Highrise Building, Sparkplug, project (Exterior perspective)
Hans Hollein
Austrian, 1934–2014
1964
A 1964 photomontage by Hans Hollein in which a printed spark plug is cut and pasted onto a gelatin silver photograph of rolling fields to propose a playful 'Highrise Building'—an architectural idea expressed as collage.
At first it reads like a serene pastoral panorama under a wide sky, then your eye is stopped by an absurd, monumental spark plug sprouting from the ridge, its hard mechanical texture oddly monumental against the soft landscape.
By turning an everyday industrial object into a proposed skyscraper, Hollein stages a witty critique and celebration of modernity that helped push architecture toward image-based, conceptual projects and the postmodern play of scale and symbolism.
Medium
Cut-and-pasted printed paper on gelatin silver photograph
Dimensions
4 3/4 x 7 1/4" (12.1 x 18.4 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Philip Johnson Fund
Accession
438.1967
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
