When, in the late 50s and early 60s, the environmental issue and the postwar social controversies became globally urgent, there were many avant-garde, science fictional, utopian architectural proposals (a reductive term actually, since the prime intention of these projects was precisely that of inventing, contaminating, opening to hitherto unexplored possibilities), developed by radical groups such as Archigram, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Haus-Rucker-Co, Superstudio, and many others.
One of the answers that was found was the return to a ‘lightweight’ architecture, which would draw its inspiration from the nomadic, formally organic tradition, rather than from an invasive and heavy modernity, made of rigid compartments and sharp distinctions between private and collective spaces. Therefore, proposals and researches based on pneumatic structures were carried on, where the air -together with the innovative, and above all cheap and readily available, plastic materials- were the main building elements. Transparency, lightness, essentiality, became the symbols for reappropriation of a humanity that had been lost because of the excessive modernist rationality.
It was a personality ahead of his time, Yves Klein, who initially explored the topic, before the publication of Reyner Banham’s essay The Architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment (1969), and probably inspired -or at least in line with- Dutch situationist Constant’s New Babylon (1956). Klein reduced architecture to just a few essential elements, mainly air and earth, alongside fire and water. The goal was ambitious, and architecture was just a mean to bring to completion a holistic project that would totally rethink the way we live and interact.
Air conditioning on the surface of our globe… The technical and scientific conclusion of our civilization is buried in the depths of the earth and ensures the absolute control of the Climate on the surface of all the continents which have become vast communal living rooms… It is a sort of return to the garden of Eden of the legend (1951)… The advent of a new society destined to undergo deep transformations in its very condition itself. Intimacy, both personal and in the family, will disappear. An impersonal ontology will be developed. The willpower of Man will at last regulate life on a constantly ‘wonderful’ level. Man is so free he can even levitate! His occupation: leisure. The obstacles that traditional architecture used to put up with will be eliminated.
Yves Klein, Architecture de l’air (ANT 102), 1961
There were innumerable sketches, technical drawings, essays, models, sculptures, created by Klein, thanks to a series of collaborations with architects Werner Ruhnau and Claude Parent, designer Roger Tallon, artist Jean Tinguely, in order to study and, paradoxically, materialize the idea of an immaterial architecture, made of air. It was a heavenly vision, that, like New Babylon or Cedric Price’s Fun Palace, aimed to liberate the human being, simplify the existence and let people find their true fulfillment in creativity and fun.
The traditional urban mechanism would disintegrate, together with the outdated social models that had originated it. Program and functions would play a major role in the design hierarchy, depriving form and matter of their meaning. Architects would be of no more use, since the development and management of these systems would be in the hands of artists, musicians and engineers.
Space, as one may expect, would be defined through intangible devices like sound, light and reflections. Continuos air flow roofing would protect extended territorial sections, creating a sort of new, air-conditioned eden. All facilities would be placed underground.
This would allow the inhabitants to control their environmental well-being, to protect themselves from bad weather, and at the same time to break down all the physical and visual barriers, that are normally interposed between them. Everything would be architecture, and architecture would disappear.
Yves Klein died in 1962, without being able to further develop his aesthetic research, just after announcing that from that moment on he would have devoted himself exclusively to the production of immaterial works, which he foresaw as the only possible task for the artist of the future.
Translation by Federica Zatta
