International situationism was the last of the avant-garde movements that ex-
plicitly strove to overthrow the status quo by dissolving the boundaries between art,
social praxis, and theoretical reflection. Its aim was an immediate revolution which
would be performed on all levels of society and which would permeate the whole ex-
perience of life. Thus, it opposed all instances which could be identified with the es-
tablishment—including the contemporary praxis of architecture and urbanism. For
the situationists, it was clear that modernist architecture had long ceased to oppose
tendencies toward rationalization and conformism that were part of a capitalist con-
sumer culture. Thus, an attack against the prevailing functionalism was one of their
priorities. This criticism found its most concrete manifestation in New Babylon, a
long-term project by Constant that originated in situationist experiments.
New Babylon: The Antinomies of Utopia
By the time that Constant (born 1920) embarked on his New Babylon project, he had
already acquired a reputation as a painter and member of the Cobra group.^5 The event
that marked the beginnings of New Babylon was the meeting of a group of avant-
garde artists in 1956 in Alba, Italy, where Constant delivered a lecture entitled “De-
main la poésie logera la vie” (Tomorrow Poetry Will Be the House of Life). The
meeting in Alba was instrumental in setting up the Situationist International, which
was officially established in London in 1957.^6 A central figure in this operation was
Guy Debord, who was active in one of the constituting groups—the Lettrist Interna-
tional—which revolted against the commercializing of art and strove to bring about
creative situations through collective actions. The cooperation between Debord and
Constant would be a key factor in the initial development of unitary urbanism.
As an example of the program
for a “unitary urbanism,” New Baby-
lon is the most fully developed coun-
terpart of functionalist architecture
(figure 69). It is a utopian scheme
for a new mode of dwelling and a
new society that took the form of a
vast series of maquettes, charts,
sketches, and paintings. New Baby-
lon offers a consistent critique of so-
cial modernity—it was not without
reason that Constant called his proj-
ect an “antithesis of the society of
lies.”^7 New Babylon is a simulation of
a situation of total liberation—of an
abolition of all norms, conventions,
traditions, and habits. The project
4
Architecture as Critique of ModernityConstant, New Babylon,
bird’s-eye perspective of group
of sectors I, 1964.
(Collection Gemeentemuseum,
The Hague.)
69