Archive / Mobile Linear City

Nr. 510 / 1991 / France, Spain, Italy, Austria.

Mobile Linear City


Portable housing units that can be replicated to build a travelling city

Initiator(s)

Vito Acconci

Description

The artist built portable housing that can be replicated to become an entire 'city'. A semitrailer truck carries six self-contained housing units that can be telescoped down into one compact module for hauling, to be set up wherever housing is needed. Inside each house, the wall panels can turn down to form a table, a bench, a bed and a shelf. There are five living units, each essentially a studio apartment with the unit housing shared utilities.

Location

France, Spain, Italy, Austria.

Goals

The artist had hoped it would become a lived-in 'traveling city', but soon he realized that it was not possible due to problems of legal responsibility, permits etc.

Beneficial outcomes

People could live in a 'traveling city'.

Maintained by

To Acconci's disappointment it is now dismantled and storage in Vienna.

Users

Citizens, artists, museum's visitors

Links

http://acconci.com/
http://www.afterall.org/online/aesthetics-of-migration-as-representative-of-the-human-condition#.Ut5Vz2Q1jx5
http://likemyplace.wordpress.com/2014/01/01/nomad-mobile-linear-city-by-acconci-studio-ny-1991/