Situationist City

-Simon Sadler
Jahnavi Bhatt

Introduction
The book Th b k is i about b t works k of f the th group Situationist Sit ti i t I International t ti l and d other th members of the group. This book is like a collection of their collective as well as individual works.

Situationist International
This was a group of international political and artistic agitators with roots in M i Marxism, L Lettrism; tt i f founded d di in 1957 1957. These group of people worked on the theory or practical activity of constructing situations.

Guy Debord and situationists

Guy Debord was one of the founding members of the group. Their main intention was to construct a situation where people from society can participate, it visualizes the whole society as a play where every place is for performance. Th i works Their k include i l d b both th architectural hit t l and d non-architectural hit t l method th d t to prove.

Contents
1. The Naked City: Realities of design and space laid bare
Nurturing the real life of the city Beyond the rational city From plenty to excess Carving out the spaces of culture and politics Urbanism and power Defending urban mix

2. Formulary for f a New Urbanism: Rethinking the City C

From the rational to the sublime Making sense of psycho geography A passion for maps Drifting as a revolution of everyday life Language, time and the city

3 A New Babylon: the city redesigned 3.

Constructing Situations A detourned city A technological g baroque q Unitary urbanism Constants new Babylon The structure of New Babylon New Babylons utopian fun Disorientation

Nurturing the real life of the city

Situationists felt that the Modern Technology and Capitalism does not allow the sense of real life to people. They saw new fabricated cities as modern capitalisms organization g of life; the isolated inhabitants..with their lives reduced to pure repetitive spectacle.

E.g. E g Situationist Guy Debord criticized Paris Paris. from any standpoint other than that of police control, Haussmanns Paris is a city built by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. In order to create a better way of living, situationists started making minor changes, like they negated the pop art which was ideologically characterized h t i db by i indifference. diff They tried to penetrate the everyday life of the majority (working class). They found the solution in social structuring of the city. In Paris they suggested distinct quarters based on class occupation or function.

The City Redesigned

Constructing Situations
The situationists ultimate goal was to reconstruct the entire city. Their ambition remained of constructing g situations without clear idea of how situations work to form an entire city. Notion of constructing situations treated it as a performance where all people are performers and not just spectacles.

Constants New Babylon

This was a masterwork Thi t k done d by b an individual, i di id l which hi h accommodated d t d th the previous ideas of Situationist International. Idea behind this work was to present a revolutionary urbanism attacking the d i dominant t organization i ti of f lif life and d understanding d t di social i l space. It was realized as a imaginary environment and not as any town planning project.

Structure of New Babylon with built masses lifted on higher level to clean the ground for traffic and open spaces.

New Babylon sectors overlapped on the city of Amsterdam

Constant s New Babylon had qualities of infinite growth on all sides. People Constants had infinite building space which kept expanding according to needs. But that led the plan to become too decentralized.

Conclusion Works of Situationists were mostly theories based on the assumption of an ideal place, putting these things into an architecture was not accepted. This is why most of their projects remained theories. Group refused the individualistic approach on any project or idea, and most of their ideas were generalized as Situationist International groups works and never allowed the possibility of a single persons person s vision. vision