The world according to Archigram

The hugely influential collective Archigram mixed 60s space race ideas with British provincial humour to visualise ‘pulsating’ mobile cities of the future. Fifty years on, three surviving members discuss – and defend – their legacy

I am holding in my hand a single sheet of paper, wrapped in protective plastic, with words and drawings wriggling all over the available space, on both sides. The possibilities of offset litho printing in the year of its making, 1961, are fully explored. A pinkish splodge decorates one edge – “a potato print”, explains one of its authors now, Professor Sir Peter Cook, “to add a bit of colour”. “The poetry of bricks is gone,” intones some of the original scrawled text, “we want to drag into building som [sic] of the poetry of countdown, orbital helmets, Discord of mechanical body transportation methods.”

This document was Archigram 1, the first issue of a magazine – if a single sheet can be called that – that was to grow in pagination and significance. Its price was sixpence, in old money. “You couldn’t give it away,” says Cook, “only friends and numbskulls would buy it.”

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