Ron Herron, of Archigram, created this drawing based on a radical new idea for modern urbanism. Possibly because it was so implausible, Walking City became one of Archigram's best-known images. Despite its fastidious surface detailing, it is hard to interpret literally: Could a big aircraft undercarriage support a building? Could a landscape bear the load? Could Walking City paddle in the sea, as other versions of the picture suggested? Even read metaphorically, questions proliferated: Did Walking City come in peace? Nonetheless, it was a bold memorandum of forgotten modernist ambitions: to make collective dwellings, transcend national boundaries, build machines for living in, extend human dominion, alter everyday perception, bring people into contact with the elements, and simply to excite the public about the future.
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