Customer Reviews

Spaced Out: Radical Environments of the Psychedelic Sixties

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Alastair Gordon's Spaced Out: Radical Environments of the Psychedelic Sixties is a glorious fresh look at the intentional communities and unusual built environments that grew out of the 60s cultural revolution. The book itself is astonishingly beautiful, with fantastic photographs and illustrations from the archives of still-functioning utopian communities. Gordon's text reads easily even while conveying sophisticated cultural criticism. I recently heard Alastair speak and enjoyed his slide show (from images in the book). I have bought the book as a gift for friends; no one interested in this era could possibly be dissappointed by this book. But, more important, anyone interested in sustainable building practices, the new conservation movement or strategies for living lightly on the earth must read this book as Alastair details important pioneering efforts. Then thought radical, but increasingly today being reconsidered in light of climate change, dependence on foreign oil and degradation and depletion of the earth's natural resources.

This is a very well written look back at the "Psychedelic Sixties" with fantastic photographs. It accurately catches the spirit and facts of the age as I remember them.

Spaced Out is a far out, wonderful book. Since I'm in it, I'm from the sixties, and the book melds with my mind, this review is biased, telling what it feels like from inside the history and being a small but happily doublepage-spread feature between the covers of the book.

Surprise! I was not alone in developing artwork that hadn't been seen before; I was part of a huge explosion that I can now see and explore in this book.

Amazement! The motive feelings, thoughts, and intuitions that seemed to bubble up creatively in my work are now explained eloquently in strong narrative, yet compellingly poetic text that somehow helps it all come home. Like a finishing of some sort. Making the 60's elements concrete and conceptually available brings the 60's to a new level; makes a new platform and springboard.

The challenge is to continue the Spaced Out threads, keep weaving them together. The dreams so beautifully told in this book still haven't come true. Let's review and revel in our sixties history and then keep trucking.

Wow. What a gorgeous book. Full of trippy pix I have never before seen, from psychedelic lightshow images, Haight Ashbury crashpads, domes made from recycled car bodies, naked hippies holding bushels of grass and group hot tubs, communes, to inflatable environments and self built inspiring "green" homes and lots of peace and love. Accompanied by a fascinating accesible narrative that puts the period into a positive light, enlightening as if the sixties were the Renaisance of our time. Alastair Gordon definatively created a piece of historical value here, its a book that feels new and fresh and proves that those who try to make light, or even fun of the sixties are sadly misguided.

...that's what Abbie Hoffman recommended for his book, and although Mr. Gordon and his publisher would no doubt be aghast at my suggestion, I would hope they understand that I am offering the highest compliment possible. Of course Gordon has produced a brilliant and insightful reprise of the complex and infinitely inventive scaffolding erected around the pulsing acid drenched brains of the hippie-communal-musico-syndico movement of the 60's. If that is not enough for you, the book is a visual hay-ride complete with the joyful squeals and pure wonderment at the risk-taking and enterprise of this era. But truly what makes this book valuable is that we now have come full circle and the ideas, experiments, wishes, lies, dreams and epiphany driven structures of our outwardly stoned but inwardly centered forebears are without question the thumping necessities of our present generation. If we don't heed the call of those hairy ghosts and think hard about what they were suggesting, we may all soon perish in a soupy deluge of our own making. Read it, think about the directions these flower children dreamily suggested, or die. There is precious little time left to muddle about on the proverbial middle ground. Think about the infinite necessities of Soleri's Arcosanti--consider the softened edges, the use of natural materials, the love of movement, air, circular motion, the simplicity and minimal impact of a consciously gentle and open lifestyle suggested by these thought and action pioneers in the best and truest of American traditions--Brave adventurers they were, blazing the path we are now reluctantly dragging our self-indulgent selves back onto. This book helps us to look backward with certainty so that we may look forward with clarity.

That's really a good book, and for me , that i couldn't find it in Portugal, now that i have it, i'm really Happy.
It's really a Journey in Time and Space =)

What a great book! A wonderful look at architecture and how it influenced and was influenced by counterculture thought. Invaluable photos.

An absolute triumph of a book, and an incredibly exciting and inspiring excavation of a colorful, creative, independent-minded past, one that came about two decades too early for me to have experienced first hand. But regardless of this, Gordon's deft descriptions and appraisals combined with the explosion of stunning images in this book all made it real for me. If recreation was partly his goal, and surely it was, then he succeeded brilliantly. And I am now awakened and committed to a new image in my mind of new human possibilities.

Out of many hundreds if not thousands of books I've read in my life, this was one of the very few that left me in tears at the end. It's also one of a handful I'd consider precious. I never wanted it to end. But then I realized it didn't have to.

Thank you Alastair.

I was expecting alot from this book. Bright colours and radical designs. Instead it's a book of pictures of communes and naked people and people sitting on steps. What a let down!!! This book cost me $40. I was going to give this as a present. I can't do that now. What a shame and a waste of money.