TALES OF MANHATTAN (1942)


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# Archaelogies of the Future. The Desire called Utopia by Frederic Jameson

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I read this Fredric Jameson 's book six months ago, and I don't know why I forgot to post a small article about it since I have been extremely interested by its content at that time... First of all I love absolutely the name of this book. Archaelogies of the Future. The Desire called Utopia . This second sentence is pretty much my own definition of Utopia that I am always comparing to the horizon, something to aim to without being ever able to reach it. This essay explores the notion of utopia through More and Marx, but more essentially through science fiction novels. The chapter about Stanislaw Lem 's literature is particularly interesting in its illustration of an attempt to describe the un-imaginable. The book has also been translated in French .
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# Constant's New Babylon / Models

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After yesterday's post about Constant's New Babylon's drawings, today is the one about his models. Once again, the same pictures are always visible but it exists a multitude of others; those following are only the visible side of the iceberg. If you want to read more about Constant and New Babylon, I recommend the excellent book from Mark Wigley, Constant's New Babylon: the hyper-architecture of desire Those models pictures are excerpted from two books: - Libero Andreotti & Xavier Costa. Situationists. Art, politics, urbanism . Actar 1996 - Mark Wigley. Constant's New Babylon: the hyper-architecture of desire. 010. 1998
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# Visiting Concrete Le Havre / Auguste Perret & Oscar Niemeyer

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Yesterday, I went to Le Havre in order to make a little photographic reportage within the city which was reconstructed after allied bombings in 1944. At this time Le Havre could be assimilated as the French Coventry and 10 000 new housing had to be built in ten years. Auguste Perret, who was already 71 years old, was appointed as Chief Architect of the Reconstruction and his office designed all the buildings which are now Le Havre downtown. In order to be efficient, every single architectural element's dimensions were according to a 6.24 metres weft. Thus, every buildings are 2x6.24m wide, every post is separated to another one by 6.24m, every window is 6.24/6m etc. In addition of that, Perret wanted to build an huge concrete layer 3.50 metres above ground and to "lay" all the city on it because of the boggy land. Thus, all the technical facilities (water, electricity, telephone, car parks etc.) would have been put under this layer. Unfortunetly, it wasn't accepted by
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