Superarchitettura is a theoretical & conceptual framework, whose physical definition has been given at the homonymous 1966 exhibition, held at Jolly2, an art gallery of Pistoia, Italy.
Pistoia is a city and comune in the Italian region of Tuscany, the capital of a province of the same name, located about 30 kilometres (19 mi) west and north of Florence and is crossed by the Ombrone Pistoiese, a tributary of the River Arno. It is a typical Italian medieval city, and it attracts many tourists, especially in the summer. The city is famous throughout Europe for its plant nurseries.
Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern and Western Europe. Located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia and the enclaved microstates San Marino and Vatican City. Italy covers an area of 301,340 km2 (116,350 sq mi) and has a largely temperate seasonal and Mediterranean climate. With around 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth-most populous EU member state and the most populous country in Southern Europe.
According to the Radical Manifesto, "Superarchitettura is the architecture of superproduction, superconsumption, superinduction to consume, the supermarket, the superman, super gas".
In Italian design, the "Radical period" took place in the late 1960s, with a shift in style among the avant-garde. Probably the most notable result of this avant-garde period is the installation called "Superarchitettura", made in Pistoia in 1966.
Superarchitettura is the overcoming of centuries of constant and consistent art vision. It is the overtaking of ancient artistic pratiques in favour of new avant-gardes, the Sixties so-called "neo avant-gardes".
The avant-garde are people or works that are experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society. It may be characterized by nontraditional, aesthetic innovation and initial unacceptability, and it may offer a critique of the relationship between producer and consumer.
Superarchitettura's movement combined the inventiveness of Pop Art with the dynamics of mass production (for the latter, see its definition according to Mackintosh' ideas and conceptions).
Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of large amounts of standardized products, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and batch production, it is one of the three main production methods.
Charles Rennie Mackintosh was a Scottish architect, designer, water colourist and artist. His artistic approach had much in common with European Symbolism. His work, alongside that of his wife Margaret Macdonald, was influential on European design movements such as Art Nouveau and Secessionism and praised by great modernists such as Josef Hoffmann. Mackintosh was born in Glasgow and died in London.
Archizoom and Superstudio
The Superarchitettura theoretical framework, part of the Radical Design movement, after its beginning, got split up in two main philosophical entities and interpretations, the first incarnated by Archizoom Associati, the second by Superstudio. Archizoom and Superstudio held the Exhibition. Such event represented a milestone in the Italian Radical Design.
Archizoom Associati was a design studio from Florence, Italy founded in 1966. The group that founded the studio consists of Andrea Branzi, Gilberto Corretti, Paolo Deganello and Massimo Morozzi ; later in 1968 the group was joined by Dario Bartolini (designer) and Lucia Bartolini (designer).
Superstudio was an architecture firm, founded in 1966 in Florence, Italy by Adolfo Natalini and Cristiano Toraldo di Francia, later joined by G. Piero Frassinelli, Alessandro and Roberto Magris, Alessandro Poli.
On the other side, according to the second group (to which belonged Adolfo Natalini, Cristiano Toraldo di Francia, Piero Frassinelli, Alessandro Magris and Roberto Magris), to run away from Tradition, a new architecture must be imagined and created, which must be based on rejecting the impositions of production in favour of symbolic, dreamy values, which can ideologically fit into the landscape.
Archizoom in particular is today considered the initiator of Anti-Design. Its members questioned from the ground the traditional status-function and basic-nature of design, as well as that of the architectural production.
Resources
Lang, Peter and Menking, William: "Superstudio. Life Without Objects", Skira, Milan, 2003
Fiell, Charlotte and Peter, "Design of the 20th Century", TASCHEN Icons Series - Turtleback, 2001
Branzi, Andrea: "Radical Notes", Casabella, n. 399, March 1975.
Tafuri, Manfredo and Dal Co, Francesco: "Internazionale dell'utopia, Architettura contemporanea", Electa, Milan, 1976.
Rouillard,Dominique: "Radical architettura", in "Tschumi, une architecture en projet: Le Fresnoy", Ed. Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 1993.
Prestinenza Puglisi,Luigi: "This is tomorrow. Avanguardie e architettura contemporanea", Testo&Immagine, Turin, 1999.
Patrizia Mello, "Neoavanguardie e controcultura a Firenze. Il movimento Radical e i protagonisti di un cambiamento storico internazionale", Angelo Pontecorboli, Firenze, 2017.
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