Archigram: The Magazine
Reyner Banham author Helen Castle author Peter Cook editor Thomas Evans editor Steve Kroeter editor
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Distributed Art Publishers
Published:27th Nov '25
Currently unavailable, our supplier has not provided us a restock date
Architecture's most influential, innovative and beloved underground magazine, reissued for the first time in a handsome clamshell box Published with Designers & Books. Inspired by comic-book culture, Pop art, psychedelia, the space race, sci-fi, Constructivism and Buckminster Fuller, the hugely influential British collective Archigram was the epitome of 1960s avant-garde architecture. Their self-published, lo-fi but materially ingenious magazine Archigram, begun in 1961, announced their ideas for such visionary concepts as "Walking City," "Plug-In City" and "Instant City." It also served to connect the international avant-garde of the 1960s. Archigram forged links with the Metabolists in Japan, Frei Otto, Utopie and Haus-Rucker-Co in Europe, and Buckminster Fuller in the US. They were also championed by critics such as Charles Jencks and Reyner Banham, who brought Archigram's famous fourth pop-up issue to the US in 1966. Today Archigram is one of the rarest major small-press publications of the 1960s, with individual issues selling for a minimum of $600. Archigram's influence has proved enduring, perhaps most famously in its widely acknowledged impact on Richard Rogers' and Renzo Piano's Centre Pompidou. Its members also taught and influenced the likes of Bernard Tschumi and Zaha Hadid, and inspired a later generation of nineties and noughties modernists embracing the potential of technology such as Future Systems, Foreign Office Architects, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby. This authorized publication features exact facsimiles of all 10 issues (from number 1 in 1961 to the final issue 9½ in 1974). All the original surprises and idiosyncrasies are faithfully reproduced: flyers, pockets, a pop-up centerfold, posters, gatefolds and an electronic resistor. (Only the seeds in the seed packet attached to issue 9 are not included, as seeds cannot be shipped across borders.) Accompanying the facsimile issues is a fully illustrated reader's guide featuring essays by Peter Cook, David Grahame Shane and Reyner Banham; tributes from the architectural community including Tadao Ando, Kenneth Frampton, Norman Foster, Zamp Kelp, David Rockwell and Patrik Schumacher; an index of key concepts and contents; a scrapbook of previously unseen archival images; a bibliography of the partners' publications; and biographies. The architect-collaborative group Archigram was established in London by Warren Chalk, Peter Cook, Dennis Crompton, Ron Herron, David Greene and Michael Webb. Working together until 1975, the group...
Long hard to find, this gorgeously packaged box set includes facsimiles of all 10 issues, including flyers, pockets, and pop-ups, alongside an excellent reader’s guide that features writing from Archigram founder Peter Cook, architecture writer Reyner Banham, and tributes from Kenneth Frampton, Norman Foster, and more. It might be a stretch to call this a 'book' but it’s a worthy collectable for anyone interested in experimental architecture, design history, publishing, and zine culture. -- Jarrett Fuller * Fast Company *
This is one psychedelic fever dream that’s worth adding to your library, or gifting to another. -- Leopoldo Villardi * Architectural Record *
Archigram: The Magazine' is not just a celebration of architecture. It’s also a prime example of how the discipline can inform the inner workings of a book. -- Eva Baron * My Modern Met *
Few books this season are more visually dazzling than 'Archigram: The Magazine,' a clamshell set packed with facsimiles of the collective’s smart, gorgeous zines—including one pop-up. -- Emily Watlington * Art in America *
[A] faithful reproduction of the rare, small-press publication. -- Kelly Pau * The Architect's Newspaper *
[When] seen as self-contained expressions—of technological optimism, of alternative lifestyles, of joy and pleasure—the Archigram magazines are logical sites of the group’s prolonged influence, and objects ripe for remaking, especially for the legions of followers who have never handled the originals. -- John Hill * Archidose *
For those who want to build their own Archigram archive, the forthcoming facsimile edition offers consumers the same tactile delights as the originals—along with the nostalgia of the group’s 1960s and ’70s radical design sensibilities that changed the course of architecture. * Harvard Graduate School of Art and Design *
The category of unbuilt and fantastical design ideas known as 'paper architecture' may have no better exemplar than the radical British architecture group Archigram. -- Nate Berg * Fast Company *
It’s been more than 60 years since Archigram hit the press, but the magazine founded by Warren Chalk, Peter Cook, Dennis Crompton, Ron Herron, David Greene, and Michael Webb still hasn’t lost its charge. -- Spencer Bailey * The Slowdown *
ISBN: 9781933045856
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
288 pages