Alternative architecture: We have the juice!

The National Museum of Art, Architecture & Design is pleased to invite the press to a preview of the exhibition “Far-out Voices” on Friday, 20 September at 10.00 a.m. at the National Museum – Architecture. A very warm welcome! The official opening takes place on Saturday, 21 September at 3.00 p.m. The exhibition runs until 2 March. Press contact: Eva Engeset, eva.engeset@nasjonalmuseet.no, tel. +47 46 95 01 02.

The architecture exhibition “Far-out Voices” presents a selective insight into the pioneering origins of what we today call green design, revealing links between current notions of “sustainability” and the counter-cultural movement of the 1960s and 1970s.

“Far-out Voices” acts as a point of entry into the work and thinking of some of the early advocates of alternative architecture and technology, who experimented with “sustainable” design long before sustainability became a buzzword.

The exhibition is built up around a series of documentary interviews filmed by Caroline Maniaque-Benton. Do-it-yourself manuals, photographic documentation and ephemera linked to the work of Steve Baer, Mike Reynolds, Jay Baldwin, Graham Stevens and others trace out a legacy of direct action and experimentation driven by a desire for autonomy from the state and its infrastructures.

The 1960s and 1970s alternative culture in architecture and technology was an important source of early ecological thinking. Drawing attention to the experimental beginnings of green design, the exhibition invites us to consider the ways in which the counter-cultural roots of “sustainability” have become increasingly incorporated within the aims and rhetoric of government and industry alike.

“Far-out Voices” is part of the Oslo Architecture Triennale. The National Museum is one of six partners behind the Architecture Triennale, this year titled Behind the Green door – Architecture and the desire for Sustainability. The Triennale invites you to an original and critical study of sustainability in architecture, urban development and design. Belgian group Rotor are the curators of the main exhibition at DogA. Further information can be found at oslotriennale.no.

Curators: Dr. Caroline Maniaque-Benton (Ecole Nationale Superieure d’Architecture, Paris Malaquais) and Dr. Jérémie McGowan (National Museum for Art, Architecture and Design).