CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 9/23/2015

Fantastic Architecture

In 1968, Dick Higgins closed his Introduction to the first edition of the now-seminal Fluxus architecture critique, Fantastic Architecture (now available in a facsimile edition from Primary Information), "Naturally, there are very few practicing architects included. But there are works which take unorthodox approaches to the design of environment and space in ways which the architect must learn to use if the profession is not to disappear altogether in favor of a new beginning with utterly primitive artisanship and non-architecture. Some works here are process architecture. Some raise the question of durable versus temporary space. Some deal with the problem of consistency—which most recent architecture assumes is valuable in a work. Others deal with the expansion of the possibilites, plain and simple, into additional areas of technology and function. Some are fantasies, raising questions in the mind of the reader which hopefully will lead to new approaches towards design away from the drawing board. And perhaps these last are the most important body of work in this book, whose purpose is to answer nothing but to raise the most provocative questions." Featured image is reproduced from Carolee Schneemann's Parts of a Body House.