PRP - Research

Situationists and Architechture
Peter Wollen
http://www.newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=2315


This is not a conventional scholarly essay. Instead I want to discuss a number of topics addressed by the Situationists, making a kind of collage of commentaries on what seem to me to be key elements of their thought in relation to architecture and the city—which were, indeed, centrally important issues for them. These elements are as follows: 1, the minaret; 2, the gypsy camp; 3, dérive; 4, Mad King Ludwig; 5, the Postman Cheval; 6, the Merzbau; 7, Le Corbusier; 8, Paris; 9, psychogeography; 10, Love on the Left Bank;11, white bicycles; 12, détournement; 13, the Cavern of Anti-Matter; 14, New Babylon; 15, Watts; 16, the Architecture of Despair; 17, Vienna’s Place—and finally: 18, Albisola.