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Radical Design: The Latest Architecture and News

Statie Stuifduin -a2o-architecten

February 20, 2019

In this book, Belgian architecture office a2o presents an investigative and connecting approach to architecture through an evocative reading of their latest project, crematorium Statie Stuifduin in Lommel, Belgium. This thoughtful yet radical design blends architecture and landscape in a succession of spaces that reveals a deep understanding of both the fundamental aspects of and changing attitudes towards death, burial and the journey of life. Rather than through explicit religious symbols, the sacral is represented by the universal power of nature and by Romantic notions of finding meaning in rediscovered nature. In doing so, Statie Stuifduin goes beyond the specifics

"We Dream of Instant Cities that Could Sprout like Spring Flowers": The Radical Architecture Collectives of the 60s and 70s

January 16, 2019

The first moon landing, widespread anti-war protests, Woodstock and the hippies, rural communes and environmentalism, the Berlin Wall, the women’s liberation movement and so much more—the tumultuous decades of the Sixties and Seventies occupy an unforgettable place in history. With injustices openly questioned and radical ideas that set out to unseat existing conventions and practices in various spheres of life, things weren’t any different in the architectural world.

The grand visions dreamt up by the modernists were soon challenged by utopian experiments from the “anti-architecture” or “radical design” groups of the 1960–70s. Reestablishing architecture as an instrument of political, social, and cultural critique, they drafted bold manifestoes and designs, experimented with collage, music, performance art, furniture, graphic design, zines, installations, events, and exhibitions. While certain individuals from this era like Cedric Price, Hans Hollein, and Yona Friedman remain important to the realm of the radical and the unbuilt, the revolutionary spirit of these decades also saw the birth of various young collectives. For eccentricity at its very best, read on for a (by no means exhaustive) list of some groups who dared to question, poke, expand, rebel against, disrupt and redefine architecture in the 60s and 70s.