Agata Malinowska Dissertation by PDF Uploads

ARC3060 Dissertation in Architectural Studies Student name: Agata Malinowska Student number: 180337314 Dissertation title: The history of countercultural environmentalism: how architectural magazines constrained sustainable architecture. Dissertation tutor: Stephen Parnell Dissertation word count: 8422 Covid research adaptation account included on page 7.

The history of countercultural environmentalism: how architectural magazines constrained sustainable architecture.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

COVID ADAPTATION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

MAGAZINES

Whole Earth Catalog

Architectural Design

Architects’ Journal and Architectural Record

IMAGERY

PROCESS VS PRODUCT

FACES OF THE MOVEMENT

Buckminster Fuller

Stewart Brand

CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

LIST OF FIGURES

COVID RESEARCH ADAPTATION ACCOUNT

As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic my dissertation research had in majority moved to online archives of architectural magazines. I planned to access physical copies of magazines in the library and be able to browse through the issues which was not allowed in the current restrictions. This limitation made the process of browsing the magazines online more timeconsuming and I had to adjust the research to the magazines with archives available online.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my supervisor Stephen Parnell for always listening to my hypotheses, pointing me towards the right material and offering expertise on the subject, which made the work uniquely rewarding.

regarding their content. Professional magazines such as The Architects’ Journal and Architectural Record play an important role in validating discourse within the architectural profession. They are commercial, incorporate pages of advertisements and therefore are expected to maintain a high standard of covered sale worthy material. On the contrary, little magazines such as Architectural Design at the time and various less known titles did not depend on ad revenue, and as a result could encompass more controversial topics. Investigating the different magazines is key to understanding the message that the architectural public received regarding counterculture. While Architectural Design introduced more and more sections on appropriate technology, tools for individuals and ideas rather than sellable products, essentially transforming into a vehicle for countercultural ideas to its young audience, the bigger magazines such as Architects’ Journal and Architectural Record chose to create a different narrative around the same ideas. It is interesting to look back on the public discourse around emerging movements today because intense social involvement of young adults is in renaissance. Right now protests regarding social and environmental issues are widespread and online advocacy is expected of socially aware individuals. Analysing similar forms of action in the past might suggest ways of approaching such alternatives and their promotion in a different manner.

Figure 1: Drop City, Colorado.

INTRODUCTION The 1960s saw a generation of Americans grow up in a reality centred around the possibilities of technological advancements. To those coming of age at the time, technology presented opportunities never experienced before, both in terms of entertainment as well as the post war industrial job market.1 Despite the daunting fear regarding nuclear threats at the time, there was a general sense of security over basic needs resulting from the confidence in everyone being able to achieve the simple, yet in a way restrained, middle-class life. As a result, an opportunity to begin worrying about fundamental and more complex questions emerged. People found themselves unhappy with what they believed to be ‘the system’. The established routine life and the role of technology in the functioning of society were for the first time critically questioned, which led to the emergence of social movements in search of alternatives. The rise of countercultural movements was an attempt to reinvent the world. The movement was a critique of institutions and the hierarchy associated with them. The counterculture carried the notion of saving the

world by leaving behind the established bureaucracy and encouraged immediate action in the new direction. The new generation was trying to reinvent the world from the bottom up by focusing on self-sustenance, searching for freedom in setting up communes, living in geodesic domes and most importantly, detaching from the grid that would otherwise dictate their dependence on large systems. Magazines played a crucial role in giving the emerging radical attitude exposure. Before the internet, information was broadcasted through magazines and newspapers, as well as television and radio. The media, including magazines held power over the amount of information the public received from them, how and when they receive it. By introducing countercultural ideas and the faces of the movement, their portrayal of new narratives had the potential to form the readers’ opinions. Their reception depended on the narrative set in the articles. There is a crucial division between professional architectural magazines and less renowned little magazines

1 New Views on R. Buckminster Fuller, ed. by Hsiao-yun Chu and Roberto G. Trujillo (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 2009).

Two people were highly influential for the counterculture. Richard Buckminster Fuller, also known as Bucky Fuller, was the one who laid the earliest foundations for the countercultural ideas. He is widely recognised for designing geodesic domes. The characteristic structures were highly economically efficient and embodied Fuller’s thinking of “doing ever more with ever less.”2 That fuelled his radical optimistic rethinking of environmentalism, which he encompassed in his book Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth in 1969.3 The second person is Stewart Brand who is in a way a successor to the ideas that Fuller propagated. Brand was a key figure in LSD-driven experiments in the 1960s, and many of his ideas are rooted in druginduced experiences. He contemplated the social trends that emerged in the 1960s but effectively shaped their development as the editor of an influential countercultural publication, The Whole Earth Catalog. They were both fascinated with innovation. Fuller reimagined the world as a machine on a permanent quest for ultimate efficiency, and Brand focusing on giving power to

individuals by means of accessible systems of information. Counterculture thinkers pioneered ideas of sustainability. Thinking about finite resources, reusing materials and focusing on local solutions to problems are a few examples of themes that counterculture was concerned with, making it environmentally conscious. Counterculture was a fertile ground for environmental ideas due to its fascination with the process rather than the final product, and the search for pragmatic solutions. My research is centred around two UK-based journals and one American magazine to look at how the issue was presented from different perspectives. I have looked at every issue of Architectural Design (UK) between the years of 1968-1976, and Architects’ Journal (UK) and Architectural Record (US) between 1960-1977 and searched for keywords. I aimed to research how many times the topics of counterculture and its protagonists appeared in architectural magazines and how they were portrayed. The narratives they formed were very different, based on the type of magazine and its functions. It is crucial to see in which magazines the issues were silenced and which of them gave a platform to the radical ideas and the results of it. Researching the counterculture from the perspective of Architectural Design suggests a period of obsession over geodesic domes and the possibilities they unfolded. Reading the professional magazines, Architects’ Journal and Architectural Record mention them only episodically, always accompanying Fuller. That dynamic was repeated across many countercultural ideas. A devoted reader of one of the magazines had a completely different perspective and set of information to their colleague who preferred a different magazine. What I specifically want to focus on is what features of magazines negatively influenced further development of the environmental thought that was carried by countercultural voices and how that happened. This is not to critique the way magazines have presented counterculture. The purpose of this dissertation is to trace the presentation and connect the dots regarding the impact of such presentation on the approach to sustainability in architecture overall.

2 Richard Buckminster Fuller and Jaime Snyder, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, New ed (Baden: Müller, 2013), p. 31. 3 Timothy W. Luke, ‘Ephemeralization as Environmentalism: Rereading R. Buckminster Fuller’s Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth’, Organization & Environment, 23.3 (2010), 354–62 <https://doi.org/10.1177/1086026610381582>.

MAGAZINES I will be looking at how architectural magazines portrayed counterculture between 1960-1977. I will also analyse the countercultural magazine, The Whole Earth Catalog, and look at how it influenced the above magazines. In my opinion the way the magazines set the narrative caused prejudice towards sustainability. It is now obvious that the human perspective on ecology changed when knowledge on natural processes was spreading and became widely available.4 This chapter demonstrates how that spread of knowledge suffered on behalf of architectural magazines.

Figure 3: WEC contents page.

Figure 4: WEC page scan.

WHOLE EARTH CATALOG FROM WITHIN THE COUNTERCULTURE The Whole Earth Catalog was a countercultural magazine created by Stewart Brand himself. As a result of his devotion to the topics in the publication, Brand’s personal views and the message of the magazine heavily intertwine. The WEC was a lengthy compilation of products and services that were available at the time in the form of short descriptions. The idea behind it was empowerment of individuals through shared access to this knowledge. It was an optimistic dissemination of countercultural ideas that both reflected and influenced the culture at the time.5 In my opinion, the WEC was ahead of their time in focusing on the possibilities of independence, and as such thinking about the sustainability of one’s individual actions. The magazine embodied the principle of improving the world by improving the individual first. This thinking was a part of the countercultural reimagining of the world. Nevertheless, a big part of the catalog was aligned with the optimistic consumerism of the 1960s.6 On the one hand it was a guide to off-thegrid living and provided the tools necessary to live away from society. The idea was that one will be able to “see the big picture” and understand systems that constitute reality to consciously contribute to redesigning the world. Readers of the magazine were made to feel like masters

of the universe by accessing that knowledge, and in that sense it was successful in shifting the responsibility for one’s actions back onto the individual. On the other hand, the catalog promoted products alongside the processes and knowledge. They were devices that the creators of the catalog believed to be useful as tools, nevertheless, they were still gadgets that were available for purchase. [see above] Sadler indicates that The Whole Earth Catalog was attempting to reinvented capitalism from the bottom-up.7 I believe that made The Whole Earth Catalog an example of how “resistance to the system is presented on the terms of the system.”8 The magazine was a compendium of countercultural knowledge that played by the rules of the system it was trying to reinvent, utilising the optimistic consumerism of the times, which in turn made its content more digestible to the readers at the time. It offered more sustainable alternatives in a known context and accessible format, which maximised its success as a source of new unconventional ideas. Kirk points to the WEC as a catalyst of the ecological movement. By bringing together technology and nature, the catalog sensibly approached environmentalism and so helped construct that branch of knowledge from the beginning. 9

5 Andrew G. Kirk, Counterculture Green: The Whole Earth Catalog and American Environmentalism, Culture America (Lawrence, Kan.: University Press of Kansas, 2007). 6 Carole Cadwalladr, ‘Stewart Brand and the Whole Earth Catalog, the Book That Changed the World’, The Observer, 4 May 2013, section Books <https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/may/05/stewart-brand-whole-earth-catalog> [accessed 11 November 2020]. 7 Peggy Deamer, Architecture and Capitalism: 1845 to the Present (London ; New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2014), p. 120. 8 Jia Tolentino, Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion (Harper Collins Publishers, 2020), p. 93. 9 Andrew G. Kirk, pp. 8–9.

ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN UNCRITICAL OBSESSION The Architectural Design magazine was of the biggest importance for disseminating the countercultural thought, and there was a sense of fascination in the tone and amount of coverage given to those issues. In 1970 AD introduced The Whole Earth Catalog.10 That year also marks the magazine’s transformation into a little magazine, a switch to depending on subscriptions instead of advertisements as its main source of income.11 From that point the magazine’s pages were brimming with issues arousing public concern and promoting action with occasional advertisements for the products they had direct connections to, such as Domebooks. As a result of not having to cater towards advertisers, AD had more freedom in expressing new and possibly controversial ideas.12 Such content started in the Cosmorama section in 1965, which positioned at the beginning of the magazine introduced products in the form resembling a scrapbook. As it began including building processes it shifted the attention from products to ideas, what Stephen Parnell describes as a

shift from hardware to software in the AD.13 With time, the section expanded, and other sections titled Sector and Eco-tech “products and processes currently available” were added that were used for similar purposes. AD and the Whole Earth Catalog were slowly becoming more similar both visually and in terms of their philosophy. AD catered towards a student audience who were more likely to buy an advertised Domebook with the attached discount coupons than be the target group for building materials in advertisements. It was likely AD’s scrapbook approach that made it interesting to the young, open-minded audience and ultimately appropriate ground for developing sprouting ideas of sustainability in new columns such as Recycling. The AD was a challenge for what was deemed legitimate architectural discourse.14 It did not value pure capitalism which might be equated to being professional. On its own terms it validated the counterculture in architectural discussion and it was validated back by the counterculture.

10 Simon Sadler, ‘Appropriate Technology’s Prompt to “Architectural Thinking”, c. 1976’, Arq: Architectural Research Quarterly, 24.2 (2020), 117–28 (p. 119) <https://doi.org/10.1017/S1359135520000226>. 11 Steve Parnell, ‘Architectural Design, 1954-1972: The Architectural Magazine’s Contribution to the Writing of Architectural History’ (unpublished phd, University of Sheffield, 2012), p. 351 <http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/14585/> [accessed 23 November 2020]. 12 Parnell, p. 351. 13 Parnell, pp. 206–7. 14 Parnell, p. 211.

Figure 5: Scan of an Architectural Design advertisement in The Whole Earth Catalog. 14

Figure 6: Fragment of the Buckminster Fuller Restrospective Issue of Architectural Design.

Figure 7: Visionary Bucky Fuller surrounded by his quotes, AD. 15

ARCHITECTS’ JOURNAL AND ARCHITECTURAL RECORD PROFESSIONAL SEPARATION “This is the great effect of the whole drugs and music culture: scientists and engineers see people having a good time, and here they have all these talents and skills and think they should be having a good time, too, but they’re miserable.”15 A conflict with counterculture emerged from the fact that architecture was embedded happily within the capitalist system and the secure role of the architect in the post-war period.16 While a certain fascination with innovation and the search for utopia connected the architectural discipline with counterculture, there was always a force of comfort in the system pulling architects away from embracing the new ideas. Professional magazines were even deeper intertwined with the capitalist oppression than architecture as a profession. They press needed to maintain an image that was relevant to the architectural profession to earn revenue and continue existing. Moreover, architecture at the time was unrivalled in representing the order in the progressively standardised system.17 Professional architectural magazines were a portrait of it. That was the root of countercultural antipathy towards mass media.

architecture. It created an image of sustainability as not adaptable to ordinary life but a way of living that requires detaching from it and additional sacrifices. Sustainable architectural ideas were therefore seen as irrelevant to the mainstream practice and not worth investigating. The Architectural Record was a professional magazine published in New York and covered issues from businessrelated architecture to studies of specific buildings. Architectural Record, just like the Architects’ Journal, maintained a strictly professional image, covering mainstream architectural discussion, and intertwining advertisements that were in line with the topics. What differentiated the two professional magazines was that the Architectural Record was American, whereas the AJ was published in the UK. Architectural Record acknowledged issues connected to counterculture ten times within the time frame of 1960 to 1977. Among others, there was an article commenting on the radical approach to architecture and one covering the countercultural vision of the Arcosanti megastructure city, both approaching the subjects from a critical point of view and challenging the presented ideas. The magazine narrative was sceptical towards the alternative approaches and presented valid counterarguments coming from a place of acknowledging the existence the counterculture but staying faithful to the traditional approach to architecture. It conveyed a message that an architect will work within the social system they inhabit, no matter which “side” of the system they choose.19 Conversely, the fact that architecture in the name of ecology focused on sustaining the system made ecology not fond of architecture.20 The conflict between two imaginary sides deepened.

The Architects’ Journal has a news agenda and has for years been an information source on current events for professional architects. The only time counterculture was mentioned in the Architects’ Journal it was portrayed as rejection.18 Rejection of all conveniences that come with living a modern uniformed life. It was a retrospective view and an attempt to define a moment that’s already part of history and move on. The magazine has shown no interest in the movement, including the time when the ideas The narrative and choice of words in magazines played were flourishing. The readers of AJ’s brief commentary a crucial role in establishing an attitude of subjective are deprived of any further explanations of reasoning behind the ideas and subsequently their applications to dynamics between what is considered normal and what surpasses that norm as controversial or unacceptable. 15 ‘Cosmorama’, Architectural Design, April 1970. 16 Deamer, pp. 115–29. 17 Deamer, p. 118. 18 Jeremy Melvin, ‘AJ Review: Common Sense of Counter-Culture - How Buildings Learn’, The Architects’ Journal (Archive : 1929-2005); London, 206 (1997), 51. 19 Michael Sorkin, ‘A Radical Alternative’, Architectural Record, December 1972, 118–21. 20 Deamer, p. 124.

The terms used to refer to the counterculture were effectively secluding the group and rendering it inferior. That fed into magazines portraying the movement as a curiosity. Outlaws, ‘hope freaks,’21 or ‘refugees from the monoculture’22 all created a separation between the norm and deviations. The counterculture pillar of questioning or undermining the traditional social structures, which are also values that architectural profession was built upon, resulted in an ‘us against them’, traditional norm versus new deviation, narrative. Architecture was happy in the social detachments fought by the counterculture.23 As a result of that the counterculture was as intriguing to architecture as it was threatening.24 The fear made experienced architects hesitant to open up to the ideas, and an even bigger risk for starting architects to try. A countercultural architect in that sense would be an antimony.25 While the presentation of counterculture in professional magazines isolated the group on the basis of different values, AD does not allure potential new members despite its countercultural inclination. In 12/71 the descriptions simply feel like a description of a permanently detached community, whereas in 01/76 autonomy is pictured as an extreme approach and borderline survivalism.26

that the Architectural Record recognises the existence and motifs of the counterculture, yet groups it as something completely separate from the reality in which practice is embedded. That lack of cognisance of the environmental crisis allowed architects to continue practice as normal.28 However, the AR author critically points to the lack of logical solutions resulting from the critique that the radical movement that envisions a utopian future brings forward.29 Tabb sees this as a problem of linguistics and argues that a “responsible architectural language that embodied green principles […] would pervasively affect mainstream architecture.”30 Not only was there no pro-environmental language developing, but the narrative in magazines itself set the profession as impervious to counterculture.

Complacency in the capitalist oppression shown both by practice and architectural magazines resulted in an overwhelming hesitance to the counterculture which carried values aligned with sustainability. This narrative continued with environmentalists outside the counterculture, as a general notion regarding sustainable actions. Later E.F. Schumacher, the author of one of the key early environmental books Small is Beautiful, was introduced in AJ as ‘one of the saner guides.’31 The separation from A sense of hierarchy in architectural profession was the real world and the general consensus was that one will visible in the Radical Alternative article in Architectural not succeed in the field where so many failed remained. 32 Record. The author advised young architects that architecture will not lead to social change because it is only reflective of it. He further talks about the forming of bohemian collectives and how they are formed “in order [for those who fear professionalism] to live their convictions.”27 From this portrayal it can be concluded 21 ‘Whole Earth Catalog’, Architectural Design, July 1970. 22 Bill Chaitkin, ‘Counter-Culture Communities’, Architectural Design, XLVI.April 1976, 218–21 (p. 218). 23 Deamer, p. 124. 24 Deamer, p. 115. 25 Deamer, p. 124. 26 Sadler, p. 119. 27 Sorkin, p. 121. 28 Phillip Tabb and A. Senem Deviren, The Greening of Architecture: A Critical History and Survey of Contemporary Sustainable Architecture and Urban Design (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Pub. Co, 2013), p. 25. 29 Sorkin. 30 Tabb and Deviren, p. 46. 31 Dr E. F. Schumacher, ‘It’s a Small World’, The Architects’ Journal (Archive : 1929-2005); London, 161.13 (1975), 659–60. 32 Walter Segal, ‘Less Is More’, The Architects’ Journal (Archive : 1929-2005); London, 159.8 (1974), 371.

AJ Review: Common sense of counter-culture - How Buildings Learn Melvin, Jeremy The Architects' Journal (Archive : 1929-2005); Aug 28, 1997; 206, Art & Architecture Archive pg. 51

Figure 8: The Complex, Drop City, 1966

Figure 9: Architects’ Journal

Figure 10: Architectural Design

IMAGERY Another reason why countercultural ideas flourished on AD pages rather than in AJ or AR was the difference in their visual identity. The Architectural Record built its narrative around eye-catching photographs and was filled with bold full pages of advertisements. They were all carefully placed, edited and overflowing with optimistic consumerism. Architects’ Journal was minimalistic with their use of images, every photograph or drawing was neatly placed to add visual information to the predominant text. Counterculture defined its visual identity on the pages of the Whole Earth Catalog. Starting with the cover photograph of Earth from space, the magazine offered a change in perspective. The scrapbook collection of knowledge, products and everything in between reflected the fact that counterculture was a collection of thoughts that can be assembled together but don’t form a concise manifesto. AJ deems the characteristic counterculture

assemblage of photographs mediocre and diagrams as “oddly chosen.”33 On the contrary, AD was not confined to the “professional” aesthetic that consists of photographing and discussing the built form. The discourse of the “unbuilt and conceptual”34 was integral to its message. The informal format of Cosmorama in AD opened possibilities for visual indication of the characteristics of the movement, showing playfulness and anarchy through the scrapbook-like compiling of images and changing fonts, and even printing on cheaper paper.35 Exploring path breaking forms and concepts was the language of counterculture.36 That was very distant from the technical standards typically favoured by architects and represented by the professional magazines. Steve Parnell links Cosmorama as the tool that transformed AD from a professional journal into “the little magazine of British architectural counter-culture.”37 The sense of chaos and

33 Witold Rybczynski, ‘Reviews: Inappropriate Technology - Appropriate Building Materials: A Catalogue of Potential Solutions’, The Architects’ Journal (Archive : 1929-2005); London, 180.30 (1984), 71. 34 Samantha Hardingham, ‘A Memory of Possibilities’, Architectural Design, April 2005, 14. 35 Parnell, p. 228. 36 Tabb and Deviren, p. 46. 37 Parnell, p. 229.

incoherence that resulted from the freedom in formatting likely negatively impacted the reception by architects, highlighting the playfulness rather than application of ideas. The domes presented in the magazines as wild community centres, were in fact not only built from recycled materials but also highly efficient in using solar energy. This conceptual thinking behind the visuals was omitted probably for the sake of keeping the articles interesting and concise, but it was key for going beyond the peculiarity of the subject into its possible implications for architecture. It might have not been directly visible because of the lack of order in counterculture, as the establishment of such was the very thing they were protesting against. The visual identity of the magazines therefore dictated the representation of rough, unpolished ideas from slightly different perspectives. The dome became a symbol of nonhierarchical rebellion.38 The ideas were in a constant state of evolution that ultimately fell victim to its intricacies.39

PROCESS VS PRODUCT ”However much they hazarded a common case, as “messing with it but haven’t gotten it together yet” unanimity of opinion was not devoutly to be desired. 43from the perspective of the counterculture are a virtue. Evolution is from rather than to, process without product.”40 They are aware of the process and pay closer attention to the task rather than the product. In the communes it Countercultural communes highlighted the was seen as normal for a dome to leak and its main uses importance of living aligned with nature - aiming to were communal dances and activities. In the outside understand the laws of nature and acting according world, the AR referred to it as the “funky, self-built to them. Living in communes was “less about reform revolution”44 and criticised the dome as inherently and utopian transcendence than it was about process less cost-efficient than the standard cubical forms.45 and self-transformation.”41 The purpose of this more Generally, the methods of living in the communes met mindful approach was becoming a more ‘whole’ person with criticism on the grounds of their lack of efficiency. as a result of escaping mindless consumerism. That Even the AD, while it was sympathetic towards approach required an improved understanding of systems countercultural ideas, introduced the members of and a focus on consciously redeveloping them in the communes as ’scrounging’ for food and materials they context of communes. Process as such was debated need. The idea of recycling materials, now one of the pillars in counterculture because rejecting systems in place of sustainability, suffers in the eyes of readers as a result of required rethinking their workings and either proposing this choice of words. It gains negative connotations, when small-scale alternatives or working on innovative new in reality counterculture pioneered reuse of materials and systems and improving their efficiency with technology. understood the problem of scarcity of resources. The AR Architectural magazines were inherently interested in tangible, visually pleasing outputs - they relied on the system that promoted purchasing products, as they were products too. Their sole existence depended on optimistic consumerism in the very system that offthe-grid counterculture was trying to escape. While the communes were a route to eventually achieve self-sufficiency, promoting independence to such an extent was likely not the magazines’ intention. They depended on people’s need for belonging to a group and monetised on having that uniform, easy to influence and control following. Empowering individuals by independence therefore results in the idea being uncommerciable, and not desirable for magazines from that perspective. In short it was not in magazines’ interest to make people less interested in products.

goes as far as to find fault with the reuse of car roofs as building material for being dependent on the system of people working in a factory, which implies the alternative lifestyle is only for the chosen ones, not the masses.46

Counterculture action at the time was focusing environmental thinking on constraining instead of thinking anew. Counterculture argued slowing down on a path towards fuller understanding, which was their form of resisting the economic growth at the time. The Architectural Record objected the criticism not followed by clear propositions of solutions.47 The clash with media, just as with science and technology, was that it was unceasingly pushing towards progress.48 Architectural magazines were expected to introduce new ideas, exciting products and possibilities rather than publish critique of the system without proposals for change. It is hard to envision voluntary economic stagnation and exploration of processes on a mass scale. Architecture was counter to counterculture, as it was in part of service to the culture within the system.49

The focus on process rather than product is visible in the approach to building the characteristic components of countercultural communes, the geodesic domes. Members of the back-to-the-land communes proposed organic growth of a house by living in a building site for The process of building was also key in another it to grow around the user’s daily needs.42 Claims such countercultural undertaking, the Arcosanti city designed 40 Chaitkin, p. 221. 41 Louis J. Kern, review of Review of The 60s Communes: Hippies and Beyond, by Timothy Miller, Utopian Studies, 12.2 (2001), 343–46 (p. 344). 42 ‘Libre’, Architectural Design, December 1971, p. 731. 43 ‘Libre’, p. 729. 44 Alastair Gordon, ‘True Green: Lessons from 1960s-70s Counterculture Architecture’, Architectural Design, 2008. 45 Richard Oliver, ‘News From the Counterculture’, Architectural Record, March 1974, 45. 46 Oliver. 47 Oliver. 48 Hays and Hays, p. 307. 49 Deamer, p. 124.

Figure 11: AD representation of communes.

Figure 12: Architectural Record Arcosanti representation.

by Paolo Soleri. The discussion on Soleri is valuable in that it is presented as validation of the counterculture with architecture.50 Arcosanti is an embodiment of the concept of Arcology he established, which combines architecture with ecology. It promoted reduction of waste.51 It was built with the effort of volunteers who were willing to execute simple, low-skilled work, for the sake of becoming ‘whole’ during that process. The act of building itself allowed to share values between the larger countercultural group and the willing representatives who acted as architects. Probably as a result of the process of building yielding fruit in the form of visual outputs, AR presented Arcosanti as a chance to define the “cultureness” rather

than “counterness” of counterculture for the first time.52 Producing a product validated the movement from the perspective of the magazine. The usual application of countercultural tools to vision and not action has been challenged.53 The radical architect who stereotypically searched “for a place to begin to design”54 had started producing products. Having a product has proven the concept worthy of professional magazine’s coverage.

50 Robert Jensen, ‘The Arcosanti Antithesis’, Architectural Record, August 1974, 121–26. 51 Tabb and Deviren, p. 37. 52 Jensen. 53 Chu and Trujillo, p. 158. 54 Sorkin.

FACES OF THE MOVEMENT It is through the lens of people that movements are brought to life on magazine pages. The way counterculture was presented was through its advocates, those who firmly believed in the need for an alternative approach to manmade systems which started being recognised as faulty. What I will be focusing on is how countercultural key figures approached sustainability, what made them different and more appropriate to address those issues and to what extent their image portrayed on the pages of magazines was detrimental. Due to their limited length, magazine articles tended to oversimplify the issue and present the eccentric and often controversial people behind it in a onedimensional manner. Andrew Kirk points out that the public was presented with a debate between two polar opposites, either pro-progress or pro-environment.55 As a result, without critical assessment, the audience is likely to start identifying with either of the given narratives. This leads to polarisation of views and the epistemological issue that experimental approaches don’t usually stand a chance against the status quo.

Figure 13: Stewart Brand with staff of the Whole Earth Truck Store.

Years later Stewart Brand divided environmentalists into two groups - those who see technology as the problem, and those who see it as the solution to the problem, the romantics and scientists.58 Brand, alike Fuller, supported pragmatist science. His portrayal of technology as synonymous with reason created a harmful dynamic in which any opposition to it was rendered visionary but unreasonable. In the context of architectural magazines the approaches were checked against the harsh bias towards consumerism and the overwhelming strive for innovation. That resulted in the focus on publicising The counterculture environmental movement was the technical inclinations of counterculture as it was so diverse, that it’s impossible to define a concrete more applicable to reality within the system despite philosophy for all who could be considered members. It being developed to redesign it with different values. was a revaluation of cultural values.56 To depict the variety Technology permeated the whole of counterculture in countercultural ideas in the short format of a magazine in a way. To say there were opponents to technology seems nearly impossible. Were the representation means there were groups who did not trust innovation to be accurate it would sit somewhere between the and utopian technocratic visions filled them with doubt generalisations about counterculture as a group and the and fear. It was usually a result of pop culture being filled descriptions of its most memorable members. Following with dystopian technology at the time. The grey area the idea of process over product mentioned in the previous between the two extreme approaches to technology was chapter, the counterculture focused on understanding often omitted in the publicised exchange of arguments the current moment over creating plans for the future. due to its nuances. The reality was it was perfectly to support modernism The general consensus in the discussion of approaches normal for environmentalists 59 to some extent. The best image of this variety is the to technology in counterculture divides the movement into two. Roszak, in his book The Making of a Counter Whole Earth Catalog, which was essentially a collection Culture in 1969 distinguished between “reversionaries” of high-tech ideas alongside ideas propagating going and “technophiles”. The first group being supportive of back to basics. As readers in the 21st century we‘ve got back-to-the-land ideas and communes, the latter seeking a bias towards technology because it is an inseparable utopia in technological advancements. Roszak himself was part of our lives. At the time an internalised fear of an advocate for the former. At the same time, Buckminster technology was just as common. Nevertheless, adapting Fuller, belonging to the same movement, supported the old tools in new ways and the search for intermediate latter. Nevertheless Fuller appealed to counterculture by technologies that turned into the appropriate technology believing in transcendentalism and claiming that technology movement were also technological advancements should be managed by individuals, not institutions.57 much less intimidating to sceptics. It was just not as interesting for professional architectural magazines. 55 Andrew Kirk, ‘Appropriating Technology: The Whole Earth Catalog and Counterculture Environmental Politics’, Environmental History, 6.3 (2001), 374–94 <https://doi.org/10.2307/3985660>. 56 Hsiao-Yun Chu, ‘R. Buckminster Fuller’s Model of Nature: Its Role in His Design Process and the Presentation and Reception of His Work’ (University of Brighton, 2014), p. 70. 57 Chu, p. 195. 58 John Tierney, ‘An Early Environmentalist, Embracing New “Heresies”’, The New York Times, 27 February 2007, section Science <https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/27/science/earth/27tier.html> [accessed 26 January 2021]. 59 Andrew Kirk.

Figure 14

BUCKMINSTER FULLER Fuller wholeheartedly believed technology was the solution. His drive towards technological innovation stemmed from the technocracy movement in the 1930s, from a belief that engineering and technical abilities will render members of the society supreme and allow them to positively affect the economic situation.60 He romanticised a world in which engineers would redevelop the functioning nets of systems to maximise efficiency of human life on earth. To achieve this technological utopia, Fuller deemed it necessary for the leaders to be able to see ‘the full picture’ and act holistically. Thus, he developed the idea of a ‘comprehensive designer’. It would be a person who knew everything and could therefore see the connections between nets of systems and as a result redesign the functioning of the world to make it more efficient. His philosophy saw man as the master of the universe once he became the comprehensive designer. Fuller’s transcendentalism relied on his confidence that only the individual who is not entangled in bureaucracy,

hierarchies or systems of power can act with a holistic approach in mind.61 Only an independent person can design tools beneficial to all of humanity. This utopian vision required humans with thinking abilities of a computer to execute the role of a truly comprehensive designer. Design didn’t become the instrument of total revolution because architecture as a discipline detached itself from politics by positioning between what capitalism and counterculture represented.62 That arrangement allowed magazines to free themselves from political issues and they devoted themselves mostly to technology. It was this technical ability to question surrounding systems and look for ways of redesigning them that got Fuller a place as one of the most read philosophers for the counterculture, and acclaim in the field of architecture. Fuller’s Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (1969), was the base of current environmental and ecological thinking.63 He recognises scarcity of resources as a global problem and gives precedent to the sustainable

60 Andrew G. Kirk, p. 223. 61 Michael Ben-Eli, ‘Buckminster Fuller Retrospective’, Architectural Design, December 1972, 746–60. 62 Deamer, p. 115. 63 Luke.

thought of today by treating ecology as an economy and aiming to achieve “engineered efficiency and designed development” with technological advancements.64 He got expelled twice from Harvard, never completed formal education and did not consider himself an architect. Despite that, he attempted establishing a philosophical general set of rules based on the underlying principles of the universe, and translating it to engineering in forms such as the isotropic vector structures. He focused on the changing experience of the universe and deemed designers and engineers (including architects) responsible for looking into the future by at least 25 years.65 Fuller lead by example and fit the requirements of the ‘comprehensible designer’ perfectly. His ideas had been ahead of the available technology at the time and he eagerly made predictions for the future optimistically exceeding what human ingenuity has achieved. He foreshadowed “the emergence of some kind of continuous man”, and so saw potential in redesigning the continuous flow of knowledge and resources that the modern society now relies on in the form of the internet. The idea of merging environmentalism with technology to maximise the output from the same amount of input is now visible in the “cradle-2-cradle” principle in progressively ecological industries.66 The contemporary view of sustainable architecture could therefore have been written by Fuller and remain the same: ”sustainable architecture is intended to minimize the negative environmental impact of buildings by enhancing efficiency and moderation in the use of materials, energy and development space.”67 Fuller’s futuristic vision and technical projects granted him endorsement in the professional magazines, the Architects’ Journal and Architectural Record. The AJ recognised his footprint on the teaching of architecture and portrayed Fuller as a philosopher ahead of his time as early as 1962.68 Nevertheless, the magazines focused on his reputation as an engineer, not noting his countercultural identity as such. In the AR Bucky Fuller is mentioned only a few times within the time period of 19601977, and only once in the context of the counterculture (AR 12/1972). Most of the time he appeared in the book review section or in short reports for new inventions such as the floating city (AR 12/1968). The short articles about Fuller were brimming with scientific terms and complex visions but omitting the reasoning that led to

the need to establish those visions. The image of Fuller that can be extracted from the Architectural Record is that of an archetypal inventor with complex ideas for the future who finds faults in nearly all institutions at the time.6970 As a result of their bias towards tangible innovation, the professional architectural magazines gave prominence to technical results as more valuable than the reason for searching for such solutions, the underlying principles of energy efficiency and suchlike which suppressed the spread of such knowledge and the development of sustainable architecture in the long run. The Architectural Design put Fuller on a pedestal as someone who has successfully understood the workings of the universe and began rethinking and redesigning the direction where the universe is heading. In 1972 they published the R Buckminster Fuller Retrospective issue, which was devoted to deeper understanding of the philosopher. The issue was not an exception to their representation of Fuller. It was not an interview but rather a lecture in paper form, with no questions asked, no contrasting points of view, just an enunciation of his guidance. The limited commentary could have been impeded by restricted understanding of the thought. The magazine glorified Fuller to the extent of never critically approaching any of his theories. That created an image of him as a scholar who should not be questioned. Even the visual representation of Fuller on the pages of AD seems to feed into the vision of him as a visionary [fig 7]. The AD was useful for the counterculture in that it provided a platform for the ideas and presented them only in a good light. Nevertheless, the uncritical approach was clear and it might have seemed intentional propaganda for the ideas. The magazine could as a result come across to the reader as a not trustworthy source, portraying one person as the know-it-all visionary. Particularly in the context of a society which was taught through educational systems that specialisation is the way to fully understand any area of study, and that experts in specific areas are to be trusted. Therefore, Fuller as well as his following were criticised for the utopian naivety. With time the idea of understanding “synergy”, which is “systems’ components relational behavior”71 as presented in the book Deep Ecology by Arne Naess, is crucial to sustainable design. The goal of designing technologies aligned with nature to keep it in balance is more relevant today than ever.72

64 Luke. 65 ‘Philosophy and Structure’. 66 Luke, p. 355. 67 Tabb and Deviren, p. 13. 68 ‘Philosophy and Structure’, The Architects’ Journal (Archive : 1929-2005); London, 136.23 (1962), 1262–65. 69 ‘Synergetics Made Easy, Almost’, Architectural Record, August 1960, 84–88. 70 ‘Fuller’, Architectural Record, September 1963, 66–80. 71 Phillip Tabb author, The Greening of Architecture (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), p. 40. 72 Chu and Trujillo, p. 151.

confirms that until 2003 climate change did not seem to be a nagging concern of the current generation. It was “fun to think about, dire but distant.”80 Nevertheless, all of his life achievements were in one way or another connected to “ensuring the health of natural systems.”81

Figure 15

STEWART BRAND

Brand followed Fuller’s legacy of pursuing a holistic approach but instead of educating comprehensive designers, he believes in sharing access to knowledge. Having studied at Harvard, he had tried the conventional route of education, yet he recognises the importance of self-education and improvement and devotes himself to developing non-standardised solutions. His goal in the 1960s was to create an information network that would facilitate exchange of information between people with similar interests.73 That was the reason for the emergence of the Whole Earth Catalog (described earlier) that ultimately promoted small-scale, ecological living. Despite that, Brand saw environmentalism as a problematic label and preferred not to label himself as an environmentalist in the early years of his life.74 Kirk argues that this wariness towards the ideology made him

more objective in his pragmatic search for solutions.75 He condemned romantic ideals because he saw them as “static, self-obsessed and threatened by science.”76 Brand recognised their value in motivating the efforts of the masses, but thought they lacked the pragmatic problem solving.77 In his practical approach Brand resembled Fuller in that he believed in finding objective, universal ideas for improving the functioning of the world. The WEC strived for ultimate solutions that would distribute knowledge in the most efficient way, even if that meant their solutions were outrun by better solutions by someone else.78 Later in his book Whole Earth Discipline he denotes confirmation bias as a trap we ought not to fall into.79 Eventually in his 2009 book Whole Earth Discipline he admits that we should all consider ourselves environmentalists with the knowledge we have now. He

73 Andrew G. Kirk, p. 1. 74 Cadwalladr 75 Andrew G. Kirk, p. 9. 76 Stewart Brand, Whole Earth Discipline: Why Dense Cities, Nuclear Power, Transgenic Crops, Restored Wildlands, Radical Science, and Geoengineering Are Necessary, rev. and updated ed (London: Atlantic, 2010), p. 216. 77 Brand, p. 215. 78 ‘Whole Earth Catalog’. 79 Brand, p. 217.

enthusiastically carry the two opposite narratives at the same time. Partly responsible for the lack of deeper analysis was also the lack of public knowledge and sobriety in relation to climate changes, which also meant that magazines would not be condemned for not taking any action. The Predictably, Brand did not appear often in professional audience was happily consuming their content as it was. magazines. In the Architects’ Journal Brand appeared in Brand saw the goal of sustainable future as the context of the two of his books - The Whole Earth achievable by detaching the appropriate technology Catalog and How Buildings Learn. He was appreciated for with its interest in ecology and environmentalism from having appeared to both the public and professionals.82 political affiliation.89 While in theory broadening the Nevertheless, the short mention suggested Brand’s ideas spectrum of people sustainability could appeal to, it only boil down to the WEC.83 Similarly the same magazine also meant that in combination with rejecting popular two years later made a clear statement that his interesting platforms for sharing opinions it could reach less vision does not go hand in hand with erudite discussion.84 people. This approach was again not applicable to the He was never mentioned in the Architectural Record whole movement. A different branch of counterculture magazine within the investigated time frame. This was called the New Left, in contrary to Brand, focused on likely a result of Brand’s theoretical approach behind the political roots of the environmental problems and available tools rather than physical innovations that could as a result looked for politically-based solutions.90 be photographed and empirically tested that would meet Nevertheless, Brand’s detachment from politics was the magazine’s criteria. Brand strived for a different type of linked to the countercultural axiom of prioritising the innovation. He saw the antithesis of Ehrlich’s claims that individual experience.91 As a result of linking vocational a growing, progressively more prosperous and technical architecture to “serving the system” this countercultural population will cause more harm to the environment and approach prompted architecture to question the system of postulated that “population times technology equals architectural education and delight in defining the role of reduction of impact.”85 He supported simple and low- an architect within the political system.92 The 1970s were investment alternative technologies.86 The fact that therefore a period where both appropriate technologists they were small-scale, fuel-efficient and eco-friendly and architects redefined boundaries superimposed by made them the prototype ideas for Passivhaus ideology the system.93 For architecture that meant “softening” its nowadays. In the countercultural understanding the small- former boundaries and for technology the move towards scale technology brings the power back into the hands of ”soft-tech” and environmentally sound alternatives.94 ordinary people instead of big corporations and therefore This “apolitical design science revolution”95 based on reject the abuse of power in their hierarchies and abuse ultimate efficiency and use of techniques and materials of the world’s resources for profit. If enough individuals which we owe to technological advancements is now the were to share this approach, a sustainable economy would standard for making architecture more ecological.96 The be formed, based on a new consciousness.8788 Unless key to fuller understanding of the judgements made now professional magazines would completely switch to this is hindsight bias, reading the past material with knowledge alternative narrative and decide to risk the comfort they on what will happen next in history. Our judgements had within the solid system, it was impossible for them to come from a place of knowing the turn of events naturally 80 Brand, p. 3. 81 Brand, pp. 207–8. 82 ‘Astragal: The Need for Branding’, The Architects’ Journal (Archive : 1929-2005), 201.5 (1995), 20–21. 83 ‘Astragal: The Need for Branding’. 84 Melvin. 85 Stewart Brand, Clock of the Long Now: Time and Responsibility: The Ideas Behind the World’s Slowest Computer : Time and Responsibility: The Ideas Behind the World’s Slowest Computer (Basic Books, 2008), p. 134. 86 Andrew Kirk, p. 38. 87 Andrew G. Kirk, p. 6. 88 Chu and Trujillo, p. 155. 89 Andrew G. Kirk, p. 9. 90 Andrew G. Kirk, p. 29. 91 Hays and Hays, p. 262. 92 Deamer, p. 121. 93 Deamer, p. 123. 94 Parnell, p. 293. 95 Andrew G. Kirk, p. 11. 96 Tabb and Deviren, p. 13.

inaccessible to the authors decades ago. Countercultural environmentalists overshadowed other environmental activists as a result of their eagerness towards the technological advancements for the sake of reaching environmentally friendly solutions.97 It is now that we publicly acknowledge the importance of both development of technology and the responsibility of our individual actions as tools towards a degree of sustainability.

Criticising the system also meant surviving within it and as a result capitalist thinking influenced both men. Apart from technological advancements that was possibly the only aspect of their mentality that suited magazines. Having a product to write about, such as Brand’s books or Fuller’s inventions fit into the magazines’ agenda. That further fuelled the one-dimensional representation of the faces of the counterculture, one “Of all the big nasties - the church, education, business that omitted any countercultural reasoning and favoured - the least nasty is the big business”98 Brand proclaimed technological inclination. The sustainable thought on the pages of AD. Amongst many of his activities he once again became less important than visual outputs. resembled Fuller in that they were both entrepreneurs who attempted to commercialise their projects.99 97 Andrew G. Kirk, p. 19. 98 ‘Whole Earth Catalog’. 99 Luke, p. 356.

Figure 16

CONCLUSION Magazines negatively influenced the development of sustainable ideas in that they separated their initial beginnings from the mainstream at an early stage. Counterculture pioneered behaviours now considered as beneficial to the environment, but the nature of magazines prevented them from looking below the surface of what they considered a curiosity. The Whole Earth Catalog as a source from within the counterculture was useful in that it provided a platform for the countercultural dogmas which disseminated the ideas and mutually inspired sources such as the Architectural Design. It shifted the focus onto people’s individual actions towards sustainability. The Whole Earth Catalog was detrimental to the movement as a result of being a separate platform, which strengthened the partition between the average ways of thinking and the search for new ideas, preventing them from reaching the mainstream. The Architectural Design magazine was an example of deep fascination by the countercultural ideas which on the one hand increased the popularity of the ideas but on the other hand, made it uncritical in its commentary and gave rise to fetishisation the counterculture. The AD glorified the movement and its members to the extent that it sabotaged the ideas as a result of aligning with the stereotype about the rebel nature of the counterculture that asserts the movement as a group mindlessly following the absolute ideals. In that glorification counterculture in a way gained validation in architectural discourse thanks to AD.

the counterculture advocacy was as much a political challenge as a nudge in the direction of sustainability. The safety architectural practice had in the post-war period translated into the safety of architectural magazines that described the relevant discourse. Sustaining the system as a way to incorporate ecology into architecture made architecture impervious to the essence of counterculture. The narrative established by magazines when introducing counterculture environmentalists favoured technically inclined individuals, and only under that condition the thinkers gained validation in the professional magazines. Counterculture at the time precedented scarcity of resources, recycling practices and using solar energy in domes, which were halted as a result of their categorisation as fully ‘against the system’ and therefore unreasonable. By finding comfort in the existing system, the professional magazines distanced themselves from the political dogmas of the counterculture. Counterculture communes did not last but their longevity was not a measure of success.100 I personally think the true effect of counterculture is seen in the long-term effect on scholarship. Analysis of the period has increased with the fall of communes and the fading away of countercultural rebellion. What the architectural magazines did not decode in the context of the economic boom of the post-war period has gained importance from the perspective of decades where our understanding of sustainability deepened.

The professional magazines, AJ and AR have created a narrative that discouraged the search for application of countercultural ideas to professional practice and treated the movement and its utopian views as a curiosity against logical thinking. In retrospective for architecture 28

100 Kern, p. 346.

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LIST OF FIGURES Front cover image: “Dean and Linda Fleming’s Dome, Libre, Colorado, 1969”, Roberta Price, < https://archive.curbed. com/2016/5/11/11645002/buckminster-fuller-back-to-the-land-dome-homes>. Figure 1: Drop City Colorado, Architectural Digest, < https://www.architecturaldigest.com/gallery/beautiful-buildings-actually-look-like-blankets>. Figure 2: “Libre”, Architectural Design, December 1971, p.733. Figures 3: Scan of Whole Earth Catalog, 1968, Stewart Brand, p.2. Figure 4: Scan of Whole Earth Catalog, 1968, Stewart Brand, p.49. Figure 5: Scan of an Architectural Design advertisement in The Whole Earth Catalog, 1968, Stewart Brand, p.16. Figure 6: “R Buckminster Fuller Retrospective Issue”, Architectural Design, December 1972, cover image. Figure 7: “R Buckminster Fuller Retrospective Issue”, Architectural Design, December 1972, p.770. Figure 8:The Complex, Drop City 1966, Sarah Henning < https://www2.ljworld.com/news/2012/oct/07/documentary-chronicles-hippie-commune/> Figure 9: Jeremy Melvin, ‘AJ Review: Common Sense of Counter-Culture - How Buildings Learn’, The Architects’ Journal (Archive : 1929-2005); London, 206 (1997), 51. Figure 10: “R Buckminster Fuller Retrospective Issue”, Architectural Design, December 1972, p.746. Figure 11: “Libre”, Architectural Design, December 1971, p.736. Figure 12: Robert Jensen, ‘The Arcosanti Antithesis’, Architectural Record, August 1974, 121–26. Figure 13:” Fringe model Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Truck Store, and staff, 1968.”, < https://www.wildculture.com/ article/durable-goods-past-future-centre-now/1815>. Figure 14: “Bucky on stage”, Corydon Ireland < https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/01/bucky-on-stage/>. Figure 15: Social Broadcasting: An Unfinished Communications Revolution, Randall Packer, <https://thirdspacenetwork. com/archives/social-broadcasting-unfinished-communications-revolution/>. Figure 16: R. Buckminster Fuller holds up a Tensegrity sphere. 18th April, 1979. < https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/r-buckminster-fuller-about-r-buckminster-fuller/599/>