The experiment of the OHO group in the field of conceptual architecture

Zgonik, Nadja (author)

The activities of OHO Group between 1966 and 1971 in the field of con-ceptual art is one of the most original processes in Slovenian art. Their work is characterised with pluralism of artistic practices, from the field of sculpture, visual poetry, performance, happening, landart, journal-ism, artists' books, comics, illustration, body art, experimental film, video, and in 1970 they accepted a new challenge in the field of archi-tecture. Architect Niko Lehrman invited them to participate in the pro-ject of a new entertainment center and hotel Argonavti in Nova Gorica. Their involvement can be studied in more detail from the project work kept by the Provincial Archives of Nova Gorica. They focused on info-graphics, route planning, interior design, uniforms, colour studies and park landscaping. But the essence of their contribution was captured in two OHO concepts: the myth of the search for the golden fleece and the Argonauts, and the concept of the »vessel of time«. The route through the hotel was conceived as a transition between historical periods from the Paleolithic in the basement to the monumental, fif-teen-meter-high Sundial sculpture in the pub garden, which replicated the idea of Megalithic solar shrines, to the Neolithic and a hotel build-ing designed in a form of a elongated stepped Mayan pyramid. Marko Pogačnik was convinced that architecture should serve a function on the outside and represent a nucleus on the inside, where potentials are nested that can enable a quantum leap – seeds for the future should be sown in the living space. This was the last OHO group project (repre-senting Yugoslav art at the 1971 Paris Biennale of Young Artists) before the group retreated from the art world in 1971 to a comune, the Family in Šempas.

• Language: English
• Keywords: conceptual architecture, Argonauts hotel, modular architecture, Yugoslav architecture, hippie culture, environment, land art, OHO group
• Typology: 1.16 - Independent Scientific Component Part or a Chapter in a Monograph
• Organization: ALUO - Academy of Fine Arts and Design; FF - Faculty of Arts; AGRFT - Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television
• Year: 2023
• Number of pages: Str. 177-198
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-148445
• UDC: 7.01
• COBISS.SI-ID: 147537411
• Publication date in RUL: 23.08.2023

Record is a part of a monograph

• Title: Art between practice and theory : theoretical reflections on artistic reality on the threshold of the third millennium
• Editors: Jožef Muhovič
• Place of publishing: Ljubljana
• Publisher: University of Ljubljana Press
• Year: 2023
• ISBN: 978-961-297-084-0
• COBISS.SI-ID: 143807491

Licences

• License: CC BY-SA 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
• Description: This Creative Commons license is very similar to the regular Attribution license, but requires the release of all derivative works under this same license.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: konceptualna arhitektura, hotel Argonavti, modularna arhitektura, jugoslovanska arhitektura, hipijevska kultura, environment, krajinska umetnost