x his unique ability produces them mal 5 is utterly distinct culture until the language of each essay architectural qualities of itsown, Si Lvi Director of rita ties and MA/PHO Programs, UCLA Architecture “Like al get rts, Kipnis doesnot describe hinge a they ae, or have Ben under they thin these texts disciplinary proximity to other discourse world again and again, as nec John MeMrrooph, Architecture Program Chas, Taubman College a Architecture and Urban Planing. University of Michigan fs te eg wi 76026 OMY) ii 519957) 9 ‘1VND JO NOILSAND “A QUESTION OF QUALITIES : ESSAYS IN ARCHITECTURE “JEFFREY KIPNIS til,EXILE ON RINGSTRASSE; ij — EXCITATIONS ON MAIN STREET | |. Exite on Ringstrasse ‘What really matters about the architecture of Coop Himmelb()au ‘is not what it means nor how it looks, but how it hehaves. With behavior in mind, then, where do we begin? Two of Vienna's ‘greats, Sigmund Freud and Otto Rank, suggest that birth trauma ‘might bea good place to start, especially if the behavior in ques~ tion is anxious or unruly. Letus see. | Pregnancy and Gestation 1960: Hans Hollein produces Die Stadt (The City), a drawing that ‘seems to haunt the unconscious of Coop Himmelb(I)au to this | day. '62; The Soviet Union and United States move to the brink of nuclear war over Cuba. °63: Hollein and Walter Pichler attack ‘the functionalism of Arbeitsgruppe 4, and follow with an in- Auential series of joint and individual conceptual projects and texts. '63~"68: The extraordinary Giinther Feuerstein rekindles and fans the flames of experimental architecture in Austria With his club seminars, reintroducing historieal discourse and ‘the discredited modern internationalists with the same vigor as he approaches the then-current speculations of Superstudio and Archigram. Under his influence, students Wolf D. Prix and Helmut Swiczinsky travel to the Architectural Association in London. '65: Hans Hollein, Giimther Feuerstein, Sokratis Dimi ‘triou, Gustav Peichl, and Walter Pichler seize control of Der Baufrom the technocratic funetionalists and reintroduce historical, intellectual, and cultural discourse to the journal, reviving in- terest in Adolf Loos, Otto Wagner, Josef Hoffmann, Rudolph M. Schindler, Frederick Kiesler, Konstantin Melnikov, and others. "66: David Greene's Living Pod, Michael Webb's Cushicle, and other inflatables proliferate. “67: Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Pot. Acid. Bonnie and Clyde." Labor Pains January 1968: Hollein’s explosive manifesto “Alles ist Architek- tur” appears in Bau. March '68: the group Utopie organizes the seminal inflatables exhibition, “Structures Gonflables.” that draws a surreal but compelling equation between inflatable ar- chitecture and radical situationist-inspired political action.” March 1968: Coop Himmelb()au is bern from an inflatable uterus, The Cloud, amid the trauma. Vietnam Warthe Tet of- fensive, My Lai massacre, General Nguyen Ngoc Loan shoots a Viet Cong prisoner in the head on the front page of every news- paper in the world. Worldwide antiwar demonstrations. U.S. civil rights riots. May. Red Army Faction. Martin Luther King J. and Bobby Kennedy assassinated, Ardy Warhol shot. Elee- tric Ladyland. Beggars Banquet. Cheap Thrils. 2001: A Space Odys- sey, Barbarella. Schamlos. Moos auf den Steinen, Saddam Hussein seizes control of Iraq. Alexander Dubéek’s Prague Spring blos- soms only to be smothered within months by 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops and 5,000 tanks. The Chicago Seven, Black Panthers. Student bloodbath in Mexico 10 days befere the Summer Olym- pies. Marcel Duchamp and Yari Gagarin die. Mao Zedong orders all intellectuals out of the cities to work in farms. The “concept album” kills the 45 rpm single." Vienna is one of the few European capitals that is mostly quiet during the May uprisings in Paris, London, New York, and else ‘where throughout the world, though Ginter Brus hegen serving a un Coop Himmelbiay, The Claud, 1968. Model. © Coop Himmeetiau,