secondary literature

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Rienkje Feenstra
Constant. Bibliografie van en over C.A. Nieuwenhuys (Bibliotheek en Documentatieschool : Amsterdam 1969).

CRITICISM & INTERPRETATION

DISSERTATIONS/THESES
Marcel Hummelink
Après nous la liberté. Constant en de artistieke avant-garde in de jaren 1946-1960 (Amsterdam University Press : Amsterdam 2003). Thesis University of Amsterdam. Publishers' information and an interview with Marcel Hummelink by VPRO Radio (in Dutch).
Juri Steiner
New Babylon. Aufstieg und Fall der Stad Paris zwischen Second Empire und 1968. Dissertation Universität Zürich (2003).

MONOGRAPHS
Hein van Haaren
Constant. Beeldende kunst en bouwkunst in Nederland (Meulenhoff : Amsterdam 1967).
Otakar Mácel, Martin van Schaik (eds.)
Exit Utopia. Architectural Provocations 1956-76 (Prestel Verlag : München 2005). This book formally concludes the New Babylon Manifestatie (LINK 1999-2004).
Simon Sadler
The Situationist City (MIT Press : Cambridge MA 1998). Reviewed by Andy Merrifield for Harvard Design Magazine, 'Sprawl and Spectacle', Number 12 (Fall 2000).

DISCUSSIONS
'"New Babylon Today", discussion with Thomas Y. Levin, Hilde Heynen, Frédéric Migayrou and Mark Wigley', in From #1 (Witte de With : Rotterdam 1999).

ARTICLES, ESSAYS & PAPERS
Frederic Allamel
'From Builders to Town Dreamers. Some Ethical Considerations in Self-taught Architecture', in Southern Quarterly 39, nr. 1-2 (2001) 5-15.
- [abstract] Introduces a special issue on 20th-century outsider architecture in Europe and the United States by analyzing its cultural content and connection to situationism. Outsider architecture by definition exists outside the bounds of formal training and its utilitarian ideologies. Playfulness, spiritual expression, and imagination are the hallmarks of this art form that can range from beer-can houses to flying-saucer farm buildings. Although this sort of fabrication has been decried as an unfortunate byproduct of a consumer society, it can also be seen as a more real connection to it, which can attach more meaning to everyday life than formal architecture can hope to attain.
Jan van Geest
'De vrije kunst van het construeren. Een tafelontwerp van Constant', in Jong Holland 12, Nr. 2 (1996) 4-11.
Hilde Heynen
'New Babylon. The Antinomies of Utopia', in Assemblage. A Critical Journal of Architecture and Design Nr. 29 (1996) 24-39.
Klaus Honnef
'Wirken in der Sphäre des Abenteuers', in Künstler. Kritisches Lexikon der Gegenwartskunst Nr. 20 (1992).
Thomas Y. Levin
'Geopolitik des Winterschlafs. Zum Urbanismus der Situationisten', published in Wolkenkuckucksheim. Internationale Zeitschrift für Theorie und Wissenschaft der Architektur Heft 2 (November 1997). Also in Arch+. Zeitschrift für Architektur und Städtebau 139/140 (Dezember 1997/Januar 1998) 70-82; translated in English as 'Geopolitics of hibernation: the drift of situationist urbanism' and published in Libero Andreotti, Xavier Costa (eds.), Situacionistas. Arte, política, urbanismo = Situationists. Arts, Politics, Urbanism (Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona : Barcelona 1996) 111-164.
Tom McDonough
'Fluid Spaces. Constant and the Situationist Critique of Architecture', in Catherine de Zegher and Mark Wigley (eds.), Another City for Another Life. Constant's New Babylon (The MIT Press : Cambridge MA etc. 2001). Lecture delivered at the 'The Activist Drawing: Retracing Situationist Architectures from New Babylon to Beyond' conference, The Drawing Center, New York, October 23, 1999.
Gianfranco Marelli
'A New Living Architecture. The Situationists, The Urban Space, the Revolution', in Southern Quarterly 39, nr. 1-2 (2001) 47-65.
- [abstract] Explains how the Situationist International movement, begun in 1957 in Europe, tried to construct a radical critique of everyday life in a consumer society. As the Cold War began, art and architecture put their faith in modernism, which seemed symbiotic to the process of rebuilding war-torn Europe and injecting it with American consumerism and the values of a mass society. The goal of the Situationists was to replace capitalist economic values with situations in which experimentation, creativity, and playfulness abounded. Unfortunately, the more radical their critiques of modern urban society became, the less likely they were to realize their dream of redefined spaces. The situationist agenda ultimately called for social revolution [Historical Abstracts].
Erik Swyngedouw
'The Strange Respectability of the Situationist City in the Society of the Spectacle', in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 26, nr. 1 (2002) 153-165.
- [abstract] Critically discusses the recent growing interest in and regained 'respectability' of the Situationist International and related urban cultural, architectural, and political movements. The author emphasizes the present reinvention of the Situationist movement and argues that the rediscovery of the 'Situationist City' celebrates an intellectualized, aestheticized, and depoliticized version that is particularly oblivious to the political and revolutionary theories and urban program that underpinned the Situationist movement. This aestheticized reappropriation of selected parts of the Situationist legacy has reinforced exactly what the Situationists actively criticized and tried to undermine. At the same time, intellectual and cultural attention has been diverted away from the active urban reconstructions French revolutionary author and filmmaker Guy Debord (1932-94) and his colleagues pioneered in the 1950's and 1960's. The article notes the theoretical and political insights, particularly those of Debord, which developed in tandem with concerns over a new way of living in the urban environment. The author also considers the enduring relevance of Debord's work and insights in the context of recent debates and events [Historical Abstracts].
Mark Wigley
'The Hyper-Architecture of Desire', in Mark Wigley (ed.), Constant's New Babylon. The Hyper-Architecture of Desire (Rotterdam 1998) 9-71.
Mark Wigley
'Paper, Scissors, Blur', in Catherine de Zegher and Mark Wigley (eds.), The Activist Drawing (New York 2001) 27-56.
Peter Wollen
'Situationists and Architecture', published in New Left Review 8 (March-April 2001).