To a group of architecture students at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris in the turbulent year 1968, the idea of the inflatable held a promise of mobility, movement, energy, and escape. Seeking to overturn the inertia and oppression that they believed characterized mainstream architecture, the Utopie group (as they called themselves) designed a series of pneumatic buildings, furniture, and environments, all heavily influenced by American military structures and comic books as well as by the work of Buckminster Fuller, Henri Lefebvre, Jean Baudrillard, and London's Archigram. Though Utopie architects Jean Aubert, Jean-Paul Jungmann, and Antoine Stinco were unable to realize their dream of a society literally built on air, their fanciful, exuberant, witty, and highly detailed drawings remain some of the most extraordinary in modern architecture. The Inflatable Moment documents this fascinating intersection of architectural, social, and political history, as it presents a complete, annotated catalog of the designs of the Utopie architects alongside similar structures from the period. Essays on the pneumatic phenomenon and the intellectual history of the Utopie group are supplemented by reflections by the three architects, each written especially for this book.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"Lushly illustrated." -- Liane Lefaivre, Architecture
About the Author
Marc Dessauce Marc Dessauce, a New York-based architectural historian, is the author of Machinations and a former contributor to Casabella.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
deeper than you thought,
By Adam Greenfield "Clean living under difficult... (Helsinki, Finland) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)
This review is from: The Inflatable Moment: Pnuematics and Protest in '68 (Paperback)
So you thought that inflatable chairs were just goofy, disposable conversation pieces - the lava lamp of furniture, doomed to evoke hazy images of some late 60s lysergic idyll no matter how many times they come back in fashion. This book is here to blow that perception out of the water - to tell for the first time the fascinating story of inflatables: how the idea emerged from the US military, was baptized by the ludic "instant city" manifestoes of Archigram, and became bound up in the politics of the Situationist-inspired street protests of May '68. There aren't quite as many high-quality images as I'd have liked, and from time to time the book descends into unwonted theoryspeak, but I know of literally no other reference on this particular moment - one where optimism, liberation, and technology fused to suggest possibilities where none had existed before. Highly recommended.
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
Pneumatics and revolution agree well. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
antoine stinco, jean aubert, inflatable moment, inflatable furniture, inflatable structures, pneumatic structures, tensegrity structure, diploma project, traveling theater Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Henri Lefebvre, Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Exhibition Hall, Contemporain du Centre, Guy Debord, Hubert Tonka, Structures Gonflables, Walter Bird, Frank Lloyd Wright, Auguste Pace, Frei Otto, Edouard Albert, New York, Charles Fourier, Fonds Régional, Isabelle Auricoste, Les Halles, René Lourau, Situationist International, United States, Fonds Regional, Pancino Pneumatic Living-Economical-Mobile, Paris Biennale Plate, Aerolande Unexecuted, Anatole Kopp New!
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Pneumatics and revolution agree well. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
antoine stinco, jean aubert, inflatable moment, inflatable furniture, inflatable structures, pneumatic structures, tensegrity structure, diploma project, traveling theater Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Henri Lefebvre, Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Exhibition Hall, Contemporain du Centre, Guy Debord, Hubert Tonka, Structures Gonflables, Walter Bird, Frank Lloyd Wright, Auguste Pace, Frei Otto, Edouard Albert, New York, Charles Fourier, Fonds Régional, Isabelle Auricoste, Les Halles, René Lourau, Situationist International, United States, Fonds Regional, Pancino Pneumatic Living-Economical-Mobile, Paris Biennale Plate, Aerolande Unexecuted, Anatole Kopp New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 17
books:
See all 17 books this book cites
- Frank Lloyd Wright (The Wisconsin Experience) by Carole Marsh in Front Matter, and page 39
- The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard on page 39
- South America (Countries: Faces and Places) by Kathryn Stevens on page 41
- Critique of Everyday Life, Volume II by Henri Lefebvre on page 45
- All That Is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity by Marshall Berman on page 13
See all 17 books this book cites
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