Assignment Topic:

Which do you think offers more useful lessons to today’s architecture students, Archigram magazine or High-rise social housing?

1. Introduction
Modernism in architecture realm, itself is full of controversies and evolution. The definition of modernism, modern or modernity in architecture area has been highly discussed through the development of architecture by plenty of scholars and architects. In general, “Modern” means something pure, logical, universal, rational or at least international (Glendinning and Muthesius, 1956). Both Archigram magazine and High-rise social housing have strongly influenced British Modernism. Archigram proposed fantastic designs with lots of imagination, which brought a brainstorm and a visual shock against classical architecture. However, the development of high-rise social housing tends to be more conventional and realistic than Archigram. Indeed high-rise social housing is fragile owing to the changes in policies and people’s preference. The purpose of this assignment is to discuss, compare and contrast Archigram magazine and high-rise social housing in British Modernism area. A brief introduction of both Archigram magazine and high-rise social housing is provided. Finally, a conclusion about which one is more useful to today’s architecture students will be derived.
2. Main body
2.1 Archigram Magazine
A prestigious architecture magazine named Archigram was first published in 1961 by Peter Cook and David Greene with a new vision of architecture; undeniably Peter Cook and David Greene are the doyens of this well-known magazine (The Archigram Archival Project, 2010). The first issue of Archigram was just two sheets and printed offset lithograph. 400 copies of this issue were printed, but after a while there were still 350 copies left (The Archigram Archival Project, 2010). Respectably these two young