Bakema’s and Constant’sUrban Models for the City of the Future.

Abstract

This article aims to verify the correspondence between Jaap Bakema’s practical and theoretical speech and Constant’s situationist legacy. From a theoretical perspective, it is intended to shed light on the possible origin of concepts such as open society or total space,firstly introduced in the architectural scene by Bakema, in relation to the concepts of ludic society and unitary urbanism, which Constant uses when designing New Babylon following the situationists assumptions. On the other hand, from a practical perspective, the design strategies that lead to Plan Bochum and Pampus project for Amsterdam’s urban expansion, used by Johannes van den Broek and Bakema to materialize part of their theoretical speech, are examined. Both dimensions are analysed in the framework of Forum voor Architectuur en Beldende Kunsten , the media used by Dutch Team 10 to spread its ideas.This study will also allow us to establish to what extent Jaap Bakema’s contributions are essential to understand de counter-cultural references used by the following generation of architects, Herman Hertzberger among them.