From the Chiasmus archive: October 3rd, 2019. "MONUMENTS OF ARCHITECTURE AND CREATORS OF THE TRANSCENDENCE - REALMS OF THE IDEALIST. ARCHIZOOM (PART 1)"

("Non stop City".  Archizoom Associati 1969.  Image. frac-centre.fr)

(Safari Chair 1968. Archizoom Associati.  Image: architizer.com)

We have looked at some of the concepts of doomsday structures to protect telecommunications and in some cases enclosed domed mega cities to assist in the problems facing humanity.  Ideas and plans which were devised in the 1960s and 1970s, as a turbulent part of our history was unfolding and it was the 1950s with its apparent normalization of embracing the newer technologies, which began to destabilize as we entered the later part of that decade. Population and cities grew, which in turn contributed to urban decay, inflation, energy crisis and global environmental issues.  That began to impede on the standard on living.  All the while a Cold War that could have easily lead into a global nuclear conflict remained a constant fear.  These important issues within the time line of the 20th Century history publicized and gave rise to the idealist, architect, designer and urban planners who believed in the safeguard of structural design, to build an enduring structure or city that could withstand and survive the tumultuousness of that era.  Except, now within the 21st Century, the problems are still here, in someways worst, due to masking its prefabrication, while international trade and the digital networks create the illusions of prosperity. What has been festering underneath the facade, may come back to haunt in more dramatic ways.  

The 60's offered an opportunity to showcase radical design and experimental architecture, before the hyper consumer of today became an acceptable characteristic within its feigned diversification and variety of markets, fifty years ago the chasing of trends were not as prolific as it is now.  There was certainly no internet and it is the digital communication networks which have allowed the consumer to be swayed by instant feedback on products, lifestyles and desirable living standards. But, as the mid 20th century set the benchmark, there was an awareness that newer technologies were emerging at an insatiable rate.  However, the 1950s cannot be dismissed as a confined and wayward middle class dream anymore or less that it also, like today, embraced the similarity of the liberation through technology and consumption, which in turn would bring an equality of wealth and aspiration.  We reflect on that ideology now, with the growth of cities throughout the world, into a bases of potentiality of opportunity, ambition and desire in its projection of an overall stability.  Which, at the end of the day, the 50's household held the very same expectations. Job security, safe, efficient and clean living environments. Yet, one doesn't have to look too deep to know that not only it became, but also remains, a Pyhrric dream.  

In Florence, during the 1960s three groups emerged, that considered themselves design idealists or better known as the “Italian Radicals” they were UFO, Superstudio and Archizoom Associati. And out of their notoriety, it is Achizoom that held the most interesting take on this new series that will explore the Reams of the Idealists within architecture and design. The mission of these young post graduates was to push consumption and modernism further into the what they would deem would be a “logical” end in showing the kitsch and the industrial as a constant movement an overload of extremities.  That may lead to a freedom from the paradox that rapid consumption is also oppressive.  

They're aim, was not as ambiguous as one would assume.  They were by definition in a tongue-and-cheek sort of way attempting to redesign the consumption of reality into a simulated paradigms, yet, within that artificial framework there is freeness. As decreed by one of its founders Andrea Branzi:        

"...The idea of an inexpressive, catatonic architecture, outcome of the expansive forms of logic of the system and its class antagonists, was the only form of modern architecture of interest to us… A society freed from its own alienation, emancipated from the rhetorical forms of humanitarian socialism and rhetorical progressivism: an architecture which took a fearless look at the logic of grey, atheistic and de-dramatized industrialism, where mass production produced infinite urban decors.” The City frees us with its blankness, its featurelessness, allowing us to be anyone anywhere..."

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(A.Glass 2019)