Squaring up to Superstudio: grids, modularity and utopianism in Italian Radical Design

From exhibitions to publications, furniture and even utopian visions of the world at large, grids were a persistent presence in Radical Design. From the late 1960s to mid 1970s the Italian movement put grids at the centre of its attempts to use architecture and design as tools for societal change. While appearing in multiple scales, media and dimensionalities, the Radicals' pluralistic appropriation of the grid was united by its apparent critical and liberatory qualities. This chapter examines the place of the grids in the work of individuals and groups including Archizoom Associati and Superstudio, Ettore Sottsass, Global Tools and Gruppo 9999. It examines how and why the grid was such a powerful motif for creating and communicating their utopian ideas, and asks what legacy the radical grid does, and could have, today.