pneumacosms

in the late 1960's and early 1970's, haus rucker co, along with archigramand superstudio, propelled architecture towards a different kind of future. sharing their own aesthetics with the aesthetics of space travel, comic books, sci-fi, barbarella, dada, fluxus, and whole mess of other pop culture references; these groups changed the conceptual architectural landscape forever.

haus rucker co was formed by laurids ortner, günther zamp kelp and klaus pinter in vienna, in 1967. for 10 years, under the haus rucker co moniker, they produced prototypes, drawings, and forms for numerous major exhibitions such as documenta 5 in 1972. these pictures are from a super rare catalog of their show at the museum of contemporary crafts in 1969 in new york (yes, i just about fell over when i found it in a used book store in ny several years ago!). the design of the catalog is obviously meant to mirror an LP cover - and specifically a LIVE LP. the intention is clear - we are not stuffy academic architects; we are going to shape the future. although they made extensive spatial explorations with inflatable forms, i think their concerns were not solely architectural, but an attempt to expand and explore social interaction both inside and outside of designed spaces. many of their projects, such as the 1967 mind expander, were for two people to experience together; and the choice of invisibility of structure towards complete visibility of inhabitants is certainly pointed.

the booklet documents, amongst other things, their pneumacosm project, which was a predecessor of their oasis 7 for documenta. the proposal for ny was to create a multitude of clear pneumatic "dwelling units" on the outside of existing buildings in the downtown nyc landscape. i think that along with the notion of adding space to finite structures is the idea of people living in clear view of each other - keeping the inside inside, but also bringing the inside outside, and changing the way we define both terms... one more beautiful 60's utopian dream...