The Inflatable Moment

Item presents a complete , annotated catalogue of the designs of the Utopie architects and reflects the social events and student protests of 1968.

Architectures of Poetry is the first comprehensive accounting of the currently intense dialogue between the sister arts of poetry and architecture. Refusing to take either term in a metaphoric sense, the eleven essays collected in this volume exemplify an exciting methodological direction for work in the humanities: a literal wager that is willing to take the unintended suggestions of language as reality. At the same time, they also provide close readings of the work of a number of important writers. In addition to a suite of essays devoted to the team of Arakawa and Madeline Gins, chapters focus on figures as diverse as Francesco Borromini, Rainer Maria Rilke, Stéphane Mallarmé, Friedrich Achleitner, John Cage and Lyn Hejinian.

Following in the footsteps of Nanotecture, Mobitecture, and Pet-tecture, a fascinating and fun guide to everything inflatable Although inflatable objects have been around for more than 200 years, architects, artists, and designers keep rediscovering this deceptively simple – often playful, and occasionally bizarre – technology. Bubbletecture brings together inflatables in every conceivable size, shape, and hue across the realms of architecture, design, art, and fashion. From inflatable dresses and hats to buildings employing cutting-edge technologies, from ingenious chairs, lights, bowls, and even egg cups to children's toys and provocative art installations, Bubbletecture demonstrates that inflatable design is simply irresistible.

The identity of places of worship is one of the most difficult problems faced by religious architecture at the start of this new millennium. Contemporary globalising experiences demand, peremptorily, a reflection, both conceptual and situational, on the origin of objects, people and institutions. Nevertheless, the chance of these migration flows annihilating already-existing religious identities is perceived as a problem. This problem is directly linked to the survival of architecture as a system carrying a material representation of the divine and constituting a self-reference system for the community of believers. Therefore, it is important to define the extent to which the new religious architecture has given room to an abstract type of formal experimentation which is disconnected from social reality. Does this architecture maintain its bridging, sacramental value, or, on the contrary, has it given way to the conceptualist trends still alive in the artistic world? Is metaphor a valid concept for the Christian religion? Is there an essential aspect linking this architecture to the centuries-old tradition of the Catholic Church? Different architectural, pedagogical, exhibition and formal initiatives have arisen in recent years and it is necessary to get to know them, with the purpose of understanding where contemporary religious architecture is heading in its eternal search for a permanent identity.

Though reaching ever further toward the skies, today’s cities are overshadowed by multiple threats: climate change, overpopulation, social division, and urban warfare all endanger our metropolitan way of life. The fundamental tool we use to make sense of these uncertain city futures is the imagination. Architects, artists, filmmakers, and fiction writers have long been inspired to imagine cities of the future, but their speculative visions tend to be seen very differently from scientific predictions: flights of fancy on the one hand versus practical reasoning on the other. In a digital age when the real and the fantastic coexist as near equals, it is especially important to know how these two forces are entangled, and how together they may help us best conceive of cities yet to come. Exploring a breathtaking range of imagined cities—submerged, floating, flying, vertical, underground, ruined, and salvaged—Future Cities teases out the links between speculation and reality, arguing that there is no clear separation between the two. In the Netherlands, prototype floating cities are already being built; Dubai’s recent skyscrapers resemble those of science-fiction cities of the past; while makeshift settlements built by the urban poor in the developing world are already like the dystopian cities of cyberpunk. Bringing together architecture, fiction, film, and visual art, Paul Dobraszczyk reconnects the imaginary city with the real, proposing a future for humanity that is firmly grounded in the present and in the diverse creative practices already at our fingertips.

The study of literature and economics is by no means a new one, but since the financial crash of 2008, the field has grown considerably with a broad range of both fiction and criticism. The Routledge Companion to Literature and Economics is the first authoritative guide tying together the seemingly disparate areas of literature and economics. Drawing together 38 critics, the Companion offers both an introduction and a springboard to this sometimes complex but highly relevant field. With sections on "Critical traditions," "Histories," "Principles," and "Contemporary culture," the book looks at examples from Medieval and Renaissance literature through to poetry of the Great Depression and novels depicting the 2008 financial crisis. Covering topics from Austen to austerity, Marxism to modernism, the collated essays offer indispensable analysis of the relationship between literary studies and the economy. Representing a wide spectrum of approaches, this book introduces the basics of economics, while engaging with essential theory and debate. As the reality of economic hardship and disparity is widely acknowledged and spreads across disciplines, this Companion offers students and scholars a chance to enter this crucially important interdisciplinary area.

The first book-length critical and historical account of an ultramodern architectural movement of the 1960s that advocated "living equipment" instead of buildings. In the 1960s, the architects of Britain's Archigram group and Archigram magazine turned away from conventional architecture to propose cities that move and houses worn like suits of clothes. In drawings inspired by pop art and psychedelia, architecture floated away, tethered by wires, gantries, tubes, and trucks. In Archigram: Architecture without Architecture, Simon Sadler argues that Archigram's sense of fun takes its place beside the other cultural agitants of the 1960s, originating attitudes and techniques that became standard for architects rethinking social space and building technology. The Archigram style was assembled from the Apollo missions, constructivism, biology, manufacturing, electronics, and popular culture, inspiring an architectural movement—High Tech—and influencing the postmodern and deconstructivist trends of the late twentieth century. Although most Archigram projects were at the limits of possibility and remained unbuilt, the six architects at the center of the movement, Warren Chalk, Peter Cook, Dennis Crompton, David Greene, Ron Herron, and Michael Webb, became a focal point for the architectural avant-garde, because they redefined the purpose of architecture. Countering the habitual building practice of setting walls and spaces in place, Archigram architects wanted to provide the equipment for amplified living, and they welcomed any cultural rearrangements that would ensue. Archigram: Architecture without Architecture—the first full-length critical and historical account of the Archigram phenomenon—traces Archigram from its rediscovery of early modernist verve through its courting of students, to its ascent to international notoriety for advocating the "disappearance of architecture."

Beyond Archigram is the first study of the prehistory of digital representation to focus on the magazine Archigram, the magazine published in London irregularly between 1961 and 1970 and the name of the group that created it. Archigram is among the most significant phenomena to emerge in post-war architectural culture. The wired environments first advertised on its pages formulated an architectural vocabulary of metamorphosis and obsolescence that cross-pollinated industrial and digital technology at the same time as complex systems were becoming commercially available. Through archival, theoretical and visual analysis, Hadas Steiner explores the process through which this model was envisaged and disseminated within an international network of practitioners and shows how the assimilation of Archigram imagery set the course for the visual output of what are now commonplace tools in architectural practice. This book will provide a foundation for further inquiry into the integration of digital technology at every level of design.