228 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
228 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
FORMULARY FOR A NEW URBANISM
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SIRE, I AM FROM THE OTHER COUNTRY
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We are bored in the city, there is no longer any Temple of the Sun.
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Between the legs of the women walking by, the dadaists imagined a monkey
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wrench and the surrealists a crystal cup. That's lost. We know how to
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read every promise in faces--the latest stage of morphology. The poetry
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of the billboards lasted twenty years. We are bored in the city, we
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really have to strain to still discover mysteries on the sidewalk
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billboards, the latest state of humor and poetry:
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Shower-Bath of the Patriarchs
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Meat Cutting Machines
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Notre-Dame Zoo
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Sports Pharmacy
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Martyrs Provisions
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Translucent Concrete
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Golden Touch Sawmill
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Center for Functional Recuperation
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Sainte-Anne Ambulance
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Cafe Fifth Avenue
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Prolonged Volunteers Street
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Family Boarding House in the Garden
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Hotel of Strangers
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Wild Street
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And the swimming pool on the Street of Little Girls. And the police
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station on Rendezvous Street. The medical-surgical clinic and the free
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placement center on the Quai des Orfevres. The artificial flowers on Sun
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Street. The Castle Cellars Hotel, the Ocean Bar and the Coming and Going
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Cafe. The Hotel of the Epoch.
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And the strange statue of Dr. Philippe Pinel, benefactor of the
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insane, in the last evenings of summer. To explore Paris.
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And you, forgotten, your memories ravaged by all the consternations of
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two hemispheres, stranded in the Red Cellars of Pali-Kao, without music
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and without geography, no longer setting out for the hacienda where the
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roots think of the child and where the wine is finished off with fables
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from an old almanac. Now that's finished. You'll never see the hacienda.
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It doesn't exist.
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The hacienda must be built.
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All cities are geological; you cannot take three steps without
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encountering ghosts bearing all the prestige of their legends. We move
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within a closed landscape whose landmarks constantly draw us toward the
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past. Certain shifting angles, certain receding perspectives, allow us
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to glimpse original conceptions of space, but this vision remains
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fragmentary. It must be sought in the magical locales of fairy tales and
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surrealist writings: castles, endless walls, little forgotten bars,
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mammoth caverns, casino mirrors.
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These dated images retain a small catalyzing power, but it is almost
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impossible to use them in a symbolic urbanism without rejuvenating them
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by giving them a new meaning. Our imaginations, haunted by the old
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archetypes, have remained far behind the sophistication of the machines.
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The various attempts to integrate modern science into new myths remain
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inadequate. Meanwhile abstraction has invaded all the arts, contemporary
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architecture in particular. Pure plasticity, inanimate, storyless,
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soothes the eye. Elsewhere other fragmentary beauties can be found --
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while the promised land of syntheses continually recedes into the
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distance. Everyone wavers between the emotionally still-alive past and
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the already dead future.
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We will not work to prolong the mechanical civilizations and frigid
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architecture that ultimately lead to boring leisure.
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We propose to invent new, changeable decors....
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Darkness and obscurity are banished by artificial lighting, and the
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seasons by air conditioning; night and summer are losing their charm and
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dawn is disappearing. The man of the cities thinks he has escaped from
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cosmic reality, but there is no corresponding expansion of his dream
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life. The reason is clear: dreams spring from reality and are realized
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in it.
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The latest technological developments would make possible the
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individual's unbroken contact with cosmic reality while eliminating its
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disagreeable aspects. Stars and rain can be seen through glass ceilings.
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The mobile house turns with the sun. Its sliding walls enable vegetation
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to invade life. Mounted on tracks, it can go down to the sea in the
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morning and return to the forest in the evening.
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Architecture is the simplest means of articulating time and space, of
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modulating reality, of engendering dreams. It is a matter not only of
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plastic articulation and modulation expressing an ephemeral beauty, but
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of a modulation producing influences in accordance with the eternal
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spectrum of human desires and the progress in realizing them.
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The architecture of tomorrow will be a means of modifying present
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conceptions of time and space. It will be a means of knowledge and a
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means of action.
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The architectural complex will be modifiable. Its aspect will change
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totally or partially in accordance with the will of its inhabitants....
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Past collectivities offered the masses an absolute truth and
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incontrovertable mythical exemplars. The appearance of the notion of
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relativity in the modern mind allows one to surmise the EXPERIMENTAL
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aspect of the next civilization (although I'm not satisfied with that
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word; say, more supple, more "fun"). On the bases of this mobile
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civilization, architecture will, at least initially, be a means of
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experimenting with a thousand ways of modifying life, with a view to a
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mythic synthesis.
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A mental disease has swept the planet: banalization. Everyone is
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hypnotized by production and conveniences sewage system, elevator,
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bathroom, washing machine.
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This state of affairs, arising out of a struggle against poverty, has
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overshot its ultimate goal--the liberation of man from material
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cares--and become an obsessive image hanging over the present. Presented
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with the alternative of love or a garbage disposal unit, young people of
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all countries have chosen the garbage disposal unit. It has become
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essential to bring about a complete spiritual transformation by bringing
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to light forgotten desires and by creating entirely new ones. And by
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carrying out an intensive propaganda in favor of these desires.
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We have already pointed out the need of constructing situations as being
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one of the fundamental desires on which the next civilization will be
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founded. This need for absolute creation has always been intimately
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associated with the need to play with architecture, time and space....
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Chirico remains one of the most remarkable architectural precursors. He
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was grappling with the problems of absences and presences in time and
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space. We know that an object that is not consciously noticed at the
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time of a first visit can, by its absence during subsequent visits,
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provoke an indefinable impression: as a result of this sighting backward
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in time, the absence of the object becomes a presence one can feel. More
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precisely: although the quality of the impression generally remains
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indefinite, it nevertheless varies with the nature of the removed
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object and the importance accorded it by the visitor, ranging from
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serene joy to terror. (It is of no particular significance that in this
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specific case memory is the vehicle of these feelings; I only selected
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this example for its convenience.)
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In Chirico's paintings (during his Arcade period) an empty space creates
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a full-filled time. It is easy to imagine the fantastic future
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possibilities of such architecture and its influence on the masses.
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Today we can have nothing but contempt for a century that relegates such
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blueprints to its so-called museums.
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This new vision of time and space, which will be the theoretical basis
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of future constructions, is still imprecise and will remain so until
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experimentation with patterns of behavior has taken place in cities
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specifically established for this purpose, cities assembling--in
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addition to the facilities necessary for a minimum of comfort and
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security-- buildings charged with evocative power, symbolic edifices
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representing desires, forces, events past, present and to come. A
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rational extension of the old religious systems, of old tales, and above
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all of psychoanalysis, into architectural expression becomes more and
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more urgent as all the reasons for becoming impassioned disappear.
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Everyone will live in his own personal "cathedral," so to speak. There
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will be rooms more conducive to dreams than any drug, and houses where
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one cannot help but love. Others will be irresistibly alluring to
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travelers.... This project could be compared with the Chinese and
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Japanese gardens of illusory perspectives [en trompe l'oeiI]--with the
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difference that those gardens are not designed to be lived in all the
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time--or with the ridiculous labyrinth in the Jardin des Plantes, at the
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entry to which is written (height of absurdity, Ariadne unemployed):
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Games ure forbidden in the labyrinth. This city could be envisaged in
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the form of an arbitrary assemblage of castles, grottos, lakes, etc. It
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would be the baroque stage of urbanism considered as a means of
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knowledge. But this theoretical phase is already outdated. We know that
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a modern building could be constructed which would have no resemblance
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to a medieval castle but which could preserve and enhance the Castle
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poetic power (by the conservation of a strict minimum of lines, the
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transposition of certain others, the positioning of openings, the
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topographical location, etc.).
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The districts of this city could correspond to the whole spectrum of
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diverse feelings that one encounters by chance in everyday life.
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Bizarre Quarter--Happy Quarter (specially reserved for habitation) --
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Noble and Tragic Quarter (for good children)--Historical Quarter
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(museums, schools)--Useful Quarter (hospital, tool shops) --Sinister
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Quarter, etc. And an Astrolaire which would group plant species in
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accordance with the relations they manifest with the stellar rhythm, a
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planetary garden comparable to that which the astronomer Thomas wants to
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establish at Laaer Berg in Vienna. Indispensable for giving the
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inhabitants a consciousness of the cosmic. Perhaps also a Death Quarter,
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not for dying in but so as to have somewhere to live in peace, and I
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think here of Mexico and of a principle of cruelty in innocence that
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appeals more to me every day.
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The Sinister Quarter, for example, would be a good replacement for those
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hellholes that many peoples once possessed in their capitals: they
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symbolized all the evil forces of life. The Sinister Quarter would have
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no need to harbor real dangers, such as traps, dungeons or mines. It
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would be difficult to get into, with a hideous decor (piercing whistles,
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alarm bells, sirens wailing intermittently, grotesque sculptures,
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power-driven mobiles, called Auto-Mobiles), and as poorly lit at night as
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it is blindinglylit during the day by an intensive use of reflection. At
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the center, the "Square of the Appalling Mobile." Saturation of the
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market with a product causes the product's market value to fall: thus,
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as they explored the Sinister Quarter, the child and the adult would
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learn not to fear the anguishing occasions of life, but to be amused by
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them.
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The principal activity of the inhabitants will be the CONTINUOUS DERIVE.
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The changing of landscapes from one hour to the next will result in
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complete disorientation....
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Later, as the gestures inevitably grow stale, this derive will partially
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leave the realm of direct experience for that of representation....
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The economic obstacles are only apparent. We know that the more a place
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is set apart for free play, the more it influences people's behavior
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and the greater is its force of attraction. This is demonstrated by the
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immense prestige of Monaco and Las Vegas--and Reno, that caricature of
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free love--although they are mere gambling places. Our first
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experimental city would live largely off tolerated and controlled
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tourism. Future avant-garde activities and productions would naturally
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tend to gravitate there. In a few years it would become the
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intellectual capital of the world and would be universally recognized as
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such.
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IVAN CHTCHEGLOV*
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October 1953
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