The Postlunar Imaginary through Inflatable Architecture

Essay, expanding design practices, Katarzyna Balug, New Geographies 11: Extraterrestrial, No Density, Technology and fabrication

Architecture, Communication, Earth, Ecological activation, Energy, Environment, Essay, Expanding frontiers, Extraterrestrial, History, Humanity, Inflatable, Infrastructure, Materials, Nomadism, Optimized living, Performative Envelope, Planetary models, Politics, Space Pioneers, Space-body relationship, Space-time relationship, Technology, the Moon, User’s experience

This essay is an excerpt of New Geographies 11: Extraterrestrial by Jeffrey S. Nesbit and Guy Trangoš -- https://lccn.loc.gov/2019954925

This article explores how the existential questions prompted by the Space Race manifested through inflatable structures, an often overlooked mode of experimentation in architecture. Inflatable constructions, made in the United States and Western Europe in the 1960s, appropriated the physical materials, iconography, and narrative of the NASA Apollo program to produce the imaginary of a new world not in outer space but firmly grounded on Earth. Deploying the materials of the Space Race, these structures expressed possible meanings of lunar conquest for humankind.