Archigram – The Book

“In late 1960, in various flats in Hampstead, a loose group of people started to meet: to criticize projects, to concoct letters to the press, to combine to make competition projects, and generally prop one another up against the boredom of working in a London architectural office. It became obvious that some publication would help. The main British magazines did not at that time publish student work, so that Archigram was reacting to this as well as the general sterility of the scene. The title came from a notion of a more urgent and simple item than a journal, like a ‘telegram’ or ‘aerogramme,’ hence ‘archi(tecture)-gram.’…By this time Peter Cook, David Greene, and Mike Webb, in making a broadsheet, had started a new Group.”

Thus begins Archigram, a chronicle of the work of a group of young British architects that became the most influential architecture movement of the 1960s, as told by the members themselves. It includes material published in early issues of their journal, as well as numerous texts, poems, comics, photocollages, drawings, and fantastical architecture projects. Work presented includes Instant City, pod living, the Features Monte Carlo entertainment center, Blow-out Village, and the Cushicle personalized enclosure. Archigram’s influence continues unabated: direct descendants of the group’s work include Lebbeus Woods, Neil Denari, Takasaki Masaharu, and Morphosis.
This title is a facsimile edition of a book originally published in 1972, with a new introduction by Michael Webb.