A Different City for a Different Life

Author(s): Constant
Source: October , Winter, 1997, Vol. 79, Guy Debord and the Internationale
Situationniste (Winter, 1997), pp. 109-112
Published by: The MIT Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/778847

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 A Different City for a Different Life*

CONSTANT

The crisis of urbanism is worsening. The construction of neighbor

and new, is obviously at variance with established modes of behavior
more so with the new ways of life we seek. As a result, we are surrounded
and sterile environment.

In old neighborhoods, the streets have degenerated into highways,

leisure is commercialized and adulterated by tourism. Social relations t
become impossible. Newly built neighborhoods have only two themes, whic
govern everything: traffic circulation and household comfort. They ar
meager expressions of bourgeois happiness and lack any concern for play.
In response to the need to construct whole towns rapidly, cemeter
reinforced concrete are being built where great masses of the populati
condemned to die of boredom. For what is the use of the most astonis
technical inventions that the world now finds at its disposal if the conditio
deriving benefit from them are lacking, they contribute nothing to leisure
the imagination defaults?
We require adventure. Not finding it any longer on earth, there are t
who want to look for it on the moon. We opt first and foremost for a chan
earth. We propose to create situations here, new situations. We intend to b
the laws that prevent the development of meaningful activities in life and c
We find ourselves at the dawn of a new era, and we are already trying to ou
the image of a happier life and a unitary urbanism-urbanism made to please
Our domain is thus the urban network, the natural expression of a colle
creativity, capable of understanding the creative forces being released wit
decline of a culture based on individualism. To our way of thinking, the trad
arts will no longer be able to play a role in the creation of the new environm
which we want to live.

We are in the process of inventing new techniques; we are examining the

possibilities offered by existing cities, and making models and plans for future
ones. We are aware of the need to take advantage of all the new technologies, and

* Internationale situationniste 3 (December 1959), pp. 37-40.

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 110 OCTOBER

we know that the future constructions we iiiii$giiiiiiiii!:ii-iii'iiiiii-ii iiiiiii-: -i':--i:-iiii'':':::::::::::Y::i- :-::::::::iiiiii iiiii ii ii . ii
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envisage will have to be flexible enough
to respond to a dynamic conception of Nii:ii:i ii::
life, creating our surroundings in direct
relation to constantly changing modes of
behavior.

Our concept of urbanism is thus a

social one. We are opposed to the concept
::- :- .

of a garden city, where spaced and iso-

lated skyscrapers must necessarily
reduce direct relations among people
and their common action. For close Qu
spac
relations between surroundings and for
behavior to be produced, the agglomera-
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tion is indispensable. Those who think
that
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vast and complex social space. Far
return to nature-the notion of
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tions the possibility of overcoming nature
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and regulating at will the atmosphere,

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lighting, and sounds in these various
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spaces.
Garden city. Isolated dwelling units. Minimum
Do we mean by this a new function-
social space: people meet only by chance and
alism that will put increased emphasis on
individually, in walkways or the park. Traffic
the idealized utilitarian life? Let us not
circulation governs everything.
forget that once the functions are estab-
lished, they are followed by play. For some time now architecture has be
game of space and environment. The garden city lacks environments. We,
contrary, want to take advantage of them more consciously; we want the
correspond to all our needs.

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 A Different City for a Different Life 111

The future cities we envisage will offer an unusual var

this realm, and unforeseen games will become possible thr
of material conditions, such as air-conditioning and the
lighting. Urban planners are already studying how to ha
that reigns in present-day cities. Before long they should fin
creation, as with many other problems
that will emerge. Space travel, which has
been predicted, may influence this
development, since bases established on
other planets will immediately raise the
problem of sheltered cities, which may
provide the model for our study of future
urbanism.
. .. . ......
Above all, however, the decreased
amount of work necessary for production
due to extensive automation will create a
need for leisure, different behavior and a Principle of a covered city. Spatial "plan."
Suspended collective dwellings are spread over
change in its nature, which will necessarily the whole city and separated from traffic,
lead to a new conception of the collective which passes above or below.
habitat having the maximum of social
space, contrary to the concept of a garden city, where social space is reduced to
the minimum. The city of the future must be conceived as a continuous construc-
tion on pillars, or else as an extended system of different constructions, in which
premises for living, pleasure, etc., are suspended, as well as those designed for
production and distribution, leaving the ground free for circulation and public
meetings. The use of ultra-light and insulating materials, now being tried
experimentally, will allow for light construction and broadly spaced supports. In
this way it will be possible to build a multilayered city: underground, ground level,
stories, terraces, of an expanse that may vary from a neighborhood to a metropolis.
Note that in such a city the built surface will be 100 percent and the free surface
200 percent (parterre and terraces), while in traditional cities the figures are
approximately 80 percent and 20 percent; in the garden city this ratio can at most
be reversed. The terraces form an outdoor terrain that extends over the whole

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Section view of a covered city.

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 112 OCTOBER

surface of the
and helicopter
ways and ele
communicatin
create an infin
inhabitants an
and conscious
specialized cre
A study in d
logical influe
involving the
are the specif
latter above all
work we are u
If the projec
considered a fanciful dream, we insist on the fact that it is feasible from the
technical standpoint, desirable from the human standpoint, and that from the
social standpoint it will be indispensable. The growing dissatisfaction that grips all
of humanity will reach a point where we will all be driven to carry out projects for
which we possess the means, and that will contribute to the realization of a richer
and more rewarding life.

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