PLATFORM/COOK Peter, ARCHIGRAM Plug-In City (1964)
PLATFORM / COOK Peter, ARCHIGRAM Plug-In City (1964)
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Plug-in City is one of many vast, visionary creations produced in the 1960s by the radical collaborative British architecture group Archigram, of which Cook was a founding member. A “megastructure” that incorporates residences, access routes, and essential services for the inhabitants, Plug-in City was designed to encourage change through obsolescence: each building outcrop is removable, and a permanent “craneway” facilitates continual rebuilding. Between 1960 and 1974, Archigram published nine provocative issues of its magazine and created more than nine hundred exuberant drawings illustrating imaginary architectural projects ranging in inspiration from technological developments to counterculture, from space travel to science fiction. The group’s work opposed the period’s functionalist ethos; Archigram designed nomadic alternatives to traditional ways of living, including wearable houses and walking cities—mobile, flexible, impermanent architecture that they hoped would be liberating.

Plug-in City is one of many vast, visionary creations produced in the 1960s by the radical collaborative British architecture group Archigram, of which Cook was a founding member. A “megastructure” that incorporates residences, access routes, and essential services for the inhabitants, Plug-in City was designed to encourage change through obsolescence: each building outcrop is removable, and a permanent “craneway” facilitates continual rebuilding. Between 1960 and 1974, Archigram published nine provocative issues of its magazine and created more than nine hundred exuberant drawings illustrating imaginary architectural projects ranging in inspiration from technological developments to counterculture, from space travel to science fiction. The group’s work opposed the period’s functionalist ethos; Archigram designed nomadic alternatives to traditional ways of living, including wearable houses and walking cities—mobile, flexible, impermanent architecture that they hoped would be liberating.