Archigram and Metabolist   Term Paper ID:35660 Click to get this paper

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Paper Abstract: The English Archigram movement and the Japanese Metabolist group are compared and contrasted. The former embraced pop culture and high tech innovation and designed imaginary cities of the future where buildings walk and cities move. The Metabolist group incorporated traditional Japanese architectural ideas into the Modernist idiom. Paper Introduction: Archigram and Metabolist According to the Oxford Dictionary of Architecture an architect is a person capable of preparing the plans elevations and sections of adesign of a sophisticated building with an aesthetic content and tosupervise its construction in accordance with the drawings andspecifications Curl In the s the Archigram movement in England and the Metabolistgroup in Japan turned this conventional definition of architecture on itshead Although most of their wildly innovative design concepts were neverrealized in finished structures some of their members Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Far away in Japan, the ideas of the Archigram group and theirModernist forbears were being closely watched by a similar group oftalented young architects who were frustrated by the limitations imposed onthem by the hidebound traditions and stifling bureaucracy of the Japanesearchitectural establishment. The first issue of Archigram was conceived of as a provocativesatirical jibe at the architectural establishment. Ideas like these are certainly amusing and intriguing, but one couldbe easily forgiven for dismissing them as wildly impractical pipe dreamswith no possible practical applications.Design concepts like these ignore the cultural and legal concepts ofprivate property. The term Archigram was coined from the words « architecture » and« telegram », to demonstrate how fundamentally the founding members (PeterCook, Warren Chalk, Ron Herron, Dennis Crompton, Michael Webb, and DavidGreene) had rethought the concepts of design and construction. « Committed to a 'high tech', lightweight, infrastructural approach that was focused towards survivaltechnology, the group experimented with clip-on technology, throwawayenvironment, space capsules and mass consumer imagery. Technology and its spawn of new industrial processes and productsbecame something to admire and emulate. Architecture. Everything built is a careful copy of what has already been donesuccessfully. Like the Archigrammers, they are attracted to the idea ofalternative cities, coming up with notions like a floating city, a city ina tower, a wall city, and Kurokawa's Helix City. 1999.Archigram. The second issue of Archigram came out in 1962, and featured theLiving City exhibition of drawings, collages, and plans, which, like someof their later plans for alternative cities, were designed for a post-nuclear war civilization. The 19th century was fundamentally shaped by Darwin's concept ofevolution, which was so earth-shaking that it affected nearly every area ofhuman endeavor. The text accompanying the British Design Museum's exhibitionArchigram/Architects 1961-1974 puts the emergence of the movement incontext : « Prosperous and self-satisfied after a decade of post-warreconstruction, British architecture - the « staid Queen Mother of thearts », as the critic Reyner Banham described it, had chosen to ignorethese changes. Wikipedia. From these precepts they dreamed up elaborate science fictionscenarios of mobile buildings which merged the concepts of house andvehicle, such as Ron Herron's 1964 Walking City. Information is another important factor of life principles.Everything is the same for me : Metabolism, Symbiosis, recycling, ecology,information. But their concepts have had the salutary effect of opening up ourthinking about what architecture is, what cities are, and how mankind canprogress beyond an accidental urban environment with all the moderndrawbacks we know so well to a more ecological, efficient, flexible, andbeautiful way of living. Traditionally an architect has had much less freedom to followhis flights of fancy than his fellow artists in literature, painting,music, film, photography, dance, and sculpture, due to the constraints ofconforming to time-honored design concepts that have rarely beenchallenged. The term hasthe connotation of redefining architecture as communication or information,an idea we will later meet in the philosophies of some of the JapaneseMetabolists, who were influenced by Archigram, and who in turn influencedsome of the British architectural innovators. The sameapplies to other Archigram projects such as Mike Webb's Cushicle, and DavidGreene's Inflatable Suit Hime of 1968, in which the distinctions betweenthe human body, clothing, vehicles, and housing all merge. It was printed on cheappaper in 1961 at the Architectural Association in London, where the membersof the group met to exchange ideas. Theirentire critique of traditional architecture was seen from the perspectiveof the new products, materials, and technologies of mid-2 th century massculture. Most Japanese cities sufferedmajor damage from Allied bombing campaigns, and the cities of Hiroshima andNagasaki were completed obliterated by atomic bombs. Archigram and Metabolist According to the Oxford Dictionary of Architecture, an architect is« a person capable of preparing the plans, elevations, and sections of adesign of a sophisticated building with an aesthetic content and tosupervise its construction in accordance with the drawings andspecifications » (Curl 1999). In place of a stodgy traditional conservatism the new catch wordswere evolution, revolution, and innovation. Not that the members of the Archigram group were unaware of thedramatic changes taking place in England and the rest of the world. Peter Cook's concept of a Plug-In City with huge cranes on top tocontinually rearrange a variety of connected modular pods, all transportedby brilliantly lit blimps with films and advertising projected on itssides, is a similarly idealistic and yet fascinating concept. Shelter is one of humanity's most fundamental necessities. These are the same important concepts. But it is enough that theoriginal visions propounded by the Archigram group have irrevocably changedtraditional concepts of architecture. Can anyone really imagine there is any space availablefor walking apartment complexes to suddenly appear over the horizon andfind a welcome anywhere ? Art Institute ofChicago. Their objections werebased on the dullness and lack of aesthetics of the new conformity thatsprang up in the wake of these talented innovators, producing a greysameness. This is completelydifferent from the idea of the machine: universality, economy-oriented,technology-oriented, hegemony-oriented »(http://www.artic.edu/aic/libraries/caohp/kurokaw.pdf). But before I discuss these sometimeswhimsical critiques of traditional architecture, it is important to putthem in a historical context. Whereas permanence and unchanging tradition had been the subtext ofarchitecture for centuries in spite of gradual evolutions in style such asthe Romanesque and Gothic, the concept of evolution conjoined with thesudden and cataclysmic technological, cultural, and social changesunleashed by the Industrial Revolution made for a sharp break with thepast. Both Archigram and the Metabolist group shared the idea of usingmodern technology as a liberating force to redefine society and culture bybreaking out of the traditional moulds of urban design and planning. Oxford Dictionary of Architecture. The Metabolist projects were characterized by grandiose, flexible,extendible structures that were conceived of as having the potential fororganic growth. Works CitedArchigram. Le Corbusier and Wright had championed the use of steel, concrete,glass, and other industrially produced materials, leaving them bare andunadorned, exposing and glorifying their native textures and innatecharacteristics instead of hiding the structural elements and surfacesunder facades and veneers, as had been the custom before their rise toinfluence. Both the Archigram movement and the Japanese Metabolists revered LeCorbusier and the original conception of Modernism. Because houses are made of heavy,expensive materials, and construction is difficult and time-consuming,those who specialize in building them must always deal with the economic,cultural, aesthetic, bureaucratic, legal, and political dimensions of theirtrade, as well as ensuring that the plans are followed and the structure issound. 2 4.http://www.designmuseum.org/design/indexphp?id=87Blum, Betty J. New methods of manufacturing andconstruction with steel, glass, and concrete appeared, and they werequickly exploited by innovative architects eager to explore them. Architecture tends to be conservative, because the financialconsequences of a potential buyer being turned off by an unconventionaldesign motif are too daunting for any firm's long-term survival.Conventional wisdom about popular taste tends to become a self-fulfillingprophecy. « The birth of modern architecture - like theRenaissance - hinged on the recognition of a deep historical discontinuity.One of the great obstacles of the 19th century to Modernism had been therigid insistence on continuity with the past. Instead of uncritically rushing headlong into the innate shallownessof Western capitalist consumer culture as the Archigram adherents did,Maekawa, Tange, and his student Kisho Kurokawa, a founder of the Metabolistgroup, exploited the strength and persistence of traditional Japanesearchitectural concepts. Perhaps this is a concept that would only besuitable for the devastation following a nuclear war. At least that was the case until the turn of the 2 th century and therise of Modernism. The roughoutlines of the prehistory of architecture have been unearthed byarcheologists. And what about the mundane practical implications of design conceptslike this such as where to put the waste materials and garbage generated bysuch a walking city ? 2 2. Their works offereda glamorous future machine age, however social and environmental issueswere left unaddressed » (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archigram). Influenced by Italian Futurist Antonio Sant'Elia and BuckminsterFuller, the father of the geodesic dome and the defacto founder of thediscipline of futurism, the Archigram collaborators were primarilyinterested in designing alternative cities of the future. For this influence we should be grateful, nomatter what the practical shortcomings of both groups. Theyeach were long on creativity and innovative vision, and short on actualbuilding projects. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArchigramJapanese Architecture.http://en.wikipedia.orgw/index.php ?title=Japanese_architecture Kenzo TangeObituary, 3/24/2 5. Perhaps some daythese ideas will find practical application. Perhaps because the 196 s were a time when the specter of nuclear warwas in the back of everyone's mind due to the Cold War conflict between theSoviet Union and Communist China on the one hand and the West on the other,there was an apocalyptically fatalistic vision of life that imbued theirconcepts. Japan was devastated by World War II. Although most of their wildly innovative design concepts were neverrealized in finished structures, some of their members went on to becomemajor contributors to a new synthesis of Modernism and Postmodernism. In the 196 s the Archigram movement in England and the Metabolistgroup in Japan turned this conventional definition of architecture on itshead. About 19 , however, thearchitectural avant-garde severed this bond » (Trachenberg and Hymans,2 3). Most of their ideas were too advanced for the stronglyconventional architectural establishments in their respective to embrace. http://www.artic.edu/aic/libraries/caohp/kurokaw.pdfCurl, James S. Most of the buildings going up in Tokyo and other Japanese cities weresecond-rate copies of the prototypes of these and other Western masterbuilders, and they had no relation whatsoever to traditional Japanesearchitecture or traditional values. The Archigram movement was a child of the 196 s, which was a time ofworldwide rebellion and social as well as technological change. Of allof the basic necessities, housing is the most expensive, difficult toacquire, and desirable, after thirst and hunger are assuaged, clothingobtained, and health maintained. Blum of the Art Institute ofChicago, Kurokawa explained what the concept of Metabolism meant to him :« The symbiosis of universality is the machine principle but we needsymbiosis between universality and local identity...history andculture...to hold these important and difficult tasks as we have in the ageof life. The Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement in the UnitedStates galvanized the world's youth to protest and agitate for socialchange. Interview with Kisho Kurokawa. At various times men have lived in caves, rock shelters,igloos, pithouses, longhouses, tree houses, cliff dwellings, teepees,yurts, huts, cottages, barracks, communal shelters, temples, barns, Westernstyle single family dwellings, apartment buildings, and skyscrapers. Metabolist projects were more practical that those of the Archigram,but even so few of them were constructed. But however groundbreaking and influential was their love of high-tech materials, electrical gadgets, and the logic of capitalist consumermarketing concepts applied to design, they were not particularly concernedwith the environmental implications of their radical rethinking ofarchitecture and urban planning. Another elaborately creative project was Living in a Capsule, byKurokawa, Akira Shibuya, and Youji Wanatabe. The Soviet Union sentYuri Gagarin into space. Architecture will never be the same. Influenced by both Archigram's and Metabolism's critiques ofModernism, architects like Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano took things astep beyond their masters in their famous 1977 Centre Pompidou in Paris.They revealed the functional systems such as HVAC, plumbing, sewage pipes,electrical wires, stairways, and elevators for all to see, instead ofhiding them behind walls, thus extending the tendency of Modernism toreveal structure instead of decorate and prettify it under layers ofcosmetics. They included Tange'scollaboration with Kisho Kikutake on the 196 Tokyo Plan, in which highlyinnovative ideas to extend the city out over Tokyo Bay by means ofviaducts, bridges, manmade islands, and floating parking lots wereemployed. Of course there are always mavericks, and enough people withboth a taste for aesthetics and the means to gratify it to keep anenterprising innovator in business, even if the big commissions alwaysescape him. Pop art and pop music both appearedsimultaneously. Boththese movements have had far-reaching effects due to their radicalredefinition of architecture. Mobility,malleability, infinite extension, convertability, flexibility, andtransparency of materials and infrastructure were just some of the centralpreoccupations of these avant-gardists. By the late 195 s the new style of Modernism had spread throughout thedeveloped world, and the creative innovations of the great architects whohad fathered the style had given away to a grey box-like sameness in thecorporate structures that began to dominate the skylines of every majorcity in the world. Thelatter point is a definite weakness of the movement that is not shared bythe Japanese Metabolists, who made the social and environmentalimplications of their constructions paramountly important. His idea involvedorganically-shaped pods mounted on enormous legs that could literally walkacross the landscape to find optimal living conditions, plugging into powergrids and water and sewage services at will, and discharging and addingtenants freely as it went. Tange, and his mentor Kunio Maekawa,who had studied with Le Corbusier, sought to combine the Modernistinternational style with native traditional Japanese elements (JapaneseArchitecture.http://en.wikipedia.orgw/index.php ?title=Japanese_architecture). Determined to develop their own approach, rather than riskbeing coopted into the architectural establishment, the Archigram groupinveighed against what [founding Archigram member Peter] Cook laterdescribed as : « the crap going up in London, against a continuing Europeantradition of well-mannered, but gutless architecture that had absorbed thelabel « Modern » but had betrayed most of the philosophies of the earliest« Modern » (Design Museum 2 4). OxfordUniversity Press. Using such ideas as the interpenetration ofinterior and environmental space, modular construction in a human scale, apillar and beam system employing the cantilever principle which had beenused in monumental wooden castle and temple construction, and usingtextures to break up the sterility of large expanses of steel, glass, orconcrete, these Japanese architects added something new to worldarchitecture. International Herald Tribune.? Design Museum, British Council. Growing up under theterrible deprivation of post-war existence in Japan, the young Kenzo Tangedeveloped a fascination with the concepts of his idols the Frenchman LeCorbusier and the American Frank Lloyd Wright (International HeraldTribune, Kenzo Tange Obituary, 3/24/2 5). Theyouthful John Kennedy became the American President. In a 2 2 interview with Betty J. LouisKahn, Gropius, Frank Lloyd Wright, and especially the French architect LeCorbusier created a style known as Modernism which sought to liberatehumanity by rethinking traditional construction and design practices, andto incorporate the advantages of technology into urban and residentialstructures and city planning. 2 5. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.

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