Informational Architectures of the SSA and Knud Lönberg-Holm

Abstract

This paper offers an account of the unusual protosystemic and informational approach to architecture that emerged in the early 1930’s within the largely unknown Structural Study Associates (SSA), a circle of architects around Buckminster Fuller. It examines the design of a dynamic information system for architects by SSA members Knud Lönberg-Holm and Carl Theodore Larson and compares them to pre- and post-war knowledge indexing systems and world projects. This study also explores the systems-oriented positions outlined by these architects. This provides a view of American architecture of the era that counters the one presented by the canonical International Style Exhibition of 1932, which essentially edited out the more variegated approaches to modern architecture and technology as represented by the SSA and especially Lönberg-Holm.

Suzanne Strum has a Ph.D. in Theory and History of Architecture from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya UPC. She is a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation in New York. She also holds a Master’s from the Metropolis Program in Architecture and Urban Culture, UPC, where she is currently Head of Studies. She is a professor at Elisava Design School, Pompeu Fabra University and adjunct professor for Texas A&M University’s Barcelona program, as well as collaborating in other international architecture programs. She is the author of Barcelona: A Guide to Recent Architecture (Ellipsis/Chrysalis, 2002) and co-editor of Metropolis: Ciudades, Redes, Paisaje (GG, 2004).