The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London presents the first significant British exhibition of the influential Viennese architectural magazine Bau (“building”), published by the Central Association of Austrian Architects (Zentralvereinigung der Architekten Österreichs).

The exhibition titled “Everything is Architecture: Bau Magazine from the 60s and 70s” features 24 original issues of the magazine published between 1965 and 1970, a period when a group of influential Austrian architects and artists Hans Hollein, Walter Pichler, Günther Feuerstein, Sokratis Dimitriou, and Oswald Oberhuber took over the editorial reins of the magazine. During this time, Bau magazine became a platform for new, experimental ideas in architecture. The built environment was considered beyond the mere concrete architecture, venturing into art and politics.This radical, interdisciplinary approach to architecture was crystallised in the 1968 issue of Bau (the source of the exhibition title), when the highly influential architect Hans Hollein boldly proclaimed: “Everything is Architecture.” Hollein, who won the Pritzker Prize in 1985, argued in his editorial manifesto that everything was architecture: a lipstick, a portrait of Che Guevara, an astronaut suit, performances of the Viennese Actionist Otto Mühl. All of these objects and practices could be considered to possess architectural qualities for the editors of Bau, in an aim to question the rigid functionalism that defined Modernist architecture in the pre-war period.

Unlike other experimental publications of that time, Bau retained the format of a glossy fashion magazine, with a prominent and creative use of advertising. While the magazine included texts by seminal philosophers, artists, and architects, it maintained a playful quality, with rich imagery from art and popular culture democratically sharing the space on the page with architectural drawings.

Experimental architecture flourished in the 1960s with groups such as Archigram and Street Farmer in the UK, Matabolism in Japan, and Superstudio and the new publication Domus in Italy. Austria was an important node in the discourse with several figures such as Coop Himmelb(l)au, Haus-Rucker-Co, ZÜND-UP, Salz der Erde, and Missing Link active during this period. They introduced collage, drawing, performance and film into their architectural practice, some of which were already exhibited at ICA in 1973 as a part of an exhibition of architectural graphics.

The interdisciplinary and political approach of the times, which embraced communications and advertising techniques to bring architecture out of the studio and into the society, has been undergoing a renewed surge of interest, as contemporary practice has increasingly turned political, practical, community- and discourse-oriented, and more interested in creating dialogs than building buildings. The ideas presented in “Everything is Architecture” form a part of the pre-history of contemporary radical practice, represented by architects such as Andres Jaque with his Office for Political Innovation, and the Istanbul-based graphic designers, activists, and architects PATTU.

Everything is Architecture: Bau Magazine from the 60s and 70s will be open from July 28-September 27, 2015 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, ICA Fox Reading Room, in London.