The Independent Group and Little Magazines, 1956–64

Abstract

This article makes the case for the little magazine as an overlooked component in the understanding of the Independent Group. As a supplement to the inclusion of the Independent Group in architectural history, which tends to focus on the individual architect, this article takes a different view. Rather than looking at images as isolated embodiments of Independent Group ideas, this article looks at the dissemination of the group’s ideas in the later 1950s and 1960s, and the context within which this dissemination took place in three little magazines, Architectural Design, Living Arts and Uppercase. Drawing on new, primary research the article asks: how can this ‘behind the scenes’ approach add to our understanding of the Independent Group and the discourse of architecture?

Keywords:

• independent group
• little magazines
• Theo Crosby
• Pop

Acknowledgements

With thanks to Robert Freeman and Dr Ann Pillar for help with this article; and to the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art for organizing the “Processing the 60s” seminar in January 2017 where I was able to progress the research. Thanks are also due to the Tate Archives; and to the Special Collections and Library Service, London College of Communication, University of the Arts, London. A big thank you to Jessica Kelly for organizing the “Behind the Scenes” seminar in 2015.

Notes

1 Benjamin Buchloh, “Among Americans: Richard Hamilton,” in Richard Hamilton, ed. Mark Godfey (London: Tate, 2014), 93–124.

2 I define a “little magazine” as a small-circulation publication, aimed at a specialist, expert readership and produced to advance knowledge and to question dominant norms, rather than being a commercial, mass circulation enterprise.

3 Jane Bennett, Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010).

4 Mark Godfey, ed., Richard Hamilton (London: Tate, 2014), 2–3.

5 Living Arts (1963): 1; Richard Hamilton, “Urbane Image,” Living Arts (1963): 53.

6 For a ground-breaking account of the origins of Pop Art, which challenges the dominant heteronormality, see Dominic Janes, “Cecil Beaton, Richard Hamilton and the Queer Transatlantic Origins of Pop Art,” Visual Culture in Britain 16, no. 3 (2015): 308–330.

7 For a detailed list, see Anne Massey, The Independent Group: Modernism and Mass Culture in Britain, 1945–59 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995): 151–154.

8 For example, Reyner Banham, “Man, Machine and Motion,” Architectural Review 118, no. 7 (1955): 51–53.

9 Anne Massey and Penny Sparke, “The Myth of the Independent Group,” Block 10 (1985): 48–56.

10 Claude Lichtenstein and Thomas Schregenberger, eds, As Found: The Discovery of the Ordinary (Baden: Lars Muller and Zurich: Zurich Museum for Gestaltung, 2001).

11 Dirk van den Heuvel and Max Risselada, Alison and Peter Smithson – From the House of the Future to a House of Today (Rotterdam: 010 Publ., 2004).

12 Anthony Vidler, James Frazer Stirling: Notes from the Archive (Montreal: Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) and New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2010).

13 Sarah Menin and Stephen Kite, An Architecture of Invitation: Colin St John Wilson (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005); Roger Stonehouse, Colin St John Wilson: Building and Projects (London: Black Dog, 2007); Stephen Kite, “Colin St John Wilson and the Independent Group,” Journal of Visual Culture 12, no. 2 (2013): 245–261.

14 Catherine Moriarty, “Monographs, Archives and Networks: Representing Designer Relationships,” Design Issues 32, no. 4 (2016): 52–63.

15 Beatriz Colomina and Craig Buckley, Clip, Stamp, Fold: The Radical Architecture of Little Magazines 196X to 197X (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010).

16 Ibid., 8.

17 Steve Parnell, “AR’s and AD’s Post-War Editorial Policies: The Making of Modern Architecture in Britain,” Journal of Architecture 17, no. 5 (2012): 763–775, at 766.

18 University of Brighton Design Archives, Theo Crosby Archive, Box 8, 1949.

19 Simon Sadler, Archigram: Architecture Without Architecture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005), 33, 37, 64, 75, 79, 84, 86, 161

20 Theo Crosby, Notebook dated Autumn 1963, University of Brighton Design Archives, Theo Crosby Archive, Box 23.

21 Parnell, “AR’s and AD’s Post-War Editorial Policies,” 765, where Parnell describes Architectural Design as a “little magazine.” The article contains a detailed comparison of the two journals.

22 Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson, “House in Soho, London,” Architectural Design 33, no. 12 (1953): 342.

23 For a full list, see Heuvel, Alison and Peter Smithson, 234–235.

24 “Editorial,” Architectural Design 26, no. 1 (1956): 1.

25 Lawrence Alloway, Architectural Design 26, no. 12 (1956): 389–392.

26 Edward Wright, “Writing and Environment,”

27 Lawrence Alloway, “The Arts and the Mass Media,” Architectural Design 28, no. 3 (1958): 84–85.

28 Richard Hamilton, “Hommage á Chrysler Corp,” Architectural Design 28, no. 3 (1958): 121–122.

29 Alloway, “Arts in the Mass Media,” 85.

30 Richard Hamilton, Collected Words (London: Thames & Hudson, 1982), 31.

31 James Stirling, “A Personal View of the Present Situation,” Architectural Design 38 no. 6 (1958): 232–233.

32 John McHale, “Expendable Ikon 1,” Architectural Design 29, no. 2 (1959): 82; idem, “Expendable Ikon 2,” Architectural Design 29, no. 3 (1959): 116–117.

33 McHale, “Expendable Ikon 1,” 82.

34 Richard Hamilton, “$he,” Architectural Design 32, no. 10 (1962): 485–486.

35 Theo Crosby, untitled poem, dated June 24, 1956. University of Brighton Design Archives, Theo Crosby Archive, Box 34.

36 Theo Crosby, “The Painter as Designer,” in Edward Wright: Graphic Work and Painting (London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1985): 49–51, at 50.

37 Theo Crosby, “Editorial,” UPPERCASE, no. 1 (1959): 1–2, at 1.

38 Ibid., 1.

39 Giulia Smith, “Painting that Grows Back: Futures Past and the Ur-Feminist Art of Magda Cordell McHale, 1955–1961,” British Art Studies no. 1 (2015).

40 Marcel Duchamp in a letter to Richard Hamilton, June 17, 1959, as quoted in Sarat Maharaj, “‘A Monster of Veracity, a Crystalline Transubstantiation’: Typotranslating the Green Box,” in The Duchamp Effect ed. Martha Buskirk and Mignon Nixon (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996): 61–91.

41 Theo Crosby, “Editorial,” UPPERCASE, no. 3 (1960): 1.

42 Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson, Urban Structuring: Studies of Alison & Peter Smithson (London: Studio Vista, 1967).

43 Nigel Henderson, “Nigel Henderson,” UPPERCASE, no. 3 (1960): n.p.

44 Alex Seago, Burning the Box of Beautiful Things: The Development of a Postmodern Sensibility (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995):171

45 Anon., “Editorial,” Living Arts, no. 1 (1963): 1.

46 ICA Management Committee Minutes, February 28, 1962, p. 1.

47 ICA Management Committee Minutes, March 14, 1962, p. 1.

48 ICA Management Committee Minutes, November 14, 1962, p. 1.

49 Interview with the author, June 6, 2017.

50 Ibid

51 Lawrence Alloway, “The Long Front of Culture,” Cambridge Opinion, 17 (1959): 25-26; John McHale, “The Fine Arts and the Mass Media,” Cambridge Opinion, 17 (1959): 28–31; John Russell and Suzi Gablik, Pop Art Redefined (London: Thames & Hudson, 1969).

52 Reyner Banham, “The City as Scrambled Egg,” Cambridge Opinion no. 17 (1959): 18–23.

53 ICA Management Committee Minutes, December 12, 1962, p. 1.

54 Reyner Banham, “Who is this ‘Pop’?,” Motif (1962–63): 3–13.

55 Reyner Banham, “The Atavism of the Short-Distance Mini-Cyclist,” Living Arts no. 3 (1964): 91–97.

56 ICA Management Committee Minutes, July 10, 1963, p. 1.

57 ICA Management Committee Minutes, May 21, 1964, p. 1.

58 Robert Freeman in interview with author, June 6, 2017.