Visionary Austrian architecture partnership Haus-Rucker-Co. was formed in Vienna in 1967 by architects Günter Zamp and Laurids Ortner with painter Klaus Pinter. Following the oil crisis in 1973, many architects, including Haus-Rucker-Co., turned their focus toward provocative projects, actions, and experiments, testing the borders of architecture and its role within society and politics. This project is an early example of Haus-Rucker-Co.’s spheres, or “synthetic reservations”—most often amoebic bubbles suspended from already existing structures. Here, however, Ortner has created a wild assemblage of mostly found forms combined in an oil rig–like superstructure. The resulting urban form is typical of the collective’s questioning, through estrangement and distortion, of passive acceptance of the existing environment. With its space-age allusions and polemical take on consumer culture, City 47 is both an early environmentalist commentary and a critique of the nature of the current city and its architectures.
Gallery label from 9 + 1 Ways of Being Political: 50 Years of Political Stances in Architecture and Urban Design, September 12, 2012–March 25, 2013.