PETER COOK - Architect

Futuristic architecture !














Peter Cook is an architect
He is an educator
He is a writer and commentator
He is a rainmakerHe is an evangelist for the forward development of cities
Peter Cook graduated in 1960 from London’s Architectural Association and within a few months had founded the broadsheet Archigram. Within four years this developed into an internationally known and intensively discussed focus point for new ideas. Within another four years, the group of young architects associated with the magazine had created a series of experimental projects that were exhibited and published throughout the world. Today, few encyclopaedias, books, exhibitions or films about 1960s and post-1960s architecture fail to discuss the 'Archigram’ phenomenon. Out of Archigram came much of the so-called ‘high tech’ thinking and imitations of these projects in places as diverse as Japan, Brazil, Austria and Australia. There have been various books on Archigram published in Japan, USA, France and the UK. Its travelling exhibition (of over 400 drawings and photographs) has featured in the Centre Pompidou, Paris, the Triennalle, Milan, the Kunsthalle, Vienna, the Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, as well as being in New York, Los Angeles, Zurich, Seattle, Hamburg, Brussels and Manchester. A London venue is under negotiation.Peter Cook is known as the powerhouse element of Archigram but also for his design of some of its most familiar icons such as the ‘Plug-in City’, the ‘Montreal Tower’ and the 'Instant Village' as well as a prolific range of smaller projects and inventions. Most of this work is now in key collections such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the V&A, London, the Centre Pompidou, Paris and the Deutsches Architektur Museum, Frankfurt. He has continued to invent a series of projects: 'Arcadia', 'Layer City', 'Instant City', 'Way Out West-Berlin' and ‘Veg. Village’ which deal with the urban condition; as well as some two hundred projects for buildings, 'anti-buildings', exhibitions and prototypes. These are largely concerned with the extension of domestic architecture into new concepts of living. Sometimes these concepts lead to assemblages of apparatus or vegetation, technical devices or engineering that are directly involved in responding to the way in which people live.
Cook has won six International competitions • For old peoples’ housing, 1961• For an entertainment centre, Monte Carlo, 1970 (with the Archigram Group)• For solar–energised housing in Landstuhl, Germany, 1980 (with Christine Hawley)• For an Information Museum, Frankfurt, 1984• For a Museum of Antiquities in Bad Deutsches Altenberg, Austria, 1995 (with Christine Hawley) • For the Kunsthaus (modern art museum), Graz, Austria, 2000 (with Colin Fournier) Now under construction the Kunthaus—public museum for art and electronics—is featured as the prime icon of Graz for its role as Culture Capital of Europe in 2003. As an object the ‘blue bubble’ hovers over the public open space. It contains sophisticated electronic and luminescent features on the outside of a multi-layered ‘skin’. The city hopes to achieve the kind of effect that Frank Gehry's museum in Bilbao has created for that city.Other Cook buildings include the housing block at Lutzowplatz, Berlin (with Christine Hawley) an infil of maisonettes and flats as part of the Internationale Bau-Ausstellung organised by the city of Berlin (1985). These apartments offer a highly sculptural space with many dramatic views of Berlin’s Tiergarten area within the constraints of strict cost limits. Another project undertaken with Christine Hawley is the pavilion for the Botanical Gardens of Osaka, Japan (1990). The pavilion celebrated the experience and contemplation of water. Its steel façade is a prototype for projects such as the Glass Museum of Langen as well as the Museum of Antiquities in Austria.
To date his reputation in England rests on his work as an inspirational figure—educator, organiser and critic. Cook’s experience as former Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts—ICA (1970-72) and of Art Net—an independent gallery (1972-80) has enabled him to develop many concepts of exhibition, event and installation that influence his museum projects. He started teaching in 1964 at the age of 27 (at the Architectural Association) and has since become internationally renowned as pedagogue and academic. In 1999 the International Union of Architects awarded him the Jean Tschumi Prize for these activities. He became Life Professor at the Staedelschule (Art Academy) of Frankfurt in 1984 and is credited with having raised its profile to being one of the most discussed German architecture schools. As a result, he was invited to join the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London in 1990, and was given the prestigious post of Bartlett Chair of Architecture. Charged with the Bartlett’s revitalisation he has more than doubled the size of the school and seen it win more prizes and awards than any other British School. The Bartlett is now quoted in the popular and academic press as one of the nine key schools internationally and as the best in the UK. He continues in the role of Chair of the Bartlett School of Architecture.Cook has also been a Visiting Professor in MIT, UCLA, Harvard, Tokyo, Oslo, Moscow, Rice, Queensland, Berlin, Haifa, Madrid and Aarhus as well as a critic in some 70 other universities.
Peter Cook has written ten books, edited issues of magazines, written innumerable articles and has had his work featured in such publications as Esquire, Sunday Times, Observer, Sunday Telegraph, Domus, ABC colour supplement (Madrid), Soviet Architecture, Daily Express, Architectural Review, Design, Building Design, Architects Journal, Architecture + Urbanism, Japan Architect, Architecture (New York), Kenchiku Bunka, Architecture d’Aujourd’hui.He has given several hundred lectures worldwide including at the Universities of Harvard, MIT, Berkeley, Princeton, Yale, UCLA, Rice, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Rome.His most influential books are probably Architecture-Action and Plan, written when he was 27 and eventually selling some 30,000 copies. His 1998 book Primer was awarded the prize of the American Institute of Architects for that year. His tenth book The City as a Garden of Ideas comes out in the spring. Other books include:
The Archigram Book (1967, reprinted 1991, 1999, 2000)
The Teacher Talks to His Students (1989)
Peter Cook (A+U Monograph) (1989)
Peter Cook—Six Conversations (Monograph) (1993)
Art Random (1993)
New Spirit in Architecture (with R. Llewellyn-Jones 1994)
The Power of Contemporary Architecture (with Neil Spiller, 1999)
The Paradox of Contemporary Architecture (with Neil Spiller, 2001)