Spaceship Earth and the Designer Guru July 14, 2009

Two films documenting architectural alternatives. A countercultural response to Buckminster Fuller.

Buckminster Fuller Meets the Hippies

Rare documentation of a conversation on utopian aspirations, rational design, and Spaceship Earth as Bucky speaks to a group assembled on Hippie Hill, San Francisco, at the height of the counterculture movement.

This excerpt from a much longer recording, probably made for public access or student TV, serves as a compelling, if lo-fi, glimpse of a very particular moment in time and thought.

US 1966 Unknown director 30 min excerpt.

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Counter Communities

Artist Croy and architect Elser chart the contemporary legacy of the ‘utopian tendencies’ born of America’s 1960s alternative movements. Depicting five experimental architecture projects (Arcosanti; Earthships; The Lama Foundation; Nader Khalili and LA’s Dome Village) in their pioneers’ own words, the documentary examines applied utopian thinking in both built structures and concurrent ways of living, from a desert megastructure to a homestead inspired by ancient Persia and NASA research.

US/Germany 2003 Dirs. Oliver Croy & Oliver Elser 59 min.

Curated by The Architecture Foundation

Official Website: http://barbican.org.uk/film/event-detail.asp?ID=9315