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Limited and traditional definitions of architecture and its means have lost their validity. Today the environment as a whole is the goal of our activities—and all the media of its determination: TV or artificial climate, transportation or clothing, telecommunication or shelter. The extension of the human sphere and the means of its determination go far beyond a built statement. Today everything becomes architecture. “Architecture” is just one of many means, is just one possibility. […] Architecture is a medium of communication.
[…] For thousands of years, artificial transformation and determination of man’s world, as well as sheltering from weather and climate, was accomplished by means of building. The building was the essential manifestation and expression of man. Building was understood as the creation of a three-dimensional image of the necessary as spatial definition, protective shell, mechanism and instrument, psychic means and symbol. The development of science and technology, as well as changing society and its needs and demands, has confronted us with entirely different realities. Other and new media of environmental determination emerge. […] Obviously it no longer occurs to anyone to wall-in sewage canals or erect astronomical instruments of stone (Jaipur). New communications media like telephone, radio. TV, etc. are of far more import. Today a museum or a school can be replaced by a TV set. Architects must cease to think only in terms of buildings.
[…] Thus a building might be simulated only. An early example of the extension of buildings through media of communication is the telephone booth —a building of minimal size extended into global dimensions. Environments of this kind more directly related to the human body and even more concentrated in form are, for example, the helmets of jet pilots who, through telecommunication, expand their senses and bring vast areas into direct relation with themselves. Toward a synthesis and to an extreme formulation of a contemporary architecture leads the development of space capsules and space suits. Here is a “house”—far more perfect than any building—with a complete control of bodily functions, provision of food and disposal of waste, coupled with a maximum mobility. […] A true architecture of our time will have to redefine itself and expand its means. Many areas outside traditional building will enter the realm of architecture, as architecture and “architects” will have to enter new fields.
All are architects. Everything is architecture.
Hans Hollein: “Alles Ist Architektur”. Bau 1/2, 1968
[Full text and original article at Socks’ blog]
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The original cartoon can be found as originally published in the “Klaus Kube” section of Uncube Magazine #24: Hans Hollein, edited by Sophie Lovell, Floriaon Heilmeyer, Elvia Wilk et al, which deals entirely with Hollein’s work with some help of Madalena Boavida, Susie S. Lee, Wilfried Kuehn, Marlies Wirth, Oliver Elser, Rob Wilsonet al. Highly recommended reading.
For some further reading on a man who made the world a more interesting place, check Dezeen’s April 2014 obituary, or some words on him by Charles Holland (@ordinarycharles ), who echoes Hollein in more aspects than his name. I know: there’s a ‘Numerus Klausus’ issue missing. It’ll come later.
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