Walking city visiting New York
WALKER CITY
Ron Herron, Archigram
Britain. 1964
In the early years 60, a group of young British architects, recently graduated from the Architectural Association and led by Peter Cook, would shape the Archigram group. This group would produce a strong shock to the architecture scene of the mid-twentieth century using an architectural aesthetic inspired by the comic. And also, both by linking Anglo Pop movement and for its extreme utopian urban ideas about future development of cities populated by and ultra tech machines.
His inventive propositions would not paper and manifestos written but would have a decisive influence on the so-called High Tech architecture that would develop in the next decades. Buildings like HSBC in Hongkong Ass Foster, the Centre Beaubourg in Paris by architects Piano and Rogers or Lloyds insurer headquarters in London of the latter would clearly works inspired by Archigram ideas.
The City Walker is a proposal to build a megastructure mobile robot that could freely roam the planet hosting tens of thousands of people. A conceptual anticipation of the big tourist cruise ships that ply the seas today.
Over the years, the group leader, Peter Cook, materialize achieve a similar project in the House of Art in the Austrian city of Graz.
References:
The Helicopter Archipelago. An article about the city BLDG BLOG walker
About floating cities. The blog Islands and territory
Archigram group info. Wikipedia
Cities Walking formation off the coast of Canada in Percé, Quebec: Imagen de Jean Daniel Mercier. LeSingeNu
The Graz Art Haus, Austria. Peter Cook y Colin Fournier. 2003
