Sky Hook (Study for a Balloon Building)

In 1978, after his Building Cuts, Gordon Matta-Clark began working on Sky Hooks (Study for a Balloon Building). This project wanted to create a form of vital aerial space attached to buildings without involving the use of urban land and thus avoiding all real estate speculation.

The title of the project, Sky Hooks, comes from the Russian constructivist El Lissitzky who, in the 1920s, designed an elevated transport system. Significantly, Matta-Clark’s last project brought together Russian utopianism, science fiction and the need to find imaginative alternatives to the increasing pressure of the price of urban land in big cities.