#constantn

NEW BABYLON

Courtesy by Moskito film

Dutch architect named Constant, is one of the distinguished theorists of unitary urbanism that is a unique practice opposing many existing city planning theories. It also was a conceptual platform that helped to overcome modern city alienation and give people back control over their own existence. Fundamental strategies as “situation construction” and «Dérive» were declared a part of Situationist International program and were supposed to be fulfilled in cityscape in order to undermine the basics of existing political and social order; they are impossible to imagine within Constant’s artistic plans.

New Babylon project was central in the author’s career; he was working it out for many years, creating multiple sketches, decoys and schemes. Being initiated by a popular work of the Dutch philosopher Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens, and study of gypsy bands structure, the New Babylon was supposed to become a new dimension of life, place of unlimited interaction, where a person could replace labour experience with an endless act of his or her creative self-fulfillment through a game.

The merger of multiple horizontal sections (real life spaces that were to be located over existing cities) into one city called New Babylon was meant to start a new era of urban development and this idea was borrowed in practice many times, at the same time remaining one of the most challenging theoretic projects in city planning.