John Mchale and the Bucky Fuller Revival

Anthony Vidler John McHale and the Bucky Fuller Revival Since the early 20th century, the environmental impulse in architecture has waxed and waned. Anthony COPYRIGHTEDVidler considers this cyclical MATERIAL phenomenon, particularly in relation to the Independent Group in Britain during the 1950s, which culminated in John McHale’s discovery of Richard Buckminster Fuller in 1955 and the full- blown Bucky Fuller revival of the 1960s. 24 0024-033-c01(ObscurePics).indd24-033-c01(ObscurePics).indd 2244 007/10/20107/10/2010 117:367:36 Cover of The Ecological Context by John McHale (G Braziller Inc, 1970, fi rst edition). 25 0024-033-c01(ObscurePics).indd24-033-c01(ObscurePics).indd 2255 007/10/20107/10/2010 117:367:36 turned-planner Patrick Geddes between the nature and art in such a way as to reveal their In the fi eld of architecture, 1890s and the First World War. It was formal and environmental conditions on behalf the question of ecology developed through the 1920s and 1930s, of an architecture yet to be discovered – was was fi rst introduced with any primarily in Germany, following the lead of to be cut short. Fuller’s ‘body of research into Ernst Haeckel, but with a decidedly the shelter needs of mankind’, and especially seriousness by the biologist unfortunate connection with the Blood and that of some of the younger members of the and educator-turned- Soil movement that led to a strong ‘ecofascist’ circle around the Institute of Contemporary planner Patrick Geddes movement in the 1930s and 1940s, led by Arts (ICA) in London, were compelling means ‘Germany’s Gardener’ Alwin Seifert. But it was of destabilising the professional discourse of between the 1890s and the also in the 1920s that a new voice began to be the moment and perhaps even confronting the First World War. heard from the US – that of a young Harvard complex problems of world reconstruction and drop-out, entrepreneur and inventor, Richard development after the devastation of the war.1 Buckminster Fuller. From the mid-1920s to his We may trace three moments in the Issues of environmental conservation, death in 1983, he tirelessly promulgated his development of this tendency. The fi rst, sustainability and ecological responsibility ideas and inventions: the Dymaxion House of spearheaded by the artist Richard Hamilton have, in different ways and to different effects, 1929, and the geodesic dome, developed in with the support of sculptor and artist been present in architectural discourse since every possible iteration and technological Eduardo Paolozzi and photographer Nigel the beginning of the 20th century. At various combination, for peace and for war. But it is Henderson, was the exhibition ‘Growth and moments they have even risen to the forefront not that aspect of Fuller that will be emphasised Form’ at the ICA in the summer of 1951, of design agendas only to recede in the face of here; rather, it is Fuller the ecologist, the the title of which signalled its affi liation with developmental pressures, fi nancial constraints prophet of one very small world with limited D’Arcy Thompson’s celebrated book On and shifts in stylistic taste. And while present resources – that ‘planet earth’ beloved by the Growth and Form2 and the intent to explore concerns over the very survival of the planet Whole Earth Catalog movement. the formal properties of nature in a way that have posed the ecological question with a While Fuller’s domes became ubiquitous was less analogical than proposed by the renewed urgency, it may be salutary to inquire in military and civilian use, and his circular abstract architects of the Modern movement, into the reasons behind the waxing and waning houses remained curiosities of technological Le Corbusier or Mies van der Rohe. This of apparently strong environmental movements utopianism, his approaches to the world exhibition, opening two months after the from the early 20th century on. Revived in system had held the promise of a truly Festival of Britain, was intended to redirect the 1930s, revived again in the 1950s and global awareness of ecology supported by the lens of British art criticism and practice the 1960s, and now seemingly again on the the collection and mapping of integrated away from the nostalgia of ‘eternal Britain’ agenda, these successive waves of interest information on energy, resources and and towards the future indicated by Sigfried have episodically been lost or forgotten by the population. A world of fi nite resources, imaged Giedion’s Mechanization Takes Command mainstream of the architectural profession. in rocket and manned space fl ights, shaken (1947)3 with a sense of the new formal regimes Anticipating the next waning of ecological by the havoc of the war, nuclear threat, rising being uncovered by biology and physics. interest, a historical discussion of these cycles population and the explosion of metropolitan A second moment was marked by – not simply to feed nostalgia for an apparently regions, had seemed ready for news of the gradual coalition of young artists and more prescient past, not simply to repeat the environmental conditions and potential architects – the ‘lost generation’ as they forms of earlier responses, nor fi nally, out of crises. Hence the popularity of Drop City- were to call themselves (including Alison simple historical interest manifested in type experiments, and the brief enthusiasm and Peter Smithson) – who formed a loose exhibitions and monographs – might offer of architecture students and some of their collaboration that came to be known as the clues as to what we might take away in the teachers between 1960 and 1970. Young Independent Group, convened by form of approaches, contrasts and rigorous This enthusiasm, part born in London Banham in the summer of 1952. The following rethinking of our own theories and practices, before being transplanted to the US by its year, Henderson, Paolozzi and the Smithsons distinguished from the past, but precipitated by it. intellectual believers – an outgrowth of the staged ‘Parallel of Life and Art’ at the ICA. At In the fi eld of architecture, the question of collective impulse of architects, photographers, this point the question was largely aesthetic ecology was fi rst introduced with any sculptors and artists immediately after the war – the topics of the series of lectures ‘Aesthetic seriousness by the biologist and educator- to collaborate in a study of the relations of Problems of Modern Art’ and ‘Aesthetic 26 0024-033-c01(ObscurePics).indd24-033-c01(ObscurePics).indd 2266 007/10/20107/10/2010 117:367:36 ‘Man’s Increasing Vertical Mobility’, The Ecological Context, Plate 11, p 32. f s e d s g t 27 0024-033-c01(ObscurePics).indd24-033-c01(ObscurePics).indd 2277 007/10/20107/10/2010 117:367:36 below: ‘Shrinking of Our Planet by Man’s opposite: ‘Photosynthetic Energy Increased Travel and Communication Conversion’, The Ecological Context, Speeds Around the Globe’, The Ecological Plate 13, p 34. Context, Plate 30, p 71. Problems of Contemporary Architecture’ at It was at this moment, just when the Perhaps the most telling image of the ICA with Banham, Hamilton, William preliminary discussions over an exhibition all, however, could be found in the small Turnbull, Colin St John Wilson and Toni del to be entitled ‘This is Tomorrow’ had taken mock-up collage for the exhibition’s poster, Renzio ranged from ‘New Sources of Form’ off after a year of debate, that McHale was entitled ‘Just what is it that makes today’s (Hamilton) and ‘Proportion and Symmetry’ offered a fellowship at Yale to study under homes so different, so appealing?’, with (Wilson) to ‘Non-Formal Painting’ (del Josef Albers. The year was decisive for its London townhouse setting (the living Renzio). The culmination, in architectural McHale, if not entirely for the Independent room of Magda and Frank Cordell’s house terms, of these aesthetic questions was to be Group. At Yale, McHale discovered diners, occupied by a collaged naked bodybuilder Banham’s 1955 article consecrating the ‘New freeways, glossy American magazines and, and a lounging, equally naked housewife Brutalism’ as a new aesthetic of the image.4 in the fl esh, Buckminster Fuller. Returning surrounded by all the mechanical household It was, however, in 1954 that a major from the US in July, he was just in time to objects of the new consumption culture – shift could be seen in the organisation and join Group 2 in preparing ‘This is Tomorrow’ taperecorder, vacuum cleaner, television and the themes of the Young Independent Group. with Hamilton and John Voelcker. The a can of Spam – all taken from the carton Banham had withdrawn from the position exhibition was set up as the sequel to Theo of magazines brought back from the US by of convener, citing the pressures of his thesis Crosby’s vestibule with its Fuller-like lattice McHale. The collage was, in this sense, a work under Nikolaus Pevsner at the Courtauld ceiling: it was fi lled with blow-ups of popular reprise of McHale’s earlier collage-book of Institute of Art in London. John McHale, who images – Marilyn Monroe, Robbie the Robot 1954, Why I Took to the Washers in Luxury had exhibited his collages at the ‘Man versus (who welcomed visitors ‘in person’), and Flats,6 also an encomium to his apartment in Machine’ exhibition at the Building Centre giant beer bottles within optical illusionary Frank Cordell’s house, but with one critical and in the ‘Collages and Objects’ exhibition spaces. While Richard Hamilton, assisted difference: in a grand gesture demonstrating at the ICA, joined with Lawrence Alloway by the painter Magda Cordell and Terry McHale’s newfound sense of the social and to reconvene the group.

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