Archigram's invisible university

Extract

Archigram, the British architectural group that became arguably the pre-eminent architectural neoavant-garde of the 1960s and early 1970s, is usually remembered for its visions of a ‘Pop’ and ‘science fiction’ architecture. This article, however, recalls Archigram's relationship to architectural education. If this at first seems surprising, or even mundane, it has to be pointed out that to a great extent Archigram came out of, and was sustained by, the schools of architecture. Moreover, Archigram was nourished by a high ideal of what education, and architectural education in particular, should be about: the cultivation of individuals working in concert, without hierarchy, and free of social, spatial, or ideological institutions. This programme was apparent in many Archigram design projects – the title for this article is for instance borrowed from a piece by Archigram's David Greene [1] – and it is just as palpable in the more proactive role that Archigram took in trying to reform architectural education.