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Artist or Maker: Constant (Dutch, 1920-2005)

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Provenance: A gift from the artist to the previous owner.

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Notes: In 1956, Constant Nieuwenhuys started working on a visionary architectural proposal for a future society: New Babylon. Constant, as a co-founder of the Cobra group in the late forties, stopped painting to concentrate on the question of "construction". Or Constant's own words, he created " a New World, where surprise and pleasure of the eyes mingle with innumerable questions, insights and speculations" (Wigely M., Constant's New Babylon. The hyper-architecture of desire, Rotterdam 1998, p. 5). Constant spent some time in London in 1952, moving around a lot and becoming fascinated by the intricacies of urban form. New Babylon envisages a formulation for the new man, a better social place and a new way of living in a community, combining the critique of modern architecture with the deployment of the latest technical developments. The artist elaborated his ideas in series of models, sketches, etchings and collages, as well as in manifestos, essays and lectures. Constant became an architect himself and insisted that that the traditional arts would be displaced by a collective form of creativity. Keywords for New Babylon were automation and space. In New Babylon one sees a covered city, with huge labyrinths float above the ground on tall columns, where vehicular traffic rushes underneath. All forms of mobility are carried and the structure of the city itself will be mobile and lack a clear identity. Social life becomes architectural play in Constants view. A new architecture, a new city, calls for new media of representation. Due to his lectures, manifestos and interviews, his ideas were widely published in the international press in the 1960's and Constant attained a prominent position in the world of experimental architecture. Until 1974 Constant developed his ideas, acting in the belief that artists had the task to combine new techniques with the complex activity of urbanism. In his words " machine work offers unheard-off possibilities for creation, and those who are able to place these possibilities at the service of daring imagination will be my creators of tomorrow" (ibid, p. 27).

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