The relationship between architecture and nature is constantly evolving, and over the past forty years this relationship has had to be dramatically re-evaluated. ’¨’¨

Radical Nature, an exhibition currently showing at London’s Barbican, explores ideas that have emerged from Land Art, environmental activism, experimental architecture and utopianism. ’¨’¨The first exhibition of its kind, it brings together key artists and architects from the last forty years who have created visionary works and solutions addressing our changing environment.

In the past, the natural world has often been idealised or disconnected from our built environment, particularly in densely urban areas. Since the 1960s, the perception of the natural world as being pure and distant has been overtaken by an awareness of environmental issues – as the increasingly evident degradation of the planet has infiltrated the wider consciousness, it has in turn informed the practice of architects and artists exploring the relationship between nature and the built environment.

The exhibition celebrates the work of contemporary artists, while revealing the roots of such work in the revolutionary vision of pioneers such as Beuys, Buckminster Fuller and Denes.

Radical Nature also features a specially commissioned off-site installation in East London by the experimental architectural collective EXYZT. The Dalston Mill transforms a disused site into a summer retreat, reclaiming wasteland and integrating it into the urban environment.

barbican.org.uk

Hero Image: Richard Buckminster Fuller
US Pavilion for Expo 67, 1967
Commissioned by the United States Information Agency for the Montreal World Fair
Courtesy The Estate of R. Buckminster Fuller

Heather and Ivan Morison
I am so sorry. Goodbye, 2008
Originally commissioned for Tatton Park Biennial 2008
Courtesy the artists
Photo: Wig Worland

Richard Buckminster Fuller and Shoji Sadao
Project for Floating Cloud Structures (Cloud Nine), ca.1960
Courtesy The Estate of R. Buckminster Fuller