Hans Hollein

The "Mobile Office," or the "Transportable Studio in a Suitcase," as it is also called, was made in connection with the shooting at “Portrait of Austria” and aired on Austrian television on December 12, 1969. Equipped with a telephone and a drafting board, the then already renowned architect Hans Hollein sat in a pneumatic room adapted to human dimensions, which was placed on a meadow. Flanked by airplanes and camera men, he demonstrates the workplace in the age of telecommunications. In 1965 Hollein conceived the “Minimal Environment” in collaboration with Walter Pichler and Ernst Graf for the youth biennale in Paris to debate issues of contemporary architecture. For the one square meter of space allotted to them, Hollein proposed a telephone booth, with all the connections required for survival. At the same time he sketched “Inflatable Room Furnishings” (1965) and a year later his proposal for an “Extension of the University” (1966): a TV set. “Everything Is Architecture” was the title of Hollein’s manifesto of 1966/67, in which he wrote: “Early examples of the extension of architecture through communications media are telephone booths -- buildings of minimal size but directly incorporating the global environment.” (Sabine Breitwieser)