Saturday, 1 December 2018

Fac51 The Hacienda Newsletter






One of the few Factory related things not to have its own catalog number. So, the year is 1982, the Hacienda has been open only for a few months, and things are going both swimmingly and disasterously by reading the contents.

Luigi Colani / Designing the 21st Century


Excellent book on the oddball futuristic transport designer Colani. Despite his name Colani is a German citizen of Kurdish descent, though a lot of his work was for Italian car manufacturers. Though a prolific furniture and industrial designer his most known work is within the automobile industry, where his futuristic and often outlandish designs have seen him occupy the position of both insider and outsider. A true eccentric, how he got funding for anything is a wonder.

Steven Meisel / Per Lui


The closest one can get to a Meisel monographs- his brilliant Per Lui for Vogue Italia. It's exactly what you would expect- and want.

L'arte del costume nel cinema di Luchino Visconti


Wonderful book from the exhibition of the same name mounted in 1977. Visconti's scenography and costumes are stunning, and here some of his best work is presented, with of course the focus being on the clothes.

Tuesday, 27 November 2018

Ant Farm : Inflatocookbook : a pneu-age techs book


A wonderful artefact of the age of experimental hippy architecture. Ant Farm prototyped temporary and inflatable structures, and during their lifetime published this how to guide for anybody who was interested and inclined. From the preface of the later 1973 edition: "The INFLATOCOOKBOOK was first published in Jan. 1971 by Ant Farm. It was our attempt to gather information and skills learned in process and present it in an easily accessible format. That INFLATOCOOKBOOK came loose leaf in a vinyl binder that we fabricated in our warehouse in Sausalito. The first printing was 2000 copies. The experiences that qualified us as ' Inflato-experts' occurred over an 18 month period in which we designed. built, and erected inflatables for a variety of clients and situations. Charley Tilford showed Ant Farm how to make fast, cheap inflatagles out of polyethylene and tape and support them with used fans from Goodwill. That was in the fall of 1969. The first one built was the largest, a 100'xl00' white pillow that was built for the ill fated Wild West Festival in San Francisco, then after being turned down for Stewart Brand's Liferaft Earth Event, finally had its day at Altamont. There followed a year in which we built numerous demo-inflatables at schools, conferences, festivals and gatherings around the state of California and beyond. ANT FARM at that time was: Andy Shapiro, Kelly Gloger, Fred Unterseher, Hudson Marquez, Chip Lord, Doug Hurr, Michael Wright, Curtis Schreier, Joe Hall, and Doug Michels. The INFLATOCOOKBOOK was written, designed, and put together by: Chip Lord, Curtis Schreier, Andy Shapiro, Hudson Marquez, Doug Hurr, Doug Michels with help from: Sylvia Oreyfus, Charley Tilford, and Sotiti Kitrilakis."  Sits very well alongside the works of Archigram, Superstudio, Archizoom and Gruppo 9999 but with a west coast utopianism and DIY principles more often found in the Whole Earth/Dome building movement.

ARse : Architects for a Really Socialist Environment


Proper old fashioned  (and scarce) Trot/Marxist architecture critique. With of course a cover criticism of the flamboyant Archigram (here as Archigoon), and pages of stories about tenant organisations, botched town planning, Mai 68 style posters from AA students, squatting Centrepoint, public housing, writings from Black Dwarf and Agit Prop, Durban, The Architects resistance. A strain of architectural theory absent in the main from current discourse.