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Droppers, trippers, hippies, hackers. The Counterculture issue of Volume goes beyond the boundaries of architecture to tap into a monad of history – the US in the 1960s – and how it has influenced our beliefs today. With the aid of countercultural leaders, historians and architects, Volume identifies three strands of counterculture – technology, environment and community – and looks at its legacy in relation to contemporary practice.

The issue combines key essays and interviews from leading figures of the period (including Todd Gitlin, Steward Brand, Chip Lord and Fred Turner) to reappraise sustained countercultural values: participation, sharing, hacking, opposition and exclusion. This is accompanied by a visual documentation of the era, with vivid graphics and psychedelic spaces. The Counterculture issue of Volume is a key text for those wishing to question authority today, by understanding the culture that created it.

Volume #24: Counterculture
Editorial by Jeffrey Inaba

Few people are out protesting in the street or tripping on acid in America these days, yet many of the social principles of its hippie generation are now mainstream. The most celebrated example of the continuing influence of 60s alternative values is in the world of technology. In his book From Counterculture to Cyberculture, media historian Fred Turner describes a group of 60s figures who did not revolt against a menacing, out of touch ‘establishment’ as the familiar narrative tells us, but took a seemingly contradictory interest in defense technologies developing within the military­industrial complex. Turner observes that the countercultural ethos of demanding access to knowledge invoked by Stewart Brand and others influenced the development of the personal computer products and network tools that popularized the web and initiated our shift to a society that thrives on information.

At first glance, what appears prescient about the 60s when looking at current American culture is the preoccupation then and now with computer technology, the natural environment and alternative forms of community; but today each is disconnected from the radical political action and oppositional ideologies of the earlier era. For instance, concern for the planet, which was cast as flaky and indulgent, is shared by the majority of people despite the ideological differences between the counterculture and popular American opinion now. Sustainability is so much a part of our collective economic consciousness that its importance is cited in business sectors – like real estate development – which once ardently resisted entertaining pro­environmental stances. Similarly, the communal principles of the counterculture – such as participation, sharing information, erring on the side of social inclusion, networking and identifying areas of agreement with others in order to form collaborations – are the basic axioms for building social capital now.

With the help of countercultural figures, historians and architects, this issue of Volume examines the popularized characteristics of the 60s that have influenced our beliefs about technology, the environment and community. Fred Turner describes the transfer of countercultural ideals to the uses of computer interfaces; Stewart Brand, Kevin Kelly and Sim Van der Ryn discuss their countercultural roots in relation to their current projects addressing the environment; and Richard Doyle and John Markoff tell us that the 60s notion of shared consciousness has a lot to do with our current understanding of community. These accounts and others construct an improbable bridge between far out Back­to­the­Land ideologies and the more close­to­home, familiar norms of contemporary life. As the countercultural sensibility was codified and gained greater acceptance, some attitudes and techniques fell by the wayside, yet still persist as alternative forms of cultural participation: hacking technology, the perspective of environmental wholeness and personal consciousness as an agent of collective improvement are all countercultural remnants which are discussed to provide relief to the contemporary mainstream values described in this issue.

Together, the compiled essays and interviews do not judge whether the US counterculture was indeed a counterculture, or whether its protagonists ‘sold out’ by abandoning their alternative ideals for conventional beliefs. Instead, it is a preliminary appraisal of mainstream America considered through the lens of its counterculture. Some contend there is currently no alternative movement because there is no monolithic mainstream culture to counter. In contrast, we suspect that there indeed is a mainstream, and that it is so deeply imbued with countercultural values like sharing, concern for the environment and forming new communities that such a dominant logic of niceness is paradoxically difficult to resist or oppose. Because the prevailing values of nicety are beyond repute, does the current mainstream limit itself to the critical contributions of a future counterculture? In these pages Volume attempts to reckon with the legacy of the 60s as a pervasive ethos of positivity.

The issue is structured in three parts – technology, environment and community – each of which lays out comparisons between widely influential countercultural tendencies and those that remain latent. The first section maps out two interfaces with technology that eventually synthesize with mainstream culture, namely the drive to access information and the formation of knowledge­based networks. In their essay, Christina Cogdell and Simon Sadler draw our attention to our proclivity to ’fully embrace‘ the use of new machines and applications; Felicity Scott writes reflectively about three early examples of knowledge­centered networks; and Cyrus Mody describes the spectrum of varying opacities adopted by research organizations within the post­war scientific community. At the same time, this section refers to direct descendents from the counterculture – such as hacking – that still remain well on the periphery of accept ability by today’s standards. In different ways, the interviews with Scott Burnham, Otto von Busch, Daniel Grushkin, Stewart Brand, as well as the C­Lab feature, foreground the dissonance between popular depictions of hacking as a disruptive, destructive act and its relevance as a productive technique that is still currently evolving.

The environment section acknowledges continuities between the 60s ecological worldview and the largely popular adoption of sustainable strategies today, while also shedding light on the earlier period’s holistic attitude. In comparison with the 60s totalizing definition of ‘ecological’, today’s notion of sustainability is narrower in purpose. For that reason, among others, a commitment to the environment now enjoys endorsements across ideologically varied lines. As such, formulating a finite scope for environmentalism in order to build a broad political constituency merits recognition as a legitimate tactic. But such specification runs counter to the sensibility of holistic, inclusive thought characteristic of the era. Brand and Van der Ryn remind us that the sensitive balancing act between advancing a specific cause and awareness of the whole earth was a constant source of tension within the countercultural debate about the environment. They believed that narrowly focused action and esoteric karmic holism could be resolved through a particular form of participation neither devoid of ideological purpose, nor rendered ineffective by it. In Brand’s view, caring for the wellbeing of the whole earth requires a pragmatic strategy that involves individuals taking specific but comprehensively informed actions. Now that the environmental agenda is set within the terms of sustainability, C­Lab’s feature, Expanding Environment goes on to contend that there isn’t enough academic and public discussion regarding its methods that is sufficiently distanced from its limited scope of political and environmental engagement. In this regard, what counterculture may ultimately have to offer architects are the DIY tactics demonstrated by figures like Brand and Van der Ryn – which could be used to ‘hack’ the terms of the environmental discourse as the circumstances require.

If the countercultural legacy of community is the pursuit of a collective consciousness of consensus, then Francesco Bonami posits, by way of his manifesto, that we are at risk of dismantling collective thought. The Back­to­the­Land sense of community asserts itself in the contemporary ethos of sharing, agreement and cooperation – in what is in essence a ‘Nice Economy’ set of protocols for social networking. In contrast, Jay Stevens tells us that the sense of collectivity centered around 60s psychedelia had a different key tenet to it, namely that the exploration of personal consciousness was necessary for more meaningful interactions with others. In his account, as well as that by Richard Doyle and by C­Lab in Neuropolitics, the place and function of individual thought are considered in light of our increasingly totalizing involvement in a multiplicity of ‘communities’. The implications of the politics of collective and individual agency, for architecture specifically, are taken up in several pieces: Winy Maas discusses an alternative methodology for urban planning via the aggregated collective; Jason Payne meditates on a generational tendency toward an extroverted discourse that is based upon interpreting architecture through individual sensory experience; Scott’s piece treats communities that were built based on a common interest to refuse social conventions of cooperation; and Jorge Otero­Pailos describes the phenomenological movement in architecture and the expansion of the mental space of its users.

Because it is embedded in what we as architects are assumed to do, it is important to look closer into what the counterculture is purported to be. Todd Gitlin stresses that during the 60s there was no such thing as a counterculture. There wasn’t a single term to describe the many alternative experiments taking place in this period of tremendous social upheaval. As he says, people were living ‘lively’, with disregard for what might have been perceived as contradictory beliefs. Stevens and Doyle reiterate this point in suggesting that it was difficult to develop a lexicon descriptive of all the new kinds of experiences and states of consciousness. Yet, we have come to know what is now called the counterculture through coherent terms and tendencies which are the pretext for architecture. Its sensibility is assumed in the basic responsibilities we have as designers: we are supposed to thoroughly process the latest technical knowledge in our field, design buildings that are environmentally conscious and form a sense of community around our projects. So while it is the modus operandi for Volume to go beyond the boundaries of architecture to tap into areas of external knowledge that can be imported to invigorate the thinking about design, here we examine what has already made its way inside. We explore the influence of the ‘nice’ culture on our decisions and goals, be it the encouragement to collaborate on grand policy visions (Brand, Kevin Kelly), plan for a general winding down of US society (McKenzie Wark) or reconsider individual consciousness as a way to advance collective intelligence (Doyle). In other words, given the imperatives presented to us, how in architecture can we question the authority of counterculture?

Exhibition at Architecture Center Amsterdam (ARCAM), 17 July – 11 September, 2010. Free entrance.

Last week the exhibition Fashion & Architecture kicked off with a good party at the Amsterdam Architecture Center (ARCAM). Along with ARCAM and office for architecture and urbanism V2A, fashion label OntFront has challenged four creative duos to enter into a design process. Each duo comprises a fashion designer and an architect who have teamed up specially for this occasion. The results are interesting and impressive.

Cross-over projects are common in the world of fashion as well as in the world of architecture. However, intensive collaborations between fashion designers and architects are pretty new, while there are lots of similarities between the two professions. Both deal with creation of volumes and take constructive principles in mind. At the same time, more and more fashion designers aim to make timeless products that fight high turnover rates, and architects attempt to create buildings and structures that are increasingly flexible, fluid and responsive to the environment. Mutually inspired, the designers cut through the dogmas of their own discipline and allow the visitor an insight into the creative process. The exhibition shows which new design statements have derived from an intense and extraordinary collaboration between professions that have not much in common at first sight. That makes this exploration very appealing and definitely worth visiting.

The four teams involved in the project are Iris van Herpen and Jan Benthem/Mels Crouwel (Benthem Crouwel Architekten), Mattijs van Bergen (MATTIJS) and Anouk Vogel (Anouk Vogel Landscape Architecture), Farida Sedoc (Hosselaer) and Nicole/Marc Maurer (Maurer United Architects), and Kentroy Yearwood (Intoxica) and Jeroen Bergsma (2012 Architecten).

Oberhausen Gasometer, 2 April – 30 December, 2010. Project of the European Capital of Culture Ruhr.2010.

In the amazing big Gasometer in the German city of Oberhausen, the exhibition ‘Out of this World – Wonders of the Solar System’ is currently taking place. The exhibition sheds a light on the world beyond this world, with particular attention for the effort of mankind to find out more about it. As the Gasometer is enormously big and dark, one really feels like being in outer space, which sets a great contextual atmosphere for the exhibition. Particularly spectacular is the enormous artificial moon hanging down from the roof of the 126 meters high gasometer. It’s said to be the biggest moon on earth, and honestly, I indeed can’t imagine another fake moon to be bigger.

The exhibition ‘Out of this World’ takes its visitors off on a journey into the cosmos. It shows our solar system as a huge process of growth and decay. Spectacular reproductions of the planetary system, extraordinary images of the sun, of the planets and their moons, precious historical instruments and the most modern technology of space research graphically present to us the drama of the birth and development of our solar system – up to its end. The exhibition ‘Out of this World’ combines natural science, cultural history and artistic points of view. In the spirit of the ‘International Year of Astronomy 2009’, ‘Out of this World’ invites visitors to marvel, wonder and reflect – this exhibition offers us a cosmic experience inside the unique industrial cathedral that is the Oberhausen Gasometer.”

The exhibition starts in the area below the former gas-pressure disc with a space-filling scene: the sun and its planets hover there as if on a disc in a 68 metre-wide room. Large format images, obtained during the latest American and European space missions, show our solar system, its development and its wonderful multiformity. On the gas-pressure disc, cult relicts, historical telescopes, measuring instruments, astronomical charts and old globes – and beside them the most modern instruments of space research are to be found. Here it becomes clear how findings concerning cosmic happenings always made progress when new observation technologies revolutionised the gaze into the depth of the macrocosm and the microcosm. On the basis of the exhibits, it is, moreover, shown how the ideas about the origins and the development of the solar system changed from the myths of primitive peoples up to our scientific age.

Finally, the arena provides a unique experience of space over which the roof extends at a height of 100 metres. As a gigantic sculpture here the largest moon on Earth, with a diameter of 25 metres, is shown. The installation passes through, with a soft background music, all of the phases of the moon from new moon to full moon. The romantic character of this moon experience supplements the scientific part of the exhibition in a moving way. The exhibition ‘Out of This World – Wonders of the Solar System’ is jointly organised by DLR (German Aerospace Center) and Gasometer Oberhausen GmbH to mark the International Year of Astronomy 2009. It offers unique items on loan from important international space companies as well as museums of technology, cultural history and art. Beyond the exposition the Gasometer itself provides a great view at the Ruhr Area’s industrial heritage and is worth paying a visit.

Saturday, July 31, 2010, 12.30–5.00 p.m., Artscape Wychwood Barns, Toronto. Click here for more information.

Foodprint Toronto is the second in a series of international conversations about food and the city. When you look at the city through the lens of food, what do you see?

Following on the success of its first event, Foodprint NYC, which was held in front of a packed house at Columbia University’s Studio-X earlier this year, the program for Foodprint Toronto will include four panel discussions: Zoning Diet, a conversation about the ways zoning, policy, and economics shape Toronto’s food systems; Culinary Cartography, an exploration of what can we learn when we map Toronto using food as the metric, Edible Archaeology, a look at Toronto’s food history in the context of the present; and Feast, Famine, and Other Scenarios — a chance to speculate on the opportunities and challenges of Toronto’s possible food futures.

In order to create truly lively, passionate, and thought-provoking panel discussions, Rich and Twilley are bringing together a range of panelists whose work deals with the same issues from very different points of view. In addition to food producers such as First Nations fisherpeople Natasha and Andrew Akiwenzie, and practicing architects such as Lola Sheppard and Robert Wright, panelists include food activists (Kathryn Scharf of The Stop Community Food Centre), writers (John Knechtel of Alphabet City Media and Shawn Micallef of Spacing magazine, for example), policy makers (Barbara Emanuel of the Toronto Board of Health), business consultants (Michael Wolfson of the Toronto Food Business Incubator) and many others.

Foodprint Toronto audience members can expect an afternoon of debate that provides context for today’s food headlines and fresh insight into the challenges and opportunities of feeding the Toronto of tomorrow. According to Nicola Twilley, Foodprint Toronto’s co-curator, “With the Toronto Board of Health having just formally adopted a new city-wide food strategy, the timing couldn’t be better for a truly cross-disciplinary discussion that explores the past, present, and future of food and the city.” Co-curator Sarah Rich adds, “There’s so much we’re looking forward to talking about in Toronto: from the fight for street food to the transportation infrastructure of the Ontario Food Terminal, and from the evolution of school meals to the challenge of scaling up urban agriculture.”

The Foodprint Project was born out of Rich and Twilley’s shared frustration that, despite the current proliferation of food-themed events, conferences, and debates, the hidden corsetry that shapes food and cities is rarely, if ever, discussed. Zoning, economics, infrastructure, culture, history, transportation, demographics, policy, access — all of these forces intersect within our food systems, which in turn shape and are shaped by the cities in which we live. As humankind becomes an increasingly urban species (the population of the Greater Toronto Area is projected to grow to 8.6 million by 2031), cities face a pressing and unsolved challenge: how to feed their citizens sustainably at scale?

The Radical Architecture of Little Magazines 196X–197X
Maastricht

The opening of the successful traveling exhibition Clip, Stamp, Fold in Maastricht marks a renewed interest in various forms of engagement in the field of architecture and urbanism. The exhibition, based on research by Beatriz Colomina and her Princeton students on so-called ‘little magazines’ in the 1960s and 70s, was initially staged at Storefront in New York, November 2006. (A part of this research was published in Volume 10). It has since traveled to several cities in the US and Europe, including the lesser-known architectural hubs of Oslo, Vancouver and Murcia. What is interesting about the exhibition is not only its content, but also that it is a growing archive; with every new installation, a local or regional addition is added to the core of the exhibition. In Maastricht, the extension (called ‘Staple’ so the full title becomes Clip/Stamp/Fold/Staple) is a series of Dutch magazines that fit the profile that were published from the 80s up to the present. Volume is represented in this section that was researched by Marina van Bergen.

Image Dirk van den Heuvel

With lectures by Colomina on the exhibition and by Mark Wigley on Constant’s New Babylon project (and its appearance in little and not so little magazines), and with the presentation of the latest issue of Oase dedicated to architectural criticism, the program was loaded. And somehow, the round table discussion on the current role and possibilities of little magazines had to be fitted in as well, which besides Colomina and Wigley, also featured Axel Sowa (former editor of l’Architecture ‘d Aujourd’Hui), Véronique Patteeuw and Tom Vandeputte (from periodical Oase), Herman Verkerk (of defunct Forum magazine) and myself. The roll call of speakers prohibited an in-depth debate; while some relevant issues were touched upon (among them finance, independence and their interrelation), I’ll mention a few here that were not discussed.

1. A provisional typology. There are several motors that can propel a magazine: a) economy/trade; b) (serious) criticism; c) discontent/reaction/opposition; d) vision/pursuit. Little magazines are usually in category c) or d), but as the exhibition also indicates, trade magazines can have a period of ‘self inflicted’, chosen ‘littleness’. This is often related to a particular movement or style and usually comes with a new editorial team ‘that takes over’. There is also a position that is not ideologically informed or starts from ‘truth’, but is based on a pragmatic engagement with the present, based on analysis of the current conditions and what is needed to move forward. To name just two options, this explorative attitude can take the form of a project, like Volume, crossing conventional boundaries between academia, office and journalistic platform, or it can be taken as a format or formula: hand the magazine as instrument to a different crew every three years in order to empower different voices one after another.

2. On the battle field of thought, little magazines have been very influential; however, these days the internet seems to be the easy accessible, low cost medium to use, alternative to this laborious, hard-to-distribute form of communication. It hasn’t happened yet in the field of architecture, or at best it is just starting. Yes, individual bloggers can be influential, like certain journalists and critics in newspapers, but a dedicated publication on the web, that persistently explores certain themes and advocates a particular approach… I haven’t seen it yet, although BLDNGBLG, Action!, wemakemoneynotart, or Mammoth may prove me wrong. The collector’s item aspect, the insider’s tip, the ‘when will it arrive’ feeling, the carefully composed and designed quality; maybe it doesn’t exist in virtual space, where open access is the essence. There are these hidden corners for sharing among kindred spirits, but even there the time element (instant availability, instant reaction expected) is making a difference. On the other hand, what could a ‘little magazine’ on the web be? The financial hurdle is so much lower that the criterion of independence is almost meaningless.

3. Criticism is usually seen as a method to distinguish between good and not so good. To broaden the definition, it is one of the means to test cultural values and criteria of quality. In combination with the notion of ‘resistance’, it becomes a mechanism inside the system to ensure a degree of dynamism, and to integrate new ideas and developments into the dominant culture.

Criticism can also be understood as an element in research and knowledge production. This kind of criticism starts with the will to know and to understand. The connection between worlds of criticism and their relation with the phenomenon of the little magazine, it is the subject of Clip/Stamp/Fold/Staple. The exhibition doesn’t take sides: it is more an invitation to define or establish one’s own position as a visitor. As far as Volume is concerned, the choice between reflection, mediation and intervention was made from the outset: tweaking the system. If elevating various voices is a fifth typology (see point 1), then tweaking can be called the sixth typology.

Click here to read/download Arjen Oosterman’s essay ‘Becoming small and being great’ on Issuu.

NAiM/Bureau Europa: Clip/Stamp/Fold until 26 September 2010.
bureau-europa.nl

The Barcelona Institute of Architecture (BIArch) is an international institution furthering interaction between research, practice and dissemination of contemporary architecture, BIArch is an open laboratory for professionals and researchers that promotes new ways of thinking and practicing architecture in face of technological, energy, and economic conditions in permanent change.

The MBIAch is a post-professional Master’s degree program for individuals holding a professional degree in architecture. The program requires one year of full-time study and covers 60 ECTS credits, with a degree awarded by the Institute and recognized by the Universitat Pompeu fabra. The MBIArch is offered entirely in English.

Late application deadline is 15 July, 2010.

21-30 July, 2010, Bauhaus Dessau Foundation. More information here. Application deadline: 9 July, 2010. Click here to apply.

The second international Summer School run by the Academy of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation aims to organise an idea contest within the framework of a summer school, where, inspired by the ‘Growing House’ from 1932, fantasies for a multi-local living in today’s Dessau shall be thought up.

In 1932, Martin Wagner organised the competition ‘The Growing House’ which was announced in several leading architectural magazines. The idea was conceived during a time of radical change in housing policy after ‘the Golden Twenties’: virtually over night the achievements made during this era in building and urban development seemed to have become worthless. The Great Depression had brought on a crisis in the building industry. Housing construction dropped down to a third of what it had been in the 1920s. The housing shortage drove people to the suburbs, into allotments and small summer houses. Some observers were talking about an ‘exodus from the cities’ which could cause cities to ‘die’. For others it was an expression of an emerging new form of settlement. The competition revisited a theme which had already been spreading virulently during the hardship of the post-war years: ‘Growing’ as a form of ‘natural building’ which would offer an adjustment strategy in times of abrupt swings from crisis to boom. 24 model houses were built to designs from the prize winners and members of the working party and were presented in the summer of 1932 in the exhibition ‘Sonne, Luft und Haus für alle’ (Sun, air and homes for all). Despite the crash of the building industry, one of the decisive criteria was the use of the most advanced construction technology, that is industrial prefabrication. Unlike the heydays of the ‘New Building’ in the 1920s, this exhibition presented solutions to those on a low-income who dreamed of their own home: houses which were flexible enough to adapt to shifting economic conditions and a constant change in family structures, and needed a minimum of resources to do so. Also living under difficult economic conditions had made the connection to the garden a prominent theme. What’s more, the exhibition title ‘Sun, air and homes for all’ put an emphasis on the recreational value of the garden. The Berlin exhibition made deliberate use of the metaphor of athletic sunbathing people and created an active link between home and leisure. The entries wanted to be understood as contributions to the emergence of a new type of settlement. But because they were reminiscent of bungalows they were criticised for being merely extendable weekend cottages or summer houses. For Wagner the economic crisis was heralding the end of the market economy and a shift towards socialism.

The global financial market crisis of 2008 had internationally almost analogous consequences. The collapse of the property market placed many homeowners with mortgages in a desperate position.  Some critics were even talking of the ‘end of suburbia’. Even though for Germany the effects were less dramatic, the global financial crisis showed once again the fragility of an urban development based on speculation. In addition, different mobility options and flexibility demands have a severe impact on today’s living conditions. New combinations of sedentariness and mobility, migration and living can be observed, which go hand in hand with changes in space use and spatial requirements. Dessau serves as a good example of this development. In the 1920s, the Bauhaus city was a showcase for innovative experiments in social housing thanks to prefabrication and industrialisation. Today, Dessau is not only affected by out-migration and shrinkage, and the subsequent loss of value on the property market, but with new nationally and transnationally oriented institutions a mobile class has evolved which commutes between the large urban centres Berlin, Leipzig, Hamburg and Frankfurt and the big small town. Students, academics, university lecturers, civil servants, cultural sector workers, artists, asylum seekers, migrant workers and commuters make up the growing number of ‘Dessauers’ without having a permanent residence in the city. They spend two to three days a week in Dessau and make only limited use of the city’s infrastructure, of cultural, educational and consumer offers. At the same time many local residents are affected by unemployment and poverty, and rents make up a large percentage of their income. Out of work, many have to make do with their flat and allotment and cannot afford a larger space to accommodate guests or family members who no longer live permanently in Dessau.

Featured workshops at the international summer school are ‘Garden shead XXL’, ‘Boarding house’, ‘Global home Platte’, and ‘Home comforts on the move’.