Peter Cook, the figure to whom the Museum for Architectural Drawing dedicates its latest exhibition, is regarded as one of the leading instigators of Archigram, who override and burst apart the given notions of form and space, driven by the curiosity to explore what a future world may look like and question whether architectural language is at all set by boundaries.
Archigram searched for new solutions and concept models, focussing on the development of society. Underwater cities, living cells, plug-ins and hybrid villas were created: the ideas and experiments from this period, particularly the central motif of metamorphosis, recur throughout Peter Cook’s lifework.
In the series Way Out West: Berlin made in the 1980s, Peter Cook posed the question, “Why is the language of architecture so limited?”. A cactus is set with three symbols of Western architecture: the grid, a skyscraper and a square, where the spread of vegetation, again the process of metamorphosis, transforms the skyscraper to the point that it is no longer recognisable.
Some of his drawings are based on actual projects, such the urban planning development for Frankfurt-Oberrad in 1986, Real City: Frankfurt (which remained unrealised); many are rather experiments and utopias, such as Arcadia, Vegetated Lump and Hidden City, where the architecture was inspired by the surrounding vegetation, its beginning and end blurred, merging organically into nature.
If you go in the next months to Berlin, do not miss the exhibition, which runs until February 12, 2016.
Archigram searched for new solutions and concept models, focussing on the development of society. Underwater cities, living cells, plug-ins and hybrid villas were created: the ideas and experiments from this period, particularly the central motif of metamorphosis, recur throughout Peter Cook’s lifework.
In the series Way Out West: Berlin made in the 1980s, Peter Cook posed the question, “Why is the language of architecture so limited?”. A cactus is set with three symbols of Western architecture: the grid, a skyscraper and a square, where the spread of vegetation, again the process of metamorphosis, transforms the skyscraper to the point that it is no longer recognisable.
Some of his drawings are based on actual projects, such the urban planning development for Frankfurt-Oberrad in 1986, Real City: Frankfurt (which remained unrealised); many are rather experiments and utopias, such as Arcadia, Vegetated Lump and Hidden City, where the architecture was inspired by the surrounding vegetation, its beginning and end blurred, merging organically into nature.
If you go in the next months to Berlin, do not miss the exhibition, which runs until February 12, 2016.
