One of the greatest limits in the modernist vision, technologically translated into housing, factories, cities, was identified, at its twilight, in staticity unable to relate to a complexly growing humanity. And the reaction to this limitation – this was the 1970 – was not only represented by the eclecticism and historicism of Postmodern. Between 1973 and 1974, an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Craft in New York explored the theme of the “portable person”, of all those technological, mobile extensions of the human body that could ensure a possibility of relating one's existence to any place: “a continued evolution of humans through the development of a mechanical and electrical 'ectoskeleton’”, more directly “the ultimate decentralized city”.

From origins in millennia-old history to contemporary equipment and devices, more elaborate or spontaneous in their technology, the exhibition presented the – realized – possibility of a “technoperson” close to the xenoentities envisioned by science fiction, the standard bearers today of critical stances contrasting the capitalist world's extractivist model of consumption. Domus published a reflection on the importance of the New York exhibition in February 1974, in issue 531.

This peculiar exhibition, held at the Museum of Contemporary Craft in New York from October 5 through January 1 1974, was a quick-glance to the evolution of man and of his needs through his millennial continuous movings. From bedouin to astronaut, from camel to missile, from simple and essential nomad's gears to those multi-functional, compact and miniaturized of contemporary man, the exhibition is a documentation (photographical and with objects) fantastic and real of man’s achievement in satisfying his wish to discover and explore new lands and new worlds and to achieve all those comforts necessary for his expeditions as part of the equipment of his wandering “portable” person. In these pages, some of the most significant images of the exhibition.

Portable person, as illustrated and described at right, is a vision of a future mobile, life-supported earth inhabitant outfitted with a technologically inspired extension of the body responding to the city environment.

Portable person exists in primitive form today. People transport, as part of their persons, things that serve as environmental protection (clothing, weather gear), correct or extend the senses (glasses, portable loudspeakers), extend the physical and mental self (tools, portable calculators), and project the psychological self (clothing, jewelry). The present portable person is an assemblage of objects which perform independent of each other. People rely less on this assemblage than in earlier times and rely more on non-portable objects such as shelters, machines and cities for life support.

Portable person is a projection of the present state of technology in response to social, political and environmental trends. Subminiaturization in electronics, sophisticated performance based synthetic materials, and integrated systems development will make possible the personal portability of most objects people use in the home or office. The portable person is the ultimate decentralized city.

Portable person is a continued evolution of humans through the development of a mechanical and electrical “ectoskeleton”. The physical evolution of humans occured genetically in a survival response. Social evolution occurred through the invention, production and use of artifacts. Early artifacts were portable and personal (tools, clothing, shelter) and were a form of the extended self. The evolution of this man-made ectoskeleton was interrupted by the production of non-portable artifacts (shelters, factories, cities), which were technological responses to the more complex man-made environment. Evolution through technology resulted in dependence on place. Portable person is the development of the “technoself” through technological refinement.

Portable person is a response to the state of cities. Cities are the ultimate place-dependent technological artifacts. We rely on centralized cities as places that provide for all life services. They are failing because the aggregation of human needs are too complex for solution by a single mechanism. Los Angeles developed as a decentralized city and exists as a field of evenly spread out services connected by cars. The services are better, but people have become dominated by the car. Portable person provides life services at the portable personal level and results in the complete decentralization of the city. People are no longer place dependent in order to communicate. The personal adaption assures a good fit to the physical and social environment.

Portable person is performance based. All system elements are integrated into a whole performing technoself. Individual performance needs result in a personal ectoskele-ton which appears as personal style.