Records of a radical architecture

Superstudio. Opere 1966-1978, curated and with an essay by Gabriele Mastrigli, Quodlibet, 2016, pp. 668.

  In the last fifteen years or so, numerous publications and exhibitions in Europe and America have studied, with renewed interest and critical view, what has been defined in 1971 as Radical Architecture [1] and reignited a debate, remained for years dormant because of the ostracism of historians and intellectuals, on the work of its main actors – 9999, Archizoom, Remo Buti, Riccardo Dalisi, Ugo La Pietra, Gianni Pettena, Strum, Superstudio, Ufo and Zziggurat. Today, in historical essays devoted to the Sixties and Seventies, the Radical Architecture has become an essential point of reference also to understand the reasons of the affirmation of the latest architectural avant-garde.  

The book edited by Gabriele Mastrigli, entitled Superstudio Opere 1966-1978, published concurrently with a retrospective, curated by the same Mastrigli and opened in Rome at the Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI secolo (MAXXI) on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the group Superstudio, [2] fits into this line of research and is expected to become an essential tool for future studies on the group.

The book gathers together essays, drawings and reports of architectural and design projects, photomontages, unpublished photographs and appendices (list of works, list of writings, of printings and of expositions, updated bibliography, biographical informations) that allow to reconstruct the history of Superstudio from its founding in 1966 up to its latest interventions in the late Seventies. Despite the retrospective appearance, the book proposes a critical reconstruction of the work of Superstudio, based on an in-depth study and on the archaeological accuracy of the preserved documents within the archive of the group and its members (Gian Piero Frassinelli, Alessandro Magris, Roberto Magris, Adolfo Natalini, Alessandro Poli and Cristiano Toraldo di Francia). Photographs and projects combined with texts of which the parts changed during the editorial phase are highlighted, reveal how, behind the seductive images with strong visual impact produced by Superstudio since 1968, there is a broader and more profound discussion dedicated to architecture and its destiny.

The structure of the book is defined by thematic subdivision and mainly chronological ordering of the most important and famous works of the group. The choice of texts and projects single’s out significant periods in the time frame considered, according to a classification similar to that proposed by Natalini in 1977. [3] This demonstrates how in a very short time Superstudio has managed to become a major actor in the international debate on architecture, urbanism and design, helping to shape new forms of intervention based on a theoretical and metaphorical system. However, do not appear in this book the few buildings realized by Superstudio that could confirm the application of some of its theoretical reflections even in the field of construction, and at the same time deny the misinterpretation, and sometimes still actual idea, of a group who never realized architecture. [4]  

The passionate tales of Toraldo di Francia, Natalini and Frassinelli, and the vast and detailed introductory essay by the curator, which explains the work of Superstudio within the political and cultural context, the references and the relationships with other avant-garde of Radical Architecture, provide the essential interpretations to understand Superstudio’s research generated by a critical contamination of different cultures. In this way it becomes clear that after the first works defined by shapes, colors and creative processes arising from Pop Art, Superstudio started researching for other cultural and figurative horizons to advance towards the generation of a poetic vision that has renewed principles and forms of design and architecture of late Functionalism. Is significant in this sense the story written through cartoons - “storyboard” as defined by Superstudio - elaborated to illustrate a Viaggio nelle regioni della ragione, and focused on the reduction of works drawn and realized by the group until 1968, to abstract geometrical forms without any functional connotation. 

The Viaggio is a milestone for the discovery of a geometric solid conceived beyond any program, independent of any structural logic, expression of a geometry capable of becoming the image of reason itself: the Monumento Continuo. This solid, coated with a gridded surface that reveals nothing within its interior, is the first form of an absolute architecture, or “disegno unico”, of which the Istogrammi d’architettura and Catalogo di ville are the other expressions. The research by Superstudio did not stop with the invention of a total architecture model applicable to any scale and for any function. The “educational” projects developed in the early Seventies for a Architettura Riflessa and for an Architettura Interplanetaria demonstrate how the group staged the dissolution of conventional boundaries of architecture, to move towards its “non-physical” re-founding on anthropological basis.

The “allegra morte dell’architettura non dovrebbe far paura a nessuno: è molto che ci prepariamo, distaccandoci sempre più dalla fisicità della costruzione,” wrote Natalini in 1971. [5] In this manner the study of rituals and laws that govern the anthropic behavior is the topic of the last research by Superstudio: the 12 Città ideali, the Atti Fondamentali, the Salvataggi di centri storici italiani and the Cultura materiale extraurbana. “L’unica architettura sarà la nostra vita,” proclaimed the group in 1978 shortly before its dissolution. [6]

1. Germano Celant, Senza titolo, in “IN. Argomenti e Immagini di design”, n. 2-3, March-June 1971, pp. 76-81.
2. “Superstudio 50”, exhibition curated by Gabriele Mastrigli at the MAXXI in Rome, 21 April-4 September 2016.
3. Adolfo Natalini, Com’era ancora bella l’architettura nel 1966, in Spazioarte, n. 10-11, June-October 1977, pp. 6-11.
4. See: Stephen Wallis, The Super Superstudio Italy’s legendary radical design group never actually finished a building, and yet its hallucinogenic visions are still making waves, in “The New York Times Style Magazine”, 17 April 2016, p. 278.
5. Adolfo Natalini, letter to Domus, 26 April 1971 (Archivio Natalini, Firenze).
6. La moglie di Lot e la coscienza di Zeno, La Biennale di Venezia 1978: Utopia e crisi dell’antinatura. Intenzioni architettoniche in Italia, exhibition catalogue, Venice 1978.