Superstudio was a radical group, founded in Florence in 1966-67, which, in those years of protest, posited a conceptual and iconoclastic praxis of architecture. Through photomontages, furniture prototypes, films and writings with provocative overtones, the group developed a critique of the Anglo-Saxon Pop culture. In 1966, together with Archizoom, they took part in the exhibition Superarchitettura, often regarded as a groundbreaking event for the radical movement, and through their projects presented an ideological, critical and ironical interpretation of the consumer society. With their Istogrammi di architettura (1969), Superstudio completely recast the codes of design by coming up with a “behavioural plan” to be applied to different zones and on different scales. The Monumento continuo (1971) extended this project to architecture, with an “architectural model of total urbanization”, that was uninterrupted and a veritable tool of radical criticism. Between 1971 and 1973, the group worked in the field of operative criticism, producing films, popularizing information, aimed at the general public, and utopian projects involving ‘fundamental acts’ ”. Through a series of simplifying processes, they attempted to find the paths of a philosophical and anthropological re-founding of architecture. Superstudio presented its projects in 1972 in the exhibition Italy: The New Domestic Landscape at the MoMA in New York, and is today an icon of architectural culture.
Founded in Florence in 1966-67, the Superstudio group brought together the architects Adolfo Natalini (1941-2020), Cristiano Toraldo di Francia (1941), Roberto Magris (1935-2003), Piero Frassinelli (1939), Alessandro Magris (1941-2010), Alessandro Poli (1941). The group took part in many exhibitions, in particular Milan’s 15th and 17th Triennale. In 1973, it featured among the founders of Global Tools, a system of workshops for developing collective creativity. Until Superstudio broke up in 1982, it undertook theoretical research, while at the same time working in the field of architecture (sets, constructions) and design (objects, furniture).
