'From the Vacuum of History'

Proving it as the issue that will not die - The Sesquipedalist delves into the archives on Robin Hood Gardens, and finds that the only major comment on it at the time from The Profession marked something of an architectural-theoretical changing of the guard - from the Smithsons' socially engaged alleged 'symbolism' to the soon-to-be Decon critical formalism of Peter Eisenman, who penned for AD a textual demolition of the place. Of course my contention that Eisenman is a bombastic half-wit using half-understood Shklovsky followed by one-quarter understood Derrida as an alibi for the total abandonment of social responsibility is on record, so where I stand on all this should be pretty clear. Nonetheless, he hits (in the extracts you can click on) on some of the contradictions of the buildings - Eisenman's idea of class and 'English socialism' is predictably bizarre, but there's definitely a hint of truth that for them 'in the heart of every worker is a potential aristocrat', the anti-workerism of pop art and the Independent Group; and on the tensions of utilitarian present and utopian future. Whether the solution to this was interminable formal game-playing is another matter entirely.

(incidentally, further to IT's request for pop-up architecture, the above is an Archigram pic found looking through the Sesquipedalist archives...)