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Avg. Customer Rating:(based on 6 reviews) Sales Rank: 52823 Category: Book
Author:Alastair Gordon Publisher:Rizzoli Studio:Rizzoli Manufacturer:Rizzoli Label:Rizzoli Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published) Media: Hardcover Number Of Items: 1 Pages: 304 Shipping Weight (lbs): 4.5 Dimensions (in): 12.3 x 9.2 x 1.3
Product Description The utopian sixties inspired revolutionary and alternative ways to live, love, and entertain?and equally radical spaces to do it in. Stimulated by the psychedelic drug culture, rebel designers and architects distorted space to create womblike coves and isolation chambers, forging a spatial vocabulary that still reverberates today. At the same time, the tune-in-turn-on-drop-out message lured youths into far-flung communes, often under the roofs of brightly painted geodesic domes draped and tie-dyed fabric. Idealistic and anarchic enclaves with names like Drop City and Morning Star redefined the concept of community, inventing a wildly spontaneous way of building and dwelling. For the first time, these ephemeral spaces are brought together in Spaced Out. The many never-before-published photographs and an inventive text by acclaimed author Alastair Gordon show in detail the spirit and ideas of this radical period.
'If you can remember the '60s, then you weren't there.' November 30, 2008 2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Regardless of whether one can remember the Sixties or not, this is the ultimate coffee table book. From brightly-painted geodesic domes to magic buses to tripped-out hippie sculptures to naked commune residents to tie-dyed t-shirts to light shows, historian and New York Times contributor, Alastair Gordon's Spaced Out: Radical Environments of the Psychedelic Sixties insightfully examines how psychedelics pushed the boundaries of art, architecture, and life in the Sixties. The Age of Aquarius hippie culture created its own communities, listened to psychedelic rock, practiced free love, and used cannabis and LSD to explore alternative states of consciousness. Through mind-blowing illustrations and spirited commentary, Gordon demonstrates how the vibrant spirit and imagination of the psychedelic drug culture revolutionized mainstream American culture. Gordon also reveals how the hippie ethos permeated Western society and has since manifested itself in things like cultural diversity, radical fashions, creative community living arrangements, the green movement, and in the the Internet. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the value of the Sixties' psychedlic culture.
G. Merritt
Steal This Book!... October 29, 2008 4 out of 5 found this review helpful
...that's what Abbie Hoffman recommended for his book, and although Mr. Gordon and his publisher would no doubt be aghast at my suggestion, I would hope they understand that I am offering the highest compliment possible. Of course Gordon has produced a brilliant and insightful reprise of the complex and infinitely inventive scaffolding erected around the pulsing acid drenched brains of the hippie-communal-musico-syndico movement of the 60's. If that is not enough for you, the book is a visual hay-ride complete with the joyful squeals and pure wonderment at the risk-taking and enterprise of this era. But truly what makes this book valuable is that we now have come full circle and the ideas, experiments, wishes, lies, dreams and epiphany driven structures of our outwardly stoned but inwardly centered forebears are without question the thumping necessities of our present generation. If we don't heed the call of those hairy ghosts and think hard about what they were suggesting, we may all soon perish in a soupy deluge of our own making. Read it, think about the directions these flower children dreamily suggested, or die. There is precious little time left to muddle about on the proverbial middle ground. Think about the infinite necessities of Soleri's Arcosanti--consider the softened edges, the use of natural materials, the love of movement, air, circular motion, the simplicity and minimal impact of a consciously gentle and open lifestyle suggested by these thought and action pioneers in the best and truest of American traditions--Brave adventurers they were, blazing the path we are now reluctantly dragging our self-indulgent selves back onto. This book helps us to look backward with certainty so that we may look forward with clarity.
A fascinating look back at the 60s July 27, 2008 6 out of 7 found this review helpful
This is a very well written look back at the "Psychedelic Sixties" with fantastic photographs. It accurately catches the spirit and facts of the age as I remember them.
Spaced Out - from the inside July 24, 2008 8 out of 9 found this review helpful
Spaced Out is a far out, wonderful book. Since I'm in it, I'm from the sixties, and the book melds with my mind, this review is biased, telling what it feels like from inside the history and being a small but happily doublepage-spread feature between the covers of the book.
Surprise! I was not alone in developing artwork that hadn't been seen before; I was part of a huge explosion that I can now see and explore in this book.
Amazement! The motive feelings, thoughts, and intuitions that seemed to bubble up creatively in my work are now explained eloquently in strong narrative, yet compellingly poetic text that somehow helps it all come home. Like a finishing of some sort. Making the 60's elements concrete and conceptually available brings the 60's to a new level; makes a new platform and springboard.
The challenge is to continue the Spaced Out threads, keep weaving them together. The dreams so beautifully told in this book still haven't come true. Let's review and revel in our sixties history and then keep trucking.
What's so funny about love, peace and understanding? June 28, 2008 10 out of 12 found this review helpful
Wow. What a gorgeous book. Full of trippy pix I have never before seen, from psychedelic lightshow images, Haight Ashbury crashpads, domes made from recycled car bodies, naked hippies holding bushels of grass and group hot tubs, communes, to inflatable environments and self built inspiring "green" homes and lots of peace and love. Accompanied by a fascinating accesible narrative that puts the period into a positive light, enlightening as if the sixties were the Renaisance of our time. Alastair Gordon definatively created a piece of historical value here, its a book that feels new and fresh and proves that those who try to make light, or even fun of the sixties are sadly misguided.
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