The Weitzman School Presents: Annette Fierro

On March 20, 2024, the Department of Architecture hosted a book talk by Annette Fierro for her newest publication, 'Architectures of the Technopolis: Archigram and the British High Tech."
As an associate Pprofessor at Weitzman, Annette Fierro teaches design studios and theory seminars, where she addresses issues of technology within contemporary international architecture and urban culture. Fierro's new book traces a network of legacies instigated by the radical technological speculation of the 1960's in London. Comparing the work of Archigram and the High Tech architects thematically, the book explores the historical and cultural context of London to reveal their influences and interconnections and why two such radical groups emerged from seemingly conservative London. The book speculates on, among other topics, technological utopias as they were embraced in different eras to the present, the effect of WWII on the technological iconography of the various architects, on the influence of experimental theatre of the 60's on the evolution of their technological surfaces, on the relationship between engineering and practices of drawing in the appearance of technological apparatus, and finally the co-evolution of practices of narrative description with systems of movement in the post-industrial, nostalgic, and neoliberal city.