Dark green ink appearance (may have been blue or black ink). Magazine of Ideas Architecture. Published at 59 Aberdare Gardens, London NW6
ARCHIGRAM 3, 1963
Interview with
Dennis Crompton
Dennis Crompton
So, there we go.
Archigram 3. Again, it was assembled and stapled, and looking at the staples, I think it’s hand done. You see they have that sort of staple that have a bow in them, that show they’ve been done with a punch.
This was the first issue that had a theme to it. Previous issues had just been things that were interesting topics that Peter wanted and David and Mike wanted to discuss. The third issue was about expendability, so it goes through, and it’s all offset litho, printed in a sort-of dark green ink on to yellow duplicate paper.
The quality of the printing is never great in any of the issues of
Archigram. Even with the issue in front of you, it’s often quite difficult to read because of the quality of the printing.
Kester Rattenbury
Why was the green ink chosen?
Dennis Crompton
I’ve no idea; it was probably cheaper than the black. It may not have been green ink. I mean, to be technical, it could have been a dark blue ink, which with the yellow of the paper would have gone green.
Kester Rattenbury
It could have been black actually, and just faded.
Dennis Crompton
Dark green ink appearance (may have been blue or black ink). Magazine of Ideas Architecture. Published at 59 Aberdare Gardens, London NW6
ARCHIGRAM 3, 1963
Interview with
Dennis Crompton
Dennis Crompton
So, there we go.
Archigram 3. Again, it was assembled and stapled, and looking at the staples, I think it’s hand done. You see they have that sort of staple that have a bow in them, that show they’ve been done with a punch.
This was the first issue that had a theme to it. Previous issues had just been things that were interesting topics that Peter wanted and David and Mike wanted to discuss. The third issue was about expendability, so it goes through, and it’s all offset litho, printed in a sort-of dark green ink on to yellow duplicate paper.
The quality of the printing is never great in any of the issues of
Archigram. Even with the issue in front of you, it’s often quite difficult to read because of the quality of the printing.
Kester Rattenbury
Why was the green ink chosen?
Dennis Crompton
I’ve no idea; it was probably cheaper than the black. It may not have been green ink. I mean, to be technical, it could have been a dark blue ink, which with the yellow of the paper would have gone green.
Kester Rattenbury
It could have been black actually, and just faded.
Dennis Crompton
It could have been black, that’s right. Bit thin. I don’t know.
Kester Rattenbury
And did you have money for this one?
Dennis Crompton
No. Well, by this time there was income from the second issue. By this time, we had a mailing list, but it was on an honesty basis. We had, I don’t know, three or four hundred people who were on the mailing list and the deal was: we sent them a copy of the magazine and they sent us the money back; if the money didn’t come back, they got taken off the mailing list and didn’t get the next issue. It was quite a simple thing. And anybody that wanted an issue could get their name added to the mailing list.
Kester Rattenbury
And was it already international by this stage? At what stage did people start taking it abroad?
Dennis Crompton
Well, that was really
Archigram 4. I can’t recall, but by
Archigram 4 there is a list of booksellers where you can get it, which includes one in Paris and, I think, one in Tokyo.
Kester Rattenbury
And how much were you charging?
Dennis Crompton
Oh, this was a shilling. This was a copy without a price on it, so it was a shilling.
And the pages now are just collage pages, whereas the typesetting that was done was unique to the second issue. So this, basically, is done on a typewriter; all the text is done either on a typewriter or stencilled lettering; Letraset appears sometimes. And illustrations cut out of wherever illustrations could be cut out of.
It was a survey of expendable buildings, some ideas that were going on, from things like Bucky [Buckminster] Fuller’s bathroom, through to pre-fabricated garden sheds. So it wasn’t high architecture, it was whatever was around. And that interest in the shed persisted for about fifty years.
Kester Rattenbury
Sometimes very practically!
Dennis Crompton
Yes, yes; it actually appeared in exhibitions and so on. Yeah, I mean, it has been a pre-occupation – the sort-of temporary-building-thing – right the way through. Peter was showing his project to his students the other day of a bridge that they [CRAB] are currently working on a proposal for. It has got a kiosk on it and the kiosk moves up and down across the bridge, and during the day it’s for ice-cream and, you know, soft drinks and at night it opens up and it’s a drinks bar and so on, but it can move around from one side of the bridge to the other. As I say, they’re very persistent, the preoccupations.
The first four, five, six, yes six issues, the pages were in a determined order. Then it goes a bit sort-of loose for the next two or three.
I see things here I’d forgotten about, from many years ago. But somewhere, like this here, whether we know where to find it, we have the brochures or the publications that these things [collages] were taken from. And then, of course, there are things like the Nottingham City Centre Project of David and Peter’s, that’s in here.
But, it’s interesting, the people involved. You know, when you read the names of who were then students or young graduates. I looked at this [magazine] the other night and there’s a group of students from Milan that includes a guy called Piano and, I wonder, I don’t know, whether that is Renzo Piano, or if he had a brother, sister, or if it was somebody else that used to have the same name. It’s interesting when you see the names that crop up. Now, William Siddons' House in Finland; Yona Friedman is more easy.
But they are there, you see, like all the objects on that page. There’s an index for them, but the chances of anybody being able to read the number two and find the number two down here… particularly the way that Peter’s done it – the two’s at the end of the line and the caption’s on the following line! You know, it would be nice if you rolled over that and it said ‘Dymaxion Car by Buckminster Fuller’. There’s quite a lot of Bucky stuff on there.
Then this is a diary from the Living City Exhibition. This appears elsewhere in the collection, the original drawings and so on. Then a bit of self-advertising -- opportunities at Building Design Partnership -- that’s ‘thank you’ to David Rock. There certainly isn’t, and I can’t remember if there was, another page behind that.
Kester Rattenbury
I notice on that one it’s creased along the top, is that because it’s been squeezed into a different type of envelope or something?
Dennis Crompton
No I shouldn’t think so. No, this has never been circulated. That’s why I had to remember how much it was. So this is a copy, it could well be incomplete. I mean, they’ve sat in this folder for some years as well, so I’d have to check; I have one or two copies that I think are complete.
