In the summer of
1975, NASA brought together a team of physicists, engineers, and
space scientists—along with architects, urban planners, and
artists—to design large-scale space habitats for millions of
people. This Summer Study was led by Princeton physicist Gerard
O’Neill, whose work on this topic had previously been funded by
countercultural icon Stewart Brand’s Point Foundation. Two
painters, the artist and architect Rick Guidice and the planetary
science illustrator Don Davis, created renderings for the project
that would be widely circulated over the next years and decades and
even included in testimony before a Congressional subcommittee. A
product of its time, this work is nevertheless relevant to
contemporary modes of thinking about architecture. Space
Settlements examines these plans for life in space as serious
architectural and spatial proposals.
