Radical Notes: Archizoom Re-Viewed via Ivan Illich

Abstract

In 1973, Andrea Branzi, founder of Archizoom, wrote a short review of Ivan Illich’s book Deschooling Society. The review constituted the fourth of 27 “Radical Notes” he published in the journal Casabella between 1972 and 1976. While this was the only one explicitly to adopt the review format, Illich’s presence permeates the Radical Notes as a whole. They can be read as a coherent pedagogical theory, the practical output of which was Global Tools, a counter-school promoted by Branzi and other members of the Italian Radical Movement. Branzi approached the review as an opportunity to re-view, to look again at the theses of Archizoom. His review thus sheds light on an important moment in the story of the Radicals, adding a pedagogical component to the political, Marxist roots of their critique of the nexus of city, labor and capitalism.

Keywords:

• Deschooling
• education
• Archizoom
• Ivan Illich
• radical architecture
• Radical Notes
• knowledge society

Notes

1. Andrea Branzi, “The Abolition of School – Radical Note no. 4,” Casabella 373 (1973): 10.

2. Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society (London and New York: Marion Boyars, 1971).

3. The first Radical Note was published in Casabella no. 370 (October 1972), and the last in no. 412 (April 1976). No. 412 was also the last issue to be edited by Alessandro Mendini, the magazine’s director from June 1970.

4. Germano Celant’s term appeared in “Senza titolo,” Argomenti e Immagini di design 2–3 (1971): 76–81. The label of Radicals included the Florentine collectives of Archizoom, Superstudio, 9999, UFO, and Zziggurat, alongside other individuals such as Remo Buti, Gianni Pettena, Ugo La Pietra, Alessandro Mendini, Franco Raggi, and Riccardo Dalisi. The MoMA exhibition, curated by Emilio Ambasz, is documented in Emilio Ambasz, ed., Italy: The New Domestic Landscape. Achievements and Problems of Italian Design (New York: MOMA, 1972).

5. Andrea Branzi, “A Long-Term Strategy – Radical Note no.1,” Casabella 370 (1972): 13.

6. Andrea Branzi, “The Dream of the Village – Radical Note no.2,” Casabella 371 (1972): 9.

7. Andrea Branzi, “Publications on the Avant-Garde – Radical Note no.3,” Casabella 372 (1972): 10.

8. For recent re-readings of the Italian Radical Movement see Alex Coles and Catherine Rossi, eds., The Italian Avant-Garde, 1968–1976 (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2013).

9. For the Italian postwar architectural debate see: Cina Conforto et al., Il dibattito architettonico in Italia, 1945-1975 (Roma: Bulzoni, 1977); Manfredo Tafuri, Storia dell’architettura italiana, 1944-1985 (Torino: Einaudi, 1986); Mario Ferrari, Il progetto urbano in Italia: 1940-1990 (Firenze: Alinea, 2005).

10. See the monographic issues of Casabella 264 (1962); 278 (1963). See also Guido Canella, “Vecchie e nuove ipotesi per i centri direzionali,” Casabella 275 (1963): 42–55; Carlo Aymonino, I centri direzionali (Bari: De Donato editore, 1967).

11. Among the most important texts on these keywords of the Italian architectural debate of the 1960s, see in particular: Giuseppe Samonà, L’urbanistica e l’avvenire della città negli stati europei (Bari: Laterza, 1959); Luigi Piccinato, Vieri Quilici, and Manfredo Tafuri, “La Città-Territorio. Verso una nuova dimensione,” Casabella, no. 270 (1962): 16-25; Giancarlo De Carlo, “Relazione conclusiva al seminario dell’ILSES sulla nuova dimensione e la città-regione” (Stresa, 1962); Alberto Samonà, “Alla ricerca di un metodo per la nuova dimensione,” Casabella, no. 277 (1963): 50-54; Carlo Aymonino et al., ed., La Città Territorio: un esperimento didattico sul centro direzionale di Centocelle in Roma (Bari: Leonardo da Vinci editrice, 1964); Franco Archibugi, ed., La Città Regione in Italia (Torino: Boringhieri, 1966).

12. Archizoom, manuscript note (1967), quoted in Roberto Gargiani, Archizoom Associati, 1966–1974: Dall’onda pop alla superficie neutra (Milano: Electa, 2007), 40.

13. Daniel Bell, “Notes on the Post-Industrial Society,” The Public Interest, no. 6 (1967): 28.

14. Ibid., 30.

15. On the new universities of the 1950s and 60s, see Stefan Muthesius, The Postwar University: Utopianist Campus and College (London: Yale University Press, 2000). On the Italian situation, see Francesco Zuddas, “The Idea of the Università,” AA Files, no. 75 (2017): 119-31 and The University as a Settlement Principle: Territorialising Knowledge in Late 1960s Italy (London and New York: Routledge, 2019).

16. Reyner Banham, Megastructure: Urban Futures of the Recent Past (London: Thames and Hudson, 1976).

17. Archizoom, “Progetto di concorso per l’Università di Firenze,” Domus, no.509 (April 1974): 11.

18. Gargiani, Archizoom Associati.

19. Archizoom Associati, “Discorsi per immagini,” Domus 481 (1969): 46–48.

20. Archizoom Associati, “City, Assembly Line of Social Issues: Ideology and Theory of the Metropolis,” Casabella 350–351 (1970): 43–52. Reprinted in Andrea Branzi, No-Stop City: Archizoom Associati (Orléans: HYX, 2006): 156–174.

21. See endnote 3, above.

22. Giovanni Klaus Koenig, “Untitled,” Casabella 370–371 (1970): 43.

23. On the impact of the Operaist movement on Archizoom, see Pier Vittorio Aureli, The Project of Autonomy: Politics and Architecture Within and Against Capitalism (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2008).

24. Guido Viale, Il Sessantotto. Tra rivoluzione e restaurazione (Milano: Gabriele Mazzotta Editore, 1978), 187.

25. Branzi has recently described the “Superarchitettura” exhibition, held at the Jolly Due gallery in Pistoia, as an “improvised show displaying our graduation theses, some colorful objects and a multi-color entrance […], with the music of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Jimi Hendrix playing loudly […],” Andrea Branzi, Una generazione esagerata. Dai Radical italiani alla crisi della globalizzazione (Milano: Baldini & Castoldi, 2014), 33 (my translation).

26. In his autobiographical recollections, Branzi is clear that Archizoom followed the Operaist path rather than aligning with the student movement: “Our sophisticated political ethos kept us outside the whirl of student assemblies and the ritual occupations of institutional places,” Andrea Branzi, Una generazione esagerata. 70.

27. Manfredo Tafuri, “Per una critica dell’ideologia architettonica,” Contropiano, no. 1 (1969): 31-79, republished in Architecture Theory Since 1968, ed. K. Michael Hays (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998): 6-35. The essay was later expanded and published as a book: Manfredo Tafuri, Progetto e Utopia: architettura e sviluppo capitalistico (Roma; Bari: Laterza, 1973).

28. Manfredo Tafuri, “Per una critica dell’ideologia architettonica,” 22.

29. Andrea Branzi, letter to Beate Sydhoff, January 23, 1969. Quoted in Gargiani, Archizoom Associati (my translation).

30. Archizoom Associati, “City, Assembly Line of Social Issues,” 169.

31. Branzi, “The Dream of the Village – Radical Note no. 2.”

32. Archizoom, “No-Stop City. Residential Parkings, Climatic Universal System,” Domus 496 (1971): 49–55.

33. Ibid., 55.

34. Ibid.

35. “Bando di concorso internazionale per la sistemazione della Università degli Studi di Firenze,” Gazzetta Ufficiale della Repubblica Italiana 110 (1970): 2747–2749.

36. The results of the competition were published in Casabella 361 (1972); Controspazio 1–2 (1972); Domus 509 (1972). Of these, only Domus included Archizoom’s entry.

37. The drawings of Archizoom’s entry are kept at the Centro Studi e Archivio della Comunicazione, Università di Parma.

38. See Le Corbusier, The Athens Charter, trans. Anthony Eardley (New York: Grossman, 1973 [1941]).

39. Shadrach Woods, “The Education Bazaar,” Harvard Educational Review 4 (1969): 116–125; Francesco Zuddas, “Pretentious Equivalence: De Carlo, Woods and Mat-Building,” FAmagazine 34 (2015): 45–65.

40. Andrea Branzi, letter to Charles Jencks (May 16, 1972). Quoted in Gargiani, Archizoom Associati, 276.

41. Archizoom, “Progetto di concorso per l’Università di Firenze,” 12.

42. Legge 11 Dicembre 1969, no.910, “Provvedimenti urgenti per l’Università”.

43. See Todd Hartch, The Prophet of Cuernavaca: Ivan Illich and the Crisis of the West (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2015).

44. The other main books in which Illich expanded his critique of institutions are Tools for Conviviality (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), Medical Nemesis (New York: Pantheon Books, 1976), and Toward a History of Needs (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978).

45. Illich, Deschooling Society, 1.

46. Ibid., 11, 3.

47. Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958); Michael Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966). Summarized in the claim that we know more than we can tell, Polanyi described a dimension of knowing that is inherently personal and cannot be transmitted via any media as information. Tacit knowledge then became an operative concept for Illich and others as it sustained the argument against the total institutionalization of education through instruction. Tacit knowledge challenges the teacher-student dyad in so far as it is something that cannot be taught, but only learned.

48. Illich, Deschooling Society, 53.

49. Ibid., 60.

50. Ibid., 17.

51. Giancarlo De Carlo also questioned the absoluteness of the school building as the main way to understand the spatiality of education. See Giancarlo De Carlo, “Why/how to Build School Buildings,” Harvard Educational Review 4 (1969): 12–35.

52. Branzi, “The Abolition of School – Radical Note no. 4.”

53. Illich, Deschooling society, 72. Illich would return to this point in the follow-up to his book, After Deschooling, What? (London: Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative, 1976 [c.1973]).

54. Branzi, “The Abolition of School.”

55. Illich, Deschooling Society, ch.6, 72–104.

56. See Valeria Borgonuovo and Silvia Franceschini, eds., Global Tools 1973–1975 (Istanbul: SALT, 2015).

57. Global Tools Bulletin No 1, Document 2. Milan, June 1974. Reproduced in “Appunti su Global Tools,” Gizmoweb, 2012. Available online: http://www.gizmoweb.org/2012/06/appunti-su-global-tools/ (accessed May 23, 2019).

58. Riccardo Dalisi, in “Global Tools Bulletin”, 18 December 1973. Reproduced in Borgonuovo and Franceschini, Global Tools 1973–1975, 45.

59. Ibid.

60. See Liane Lefaivre and Ingeborg de Roode, eds., Aldo van Eyck: The Playgrounds and the City (Rotterdam: NAI Publishers, 2002) and Alison and Peter Smithson, Urban Structuring: Studies of Alison and Peter Smithson (London and New York: Reinhold, 1967).

61. Global Tools, “First hypothesis for the founding of a School of Popular Arts and Techniques,” no date. Reproduced in Borgonuovo and Franceschini, Global Tools 1973–1975, 40.

62. Andrea Branzi, “Minimal Technology – Radical Note no.13,” Casabella 385 (1974): 6.

63. Andrea Branzi, “Global Tools – Radical Note no.8,” Casabella, no. 377 (1973): 8.

64. Branzi, “The Abolition of School – Radical Note no. 4.”

65. “Quale Scuola?” Casabella 409 (1976).

66. The final stages of the Radical Movement can be dated between 1974 and 1976, when many of the members (Andrea Branzi included) moved from Florence to Milan and the original collectives (Archizoom included) disbanded. In his recent recollections Branzi has written: “The certainty of having produced a fatal fracture drove the implicit decision not to take the surgery any further. Thus, between 1974 and 1976, it became clear that the Radical Movement’s most vital moment was over.” Branzi, Una generazione esagerata, 120 (my translation).

67. Andrea Branzi, “Homework: Remembering Pasolini,” Casabella 409 (1976): 8.

68. Beatriz Colomina, “Learning from Global Tools,” in Borgonuovo and Franceschini, Global Tools 1973–1975, 8.

69. Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class: And How it is Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life (New York: Basic Books, 2002).

70. See Oli Mould, Against Creativity (London and New York: Verso, 2018).

71. See Mario Alighiero Manacorda, ed., Antonio Gramsci, L’alternativa pedagogica (Roma: Editori Riuniti, 2012 [1972]).

72. Renzo Agostini et al., eds., Il potere di abitare (Firenze: Libreria Editrice Fiorentina, 1982).

73. Ivan Illich, “Presentazione,” in Il potere di abitare, ed. Renzo Agostini et al. (Firenze: Libreria Editrice Fiorentina, 1982), 11–14. The letter is reprinted in Franco La Cecla, Ivan Illich e la sua eredità (Milano: Edizioni Medusa, 2013).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Francesco Zuddas

Francesco Zuddas is a senior lecturer in Architecture at Anglia Ruskin University and has taught architecture and urbanism at the Università degli Studi di Cagliari, the Architectural Association, Central Saint Martins and the Leeds School of Architecture. His writings on postwar Italian urbanism and architecture, space and higher education, architectural pedagogy and the spatial implications of changing production paradigms to meet the knowledge economy, have appeared in AA Files, Domus, Oase, San Rocco, Territorio, and Trans, among others. His latest book is The University as a Settlement Principle: Territorialising Knowledge in Late 1960s Italy (Routledge, 2019).