“Alternative subcultures. They were a crucial aspect of industrial civilization in the two previous centuries. They were where industrial civilization went to dream. A sort of unconscious R&D, exploring alternative social strategies … but they became extinct.”

“Extinct?”

“We started picking them before they could ripen. A certain crucial growing period was lost, as marketing evolved and the mechanisms of recommodification became quicker, more rapacious. Authentic subcultures required backwaters, and time, and there are no more backwaters…” [William Gibson, All Tomorrow’s Parties]

COILHOUSE is a love letter to alternative culture, written in an era when alternative culture no longer exists. Or DOES it? In any case, here at Coilhouse, we happily take cues from yesterday and tomorrow, from the mainstream and from the underground, to make our own way. We cover art, fashion, technology, music and film to convey the alternative culture that we are longing to live in, as opposed to the one that’s being sold or handed down to us. The result, in the form of articles, features and interviews, is laid out on our blog and in our print magazine for all to see. Welcome to our house! Anyone can contribute, and we encourage you to go to our submission page and get in touch.

Here, you will find an assemblage of the visual, cerebral, amusing, challenging and, above all, the ever-evolving. Below are samples of the topics you’ll find here, bits of the Info Strata aimed at inspiring literate progress and bringing entertainment to architects of their own past, present and, especially, future:

* cryptohistory and misanthropology
* abandoned structures + sprawling metropolises
* pre-apocalypse pleasure islands
* Genghis Khan’s bow and Hiro Protagonist’s sword
* otherworldly beauties with faces painted bright
* unreasonable footwear
* complicated hair
* technological body enhancement
* incredibly strange music
* flagrant futurism
* whalebone, absinthe, silk
* patricide girls
* body scaffolding
* dressing for war

The above is just a taste. At COILHOUSE Magazine + Blog, we chronicle our adventures as we research these and countless other topics.