Part of:

People:

Alessandro Poli (archive creator)
Alessandro Poli (architect)

Title:

Architettura Interplanetaria [Interplanetary Architecture] (1970-1971)

Date:

1969-1971

Level of archival description:
Project

Extent and medium:

42 drawings (including 3 reprographic copies)
3 notebooks
2 sketchbooks
1 model
1 publication
1 poster

Scope and content:
The project series documents Poli's work on the Interplanetary Architecture project, which was also made into a film by Superstudio directed by Alessandro Poli (the film is not included in the fonds). The project reflects Poli's deep fascination with the moon landing in 1969. Poli uses this major media event as a catalyst for thinking about a new approach to architecture and tools for design, including the idea that film and the movie camera should become part of the toolset. The project also seems to be in some way a response to Epoch magazine's challenge for a "Primo concorso di architettura nello spazio" (the first architectural competition in space), and includes much imagery and textual references to a new road or architectural links between the earth and other planets, including an earth moon highway. In his storyboard, Poli also makes reference to his earlier Piper project, and some imagery features wheels and an amusement park.
The Interplanetary Architecture project was exhibited by Superstudio in Rome in 1972 and featured in "Casabella" magazine in April 1972 (no. 364). The project was also featured in the 2010 CCA exhibition "Other Space Odysseys". In the accompanying CCA publication, Poli describes this project as "a voyage off earthbound routes in quest of architecture unfettered by the urban nightmare, by induced needs or by planning as the only tool for regulating and solving the world's problems" (Poli quoted in Borasi and Zardini, 2010, 110). Poli's work on this project is deeply tied to the Zeno project, which was also featured in this exhibition and is included in this fonds (see AP148.S1.1972.PR01). For the Zeno project, Poli envisioned a dialogue between astronaut Buzz Aldrin and an Italian peasant, Zeno of Riparbella. Poli felt that these two shared a similarity in that both their homes were isolated capsules, one that provided a lens from which to see the rest of the world and understand their place in it.
The material in the series includes numerous photomontages and collages of astronauts in space, as well as drawings of plantery shapes and structures. There are also texts, some of which include calculations of distances and diameters of planets, as well as notebooks and sketchbooks, many of which Poli included in a folder he entitled "Storyboard." The series also includes an unsent letter from Poli to Adolfo Natalini which describes how, after the moon landing, everything - the planet, the moon, the stars - is architecture, and that this will necessitate the need for new design tools, such as the movie camera. Some works are signed Alessandro Poli-Superstudio.
Source cited: Giovanna Borasi and Mirko Zardini, eds., Other Space Odysseys, Montreal and Baden: Canadian Centre for Architecture/Lars Müller Publishers, 2010.

Reference number:

AP148.S1.1970.PR02

Location:

Modena Italy

Related units of description:

See the Piper project (AP148.S1.1966.PR01) and the project on Zeno, a self-sufficient culture (AP148.S1.1972.PR01)