Radical Notes: Archizoom Re-Viewed via Ivan Illich

In 1973, Andrea Branzi, founder of Archizoom, wrote a short review of Ivan Illich’s book Deschooling Society. The review constituted the fourth of 27 “Radical Notes” he published in the journal Casabella between 1972 and 1976. While this was the only one explicitly to adopt the review format, Illich’s presence permeates the Radical Notes as a whole. They can be read as a coherent pedagogical theory, the practical output of which was Global Tools, a counter-school promoted by Branzi and other members of the Italian Radical Movement. Branzi approached the review as an opportunity to re-view, to look again at the theses of Archizoom. His review thus sheds light on an important moment in the story of the Radicals, adding a pedagogical component to the political, Marxist roots of their critique of the nexus of city, labor and capitalism.