The Walking City

Their works offered a seductive vision of a glamorous future machine age, however social and environmental issues were left unaddressed" ("Archigram," Answers.com).

Archigram's surrealistic projects included such amazing concepts as Peter Cook's Plug-in City assembled from cranes, pods, Zeppelins, and flashing signs that could "roll into town, bolt together and plug itself in overnight" (Jacob). The idea of a moveable city, a suit that turned into a house, and a house that could walk was an affront to traditional architecture and a salute to the ability of technology to transform traditional buildings into vehicles.

One of the more feasible concepts was Ron Herron's Walking City, a collection of robot-like intelligent buildings in the form of giant pods that could roam the cities. The pods could move independently but could also plug in to way stations to exchange occupants or restock supplies ("Archigram," Answers.com). Herron's concept presents an alternative that allows people to move their house any time they need a better location to live in, a capability that radically alters the traditional view of architecture and transforms a city from streets with rows of houses to a backdrop for a dynamic, ever-changing panorama where the house that was on the corner yesterday is across town today. In a sense, the Walking City was not much different from an RV, except that instead of traveling sedately on the highways and byways, it could go anywhere at wi

 

In spite of the drawbacks associated with trying to develop an actual Walking City, the concept itself is exciting and full of possibilities. Archigram's hep new ideas brought a fresh wave of optimism to Britain's otherwise dreary, cookie-cutter concept of cities (Sorkin). Instead of being anchored to traditional housing concepts, Archigram blew the lid off and invited fantasy to meet utility. As David Greene pointed out in 1961, "You can roll out steel any length. You can blow up a balloon any size. You can mould plastic any shape" (Thomas).

 

Adam Greenfield points out in "Two psychogeographies: Archigram and the Situationists,"

The Archigram ? set itself the task not of revolutionizing architecture, but rather of the way of thinking about it. The limits of its investigation were the relationship between cities and the new technologies of information, movement and perception. Fun, play and pleasure were the rationale for archigrams projects, not as recreation, the pause that refreshes, between stretches of productive labour, but as an epistemology and an end in itself ("Peter Cook").

Sorkin, Michael. "Metropolis What Goes Up: Amazing Archigram." April 1998.

"The Legacy of Archigram." Saturday Breakfast with Geraldine Doogue 23/04/2005. Radio National. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/saturday/stories/s1351558.htm

ll. The Walking City also appeared to be a multi-family dwelling, more like an apartment house than a one-family house. As such, it represented a community rather than an individual.

Wolfe, Shawn. "Yesterday's Tomorrow." The Stranger. August 5-11, 1999.

Although a Walking City has much to recommend it the ability to escape a bad neighborhood, a way out of a polluted environment, a workaround for the

Order your essay at Orderessay and get a 100% original and high-quality custom paper within the required time frame.