New Babylon
Back in Amsterdam after his stay in London Constant starts to focus mainly on architecture and the urban environment. Focal point in his work is finding out what potential added value art can provide in intensifying daily life, in which there is room for creative expression. He abandonds painting to work solely on his New Babylon project from 1954 to 1969.
With New Babylon Constant envisions a "world wide city for the future" where land is owned collectively, work is fully automated and the need to work replaced with a nomadic life of creative play. New Babylon is inhabited by homo ludens, who, freed from labor, will not have to make art, for he can be creative in the daily practice of his life.
In Constant's own words: The project of New Babylon only intends to give the minimum conditions for a behaviour that must remain as free as possible. Any restriction of the freedom of movement, any limitation with regard to the creation of mood and atmosphere, has to be avoided. Everything has to remain possible, all is to happen, the environment has to be created by the activity of life, and not inversely.
The New Babylon project consists of a series of models, constructions, maqquettes, collages, drawings, graphics and texts expressing Constant's theories of urban development and social interaction. A few examples of spatial constructions for which he uses modern mateials like stainless steel, aluminum and perspex are Het Ruimtecircus (1956) (Spatial Circus) and Het Zonneschip (1956) (Sunvessel).
In 1974 the New Babylon project officially comes to an end with a large exhibition in the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag (Municipal Museum The Hague). Because he lacks room to store the vast collection of constructions, maquettes, maps and structures he sells them all to the museum. In 1999 Constant's New Babylon: City for Another Life, opens at the Drawing Center in New York. It is his first solo exhibition in the United States and it's curated by Mark Wigley. There is a symposium conducted in conjunction with the exhibition.
According to the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas Constant has made a lot of architects think with his New Babylon: "He was an example of courage".
Read more about this topic: Constant Nieuwenhuys
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