DESIGN QUARTERLY 63
A CLIP-ON ARCHITECTURE
Peter Reyner Banham [Author], Peter Seitz [Editor]
Peter Reyner Banham [Author], Peter Seitz [Editor]: DESIGN QUARTERLY 63: ”A CLIP-ON ARCHITECTURE.” Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 1965. Original edition. Slim quarto. Saddle stitched thick printed wrappers. 32 pp. Black and white illustrations throughout. Cover artwork by Ron Herron and Bryan Harvey of Archigram. Wrappers lightly worn, but a nearly fine copy.
8.5 x 11 soft cover book with 32 pages well illustrated in black and white. This Design Quarterly precedes the November 1965 Architectural Design which was the first British architectural magazine to publish Archigram's work with Reyner Banham's two-page article called “A Clip-on architecture” and a 15 page chronological survey later in the same issue. From that point onwards and for the next ten years, Archigram as a group and as individuals were to dominate the pages of AD.
While the Brutalists were primarily concerned with ethics ostensibly at the expense of aesthetics, Archigram were all about the aesthetic and were entirely unconcerned with ethics. This reflects each movement's underlying attitude to the unification of life and art as mentioned above. Archigram's aesthetics are legendary and were aptly summarised by Banham: “Archigram is short on theory, long on draughtsmanship and craftsmanship. They're in the image business and they have been blessed with the power to create some of the most compelling images of our time.” Like their Independent Group forebears, they used magazines and adverts as source material for their collages and as Sadler concludes, “Archigram sought a constituency of young, liberated, high-libido consumers – male and female... Mostly absent was anybody working, elderly, ordinary ... or non-Caucasian.” As Banham's quote suggests, there is no doubting that Archigram's influence was almost entirely due to their aesthetic.
Whereas the New Brutalists sought to drag art down to the level of life, Archigram wanted to raise life to the level of art. Rather than addressing existing society's problems, they chose to envision exciting new worlds and solve problems of their own creation, viewing the user as consumer and turning architecture into another product of consumption. As Banham wrote, in his 'Clip-on' article, “Archigram can't tell you for certain whether Plug-in City can be made to work, but it can tell you what it might look like.” [Steve Parnell]
Guest editor Reyner Banham provides an illustrated account of the idea of a “clip-on” or “endless” architecture of systematic repetition of additive modules—particularly how it evolved in England through architectural collectives such as Archigram and in the work of Cedric Price. Locating its roots in the United States during the postwar period in, for instance, the endlessly repeatable facade of Eero Saarinen’s General Motors Technical Center, Banham argues the concept never really caught on in America but instead found itself useful in the more hesitant, indeterminate planning efforts in England. Predicated on notions of interchangeability, adaptability, and flexibility, “clip-on” architecture suggested a more improvisational, even ad hoc approach to compositional massing, introducing a modular and industrial approach to the production of architecture, moving from building construction to mass fabrication.
Design Quarterly began as Everyday Art Quarterly, published by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis starting in 1946. The editorial focus aimed to bring modern design to the masses through thoughtful examination of household objects and their designers. Everyday Art Quarterly was a vocal proponent of the Good Design movement (as represented by MoMA and Chicago's Merchandise Mart) and spotlighted the best in industrial and handcrafted design. When the magazine became Design Quarterly in 1958, the editors assumed a more international flair in their selection of material to spotlight.