About this talk

Running time: 24 minutes

John Johansen has been practicing and teaching architecture in the USA ever since World War II and is famous for his Oklahoma Theatre Center, which was completed in 1983. But in recent years he has been thinking about the look of architecture in the future, based on developments in the scientific world.

In this second recording made by Johansen for Pidgeon Digital, he dwells exclusively on his futuristic ideas, showing seven projects which have already appeared in an exhibition in 1996 at London's Building Centre, and in a monograph on his work (John M. Johansen: A Life In The Continuum Of Modern Architecture - L'Arca Edizione, Milan).

He delights, he says, "in founding, from building methods, new building methods that have never been investigated before... and out of that, ending up in what I call a true new aesthetic which is not stylistic... but one which honestly grows from new ways of building".

Being at the time of this talk already 80 years old, he does not expect to see any of his ideas realised in his lifetime, but hopes that they may inspire others to find a new architecture for themselves.

This is the second of Johansen's talks for us. In 1983 he gave us Ad Hoc Architecture, and in 2010 Career Retrospective: John Johansen.

Please note that a transcript of this talk is available - please contact us for further details.