French Encounters with the American Counterculture 1960-1980 (Ashgate Studies in Architecture)

French-American interrelationships in the areas of design and creative thinking have been under-acknowledged. It is normally asserted that French architects looked to North America for technical lessons in the development of modern architecture in the 1960s but that the French cultural environment was generally hostile to American ideas. This book includes interviews with French architects who visited the United States in the 1960s-1970s and then assumed influential positions in the press and education in France. Some of these architects found in non-mainstream America and its radical groups of architectural drop-outs a liberating force, free of the taint of American capitalism and the high-investment technology. Often living in alternative student communities, they saw highly innovative, low-cost technical and structural systems placed in the service of collective forms of living which represented a critique not only of professional architectural practice but also of bourgeois forms of living. Many of them also studied in American schools of architecture and came in contact with an intellectual and interdisciplinary style of architectural education unavailable in France at that time. French-American interrelationships in the areas of design and creative thinking have been under acknowledged. It is normally asserted that French architects looked to North America for technical lessons in the development of modern architecture in the 1960s but that the French cultural environment was generally hostile to American ideas. Including interviews with French architects who visited the States in the 1960s and then assumed influential positions in the press and education in France, this book shows how they actually found in the American counterculture and its radical groups of architectural dropouts a liberating force, free both of the taint of American capitalism and of high investment technology. Often living in alternative student communities, they saw highly innovative low cost technical and structural systems placed in the service of collective forms of living which represented a critique not only of professional architectural practice but also of bourgeois forms of living. Many of them also studied in American schools of architecture and came in contact with an intellectual and interdisciplinary style of architectural education unavailable in France at that time. -- Book Description "French-American interrelationships in the areas of design and creative thinking have been under acknowledged. It is normally asserted that French architects looked to North America for technical lessons in the development of modern architecture in the 1960s but that the French cultural environment was generally hostile to American ideas. This book includes interviews with French architects who visited the United States in the 1960s and then assumed influential positions in the press and education in France. Some of these architects found in non-mainstream America and its radical groups of architectural dropouts a liberating force, free of the taint of American capitalism and the high investment technology. Often living in alternative student communities, they saw highly innovative low cost technical and structural systems placed in the service of collective forms of living which represented a critique not only of professional architectural practice but also of bourgeois forms of living. Many of them also studied in American schools of architecture and came in contact with an intellectual and interdisciplinary style of architectural education unavailable in France at that time."--P. [4] of cover Cover Half Title Title Copyright Contents List of Figures List of Illustrations List of Abbreviations Acknowledgments Preface Introduction 1 Framing the Debates around Technology 2 Discovering the Alternative Scene: From Sausalito to Drop City 3 Documenting the Architectural Counterculture 4 Exhibiting Vernacular Structures and Marginal Architecture in France 5 Publication Networks in the United States: From the Whole Earth Catalog to Shelter 6 Counterculture à la française: Self-build, Publishing, Teaching and Research Conclusion Bibliographical References Index