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Lot Essay
The term "radical architecture", borrowed from American radical culture, was coined to describe a particular kind of research by the cynical and provocative Italian avant-garde groups, best exemplified by the theories and creations of the Florentine anti-design collectives Superstudio and Archizoom Associati during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Superstudio's 1971 series of fantasy photmontages, "Twelve Ideal Cities", aspired to elucidate their theories that the modern urban condition had ceased to remain defined by the physical signposts represented by streets or neighbourhoods, but had instead been replaced by a certain mode of behaviour allied to both printed and electronically transmitted information, together with the universal distribution of identical, mass-produced objects. Their belief that there no longer existed a culture outside of the urban phenomenan was a fusion of imported American Pop culture, the increasingly unstable cultural and political climate from 1968 onwards, and a desire to challange the luxury export products that had characterised Italian industry earlier in the decade. As part of the narrative of their theoretical discourse, both Superstudio and Archizoom Associati sought to produce visually radical and technologically advanced "antifurniture" that aspired to a Utopia and aimed to rupture with the domestic environment both in terms of behaviour and style.
Conceived as self-contained environments, the "Bazaar" and "Safari" seating units, as their discordant titles suggest, sought to articulate this vision.
Superstudio's 1971 series of fantasy photmontages, "Twelve Ideal Cities", aspired to elucidate their theories that the modern urban condition had ceased to remain defined by the physical signposts represented by streets or neighbourhoods, but had instead been replaced by a certain mode of behaviour allied to both printed and electronically transmitted information, together with the universal distribution of identical, mass-produced objects. Their belief that there no longer existed a culture outside of the urban phenomenan was a fusion of imported American Pop culture, the increasingly unstable cultural and political climate from 1968 onwards, and a desire to challange the luxury export products that had characterised Italian industry earlier in the decade. As part of the narrative of their theoretical discourse, both Superstudio and Archizoom Associati sought to produce visually radical and technologically advanced "antifurniture" that aspired to a Utopia and aimed to rupture with the domestic environment both in terms of behaviour and style.
Conceived as self-contained environments, the "Bazaar" and "Safari" seating units, as their discordant titles suggest, sought to articulate this vision.