New Babylon - Constant

The Dutch artist Constant Nieuwenhuijs (1920-2005) was a co-founder of the experimental Cobra group in the late 1940s, and founding member of the Situationist International in 1957. For twenty years he worked on his New Babylon project, a vision influenced by the book 'Homo Ludens' by the d Dutch cultural historian Johan Huizinga. 'New Babylon' foresaw a future, which Constant insisted was realisable, where mechanization and automation would liberate human kind from having to perform productive labour and therefore remain settled in one place. Instead, people would be able to give free reign to their playful and creative impulses in a connected urban landscape spanning the globe. No longer fixed to one place, and embedded into a perfect transport and telecommunications network, people would return to their original nomadic state, literally shaping and transforming their environment as they traversed the globe, fullfilling their promise of the Homo ludens (Playing Human).
The models in this film are exhibited at the The Hague Municipal Museum in The Netherlands.
www.gemeentemuseum.nl

[@1amjapan]

Awesome, cheers for this, much appreciated.

[@TraumPolizei]

I want to see New Babylon in-person, I may make a trip to the Netherlands for that.

[@TraumPolizei]

Hurovi, this is great.

[@turtle03mauriciomartins51]

Incrivel