14 Haziran 2012 Perşembe

Experimental Architecture of 1960’s and early 1970’s


 It is stated in this study that “experimentation” was a tool for the projects  and works in architecture of 1960s  and early 1970s that achieved the “expansion of the vocabulary of architecture” in the sense of architectural programming, which was left obscure  under the approach that considered the period mostly as the intense use  of technology and experiment on it. Therefore, as opposed to the inadequate definition of “Experimental Architecture” of 1960s, and “Radical Architecture” of early 1970s, “experimentation” in architecture is put forward in this study as pushing the boundaries “radically” by integrating sources out of architecture rather than suggesting the technological tools revising the architectural definitions within the “same” contexts. These sources are the tools offered by the emerging technology such as the “open-ended”, “intelligent”, and “flexible” structures, the possibility of “special transparent polymer of limitless stability”, “a system of electrodes inserted into various points of the cerebral masses” or the “free-air type thermostatic devices”.  Inevitably, the consideration of the integration of a “free-air type thermostatic devices” within architectural space challenged and changed its programmatic configuration. Since these devices brought the possibility of temporary activities and their motion, rather than fixed activities within a space, along with their actual body, the flexibility of the program was aimed to be achieved with such experiments in emerging technology. This was not only related with the emerging technology but also related with the change in architectural thinking that considered such technology as a tool to change the conventions about Modern Architecture.  For instance, the implication of this criticism in Archigram can be read from the use of two terms that point out the contradiction inherent in programming: “control and choice”. What they suggested for this dilemma was the experimentation of “metamorphosis”, which they explained as “change of mood: change of need: change of personality: change of place”. They described choice as the “freedom; of personality, enclosure, involvement, facility, movement”. Thus, the programmatic situations of the “metamorphosis” can be pointed out as the capsules in motion, attached pylons, independent enclosures, cabins, and information drums.  The term “experimentation” was used in the title of an international forum on “Theory and Experimentation in  Architecture”, held at The Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1992, in which the architects whose works were labelled as “experimentalist” were invited. By establishing a relation between theory and architecture under the issue of “experimentation”, this forum differentiated the use of “experiment” from its other uses in architecture by implying a critical position.  The use of the term “experimentation” in this study also aims to highlight a criticism. This criticism was led by the experimental attempts in late 1960s and 1970s that discusses the boundaries of architecture in relation to interdisciplinarity and technology. Thus, such an examination is considered to understand how “experimentation” in architecture is pursued. In order to achieve this aim, it is possible to make a claim that “experimentation” in architecture is a shift to another level of experimenting after the shift entitled as "Post-Positivism" in philosophy and natural sciences discussed in the first part of this chapter, which also influenced architecture, thus it revealed a shift in architectural “program”.  This shift emerges as the significant changes in the consideration of space related to the “experimentation”, such as the shift from the distribution ofspaces in a dwelling unit as living room, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom in the very basic sense; to the sleeping capsules, disposable plug-in eating units, sleeping bags, and balloon units inserted into any existing building in a city. Consequently, not only the distribution of spaces is challenged but also the way of living is questioned and conventional architectural thinking depending on these social conditions was also re-evaluated. Although criticizing the programmatical aspect  of the experimentation in 1960s, the following assessment by Peggy Deamer strengthens the suggestion of this experimentation as more than technological insertions by perceiving the architecture of 1960s not only as futuristic urban machines but also as comments and critiques on everyday life programs:
   The work of “visionary” architects in Europe during the 1960s – for example, Archigram in England; Hans Hollein, Coop Himmelblau, Raimund Abraham and Friedrich St. Florian in Austria; Superstudio and Archizoom in Italy – is generally  known for its futuristic and often monumental urban machines. But in actuality, this work was fundamentally lodged in a utopian image of the body, one animated by visions of the future yet bound by the concerns of the everyday. The particular formulation of this body – as technologically advanced but programmatically primitive – defined a “new man” who was ideologically committed to seeing the self as the safeguard of the values of ordinary life and the defence against the co-opting of the everyday. This formulation suggested that the life of this new man could never be aestheticized nor abstracted and could never be technologically sanitized.
Deamer, Peggy. “The Everyday and The Utopian.” In Architecture of the Everyday,  edited by Steven Harris and Deborah Berke, Princeton Publications, New York, 1997, p. 195. 
Architecture that questions concepts and limitations and is committed to experimentation with form, materials, technology, constructional methodology, and even social structure. It was the title of a book by Peter Cook (1971), who identified certain architects, including Friedman, Goff, Otto, Price, the Smithsons, Soleri, and Tange, and groups, such as Archigram, Haus-Rucker Co., and the Metabolists, as involved in Experimental architecture.Robert Smithson: Spiral Jetty, 1970 

Robert Smithson: Spiral Jetty, 1970
Ant Farm: House of the Century, 1971–73
Ant Farm: House of the Century, 1971–73








*A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF NATURAL AND APPLIED SCIENCES 
OF MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY BY BAHAR BEŞLİOĞLU, JUNE 2008

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