Superstudio

Italian group of architects formed in Florence in December 1966 by Adolfo Natalini (b 1941) and Cristiano Toraldo di Francia (b 1941) with Roberto Magris (b 1935), Gian Piero Frassinelli (b 1939) and Alessandro Magris (b 1941). Alessandro Poli was a member from 1970 to 1972. They were active in the fields of architecture and design until December 1986, and from 1973 they also taught at the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Florence. The group collectively explored experimental concepts in radical architecture and urban planning until 1978, but thereafter the ideas were reflected principally in Natalini's work. Superstudio established radical Surrealist visions of negative environments as critiques of contemporary movements (Rationalism, Functionalism), universal urban planning models and technologism. They aimed to extend the horizons of architecture by giving it the validity of a language in itself. Their best-known work, the Continuous Monument (1969), portrays an architectural work to be extended over the whole world. Architectural histograms (1969), Twelve Ideal Cities (1971) and Fundamental Acts (life-education-love-death; 1971-3) are dream-narrations, graphic presentations as polemic, arguing for a new anthropological and philosophical basis for architecture. These projects were among those acclaimed at the exhibition Italy: The New Domestic Landscape (1972) at MOMA, New York. A more conventional modernist style characterizes Superstudio's interior designs (1969-81) and competition submissions including that for the Archivio di Stato Firenze (1970). Natalini's exhibition La memoria invece (Florence, 1978) returned to metaphor, but his project solutions became more and more capable of realization: they include the Bahnhof Apotheke of L?beck (1976-8), the almost surreal designs for rebuilding in R?merberg (1979), a house at Saalgasse 4, Frankfurt (1980-83), and the Museum of Technology and Labour (1982) at Mannheim, all in Germany; and in Italy a bank headquarters (1978-83) at Alzate Brianza, Como and a computer centre (1979-81) at Zola Predosa, Bologna.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

This avant-garde architecture and design group was closely associated with the Radical Design movement in Italy. Founded in Florence in December 1966 by Adolfo Natalini and Cristiano Toraldo di Francia, its members rejected the traditional relationship between designer and manufacturer whereby the former was subservient to, and thus constrained by, the dictates of the latter. Like Archizoom, also founded in Florence in 1966, Superstudio sought to explore utopian ideas for living rather than be confined by the strictures of functionalism. Its philosophy was characterized by the Monumento Continuo of 1968 in which expansive future living environments were conceived as being objectless and free from the pressures of consumerism. The main outlets for Superstudio's ideas were exhibitions, catalogues, international competitions, seminars, and lectures, the most significant stage perhaps being the Italy: The New Domestic Landscape (1972), curated by Emilio Ambasz at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Superstudio was a member of the Global Tools initiative (1973-5) and participated in a number of exhibitions including the Milan Triennali and the Sottsass and Superstudio: Mindscapes exhibition that toured the United States in from 1973 to 1975. Members of Superstudio were also active in promoting their ideas through teaching and research in university departments in Florence and elsewhere.

Superstudio was an architecture firm, founded in 1966 in Florence, Italy by Adolfo Natalini and Cristiano Toraldo di Francia. Superstudio was one of major part of the Radical architecture movement of the late 1960s. The founders had gone to school at the University of Florence with Archizoom founder Andrea Branzi and first showed their work in the Superarchitettura show in 1966.^[1]

In 1967, Natalini established three categories of future research: “architecture of the monument”; the “architecture of the image”; and “tecnomorphic architecture”. Soon, Superstudio would be known for its conceptual architecture works, most notably the 1969 Continuous Monument: An Architectural Model for Total Urbanization.

Many of their projects were originally published in the magazine Casabella, and ranged from fiction, to storyboard illustration, to photomontage.

Natalini wrote in 1971 “…if design is merely an inducement to consume, then we must reject design; if architecture is merely the codifying of bourgeois model of ownership and society, then we must reject architecture; if architecture and town planning is merely the formalization of present unjust social divisions, then we must reject town planning and its cities…until all design activities are aimed towards meeting primary needs. Until then, design must disappear. We can live without architecture…”

Superstudio was influential on architects such as Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Bernard Tschumi.^[2]

Images

The Continuous Monument: On the Rocky Coast, project Perspective (1969)

References

1. ^ "Superstudio Design Museum Touring Exhibition]]". http://www.designmuseum.org/design/superstudio. 
2. ^ Ringen, Jonathan. "Superstudio Pioneers of Conceptual Architecture]]". http://www.metropolismag.com/story/20040106/superstudio-pioneers-of-conceptual-architecture. 

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