Inflatable canopy

According to kultureflash, Rem Koolhaasdesign for this year’s Serpentine Pavilion in London will be an ovoid-shaped inflatable canopy that will float above the gallery’s lawn (see rendering below).

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Which somehow made me think of Haus-Rucker-Co‘s project of a cover for the Lange House, designed in 1921 by Mies van der Rohe. The house was roofed over with an air-supported hall made of a white-coated material. In response to the “L”-shaped plan of the house the hall had a heart-shaped plan and also roofed a part of the garden.

Haus-Rucker-Co –an architectural studio formed in 1967 by Laurids Ortner, Günter Zamp Kelp and Klaus Pinter in Vienna– came up with several cool ideas in the late ’60s-early ’70s.

Their Mind Expanding Programme inflatable structures attempted to address the imbalance between human evolution and technological progress.

Balloon for Two was a transparent bubble suspended in mid-air outside the architects’ studio and hosting two halves of a bathtub in which tow “passengers” could seat. The experience was meant to provide the passengers with “calm, relaxation, and love.”

yellow2-b.jpgYellow Heart (pictured above) consisted of a pulsating bubble inside an inflatable capsule. Inside, a bed for two people allowed them to relax while enjoying the inflation/deflation rythm of the air that was pumped in sequence into the chamber.

Their Environment/Transformer with plastic coloured visors changed visual and auditory impressions for a limited time. The processes of seeing and hearing are drawn out of their habitual apathy, separated into their individual functions and put together again as special experiences.

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Total delirium was achieved with the Mind Expanders, some kind of blowdryer seat for two that featured an electronic display of light and sound, which was intended to induce a trance-like state similar to that reached through mind-bending drugs or a shamanic ritual.

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More images and information in digitalmediatree, world of kane, ebay.

Related: Archigram archives.
Parasite architecture: the backpack house and paraSITE shelters.