Haus-Rucker-Co

 

The Haus-Rucker-Co group was founded in Vienna in 1967 by architects Laurids Ortner, Günter Zamp Kelp and artist Klaus Pinter. In 1971 architect Manfred Ortner joined the group. In 1970, two studios were established: one based in Düsseldorf and the other in New York, which, from 1972 onwards, worked independently. Haus-Rucker-Co was finally dissolved in 1992.

The group's proposals oscillate between architecture and performance art, characterized by the use of experimental technologies and materials. Architecture beyond the building. Ephemeral structures that break with the stillness and rigidity of conventional architectural spaces.

Architecture as a utopian and technified experience, spaces that try to create strangeness to disorient and mislead the viewer, as their early works Mind Expander (1967) or Environment Transformer: Flyhead, Viewatomizer and Drizzler (1968), where an inflatable diving bell or a helmet with sophisticated audiovisual assets modifies the vision and acoustics of the user.

An attempt of sensorial broadness that keeps on growing with interventions in the public sphere. Ballon für Zwei (Vienna, 1969) or Oase Nr° 7 (Documenta 5, Kassel, 1972) work as pneumatic capsules that colonize the air, questioning the uses that we give to public space while placing the spectator as a fundamental part of the work itself .

Works that coexist with other approaches of theoretical nature, attempts of transforming the urban landscape through technological utopia. Megastructures, new means of transportation, climatic capsules or artificial nature work as strategies to break with the modern city in search of a different future.