Wednesday 16 August 2017

Book: Hippie Modernism - The Struggle For Utopia


Hippie Modernism? An oxymoronic title, surely? It caught my attention in the shop anyway. That and geodome inferno, which is Buckminster Fuller and Shoji Sadao's Expo '67 US pavilion ablaze in 1976. A symbol, now, of The Death of Hippie Utopia? Maybe. The Death Of Hippie had already been proclaimed by The Diggers in their 1967 march/wake/event. But wasn't Hippie all back-to- nature-doped-up-tree-hugging anti-technology? To some extent, yes, but what this Walker Art Center exhibition tie-in tome reveals is the extent to which tech-utopia dreams evolved from the design office drawing board to architectural futurist and street activism. Whether through chemically assisted visions or simply the unavoidable impact of the (would-be) social revolutionaries, the idea of positive change; an alternative to square society, took a firm hold. Of course it was parodied in many adverts of the day, but Hippie Modernism is packed with examples of genuine attempts to realise a better world through architecture, social schemes, action and art. If the 'struggle for utopia' was eventually (inevitably) lost, Hippie Modernism at least illustrates times when hope was alive. Such dreaming may have proved futile, but I for one find the theoretical/visual results of those dreams fascinating. 





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