The Visit

Abstract

Arriving in Perth from London in 1971, William Busfield was then and perhaps remains very much a part of the 1960s London Scene – a rich and complex legacy of World War Two. By the 1960s, the Space Race was articulating an invigorated sense of the future as competitive and optimistic: advances in science, technology and the emergence of cybernetics were demonstrating extraordinary propositions. For Busfield, this context of experimentation and radical change was seminal, affecting his position in relation to architecture and forming his liberal approach to the education of an architect. This essay examines what Busfield described in interview in 1985 as “strange polarities,” the series of milieus within which he moves: the people, technologies and events and his approach to architecture as described by Peter Cook in Experimental Architecture as “experimenting out of architecture.” The intention is to contribute a reflection on incidents and consequences in relation to the broader political, technological and social discourse with which Busfield engages via architecture – all of which may be understood as generative transference of countercultural thinking and practice.

Notes

1. William Busfield, in discussion with Lynn Churchill, March 3 & 10, 2017.

2. Busfield, discussion, March 3 & 10, 2017.

3. Reyner Banham, “Zoom Wave Hits Architecture,” New Society 3 (March, 1966), 21. Cited in Lydia Kallipoliti, “At Least The Pigs Can’t Stop You Reading Ad At Home’ Ad’s Cosmorama and the Reinvention of Cataloguing (1965–1973) – a paper presented to the Little Magazine Conference (New York: Princeton University, February 2007), accessed March 14, 2017, http://www.ecoredux.com/PDF/AD%27s%20Cosmorama_text_Kallipoliti.pdf.

4. Giles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980), 21.

5. Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 21. Deleuze and Guattari describe the generative mechanism as

composed not of units, but of dimensions, or rather directions in motion. It has neither beginning nor end, but always a middle (milieu) from which it grows and which it overspills. It constitutes linear multiplicities with n dimensions having neither subject nor object […] When a multiplicity of this kind changes dimension, it necessarily changes in nature as well, undergoes a metamorphosis.

6. Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 21.

7. Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 21.

8. Jon Tarry, in discussion with Lynn Churchill, June 9, 2017.

9. Tarry, discussion, June 9, 2017.

10. Tarry, discussion, June 9, 2017.

11. Duncan Richards, “Catalogue Essay: Back to the Future on the 5th Continent,” in 5 from the 5th Continent: Architecture from Australia, Exhibition Catalogue, ed. Stephen Neille (Western Australia: Curtin University, 1998), 32.

12. William Busfield, “Busfield + Tarry,” in 5 from the 5th Continent: Architecture from Australia, Exhibition Catalogue, ed. Stephen Neille (Western Australia: Curtin University, 1998), 18.

13. Tarry, discussion, June 9, 2017.

14. William Busfield, interview by Lincoln Jones and James Wood, 1985, audio tape Architectural History 201, Curtin University, School of the Built Environment Resource Centre.

15. Busfield, interview.

16. Peter Cook, Experimental Architecture (United States America: Universe Books, 1970), 7.

17. Busfield, discussion, March 3 & 10, 2017.

18. Busfield, interview.

19. Cook, Experimental Architecture, 7.

20. Busfield, discussion, March 3 & 10, 2017. Busfield, interview.

21. Busfield, interview.

22. Busfield, discussion, March 3 & 10, 2017. Busfield, interview. Quote is taken from an old photocopy of the AD (Architectural Design, 10/69, London: England) given to the author by Busfield.

23. Busfield, discussion, March 3 & 10, 2017.

24. William Busfield, in discussion with Lynn Churchill, August 4, 2017.

25. Busfield, discussion, March 3 & 10, 2017.

26. Busfield, discussion, March 3 & 10, 2017. Jones and Wood, interview.

27. Tony Dugdale, Bill Busfield and Dolan Conway, project statement for the exhibition of the Medikit project, Paris Biennale, 1969.

28. Cook, Experimental Architecture, 122.

29. Busfield, discussion, August 4, 2017.

30. Cook, Experimental Architecture, 91.

31. Cook, Experimental Architecture, 91.

32. Cook, Experimental Architecture, 90.

33. Cook, Experimental Architecture, 67.

34. Busfield, discussion, March 3 & 10, 2017.

35. William Busfield, in discussion with Lynn Churchill, June 18, 2017.

36. Busfield, discussion, June 16, 2017.

37. Busfield, discussion, June 16, 2017.

38. Busfield, discussion, June 16, 2017.

39. Busfield, discussion, June 16, 2017.

40. Stanley Mathews, “The Fun Palace: Cedric Price’s Experiment in Architecture and Technology,” Technoetic Arts: A journal of Speculative Research 3, no. 2 (2005): 78.

41. “Both Price and Littlewood were close friends with Scottish poet and Situationist Alexander Trocchi, who briefly joined the ranks of consultants on the Fun Palace.” Mathews, “Fun Palace,” 73–91.

42. Mathews, “Fun Palace,” 79.

43. Reyner Banham quoted in Nigel Whiteley, Reyner Banham: Historian of the Immediate Future (London: The MIT Press, 2002), 182.

44. Mark Wigley, Constant’s New Babylon: the Hyper Architecture of Desire (Rotterdam: Witte de With: Center for Contemporary Art, 1998), 5, 9–10, 13, 87, 95.

45. This was Littlewood’s long time vision. Mathews, “Fun Palace,” 75.

46. Mathews, “Fun Palace,” 81.

47. Mathews, “Fun Palace,” 82.

48. Reyner Banham, Megastructure: Urban Features of the Recent Past (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1976), 88.

49. Banham, Megastructure, 83.

50. Peter Cook, “1969” in A Guide to Archigram: 1961–1974 (Great Britain: Academe Editions, 1994), 271.

51. A Guide to Archigram, 278.

52. Cook, A Guide to Archigram, 278.

53. Cook, Experimental Architecture, 143.

54. Cook, A Guide to Archigram, 272.

55. Peter Cook, ed., Archigram (New York, Washington: Praeger Publishers, 1973), 16.

56. Cook, Archigram, 44.

57. Cook, Experimental Architecture, 63.

58. Cook, Archigram, 74.

59. David Crowley and Jane Pavitt, “The Hi-Tech Cold War,” in Cold War Modern: Design 1945–1970, eds., David Crowley and Jane Pavitt, 163–191 (London: V&A Publishing, 2008), 165.

60. “The language of new technologies spilled over into everyday usage by the 1960s with terms such as ‘networks’, ‘feedback’, ‘systems’, ‘software’, and ‘hardware’ acquiring broader meaning beyond the bound of their original usage.” Crowley and Pavitt. “The Hi-Tech Cold War,” 165.

61. Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore, The Medium is the Massage (USA: Penguin Books, 1967), 20.

62. Cook, Archigram, 117.

63. Reyner Banham, “A Home is Not a House,” in Art in America 2 (1965): 70–79. Banham was known for his mistrust of architecture, his love of technology and gizmos, and his support of Archigram.

64. Andrew Murray and Leonie Matthews, “Geodesic Domes and Experimental Architectural Education Practices of the 1960s,” in Architecture, Institutions and Change: Proceedings of the 32nd International SAHANZ Conference, Sydney, Australia, July 7–10, eds. Paul Hogben and Judith O’Callaghan (Sydney: the Society, 2015), 435–445.

65. Beatriz Colomina, Craig Buckley, Alicia Imperiale, Urtzi Grau, Lydia Kallipoliti, Daniel Lopez-Perez, Joaquim Moreno and Irene Sunwoo, “Introduction,” in Clip Stamp Fold: the Radical Architecture of Little Magazines 196X–197X, eds. Beatriz Colomina and Craig Buckley (New York: Actar and Media and Modernity Program Princeton University, 2010), 22–3.

66. Colomina, Clip Stamp Fold, 532.

67. Colomina, Clip Stamp Fold, 12.

68. Colomina, Clip Stamp Fold, 12–13.

69. Buckminster Fuller quoted in Megascope Two, eds. Dean Sherwin and Peter Murray (The Bristol Guild of Applied Art, 1965), 10, in Clip Stamp Fold: the Radical Architecture of Little Magazines 196X–197X, eds. Beatriz Colomina and Craig Buckley (New York: Actar and Media and Modernity Program Princeton University, 2010), 523–562.

70. Megascope Two, 10.

71. Architect John Byrne, then a student from Adelaide recalled Buckminster Fuller’s presentation. Murray and Matthews, “Geodesic Domes,” 439.

72. Busfield, discussion, March 3 & 10, 2017.

73. Busfield, discussion, March 3 & 10, 2017.

74. Busfield, interview.

75. Busfield, interview.

76. Busfield’s life is a series of connections to significant events, people, and ideas. Busfield, discussion, March 3 & 10, 2017.

77. This subtitle is appropriated from Cook who explains the phrase as “the philosophy which supports the notion of qualitative value for objects is fairly remote from that supporting a pure logic of production.” Cook, Experimental Architecture, 41.

78. Cook, Experimental Architecture, 111.

79. Busfield, discussion, March 3 & 10, 2017.

80. Busfield, interview. Busfield, discussion, March 3 & 10, 2017.

81. Busfield was not registered to practice architecture in Australia, Harler was. Busfield, discussion, March 3 & 10, 2017.

82. Three years after completion of the house, Ian Molyneux wrote that following Harler’s meeting with Bucky Fuller, Harler’s “continuing interest in the rationalization and industrialization of construction is evident in the house at Kalamunda [the Outram House] designed in association with STEM Pty Limited, in which prototype prefabrication and manufacturing techniques were explored over a lengthy period in 1975–1976. [Noting] The particular visual character typically produced by such methods of building is clearly illustrated by this house.” Ian Molyneux, “Building in Western Australia 1940–1979,” in Western Towns and Buildings, eds., Margaret Pitt Morison and John White (Perth, WA: University of Western Australia Press, 1979), 134–161.

83. Busfield, discussion, March 3 & 10, 2017.

84. Busfield, interview.

85. Konrad Wachsmann, The Turning Point of Building: Structure and Design, translated by Jean Koefoed (USA: Reinhold Publishing Corporation, 1961), 9.

86. Wachsmann, The Turning Point of Building, 29.

87. Wachsmann, The Turning Point of Building, 31.

88. Busfield, discussion, March 3 & 10, 2017.

89. Busfield, interview.

90. Busfield, discussion, March 3 & 10, 2017.

91. Busfield, interview.

92. Tarry, discussion, June 9, 2017.

93. Busfield, interview.

94. Busfield, discussion, March 3 & 10, 2017.

95. Busfield, discussion, March 3 & 10, 2017.

96. Busfield, discussion, March 3 & 10, 2017.

97. 1991 first year architecture studio at the University Western Australia.

98. Busfield, discussion, March 3 & 10, 2017.

99. Busfield, discussion, March 3 & 10, 2017. Busfield, interview.

100. Since 1991, Busfield has edited the UWA School of Architecture Catalogue, documenting work produced across the school’s studios. Those run by Busfield demonstrate his generative thinking, and ability to enable students to question, speculate and communicate. Busfield, discussion, March 3 & 10, 2017.

101. The jury included Professor Richard Blythe, Professor Michael Oswald, Professor Philip Goad and Patrick Stein. “Neville Quarry Architecture Prize,” in 2007 Architectureau 96 (6). http://architectureau.com/articles/neville-quarry-architectural-education-prize-3/.

102. “Neville Quarry Architecture Prize,” Architectureau.