Just What Is It That Makes Today‘s Homes So Different, So Appealing? is the title of the collage that Richard Hamilton showed as a member of the Independent Group at the “This is tomorrow” exhibition in London in 1956. The collage shows a contemporary living-room in which there are positioned likely as well as unlikely objects: a posing bodybuilder holding a lollipop with the word POP on it, an almost nude woman sitting on the sofa, a page from a Romance comic-strip magazine hanging on the wall, and a tape-recorder take their place among the many images. We can read this collage as an inventory of that time, with a promising look into the future. The Topotek 1 Reader has a similar aim: it is conceived as a reflective inventory considering the present and the future. The book conjoins projects for different places, offers the reader help in the reading of these projects, and, at the same time, it raises questions. Finally, the book sets into relation the elements that characterize Topotek 1’s recent work: Just What Is It That Makes Topotek 1 so Different, so Appealing?

The five essays of the Topotek 1 Reader elaborate on this question.

The five essays, as an approach to Topotek 1’s projects, outline the main themes of their recent projects. In this, the book includes another, comprehensive issue: the Reader offers an opportunity to read the projects beyond a direct onsite experience, beyond playing, walking or running around there. Such legibility requires clarity and the ability to communicate: both strong features of Topotek 1’s projects. They claim that anything new – their projects in particular – must be readable and have to tell a story.