The Paradox of the New Babylonian Drawing

The Paradox of the New Babylonian Drawing 1. On New Babylon, Briefly

Over the span of two decades, artist turned architect Constant Nieuwenhuys clasped onto his revolutionary ideality of an architecture of freedom. Constant sourced inspiration from the evolution of automization, overlapping with the revolutionary vigor of the 60s, to conceive a construct of an unforeseen, other-worldly epoch disconnected from the preceding era of trauma. Between 1956 and 1957, he designed a decentralised, multi-layered speculative city named “New Babylon.”

Constant, New Babylon Sector, 1959

Constant, Interior Fragment of a Sector, 1961

Utilizing innovative materials and technologies in order to portray his vision, he imagined an architecture without an architect, a world where individuals would control the extension and functions of the spaces they occupy. New Babylon initially surfaced as an assortment of architectural models. Each individually defined a sector of the futuristic city, collectively interlinked in a labyrinth network which disperses over the entirety of the world as one colossal structure. New Babylonians were to exist as “urban nomads”, substituting the conventional static aspects of life home, work, organised recreation and urban trasnport, with creativity.

Constant, Sectoren in Berglandschap, 1961

Constant, Sector Interieur, 1958

It is a quasi never-ending playground, organised as a rhizomatic web of colossal connections; it constituted an array of interlinked levels plotted above the ground. Micro-ambiences generated within these spaces would intrinsically alter all conditions capable of affecting ones’ sensual experience; i.e lighting, acoustics, odours, and colours - relative to the optimal conditions desired by the occupants.

Constant, Technological Landscape, 1961

Constant, Elevation of the Covered City, 1959

In Constants’ words, “the technical facilities are deployed as powerful, ambience-creating resources in the psychogeographical game played in the social space.” ( McGuire 93) The plethora of energy obtained from an existence devoid of labour is redirected towards some form of methodic creativity which induced the fluid ludic sensorium. It was to function based on a paradox of “permanent variation”. The macrocosm of industrial machinery, production, and automised factories would remain underground.

Constant, Early Version of Fragment, 1955

Constant, Fragment of the Yellow Sector, 1957

Traffic would be limited to the “archaic urban aspect of streets”, on the ground beneath the kaleidoscopic habitat. Air traffic would manifest over the sectors, dissected by landing quplatforms and a plethora of green spaces. Constant chronicles New Babylon as the “manifestation of the city as artwork”, or the realisation of the “Wagnerian dream of the total work of art, the Gesamtkistwerk.” ( Marin, 10) New babylon is admittedly idealistic in the assumption that this form of life could be solely driven by automation, deeming recurrent human labour unnecessary.

Constant, Gele Sector, 1956

Constant, Gele Sector, 1956

“Hence, the new babylon project is an imaginary project; it anticipates history, it is a futuristic project; its based on a desirable course of history and is therefore also in a sense a utopian project.”

(Constant 132) Constant is adamant that New Babylon is feasible, and not simply a derivative of science fiction. Mark Wigley states, “New Babylon is at once an idealistic artwork and a realisable technical proposition.” Substantially, in Constants writing, he describes it as “realistic project because it distances itself from the present condition which hs lost touch with reality, and because it is founded on what is technically feasible.” (Wigley 67) Constant, Red Sector, 1957

Constant, Red Sector, 1957

1. On the Role of the Models

The durability of New Babylon lies in its recurrence in architectural discourse, which can be attributed to the veracity prevalent in its diagrams, drawings and schemes that embody the utopian suspension of both reality and its possibility. The nature of play is the central focus of New Babylon, however, this is not carried through in its method of production. The suggested form of insurgent creativity was to be explored by the inhabitant rather than by Constant. The models created were intricate and aggregated but not at all arbitrary or crude.

Constant, Klein Labyr, 1959

Constructie in Oranje, 1959

Since the spaces which the world of New Babylon was to be composed of were forthought to be spaces oscilliating between direction and disorientation; the models followed that trajectory. They could be best defined as “layered” in a myriad of senses of the word; in their materiality - specifically juxtaposing materials characterized as innovative to their time, particularly in model-making, such as plexi-glass and metal, tensile elements, tubular fragments, and so forth; in addition to being layered formally - standing as sprawling structures almost appearing to be undergoing some form of exponentional growth.

Constant, Landscape, 1969

Constant, Industrial Landscape, 1963

Despite his use of materials which were somewhat foreign to the world of architectural modeling at the time, taking tinted plexi-glass for example, Constant reinstated that it would not be him but the inhabitants of New babylon who designated the potential materialisation of their cityscape. He repeatedly stated that no array of models could accurately show what that could entail. Hence, he turned to the dynamic nature of film, photogrpahy and slides created through the models in order to generate the enigmatic quality of New Babylon which he envisioned.

Constant, Sector Construction, 1964

Constant, Sector Construction, 1964

It is symbolic that Constant didn’t display any form of drawings in his early lectures regarding New Babylon - only showing the model photographs.

He had choreographed a vast collection of these photographs over the decades - orchestrating an illusive portrayal of “kaleidoscopic transformation” through alternate combinations of models, apertures, video, lighting conditions, angled shots, and backdrops. These images generated some what of a hallucinatory portrayal of continual spatial change without ever defining specific spaces.

Constant, Spatiovore, 1960

Constant, Spatiovore, 1960

Drawings were consistently secondary to the models, which were secondary to the photographs. In actuality, the rationale of drawing is augmented with every model. The elementary function of the white background which mimics the paper foundation of the drawing is reflected by the layered plexiglass which is supported above it - - the novel planes of the land which the residents of New Babylon will occupy. The fundamental level of ground is disrupted by a series of overlapping transparent grounds, each individually resembling a piece of paper punctuated with traversing lines of movement.

Constant, Sectorinterieur, 1962

Constant, Gele Sector, 1958

Contrary to the predominant life cycle of an architectural project, the drawings were conceived “after” the emergence of New Babylon as a definitive statement. The primary assortment of models were created in between 1958 and 1959. However, Constant only began to produce drawings towards the end of 1959, when he percieved his initial models to be complete.

Constant, Red Sector, 1957

Constant, Ambiance de Depart, 1959

2. On Transitioning to Architectural Drawing

The delayed emergence of the drawings of New Babylon has at times put forward the erroneous impression that Constant rejected drawing. However, the line between identifying works within New Babylon as “drawing” or “model” relies mainly on the categorical diffrentiation of three dimmensionality or two dimmensionality. This portrays that Constant had carried the logic of drawing through to the physical model making - the models themselves being clear conceptions of a certain form of drawing. However, while Constant appears to have utilised the three dimmensional model as a manifestation of his ideas; he appears to have addressed his initial “architectural” drawings as derived technicalities, rather than aggregations of thought.

Constant, Windharp, 1965

Constant, Section of the Covered City, 1959

The Principle of a Covered City, Spatial “Plan,” depicts a series of overlapping grids which specify an irregular space for play. The corresponding section, Transverse Section of the Covered City portrays how space is unconstrained by the ground by a series of massive columns. This plan in particular is referred to as an essential drawing. This technique of translation continued as the Orient Sector and Gele Sector relayed as architectural plans identifying the location of each element. The provocativeness of the model is abstracted by timidly drawn thin black lines on an otherwise empty sheet.

Constant, Détail Secteur Jaune, 1967

Constant, Principle of a Covered City, 1953

The precision of the lines are juxtaposed with a narrative by Constant re- volving around the various areas within the sector: Every individual space is methodically ascribed to a particular function: which in New Babylon translates into a distinct act of play. Contrary to the majority of the drawings produced, within the plan, there is no room for indefinite speculation. There are no arbitrary strokes of a pen. The plan goes as far as eliminating haphazard confusion within the labyrinth space - which is instead classified as ordered confusion.

Constant, Gele Sector, 1956

Constant, Map of the Yellow Sector, 1959

The impact of these drawings is suggestive of control. They are in themselves, a paradox. Controlled depictions of an uncontrolled space. Portrayals of play which are not in essence playful. Amongst the multitude of drawings created representing New Babylon through the years, Mark Wigley, Guy Debord - of Situationist International1 - and several other critics have stated, in disparing points along the time line and hence in varying eras of design, that the plans are arguably the pieces which come closest to portraying the concept in its entirety.

Constant, Orient Sector, 1959

Constant, Schets Voor Een Plattegrand, 1962

There is a certain element of irony in that statement, considering the clear nature of those architectural plans as direct derivatives of previously created models.

Moreover, Constant repeatedly advocated for the stand-alone quality of the models, particularly in combination with the photographs of the models. This begs the question of wether or not there is a break in the manner the public reads the project versus the manner by which Constant intended for it to be deciphered.

Constant, Ladder Labyrinthine, 1969

Constant, Ladder Labyrinthine, 1969

The single drawing which is not directly derived from a previously created model was produced in 1960. It was entitled “New Babylon Nord” ; which brought about the introduction of the title “New Babylon.”

Constant, Combination of Sectors, 1971

Constant, Zelfgragende Sector Constructie, 1964

Situationist International: A revolutionary union of avantgarde painters, writers, as well as poets created in Italy in the late 1950’s. Their central focus was the desolution of the wall between the production of art and consumerism - in order to make creative process an inherent aspect of day-to-day life.

Major members included film-maker Guy Debord, painter Asger Jorn, artist Ralph Rumney as well as Constant himself. Their collective thoughts carried a significant weight in the revolutionary occurences which unravelled in Paris in 1968.

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2. On transitioning to Architectural Drawing

New Babylon Nord consists of a grand plan which depicts a spanning labyrinth-like system of sectors atop of a massive coloured landscape - identified and regarded as some sort of A to Z map of a physically existent city.

The drawing resembled an architectural drawing in its physicality but subtly distorted conventional architectural norms of representation.

Constant, Gele Sector, 1956

Constant, New Babylon Nord, 1960

Considering the previously touched upon fact that the shift from the initial aversion from architectural drawing to the gradual introduction of the “plan” chronologically coincides with public scrutiny of whether or not the project was architectural or artistic in its nature. While New Babylon has been celebrated for decades as an complex landing point between art and architecture which Constant delicately navigated through, the quasi-architectural drawings brought forward by him may in fact collectively represent a self imposed calamity which threatens to eradicate this uncovered landing point.

Constant, New Babylon/Amsterdam, 1963

Constant, New Babylon/Den Haag, 1964

It can be argued that Constant seems to have produced New Babylon Nord as some form of a defence mechanism in advocacy of the viability of his vision. What does that imply of the role of the drawing in this project?

One could go as far as to state that this form of quasi-architectural drawing was a form of public validation, rather than indispensable representation.

What does this imply to the nature of representation in architecture during that era, and the freedom to identify with one medium predominantly?

Constant, Symbolic Repr. of New Babylon, 1969

Constant, New Babylon/Amsterdam, 1963

One could argue that the true purpose of the drawings was not to portray the liberty of play but rather to situate the models as architectural rather than sculptural.

This may stem from Constant’s background as an artist rather than an architect.

Constant, Group Sectoren, 1959

Constant, Group Sectoren, 1959

It should be noted that throughout history, drawing was predominantly employed as a support medium, a constituent of a process of fabrication. This aspect of the discipline’s history is readdressed in Constant’s treatment of it.

Initially, he tentatively attempts a mechanical architectural approach; that which employs transferal and reproduction instead of formative exploration.

Constant, Sector Construction, 1961

Constant, Artificial Landscape, 1964

However, with time he begins to elaborate on that form of operating; obscuring the mode of reproduction with free hand articulation and peculiar uses of color. Throughout the next decade, these approaches to drawing rapidly multiply. With time, structured lines evolve into peculiar plays of the hand.

Constant, New Babylon/Ruhrgebeit, 1963

Constant, Sectoren rondom een bos, 1964

3. On Drawing in Connection to the Essence of New Babylon

To display a collection of images along side one another is in itself to compose an idealised world of composite imagination. To do so with New Babylon is to exponentially magnify this effect. The images transgress from Constant’s thoughts to the three dimensionality of the model to the surface of the paper; and subsequently the architecture is pivoted in an obscure transitional zone in which the paper presents the boundary between the fantasy, reality and the spatial essence of the fantasy simultaneously.

Constant, Ladder Labyrinth, 1959

Constant, Sketch for a Mobile Labyrinth, 1968

However, the drawing cannot exist as both a transitional zone between fantasy and reality, as well as a representational medium of the fantasy, deeming it a paradox. A dual “almost.” Architects, by nature, relay their fantasies onto papers. Those who ultimately do not see their fantasies brought to built form are referred to as “paper architects”, a term that treads the line between disdain and praise. Consequently, one would be inclined to refer to Constant as a paper architect. However, with respect to New Babylon - paradoxically to the definition of the term - for Constant, drawing was highly problematic.

Constant, Mobile Labyrinth, 1964

Constant, Constructie, 1962

In one perspective, the production of work on paper based on thought would seem to resonate directly with the ideology of New Babylon where citizens constantly consummate their individual desires by recomposing the spatial order of their surroundings. This being said; each individual is an artist, or an architect, inhabiting their ever-changing designs.

Constant, Orient Sector, 1957

Constant, Technological Landscape, 1971

Hence, in accordance with that stand point, the lack of restraint in drawing, the potential of a vacant surface which can embrace any mark, should in theory serve as the quintessential form of representing the freedom of being in New Babylon. However, in attempting to represent that freedom, Constant annexes it by inflicting a singular vision of it. The ever-shifting individualistic realm he speaks of cannot, in its essence, be represented.

Constant, Red Sector, 1957

Constant ,Ondersteuning van een Sector, 1960

To clarify: to suggest a realm of endless liberty in the individual reconfiguration of space is to imply that said reconfiguration will emerge sporadically, and consequently unpredictably. Hence, if the world only exists on paper, what can be contrived of that world can only be extracted from the drawings, which are both limited in quantity and origin, lacking individual alterations or sporadic development. The drawings obstruct the condition they are meant to be representational of.

Constant, Gele Sector, 1961

Constant, Künstliche Landschaft, 1965

Concurrently, the groundwork of the limitless creative freedom being visualised is actually automisation. That being said, New Babylon is in some sense a massive machine, a system in a constant automised cycle, which provides cities with the ease of realising their ever-drifting fantasies. This underlying system of automisation could facilely be represented through standard methods of architectural drawing. However, this mechanism is not meant to be portrayed in order to evoke an experience - it merely serves as the groundwork for the sensuous reveries it facilitates.

Constant, Self Supporting Sector, 1959

Constant, Gezicht op een Sector, 1960

4. On the Evolution of the Anti Architectural Drawing

If one were to read New Babylon through the drawings or models, rather than text or vocal interpretations - the backbone of the project itself would be unaccounted for, and therefore rather than questioning the possibilities the world could offer, one would be left questioning the possibility of the world itself. Hence, while the drawing is meant to speak in advocacy, what is lacking in a drawing tends to echo discontinuity.

Constant, Series of Sectors, 1969

Constant, Untitled, 1961

The decision to represent the vision rather than the mechanism which allows for it, somehow discredits the credibility of the vision. Therefore, no accurate representation of New Babylon can exist on paper without misinterpretation. In consequence, the act of drawing is torn between the indesirability of depicting the cumulative automation of machinery and the indesirability of precisely representing unanimous self expression.

Constant, Labyrint Interieur, 1968

Constant, Labyratoire, 1962

This paradox is relatively evident in Constant’s drawings. The majority of the illustrations are neither depictions of the machinery nor depictions of the liberated human behaviour occurring within it. They function is a certain indefinite space in between, in which both the mechanism and the events are obscured, as if provoking the audience to actualise the image themselves.

Constant, Torens, 1961

Constant, Figuren in een labyrint, 1962

This friction created by the drawings is both evident in the initial “architectural” drawings of which depict the organisation of the New Babylon, as well as the more sporadic compositions which unravel further downstream. In some sense, one could say that the purest form of instinctive drawing could only be achieved through the models, which in some sense lack any form of “precursive reference point”. They are put forward to the public as if addressing the future residents of their crevices.

Constant, Torens, 1964

Constant, Arise Workers, 1961

Consequently, on a different level, the creations on paper are seemingly intended to be read as potential courses of inhabiting the spaces which the models represent. Hence, work on paper is handled as a prediction of potential consequences rather than design. The traditional structure of drawing which Constant initially appeared to have fundamentally deserted is essentially the exact structure of the innovative realm he puts forward, as well as the way of life it will facilitate.

Constant, Red Sector, 1957

Constant, Air Currents, 1963

Gradually, new suggestions of the space Constant imagined began to emerge through the drawings - in concurrence with the amplification of the varied approaches to creating the drawings. Due to the fact that the fundamental criteria of New Babylon was continual dynamism, any individual representation of it would be problematic.

Constant, Sketch for a Construction, 1963

Constant, Interieur New Babylon, 1960

5. On the Drawings as Disciplinary Ammunition

In some sense, the emergence of the free-hand drawings of the space began to reinstate the initial thought behind New Babylon - whether or not it accurately depicted the life within it, which arguably cannot be defined “precisely” at all, considering the individualistic nature of its evolution. However, with the juxtaposition of the technical instances of structrual drawing and the sporadic nature of the free hand drawing, somehow Constant re-establishes the fundamental concept of New Babylon as well as the underlying connection between the two dimmensional and the three dimmensional.

Constant, Tribute to Odeon, 1960

Constant, The Blue Dare Devil, 1960

While at first glance, the technical drawings are seen as “derivé” , and the free hand drawings are seen contrarily; the free hand drawings are actually derived from the combination of system of intentional lines within the drawings and the possibility of spaitial occupation of the models. The role of the free hand drawing is to extract potential outlines of space from the technical drawings and overlay the possibility of play onto them. The liberal playfulness of Constant’s hand within the drawings of life hence represents the potential playfulness within New Babylon in itself, rather than through its depictions.

Constant, Orient Sector, 1957

Constant, Mobile Walls, 1963

This language is prevalent in the majority of the drawings. Obscure silhouettes and traces of motion are consistently overlapped onto a lattice-like framework.

This seems to convey that play emerges where the straight line dissolves.

In the most whimsical of the drawings, Constant goes as far as completely abandoning the defined line. The gridded network withers into the paper. It slowly begins whisper relative to the growing volume of the dyanmism of the inhabitants of New Babylon - or the blurry figures of Constant’s imagination.

Constant, Interior Labyrinth, 1960

Constant, Labyrismen, 1962

When analysed collectively, the aggregation of both the quasi-architectural drawings and the unrestricted erratic drawings reveal an optimistic possibility which is easily lost through the individual reading of the two. The plan drawings which were derived from the models may have been something of a disciplinary paradox intended to seduce the architect through the familiarity of the technical drawing.In some sense, Constant may have been dancing with the controversial status of the paper architect in order to, if only, extract the association which one with the title of “architect” attains with that which can be built.

Constant, Group Sectoren, 1959

Constant, Comparative Map, 1962

Ironically, throughout the course of the conception of New Babylon, the methods of drawing most native to architectural design - i.e the meticulous plan, the scaled elevation, the detailed section - subtly but progressively steamrolled the drawings which were more or less alien to the architectural realm. Those that could be described as outlandish in the mediums used in their creation, their obscurity in representation, and the virtual absence of any clear indication of architectural structure.

Constant, Sketch for Self Supporting Sector,1961

Constant, Mobile Labyrinth, 1966

Similarly, or possibly a-similarly, to the role of the technical drawing, the anti-technical restores an aspect of familiarity to the artist - which is in fact the realm of each individual which New Babylon is meant to revitalise. Hence, New Babylon, through rose colored glasses, could be classified as a deliberate violation of the demarcating lines between the disciplines. In which case, drawing is the chosen form of ammunition.

Constant, Diorama, 1961

Constant, Sketch for a Construction, 1961

Works Cited Constant, et al. Another City for Another Life: Constants New Babylon. The Drawing Center, 1999.

Jorgensen, Darren, and Laetitia Wilson. “The Utopian Failure of Constant’s New Babylon.” Invisible Culture: An Electric Journal for Visual Culture, 28 Nov. 2017.

Marin, Louis. Utopics: The Semilogical Play of Textual Spaces. 1984.

Marin, Louis. On Representation. Stanford University Press, 2001.

Russel, Jesse, and Roland Cohn. Unitary Urbanism. Book on Demand, 2012.

Van Halem, Ludo, and Mark Wigley. “Salon | Architect Talk | Constant’s New Babylon.” Art Basel, 25 June 2015.

Wigley, Mark, and Constant Nieuwenhuys. Constant’s New Babylon: The Hyper-Architecture of Desire.

Zegher, M. Catherine de., and Mark Wigley. The Activist Drawing: Retracing Situationist Architectures from Constants New Babylon to Beyond. Drawing Center, 2001.