The Archigram, Superstudio, and their comrades-in-arms’ science-fiction, futuristic hypothetical projects freak me the heck out. I am weary of Archigram’s Instant City; the idea of a floating city that sort of goes around the world perpetrating their ideas and the big party just doesn’t appeal to me. And their 12 Cautionary Tales creeps me out. I would have to say that I’m pleased that the word “cautionary” is included.
I think architecture should embrace technology, but to me, that whole culture of the 1960s and 70s just went overboard with it. I would have to say that maybe, if we aren’t careful, our generation will be caught up in technology’s web as well. Do we all really want to experience architecture, much less life – and maybe emotions – through a computer? I suppose the question “don’t you experience things through computers in all these technologically enhanced video games?” could be asked. But then I would say, “wouldn’t you agree that experience usually uses more than just the visual senses?” Even if scientists hooked us up to these machines with connectors to our nervous system and brains and everything would it still really be living life?
As I wade through all of my ideas and opinions of technology and the world today, I will admit several things that I do like about the Archigram and company. The introduction to Zoom and “Real” Architecture made me really start thinking about the underlying aspects of what Archigram was doing. It is pointed out that the “group’s inventiveness [is] in translating its generation’s concerns into architectural images.” That is what started blowing my mind. Here are these young architects and they are able to assess what the popular mood of their generation is and then deliver, although only on paper, what their generation was seeking through architecture. I think it’d be awesome if this generation of architecture students were able to do the same thing one day. Of course, in my traditionalism, I may be afraid of what our generations dreams may be interpreted as in a built environment, but I think that architecture should reflect the people living. As Peter Cook mentions in Archigram 4, “perhaps the answer lies neither in heroics nor tragedy, but in a reemergence of the courage of convictions in architecture.” I would take Cook’s comment as a caution to our generation’s students if they attempted their own revolution in which they became a voice for their generation.
I think architecture should embrace technology, but to me, that whole culture of the 1960s and 70s just went overboard with it. I would have to say that maybe, if we aren’t careful, our generation will be caught up in technology’s web as well. Do we all really want to experience architecture, much less life – and maybe emotions – through a computer? I suppose the question “don’t you experience things through computers in all these technologically enhanced video games?” could be asked. But then I would say, “wouldn’t you agree that experience usually uses more than just the visual senses?” Even if scientists hooked us up to these machines with connectors to our nervous system and brains and everything would it still really be living life?
As I wade through all of my ideas and opinions of technology and the world today, I will admit several things that I do like about the Archigram and company. The introduction to Zoom and “Real” Architecture made me really start thinking about the underlying aspects of what Archigram was doing. It is pointed out that the “group’s inventiveness [is] in translating its generation’s concerns into architectural images.” That is what started blowing my mind. Here are these young architects and they are able to assess what the popular mood of their generation is and then deliver, although only on paper, what their generation was seeking through architecture. I think it’d be awesome if this generation of architecture students were able to do the same thing one day. Of course, in my traditionalism, I may be afraid of what our generations dreams may be interpreted as in a built environment, but I think that architecture should reflect the people living. As Peter Cook mentions in Archigram 4, “perhaps the answer lies neither in heroics nor tragedy, but in a reemergence of the courage of convictions in architecture.” I would take Cook’s comment as a caution to our generation’s students if they attempted their own revolution in which they became a voice for their generation.
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