1998. 1221, 'I. E. Cnrre". 'lnccrvirra ia BrunoZNi". 1991. inS0pee
of chc Florcnce School of hrchi~ecrurcwnspublished i n the Florentine daily in Decembcroil966. Thesrliclc ourlined rhe tcnuour condicionr t?dngthe rchod after che flwd, becoming a sonofwish lirr for the then Preside G i ~ i r c ~G~oer i who lpropored n new rh;lr a,ould relocatc rhe school inro (he pcriphcry running along the fwrhills on the RorcnccPni+l'ir. toia ilxir, LO deal with thc wpid 1r,p6n~oftheschwl'r populationduringthep~c. war pcriod (500rrudcnrs ln 1958 to 1500 in 19661. According l o ~ h address c by SO Gori, Florence drew xu-
ns to upen tire thesis pro-
\r,ider rnnjie of topics. Pirzoilo and Di
jcrts i o a
Crirtina. i n Gmhrllir-Co,i!i,ri,iId Ino. 287. Milan. lvlily 196-1.391 '' Tornldo di Frzlncin m w rhc fight to do arvay with lhc expensive nmdclr us a sign rhnr much tnorc had to ch;nnae: their demands were to opco the univeoicy ryrrcm co~?.er)~one.from nII social clurrer.\vi~hrnsrr ;ecnrible toercr)nne.such ,\r i n f s c ~rhc cost o f [he proferrionally m ~ d etmodelr for thc (hesir proiecl. T h n e \>.ere [he issuer [hat pro\,oked them to occupy the rec~or'roffice on Plap Z I San Marco in 1964. ami~h srbour lifly othcr students
our dirporitlon reparore inridenccthen, ~l>elirrrSt,and i ~ ~ ~ d e ~ u ~ ~ c e r .ar p a c lpse. r. n r c l ~ d c c l : ~ r ~ r h o ~ ~ ~ i n P i ~ ~ iiir n s r nor a prccire oblip- toia fc;lrured ciwdboard ittian roproviderhcmu;~nr and ~n~r.bn:trdi n r ~ n l h arhich (he univcrriiy and ~ions.l'ctcrLnnp,inrcn~iew thcrchool ingcnectl nccd, with C r ~ t h n oT o r ~ l d odi ilndrhitr iiirno~theprecire Francid (Filortmno. 7 Deresponribiliry ofthe domi. cember 20021. nant politicxl class to have ' C a p o n e ~ r oinnd Fmcnrrilcfr the Iralian r c h w l ryr- ni, i n G ~ n h c l i u . C o , ~ ~ i , > ~ , i ~ ~ i (no.287.Milnn.May 19W. ~ r m i n such abandon and misery". "Diwomo agli 5,". 401.
"V.Grc~otti." R c o l t i dcl corrruire". Crahelly 19M. 191. "In inrcn,iewrwith rcvcrnl members of Archimam and SUPERYTUDIO,hlaric Therer Stauffcr laced Dranzi, Corrctti. Dcg;ulello, and Tonddo d i Frenci;~as part of the group 111;tr occupicd the rector's office. See Slauffcr (cil. 35, foornore 37). " On the agenda were r l o dcnrs' demilndr to reeon. r,irucc thc existing power structures within (he oni. verri~y,to include rhe participstion ofrhcrmdentrin ar~demlcdecirionr.;~r $vcll
versity in 1963 ond 1901. Bur they were prerenr e.ar. licr ;m reaching arrir~antr. :' Toraldo d i France recalled that Ricri'r course had rhc r~udcntrwork on ftlll-rcnlc models, a conrmverriril .tppro;tcb jii\,cn thc rchool'r pcnchsln~for precise ink drmingr. Perer Lang, inrcrvicw wirh Crirr h n o Toraldo d i Franch (Filottrnno, 7 Decembcr 20021. '' Leonardo Ricci, "Prab. lemi per una nuovn maggior~nza",lecturc held nr thc FncoltB d i Firenzc i n orrarian ofthe faculry confcrence held i n Romc hc. t\\,een I 4 and 15 M ~ r c h 19M. Rq,nn,cd in C~rcrbel-
i n Romc. During the nr~cmblies[hey refused ro veuk bur chirped inrrei~d perrhcd on [he bcnchcr likes raosring birds. See Grispigni k i t . 3MI. '" "In 1968 rhe Iralii~n Schools of Archilecturc be-
" Umnir. 0 yello\v bound meekly news-stand publi-
and more could bc developed on each o i r h e indi.
c.lrian from Mondndari, v i d u ~ lmcmberr of the i ~ m u n d group. h4.znyof rhere godr rhe Florrntinc Radical were rhated. and it \\,auld cros-d. Scicnce Ficrion be imporrant ro go deeper works ar o son o f alterna- into su~cns-ruoro'sgroup tn.c or escapist li~eri~rure dynamic.
war quite
visionary drawings coming from the studios of young Florentines from 1966 on were an altogether different level of creation, image making and thought than mere product design. The drawings of SUPESTUDIO,Archizoom, UFO, Gruppo Strum, Gianni Pettena, Ugo La Pietra and others were, as Doug Michaels puts it, "kick ass design" but more importantly they were "creative initiatives", unlike anything being ~ r o d u c e din America at the time.' They suggested a fantastic architectural scene in Florence that made California seem very provincial and unimaginative. In today's \\.orld where architectural shifts and drifts are internationalized cquickly across cyberspace, it is hard to imagine a small museum city like Florence as a centre of international thought on architecture, urbanism and design. This small Tuscan city, as Peter Cook reminds us, is "a safe distance from Cape Canaverd, the galleries of New York and Dusseldorf, and even the snlelly factories of the P o valleyMand "there [is] hardly an insistent or threatening local milieu of mainstream architects worth bothering about".' The arch scenes of Rome, Venice and Milan were vibrant in their own ways, but this small museum and university city was very much a hot spot in the late 1960s. It had an architecture culture that revolved around one of Italy's most lively and politically engaged architecture schools, the best art and architecture book store in Italy Centro Di and Maria Gloria Bicocchi's out front gallery Centrodiffusionegrafica (later to become the important video tape gnllery art/tapes 22): Throughout the 1960s the seductively ironic and charged polemics of these Florentine architects were known in North h l e r ica through Italian magazines but SUPERSTUDIO did touch down in the United States at the Rhode Island School of Design for a moment in 1970. Its "strategist" Adolfo Natalini taught there for a semester with Archigrammer Mike Webb, and Austrians Raimund Abraham and Friedrich St Florian.' This connection with the world outside Italy changed dramatically in 1972 when the Museum of Modern Art in New York under the direction of design curator Emilio Ambasz created an amazing exhibition and spectacularly beautiful catalogue titled Italy: The New Dornertic
54
Landscape, Achievetnet~tsand I'roblems ofltalia~rDe.sig~z.~ The largest and most expensive exhibition in the history of MOMA,it featured alongside a survey of contemporary Italian industrial and doniestic product design a SUPERSTUD~O Mimocvent/Microcrrvirontnetrt as well as projects by Archizoom, Ugo La Pietra. Gruppo Strum, group 9999 and others.' It should be noted that during this period MOMA'S architecture department truly had its finger on the ~ u l s of e the moment. The Architecture and Design Department under Arthur Drexler created other important exhibits: Visiotra~~' Arch~tectrrre(1960). Architecture IVitbout architect^ (1965) and just before Neru Dotne.rtic Landscape, Edu-
ÿÿ be Webb Ratmund Abraham ~ d o l l oNarallni and Frledr ch St Florran 1970
stage for its penultimate moment on the international scene." It was the first to feature the young Florentines and none of the other visionary architectural draftsmen of the period: Cedric Price, Archigram o r the Austrians: Coop Himmelblau, Haus.Rucker-Co,
The exhibition and catalogue attempt to rectify this understand-
sign culture.
Thc Ncw Domestic Lndscape catalogue begins with a short discussion on domestication from Antoine d e Saint-Exupbry's Thl,r Little Pri~~ce: "You become responsible, forever, for what you have domesticated." "What does that mean - domesticated?" "It is an act too often neglected. It means to establish bonds."
...... "Please domesticate me", said the fox.
:
"I want to, very much", the little prince replied. "But I have not much time. I have friends to discover, and ;I great many things to understand." "One only understands tlie things that one domesticates", said tlie fox. "Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things already made ar shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so \ve have no friends any more. If you want a friend, domesticate me ..." "What must 1 do, to domesticate you?" asked rhe little prince. "...One must observe the proper rites ..." "What is a rite?" asked the little prince. "Those are ;icrions too often neglectedn, said the fox. "They re what make one day different from other days, one hour from other hours."" This call for design is quickly followed in the introduction with the disclaimer thar "design cannot solve all problems that precede its crearion and rhose that may arise f r o ~ nir"." If this were not cnough of a qualifier, Ambasz then proclaims the irrelevance of objects: "for many designers, the aesthetic quality of individual objects intended for private consumption [has] become irrelevant in the face of such pressing problems as poverty, urban decay, and the pollution of tlie environmenr now cncounrered in all industrialized countries"." Furthermore, soriie of these designers "despairing of effecring social change through design, regard their task as essentially a political one and therefore absrain from physical design of either objects or environments and channel their energies into the sraging of evcnrs and the issuing of polemical statements".'" These absraining designers, in rhe spirit of polemical discourse, are given a chapter in the caralogue ro stare their position and critique those with whom they disagree about the production of objects. The catalogue essay by Manfredo Tafuri, for and Archizoom for bcexample, attacks the work of sLJ~olU'l'L!~10 ing "liberation through irony [that] goes over the same ground covered by rlie utopias of the avant-garde of earlier years"." When
in society"." They do not "invent substantially new forms, instead they engage in a rhetorical operation of redesigning conventional objects with new ironic, ; ~ n dsometimes self-deprecatory socio-
tradictions and paradoxes of the firsr two groups. In thc first ten-
litical and philosophical action or complere \virhdrawal from the
mean here designed environments like T o ~ oFl I ~ U I I S / JU~~, I I~by I
modular housing industry. T h e history of modular housing is
56
er "conceive[sl of work as an autonomous acrivity responsibleonly to itself and does not question irs sociocultural context", simply refining "already established forms and f~nctions".:~ The second group o r rhe reformists. itre "morivated by a ~ r o f o u n dconcern for the designer's role in a society that fosters consumption as one mciins of inducing individual happiness, thereby insuring
most co~ilpellingapproach since it "corresponds to the preoccupations of a changing society", and is what "rhe exhibition is
created a nine-panel project that arguably stands out as the iconic project from the exhibit. The division of Italian design into three prevalent attitudes is followed in the catalogue by the two sections "Objects" and "Environments" that parallel and document the exhibition. The cat-
DIO
for their implications of more flexible patterns of use and arrange-
to completely different categories. In "Objects" designs are seand finally "implications of more flexible patterns of use and arrangement"."These definitions seem flexible and loose because
urn. It is a domestic product that appears in many Italian design
concerns and their professional practices" can be placed togethwhich they work"." In the first "Objects" grouping selected for their formal and technical means are domestic designs by Joe Colombo, Vico Magistretti, Gaetano Pesce, Marco Zanuso and Richard Sapper's early television boxes, Ettore Sottsass' classic Valentine portable Olivetti typewriter, the Castiglioni brothers' lamps. Massimo Vi-
see much difference in concept beyond their marketing.
Italian conundrum and needs an explanation. Adolfo Natalini commenting on Italian architects involved in this sector has said, "its super production of ideas is due to the condition of complete unemployment among architects. In the Florence School OF Architecture, there are 6,000 students, and architects in Italy are in charge OF only 25% of the total built volume of building. The socalled 'Furniture industryyhas only t \ \ , ~Firms with more than 500 employees in more than 28,000 Firms (average number of employccs 4.8) and can thercfore, thanks to its 'craftsmen' size. allo\\' itself an ample margin of little experiments"." While SUI'ERSI.UD~Odid believe For a titile that the luxury goods market, created by an extant artisanal Italian economy, offered them the opportunity to express design ideas that were closed off to them in the building sector, they evcntually canie to believe it was a deadend street. It \\,as, thcy decided, little more than an "inducement to COLISUII~C".I" In thc second section of the exhibition "Environments" Arnbasz presents a detailed, maniFesto-like seven-page Design Program of "environmental concepts" that he hoped would become physical designs." The Design Progra~~r includes minutely detailed programmatic considerations and options that include cost goals (economically available to "low to middle income Italian Families"), exhibition light sources, a list OF "general considerations" and a final separate essay, "Manhattan: Capital of the Twentieth Century" that all attempt to put contemporary problems OF the domcstic landscape in context for the designers." It is liberally sprinkled with quotes From Siegfried Giedion's T11e A r c l ~ i f e c t f ~orfe Transition, Henri LeFebvre's The Explosio12,Marxism and the Fre11c11 Upheaval, Ambasz's Princeton professor Abraham A. Moles and ~II The Manhattan text, Howard Searles' N O I I . H Z I I I IEnvironnrer~!." informed by W:ilter Benjamin insights, presents the island as an infrastructure that provides the Framework in which "all crystallized fragments rescued from the city ofmemory, and all the Fragments envisioned For the city OF tlie imagination may dwell together in an ensemble, if not by reason of thcir casual or historical relationships (since no reconstruction is hereby intended), then by grace OF their aBinities"." This essay originally published in Casabrlla seems gratuitous and his call that it inspire designers to "make incursions into i~iiaginaryrealms" is hardly necessary For groups like suPmsruuro."Based on chis detailed Design Progra~n each invited designer or group is asked to design "a domestic environment adaptable enough to permit the enactment OF different private and communally imagined new events.. . sufficiently fixed to permit the re-enactment OF ... constant aspects OF our individual and social memory"." In tlie Desig~rProgram Ambasz presents his view that the probso lems of urban society are so severe that designers must be chal-
anti-utopias are scvcrely criticized in the most po\verful text in The
ri's preferred standards OF earlier avant-gardes, sincc they risk be-
' M. Tsfuri,Hirrog o/IrnIianArcl,itcdurr: 11.1iL1181 (C~~mbridgc, Milas.: The
His text in the "Critical Articles" section of the catalogue is dense and insightful on 20th-century Italian design, but his belief was that SUI~BIISTUDIO'S"anti-utopian regression \\,as therefore fated to give birth to new utopias" and that a "private leap into the sublimated universe of 'artificial ~aradises'has not proven prescient"." They did call for a \vorld "without cities, castles or roads" but this
h l l l Prerr, 1990. 3831. ' Doug Michselr. i n nn cmstl conversation wirh the nurhor. 2 January 2003. Perer Lnng. "Suicidal De. sires". in thl, c~tralo~oe. ' Doug Michaels, i n an e. mail conl8enstton*irh the author. 2 J;tnuary 2003.
See G. Celant'r 'Rndicill Archircaure". ln Arnbarr. 4. Icir. 380). "All rhcnew 1r.drm ilrchirecrure Archizoom and Supcntud 6 a . e c c . - I rh;>r I t s rims Anre conmpruil ;an behnuiot~nl.Proclaiming it. lelf ar mdicitl. i r no l o n ~ e r svirher ro be commercialized or rlienated, or to renounce irr o\vn idei~r~nnd "
-
!?~enrr,~rrdPmbbnrg/ltnl- b u their ~ aim ofdireng.tFing ian Dcrign (1972). ~hemsclver from, itnd ' C w k k i t . 49). bmlkinl: ~vlth,thc prcrenl
l i o n a, MohlA i n 1972.
bilities of the design strategy. In the spirit of 1960s' polemical and protest culture SUPERSTUDIO, placed on ~ I O M A ' S New Dornrrfic
to us at the start of the 21st century.
"ihrd
Hawmer, not only arc the
" Ibtd
designerr fc.ttured i n this exhibit edunted 2%archi. [ecw but or informs all of their ~ h a u p h and ~ r motivarianr. Rcnzo P m o devlrcd .I lighlwei~htstructure to cowr the uppcr and lower terraces o f rhe museum'r garden, bur remained un-
"lbid. '' l b ~ d20. ' ' IbiJ " Ilnd :' lbid 2 I. Ribrd 139-210. *'lhld 21. " lhd. " lh~d.
tionr from the ~IOMA l i bmry. The next rnaior ;nrchirecrure exhibition after
" lhirl 94. " lbid 11 I.
*' Ibid. " Anlbarr. ed. (cil. 139-
46). ':Il~rd147. lb,d 13946. " Ibrd 147. " Ibld 148. lhid. "lbid 143 "/bid, " Ihid. 242: oriGinslly in "sul)Khnu~,~o". CnmbellN
" D. Grnhrm.
'Art in ReI;lrion to Architecu~re/ Arrhitcrturc i n Relatton to
" A r n b ~ ~ rerl. r , (cir. 242). '-'lhiil 420. "'lhrd 421.
" lhid 245. The Neru Do,,,mic Lind- '^ A. Nnlnlini. 'l~sly: The ~ ~ o ~ c ~ ~ ~ ~ r T h l , e A r c h Ne\v i t e c ~ ~Domestic ~re Lnndolthe fleorfx Arts i n 1976, scape". Ar
Thus a series of guerrilla warfare actions are born, violence is imposed and suffered ... this is which creates the need for a "strategy for living", i.e. a series of practical rules, first-aid manuals, welltried methods for smoothing over discord and bringing back peace and calm. Living strategy is substantially a method for reaching the self-consciousness of horno bobitons through a series of spiritual exercises. And certainly every "manual of spiritual exercises for serene living" must suggest the abandonment of all desire to be always "in fashion" or the desire to be always stylish, or amusing, or to be liked at once: that is, it advises an immediate abandon of false problems, manias, hysteria.
74
The Egyptians and the Etruscans used to put household objects in their tombs: today also most houses are the tombs of objects. Objects become museum-ified very quickly, and are kept, it doesn't matter whether for a long or short time, with all the dusty eternity of useless ornaments. If the purpose of furnishing is to permit human relationships, e\,erything we have about us must always and only be a witness to our mental o r emotional relationships: a series of objects to keep like messages in bottles, about our public and private histories. But the important thing is to keep ourselves free from fear rep r d i n g memories: the important thing is to keep control of the situation, with all its possibilities for change, for abolishing or conserving. Each operation, each variation, must however take place without drama, because usually nothing is bettered or worsened, just changed. In the field of variability, much is talked (too much perhaps) of mobile space, consumable space, transformable space. There is the search for metabolisms and cinetization, an architecture of "mobility, functionality, usability" is substituted for an architecture of "firmitas, utilitas, venustas". At any rate, there is an effort to move what is still, without trying to stop that \vhich is moving too much. is not that of searching for a house which imiThe tates movement, which follows the man who mo\,es, lives, con-
sumes, dies; the great problem is that of finding a house above passion, a house of calm serenity, a house for all seasons. We already move about enough ourselves to rendcr the architecture variable, changing its relationships with the passing of time, with the changing of the seasons and life. Modern furnishing is like a great race (from one exhibition to another, from shop to magazine) towards the most beautiful, the newest, the most functional. But to come in first o r last has no importance if the whole race is wrong, and the race of consumerism is definitely wrong. Thus, the thing to d o is not to take part in the race, but to get out of it as soon as possible, and to isolate oneself apart to col-
The problem is not to furnish roorns. and not even to propose objects both amusing and perishable ... The problem is to furnish deserts, to awake consciousness from long, dogmatic sleep, and force backward the monster created by the sleep of reason. Once, silver was used for protection against vampires and werewolves; now we use marble, chrome, mirrors and rare roots against similar nightmare creatures, but now it is easier to distinguish them because they are nightmares in daylight, born, under fancy lights, lampshades and appliques, floating on blow-up cushions, boxed into modular, transformable coffins; but at the same time it is also more difficult, because now they frighten no-one (or almost): a policy of progressive narcosis encourages them, and the illusion of well-being feeds them. The pass-word is still let yourself go, let yourself be guided by Big-brother-\\rho-knowsmore-than-you, above all because Big Brother is himself a civilized person, \\'ha understands perfectly that one cannot argue about taste and everyone has his o\vn personality, and so everyone has the right to choose for himself when it comes to slipcovers for the car, the lamps for the TV set and the seat-cover (or better still, the three-piece set) for the WC ...
g
131 1 1
O n e has the lrnpresslon of a serles of hard, s h ~ n pleccs ~ n ~ of
I
We don't ~nrendto lanore u ~ s s ~ o or n ades~res,or detdch ourselves
1
and d e s ~ r efor t h ~ n g sthemselves
they wllIgrow In the ddrk u n t ~ they l become trlump
wastc to be avoided is that of intelligence.
object made with the instruments of reason, appe
w:c,ln
ogmm or cube, and to p l ~ n them t In sltt~ng-rooms,bedrooms, on
! 11
~maelne-itelnotv and then we can beam to fill 11, slowly,
I\!:
1
'+
fprrion: the comolementnriness from the fact that. together, thev
serrcs of dctrons w ~ t h o u tvtolettce, rcndlng to rnnlnrarn non cornm u n ~ c d t ~ nsystems g closed, dnd at the same tlme to state a slngle ldca of a serene and exact way of 11fe
around it as images. This is a kind of living with n o great adventures. which makes its choices without haste. constructine a form
!
of the oresent. that of Le Corbus~er.Mtes. ~ i e u e rMart , Srarn, Adl-
already brllllantly passed all tests, ~ n c l u d ~ nthe g hdrdesr of dl], And there 1s other furn~tureon the way to belonging to the
There are uleces of furn~turem chrome and mlrror, s h ~ n ymetal
lit!
I did NOTwant to find a monumental architecture.
theory" of architecture and art. I was more and more convinced of its instrumentality with respect to social and economic forces, of its ambiguous aesthetic-artistic ambition, of its impossibility to be authentic and to serve Man. In the course of this critical ~ h a s e
to discern the birth of objects and of architecture starting from the primordial, from men "bare" of knowledge and experience. Leaving aside the "cultivators", sedentary owners of land, of cultivation, and of specific, already institutionalized cultures, we followed the ancient and modern nomadic "gatherers", the "inventors" of something out of nothing, out of flotsam, the great, the true, the only "improvisers" of design, of architecture, of town-planning; the few who, either because they have not yet collapsed under the cozy, warm, all so sweet weight of mass culture or because they are drop-outs from it, still had the brilliant prerogatives of chilAs you can clearly see, our journey, far from being a zigzagging course without a real destination, as was often reproached us, was according to me remarkably consistent and logical. A descent, perhaps apish but resolute, from one branch to the other, down to the roots of human doing, down to where Architecture is without Architects. To the only mental place where we might have been able to find (maybe!) the magic formula for the Invention of the New Architecture. It was there, at our disposal, ready to reveal itself, to let itself
Once we reached this place, we realised however that this search was no longer the business of the SUPERSTUDIO but of each one of us. In other words that another journey began here, this time an individual one.
a2
My search for architecture now appears to me like that of the Graal, of the Philosopher's Stone, the Phoenix. And I believe I did not find it. I say "I believe" because I might even have found it without realizing it! I understand that this is not a very credible claim, but I shall try to explain. First of all let us see what I did NOT want to find:
I did NOT want to find a fashionable architecture.
1
I
I did NOT want to find a bmur;/r,l architecture. Instead I always sought a "skinless" architecture, an architecture in which the outside arises from the inside, straight out of the inner life of the men who live in it. And therefore architectures the outside of which could be utilized, gone through, touched, made use of just like the inside, plain and hill architectures, an anthill architecture for men (of course just the opposite of a phalanstery!); an "invisible" architecture (in the sense of the "invisible man"). That is why I say I did not find it. Indeed I fail to see it, even if I have a feeling that, like in the fdm on the "invisible man", it has grown close to me, on the verge of revealing its outline in a puff of dust, of steam or in the rain: pouring rain (like in Rashornon!) that Gavroche sought cover from in the elephant of the Bastille. The first example of an architecturehon architecture that en-
come an architect. "Oh unexpected usefulness of the useless! Charity of great things! Bounty of giants! This outsize monument, that had contained one of the emperor's thoughts, had become an urchin's shell: the lad had been accepted and taken in by the colossus. The bourgeois dressed in their Sunday best walking by the elephant of the Bastille would say, examining it with their bulgiig eyes and an expression of contempt: 'What is it good for?"' Victor Hugo, Les MisPrables, Book VI, I1 An architecture can be consciously negative, it can be intentionally designed to be rmpleasat~t, uncorn/ortable, to not work. Bernard Tschumi Florence, December 2002
f
2 P
'
1966-68
Superarchitecture: to the Rescue!
The first chapter deals with the newly consrituted group SUPERSTUDIO following their debut announced at the December 1966 S~perarchilecllrreexhibition in Pistoia. The period benveen 1966 and 1968 represents the group's early developmental stage, constructed on a critical re-evaluation of their educational experiences and tied to the contemporary architectural and design culture in Florence. We recognize this first brief period to be the Slrperarchitecrurephase in the group's evolution, an intensive initiation to the world of architecture that paralleled the early development of Archizoom. Many of their core theoretical and representational concepts they later developed originated in this earliest phase benveen 1967 and 1968. Simultaneously, from their first offices in Via Bellosguardo 1, the group organized a fully professional architectural and design office, that attempted to translate the group's theoretical and ideological concerns into "practical" projects. The office began with Adolfo Natalini. Cristiano Toraldo di Francia, Roberto Magris, and after April 1968 Piero Frassineh. Benveen 1967 and 1968 three main themes were identified for further investigation: 1. Archi~ec~ure and Mo~rrrrnen~ 2. Archr~ec~rrre and I~noge 3. Techtlo~norphicArchirpcrure These three categories were subsequently synthesized in three major theses: I~luenriorrDesign and Evasion Des~g~i (1967),]ourrrey into the Real111of Reaso~r( 1 9 6 8 4 9 ) and the development of a "single design", A Caralogue of Villas (196748).
=
;
2 G
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"8 Aluo pan81IOU $8 a111ieqt pue -!11nmAlddns noA a r e > ~ n ! aql ) ul loalp Alalns IIeqr aMpue adoq ul '.an11 noA ralem leqlhlaod aql r! 11, .Ino!neqaq lo ru,alled6u!Alddnr A q ~ o Pue anol lo1 rralun 6ulqllue op la6ual lelll lanamq laqwamal plnoqs 1euo813unlAllel~laodale 1941~llnpodd ou IlPUSaM ePlOl WnSlnS qG14 "M adoq lnoql!MPUP laS!ldlns 6~lAlddn~Aq . ~ O M O MU!I pana#q,e uo 18 aslel pue ueaq aql~ana188par I~O~I~MSADMID lnq 'OU 10 alqeqrer aq leuluauanlonu, IDIOI q ~ n ~ ol qslh* a~ 13allalul aql la rql!ll 'rlnolmlq6!~qul paladlualrlp lo a1rqM lea,o an~le~ado lanl3 PIP SarUOlr 11119 101a ~ ralllr~ l p a l u m padlda(a(~eiedueaplpnj e pue an~iew,o, r l r n p l d m o l a 411M1~0llel3~n~ap10 s!sA~eue101 a u l l ')!?a pup aluonua 'worloq p u e d o ~lo rrarn aql lie fiu~nlonu~ rueawrlql OUYI~M hlaod q l l 6ulhll ~ arodlnd ruoner8pul an6enqlf~'rallomam .ul.aq. e :lralold 6uol auo st repha- ajbts e qllM Iunnrual l n o q i l ~ x o q31q1~1e '111001 P U! 1eq1a>ualr!xa ue lo1 r u o ~ ~ e p u naql o~ IIWS ah\Puc'lPal l n o q l l ~ l n q anll Allenrn .q>olq ~ e l l u a p l r aull ~an11 Ael st op 01 !"DM a m l e w puno~fi '"ua6lllalu! 4 1 lo sllaq leas all1 Aluo o w asoql'sllenraql uo dn r6u11uled aql uo r l l r auohana q 3 1 w l e6u11aam 6ulualq611pllom act1 punol sa81elaulll 6uhlnd Inoqllm Uana an!l ol alqlrrod r! l r a l o ~ dvllaed aql 'ul.llr aql r! aulllle q l l a r l a o n o l slew lleqr a M 11q11w UI auo PUIJ 01 q6noua W n l amti ,no lo r u a r ~ e ~ r a p s6qqmlrip m luopaloq pue A ~ ~ p d n l sra~~alsAlu io aroql puelrrauaqll pue a6lml lram 3ql lo auordsqlad'.alaql aq. ol aql alefi!lsanu! 01 s a d o s o l ~ m wro rlaql ul Aileapil .arnaq. 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ul saq,uejq m o l l ~ ~ a re t l l alq@~6euem
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I S ~ I ~ ~ P
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ul!saa uo!guanul pua ul!saa uo!seA3
1969-71
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OFcao4i~ JmeC
#'/&a h 16
Superprojects: Objects, Monuments, Cities
This chapter surveys SUPERSTUDIO'S most provocative period from 1969 to 1971. It was during these years that the group generated its most renowned body of work. After successfully formulizing a critique on design, architecture and the city, the u s of conceptual projects through group produced a ~ r o d i ~ i o set an innovative use of multi-media techniques, en~ployingcollage, storyboards and literary narratives. The professional "officc" continued its design activities, while entering into one of its most creatively engaged and controversially subversive periods. Almost all the conceptual production was intended for catalogues, architecture magazines and exhibitions. The most srriking images produced in the period found wide distribution internationally, from Europe to the United States and Japan. 1. The Corrtitruorrs Monrrmmt (storyboard, with an audio-slide show, nor restored) 2. Hrrtogrdms (architecture of objects, design objects A r c / ~ ~ t e c t r ~the r e ,first film to be produced and I~rterpl~~netaty e r the group by suIJensTuolo, ~vithAlessandro Poli, ~ n e n ~ b of from 1970 to 1972) 3. Euclue Ideal Cities (architecture of cities, with an audio-slide show to be re-enacted and recordcd in conjunction with the London exhibition. March 2003) Each of these three categories represents a concise theoretical engagement on one of the following disciplines in design and architecture: the object, the monument, the city.
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wkrng 1118 mlll~on~ n l ~ a b ~ t aon n tar rlde lllraugh valloyi and hlllr, lrom the
lhoure for more lhan four yearr after 11s conrlrucl#on, alter thlr penod, oblectr.
~ n d ~ c a t ~the n ggroundcovered Lookat the perlectclly that producer
Factory 4 miles wide and 100 yardr high lhke the clly 8 1 contlnuourly producer The Grand Fartory explo~Lr the land and the underground maler8als of the terrllory 11crosses. and from ,here mamellourly arrarts all that 11requres for tho ronrtlurLion 01 the clly The Grand Farlorydevourr shreds of urelorr nature and unformed m~noralsa1 11sfront end and emllr recllons of completely folmed clly. ready for use. from 11s back end The Grand Factory mover loward at a speed ol Iloot 2 112 ~nrherpel hour The plan of the rlly IS bared on a chequer-board of roads perpend8cular and parallel to llle Grand Factory. the roads reparato rquaro blorkr. 261 x 261 yards. and ale 29 y x d r rvlde
roclenjr rejects, mador Insane
w~lhgoodrlocontnbule to tile grealer prosperlly of our graat counlryand Ihe bcuer forluner olour well-loved rhareholderr
parallel road next to them 8n 3 days The grealert arplrauon of everyclslen 1 5 to move more and more ohen 8nlo
~nd#v~duals. roll dare to wander amongst Ihe rulnr. lhe delr8tur and rubble that the rtly leaves belllnd 11 It Ir ~norder lo prerent the rillzens bemg reduced to such a despelale slate that lrom tllelr eallterl age they are lnrulralcdiv~lhthe ronrepl lhal everyone's g!ealertder~remust ativayr be a nnv house, and $1I S for thsa fearon lhal the nervrpaperr, wandall other med~aronl~nually advert~reIhe marvellous novetller af the new houses. the lerhaaal 8nnovat8onr. the never-before.reen romlo!lr What cobid be mole f a r r # n ~ l # nand g fearruring than the rperlarle of the famlher that dally drive up the perpendcular raadr tn lhe
rpeclal grounds andcongralulater you' What hourcould be happier than when you enter your ncu home and
.Eighth Clty. Conlcal Tanaced City The clly rlrer ~nthe mcdrlof a groat plain, surrounded bya canal 600 feet w ~ d eI1 lr lormedaf MOc~rcular levolsane above the oher, each one of which has a dtarneler 32 fcet less than theane beneah Each level IS 8 feel high, lhur the lotal height 8s 4.000 leel, while llle d~ameter01 the lorverl level lr 16.000 leel. In the c~aumlerencewall of each level are daatr 2 1 7 feet A1 giound level there are 6.500doorr. each rccerr8ve level has 13 doors less The 5Wlh level has only 13doorr. and above
walls IS 16 leet The mar8mum dlstare behveen !he Iworad~alwalls and the helghtol the room IS 7
In
through bran impulseslooneor more ~nllab~tanls Ineveimore Lllan Iue at the same amel lhv~ngoo the level beneath theone onwhch 86 owner Ises. ~ t ' r not pars8ble to trallrmll impulses to tha 8nltab1tants01 levels ye1 lurther dhvn nor lo ~nhab~tanoolone's wmlevel. nor rtlll less lo those llvlng a b u e Theorel8cally.iulth anellon. 111s porriblelorelure to obey Iheofderr comng fromtlle mhab8enIr of the llmr abave. bulthe sense of gu1ltder8v8ng from lhls rebellton srogreal and provokes ruch lnlenre monlal rullerlnri rhalonlva l e w u n bear ~ t l olong i Throughth8i ryrlem-lhal~r, ordering Ihothlngs theyneed b m t h o r e l ~ v ~ n g beneath-he lnhabllanlr obta~n evewhing they require Eachderlle parser from coilrdmalor l o r 0 ordlnalor "nu1 It leaches the lowest levels, and almartaluay.unt#l~tieaiherground level.where the mhab~tanlrl a m [he land,ivo~kadmanulactureabteclr to ral~rtylhedemands01 the Inhabilanr of the upper levels Twice aday,al flred tlmer, all ~nhab~tants of the citq. putl8ng the), heads (ma lheopenrngr gwng on lo the central space, receive, through the,, ca-ordinator. a programme af diearns emlned by the man lhvlng ~n the cupola at the lop No one knows how the man l#v#ng ~n the cupola Ilver. but everybody maginpi hlrn to be happy because he never orders anflhing, never needs anything It Is sad that Ihe cupola has
plied up hew and lherolerl~tqtothe lerm~tqollhelr llghlr Aclually. 118s h e p8ler 01 bodler lhal prowd.?Ihemorl urelul means of cllmblnglnalurally ~ndiu;dualrwllh lam~l~pr. whoivant lo lake them along, are at ad~rartrantagel The lnhabllanls 01 Iho hlgherl levels who have very lew orders. and erperlally thore on the very hlghert, who have none at all. rom~nually endeavour to gel 8nto 1he rupala, which apparently has noopenlng at all 118s sad lhal 11one tauihcr a paillculal spa1 on ltr surface. 11opens up a recllon for a few seconds to admit the I ~ c k yone, but na.one has eue,eme,ged l r m the ("pala la jell the others about 11.The mart myrler8our querlron rr what happens la the prev80ur mhab~lantrof the cupola. lhar Is, lharedethraned On the terrace ru,raundrog the cupala. a body has never bean laund
.
Ninlh City. The Ville-Mechina Habiles The clly 8s a machine. ruch a large mach~nethat not even 11s lnhabllanls knmv 11s rze. Its p~peltner.Its rows of gear-mechan~rmr.conveyorbells. connecung rods. stretch away out of rqhtrh~cheve,way one looks. ~nthe dim hall.11ghL grey and foggy, wh~ch flllr the cavern 1toccup8er.and lhore walls have never beenreen The mhabllantr ltve m Ls machine endlessly dragged along by conveyor bells. by chutes and pneumatic tuber
The marlllne ISrcll-ruffoent. ~ t i a k e r * from the outrldeivorldanly some rays 01 runllghl, air andwaler nch with the mlneial raltr 01 Ihe eanh 11 looks after 11slnhabllanlr by elabaratlng and rynthtr\irand water became rurplur Any residue. anflhtnr) that d~er.lr t
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