PLUG IN CITY by Archigram

Archigram appeared at the beginning of the 1960s in the UK in a time of great social and cultural change. Their members soon developed an interest in the city of tomorrow and from the 1960s and 70s they realized a series of experimental urban projects based on the city as a megastructure: Walking City, Inflatable City or Plug in City. In any moment the final idea of these projects was their realization but to show a critical opinion of the town planning of that time. Archigram understood the city as a living organism adaptable and flexible in architecture and social interactions. In addition, and as Le Corbusier, the city was understood as a machine that depends on the technological complexity of the mass production.

Plug in City (1964) is an urban megastructure that incorporates all basic needs that inhabitants may need, such as theaters, residential towers, and office structures. Each module is crowned by a crane which allows movement and exchanges through them. Like in any city proposal from Archigram the aim is to obtain a flexible and dynamic form that would represent the changing collectivity of its inhabitants.

The collage, as a mean of representation, became a sign of identity in Archigram’s work. The use of this technique allows them to obtain two purposes: (1) to ease the representation of abstract ideas and concepts thanks to the possibility of fracturing the illusion of real space and of overlapping multiples view, and (2) to blend architecture technical drawings with iconography from popular cultures such as comics. The result is radical and exuberant compositions where color, text and architectural drawings have the same importance, and where the final aim was transmitting their message most effectively.