Leopold Banchini Architects

There Are Walls that Want to Prowl and the accompanying Shelter Cookbook speculates upon the content of three iconic counterculture publications on self-build architecture published half a century ago by now eighty-six-year-old publisher and builder Lloyd Kahn: Domebook One (1970), Domebook 2 (1971) and Shelter (1973). The various “de-growth” models presented in these books are discussed again as serious alternatives to conventional forms of building and living together. More than just manuals, these books also tell beautiful tales of the people who decided to create different households, reimagining a way of life in a more conscious relation with the environment, liberated from capital and its alienating methods of production. These lightweight building methods have been a constant influence for the contemporary practice of Leopold Banchini. The critical reflection of the success and failure of these radically poetic and equally utopian constructions of the past provide an opportunity for insights for both present and future. There Are Walls that Want to Prowl juxtaposes models of buildings taken from the publications of Lloyd Kahn with architectural works by Leopold Banchini, alongside original interview recordings and a photo series from Kahn’s half-acre homestead in Bolinas, California.

Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia
Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction
DiSé