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e

o the generation
t placed between
:aro, King and
neither
>stered for very
e precedents for
the early 1960s,
d in the work of
Since he
most
1e become
with curvilinear
ised
Jst of the pieces
r sombre colour.
e culminates in
1 porticos and
mt of subtle
ptures which
-like beings
Camden Art
of these shapes
:l Bolus, and that
teneration, is a
nscious or
t a process which
1er naturally and
I sculptor in the
lte
that only by
1e role of
ntext. It is artists
uld be
1g for buildings,
3des and built-in
s or 'socalled'
1st the ebullience
:ors such as those
1 gift to the Tate,
definite a way to
1 adjunct to a
ieces, to be
sions, whose
too insistent for
nctional and
Such a division
:orporated into a
ystem, and that
!em artificial to
e used to
f art is for
and the
eum as an almost
light emerge
instance, could
able works
1d displayed on
<e the idea of
rought out for
ons would really
ferent they
Jasia Reichardt
Piscator
Hayward Gallery, London 21 July- 5 September,
1971
The work of Erwin Piscator has become
familiar in the adaptations of his ideas by
Brecht, but the intensity and stirring quality
of his designs in the 20's are, clearly, far too
little known. His theatrical productions are
direct counterparts of the work of George
Groz and John Heartfield- they might
indeed, be described as three-dimensional
photomontages. ('\nd Piscator was probably
quite conscious of his debt to his friends.
But if he took up ideas from some friends,
he inspired others - he it was who
commissioned and first thought of Walter
Gropius' total-theatre design.
The exhibition, organized first by the
Deutsche Akademie der Kiinste, Berlin, is
small, but inspiring. The catalogue is also
small, but most informative.
Utopia & Vision The exh;b;tion w" d .. ;gned to
10
.,1 1901 the Paris (the only
I 1 realized Utop1a of modern t1mes, the
organizers suggest), but rather than focus
Moderna Museet. Stockholm June - September,
1971
I
attention on the barricades and the historical
drama of the occasion, five themes have
been chosen- work, money, newspapers,
schools and homelife- that might suggest
something of the life of the time.
I .
The legendary gunner of the Commune, Hortense David.
Entrance to the Ecole des BcauxArts, Rue Bonaparte, Paris.
534 AD/9/71
Wednesday, 27th January 1971.
In the vast, echoing glass-roofed Palais des
Etudes at the Beaux-Arts about 200 people
are lost in the midst of broken plaster
statues, relics of a time past. Three screens
are erected and in the darkened, cavernous
space Carousel projectors compete; the two
left hand screens show projects done by
visiting fifth year students of the
Architectural Association, London; the
screen on the right shows the activities of UP 6
of the former Beaux-Arts school. There is
a strange and unnerving disparity between
them, a disparity enhanced by the efforts of
the AA leadership to draw close to the
Beaux-Arts by comparing the seemingly
imminent closure of the AA with the violent
political engagement which is evident from
the militant posters portrayed on the UP6
screen. 'We too are in a political
situation .. .'begins Peter Cook but he is
wrong, we are all wrong; compared to those
UP 6 students who work on building sites,
go to prison for spraying slogans on walls,
build community centres for immigrant
labourers, float newspapers demanding
'EVERYfHlNG', invade the offices of
536 AD/9/71
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The AA fifth year visit. Confrontat ion with UP6 in
the Palais des Etudes
AA visit. The story of Archigram. Peter Cook
explains
government ministers, hold lectures in the
Louvre, department stores, or the street
we are not political. We do not know what
the word means.
On the AA screens appear collages of
USAF Hercules transport ail craft delivering
emergency housing instead of troops or
defoliants; there are girls in bikinis reclininF
in nifty inflatables; a neighbourhood TV
system called NKTV (too close to NKVD);
projects for mobile living - it is all too much
like a kind of sententious foolery suddenly
taken to task. The uneasy English students
explaining their projects sense it too; it only
needs a sidelong glance at the Beaux-Arts
screen, burning cars, massed police, clubbed,
silently shrieking students, redevelopment
protests, posters called The Struggle Goes
On' with a forest of fists gripping spanners.
Slowly the London school loses its initiative.
A strange almost terror-stricken air descends.
A Fun Palace appears on the AA screens.
' Pretty trite that stuff on the right,' observes
an AA student; I wonder if he will be
murdered. On the Beaux-Arts screen appear
threats against patrons and flies, oaths of
solidarity toward embattled workers. A
translator explains a 'piste dragster' which
has appeared on the left. 'Does this not
make you angry?' I ask a French student. ' We
are angry, but we are also polite,' is his
reply.
For two hours the difference between
being an architectural student in Britain and
being a part of UP 6 at the ex-Ecole des
Beaux Arts becomes clearer and clearer.
During those two hours the desire to find
out what these students and teachers have
done, and why they began to do it, grips the
authors of this issue. Emptily one of them
6
vows to reveal to the world the story of UP
This. 111311 v months later. their attempt.
Th . stor) begills w1th the d1smtegratton of a
of architectural education that once
r:d the world and then came within _fi fty
ears to represent al l that was archa1c,
rorrupt and obscure about architecture.
Without them one could 1emain at any
pa1 t u.:ula1 stage Ill perpet uity: with t hem one
would steadily progress until assuming
that one had been born under a lucky star-
one m1gllt graduate with the promise of a
JOb 111 t he offi ce of the patron, and then
(after further faithful servitude) find jobs
coming ones way from the same source. This
system has been accurately described as
' Malthusian' from its resemblance to the
theory of population control advanced by
Thomas Mal thus in which population was
a
n - __ D _- _I_ supposed to regulate itsetf automatically
-cA., according to the vicissitudes of food supply.
In the French university system - where
1 .. 1 J . entry was guaranteed by the possession of a
Glt ./[ """lqA,.(. Baccalaureat this meant that the wastage
1 rate was colossal but that each graduate was
in fact assured of a job and high social status
'If you have understood nothing that 1 have as a reward for his long years of study. At
said the cause rests with you, my dear young the E.cole des Beaux-Arts the system worked
sir. It is a matter of biology. In my opinion the rather differently because there was no
teaching I have given up to now has been automatic entry on possession of
M. Zavaroni Baccalaureat, but as we have seen, an
admission course which was competitive.
'The class struggle '?That's rubbish. It's a matter
of being born under a lucky star.'
M. Dengler
'The events of May? They happened because we
banned their wild parties, the Rougevin festival,
all that stuff. These buggers have to ejaculate
Even so the number of graduates was small
(today France has only. 8.000 architects as
opposed to over 20,000 in both Britain and
llaly) and almost all graduates were assured
of a future through the patronage that
governed the whole education system. The
first Diplomas were awarded in 1867, not
until Petain's administration of 194044 was
somehow!'
M. Chappey the practice of architecture regulated by
The above quotations are taken from a
publication of the Assemblee Generale (AG)
of the staff and students of the ex-Ecole
Natwflale Superieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris:
now the home of four Unites Pedagogiques
(teaching units) out of the eight that
presently exist in the Paris area. The old
Beaux-Arts school was dissolved at the
height of the May events of 1968, the end of
a hi story extending back to its foundation
by the Emperor Napoleon the First. Each of
the statements above was made by a former
patron of an atelier in the old school: as the
sentiments themselves show, the teaching
had a unique quality probably not to be seen
again in the lifetime of anyone who reads
this iSSUe.
Under the old atelier system any twenty
students who elected to form an atelier
could do so, studying under a patron of their
own choice - the snag was that the patron
would not necessarily be paid. In this unique
combination of extreme liberality with
almost Byzantine cunning lurks the essence
of the old system. There was no limit to the
duration of the course - it was indeed
perfectly possible to pass a lifetime striving
merely to gain entrance to the school
through the Concours d'Admission One of
the authors of this issue recalls several
students apparently fifty years old still
carrying out the equivalent of third year
studies after twelve or fifteen years - and
that as late as 1958. Progress through the
school was achieved by means of gaining a
number of Unites de Valeur, or 'Mentions.'
government Decree. In 1942 the Ordre des
Architectes was established by which a
government licence to practise was made
obligatory; in May 1968 one of the
revolutionary acts that thrilled the French
architectural profession was the tearing up
of Ordre membership cards.
The old system at the Beaux-Arts
probably achieved its greatest eminence
during the last half of the 19th century after
the dispute between reactionary students
headed by Juli en Guadet and Viollet-le-Duc,
who had been made a professor to
promote a programme of change, over
reforms including a reduction in
the age limit for the Prix de Rome.
This led to the revolt of 1863, after
which (his side having won) Guadet
proceeded to win the prize the following
year. He later became Professor of Theory.
In 1882 one in every four students was a
foreigner and the influence of the school in
the United States alone has been well
enough catalogued to justify its fame. In
1907 there were over I ,000 students in ten
ateliers whereas in 1850 there had been
barely 100 in four. I This global success was
however won at a cost in social relevance
which accelerated as the twentieth century
advanced. In 1750 Blonde! set a programme
for students at the Academy of Architecture
the Royalist predecessor to the Beaux
Arts - of a lighthouse on the sea shore2: as
late at 1967 the same problem was being set
I. SADG Bulletin. No 176
2. L'Arcllitecture d'aujourd'hui, No 143,
April/May 1969
to students uf the BeauxAI ts. Plagiarism
reached unbeltevable depths dunng the late
fifties when (for exampl e) Oscar Niemeyer's
Alvorado Palace at Brazilia would appear
again and again as 'A Court of Justice,' a
'Civic Centre', an 'Opera House' and so on.
Ultimate depths were reached during 1958
with the presentation of a thesis project for
the design of a missile launching station in
whjch the erect intercontinental missiles cast
immaculate shadows. Requirements for a
Diploma consisted of so many square metres
of chassis to be covered with rendered
drawings. Just as Le Corbus1er's famous
designs for the Palace of the League of
Nations were rejected because they were not
drawn in ink - so a project at the
Beaux-Arts could be rejected because it was
'non-geometrical.' Yet, in the end, it was not
so much the manifest and growing absurdity
of this system that brought about its
downfall: rather it was the breakdown of
Malthusian selection itself. Between 1960
and I 967 the number of students in French
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538 AD/9/71
,,
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t:.
A Beaux-Arts project of 1965.
Atelier Dengler. The design is for
a world gold reserve bank situated
on an island to the north of
Iceland. The vaults are
noteworthy in viewof the
reported remarks of M Dengler
(see text).
<l
'En Loge' at the old Beaux-Arts.
Students worked individually in
these booths on twelve hour
sketches on which future projects
were based. Despite elaborate
precautions plagiarism became the
rule.
universities .ncreased from 220,000 to
520,000, the number of students of
arcrutecture from 4,000 to 6,000. Both the
and the level of disatisfaction
mcreased m parallel ; worse still the Diplo
became more of a passport to a ma
proletarianized career of draughting
for a salary3 than an admission
ticket to an exclusive club. For this and
other reasons reforms began with the
creation of Groups A, B, C and C I in 1965
- largely as a result of the influence of
Candilis, Josie and Woods who had been
enviegled into teaching by the means
described earlier (more than twenty students
requested their appointment). Group C thus
formed removed itself with Candilis and
Josie to new quarters at the Grand Palais
where it became the centre of progressive
thought at the school. In 1967 Groups C and
Cl abandoned atelier teaching altogether. By
infinitesimal increments such subjects as
housing found their way onto the list of
projects formerly dominated by 'Un salon de
musique,' 'Une maison de garde d'un pare
national', 'La Banque Mondi.ale de /'Or',
'Une piscme c/Jlns un ctub pnve' and so on.
The slow progress via modest demands and
even more modest concessions persisted
until the catacylsm of May 1968.
JJM.tJut

An architecture of technocracy.
Interested in concentration camps? Have a look
at my ZAC (Zone d'habitations .C?'!centres).'
In which blocks of hutments adJOtntJll a
guardroom have been redrawn as blocks of
hutments adjoining a supermarket.
A cartoon in 'eru:AGe7.-vous' 1969.
Paris is now ringed with suburbs of wruch
the infamous Sarcelles is a typical example.
It is now also pricked by massive
and has several new airports. Within the c1ty
massive redevelopment is at work:
dispossessed occupants are for the most part
shipped out to the new suburbs, whence
they must travel in and out daily, and for
which they pay hJgher rents than formerly.
The famous market at Les Hailes is corning
down -it has already moved out to Rungis
on the way to Orly airport. The same
massive coarsening of the grain of
tissue is at work in Paris as in other c1ttes of
the West; the same simplification of social
types; the same erosion of variety; .the same
strangulation by traffic. But in Pans the
3. Henri Lefebvre, La Vie Quotidienne dans le
Monde Moderne, I 967
. ts worse hcnuse France itself ts
watton , .. f h f lh
st. \;d. o 1 t u c
tughl1 !'on over 9,000,000 people live
papu basin and the figure is expected
in to 14,00>,<?00 by the >:ear 2000.
to
10
s no other ctty m France wtth a
\ion of more than one million.

965 the 'Schema a master


for Paris regiOn, was published. It
plan osed eight new satelJite towns and two
pro_p movement axes; a north-south route
m
1
aJorthe Seine and a west-east rail and
a ong a1 d
toroutc. The former was rea y
aubstantially in existence; the latter had to
out or bought up -immense land
culation was the result. Furthermore the
spev 'Minister of Private Development'
ne' d . d.
Conic title), M. Chalan on - appOinte tn
1
'969 - confirmed that the eight satellite
towns to be reduced to five, each with ,;
opulatJOn of l 00,000, and that all were c
built by the private sector. Financial
interlocks between the contractors building
the motorways for the west-east route and
0
the contractors building housing for the new 0
towns enabled considerable profits to be f
made on land bought for the most part at
agricultural prices. A levy
imposed in 1965 at a particularly low level
has proved ineffective in controlling this
situation. .
At the same time the plan to decentralise
the universit ies of France was also
underway. This project, itself partly
responsible for the triggering of the May
events at Nan terre in April 1968, drew forth
the folloWing recent criticism from the
organisation which previously encouraged it:
Generally speaking, the exurbanization of the
universities has accentuated the unbalance of
the towns, bri'l!ing a degradation of the spirit
of the city centre, multiplying displacements, !-
aggravating segregation of all sorts. The internal
planning of the University Estate seldom gives a
satisfactory way of life - campuses are too vast
(over 300 ha. for Bordeaux and 20 ha. for
Grenoble), the habitations scattered, the
utilization of space too rigid, the circulation
schemes inarticulate and lacking a welcome
centre.
'Cahiers de l'lnstitut d'Amenagcment
et d'Urbanismc de Ia Region Parisienne,' No 23.
In Paris itself public outcry over the Les
Hailes plan has not prevented the demolition
ofBaltard's elegant iron 'umbrellas'; more
importantly it has not prevented the parallel
demolition of surrounding cheap housing
areas and their programmed replacement by
office blocks, railway stations, a museum of
modern art and expensive flats. As with
Covent Garden in London the planners and
apologists affect inability to understand the
basis of public opposition to redevelopment:
in Paris it proceeds apace. As Henri Lefebvre ..;
has pointed out, the class struggle is to be
found in the very fabric of urbanisation. As
Friedrich Engels pointed out long before, a
definitive characteristic of bourgeois
0
socialism is to seek to maintain the basis of
all social evils whilst at the same time
Wishing to eradicate them. At the time of
c:
-..

Q.
...
c

The new airport at Orly Ouest,' completed during
1971, entering service Spring 1972.
Maximum designed capacity for the Orly
airport (henceforth to be caUed Orly.Sud) was
reached in 1966. Since then it has
been operati'l! under increasing pressure.

.......
Belleville, scene of extensive redeveloJ?ment with
the native population removed to outer suburbs
whilst offices and expensive flats replace
thetr tenements.
the publication of the 'Schema Directeur' in
1965:
France had a population of about 50,000,000.
f '
o Section through part of the new Metro Express passing beneath the Rue Auber near the Opera.
539
3,000,000 of them were workers.
She had 15,000,000 dwellmgs. More than
half built before 1914.
Of the 14,000,000 dwellings built before
1962 53% had no bathrOom, shower or mtenor
w.c. Which is to say that more than half the
dwellings in France had no more than a cold water
tap. There were only one sixth as many bathrooms
in France as there were in Britain.
One in three {fifteen million) persons Lived
five or more persons to two rooms.
Three thousand single room dwellings were
occupied by nine or more people. (Immigrant
workers: 'La politique du lit chaud').
For five and a half million old age pensioners
there were 42,000 hostel beds.
For 4,000,000 childten below the age of four
there were 55,000 nursery p,taces.
'CoUectLI Logement.
Secours Rouge,' 1971.
'Our experience has shown us that it is possible
to have growth social reform -
is to say that quanhtahve growth can ex.st
without qualitative improvement. Under these
conditions social change tends to be more
apparent than real. Belief in change {the
ideology of Modernism) enables us to ignore
the stagnation of essential S<?cial values.' . ,
Henri Lefebvre, These sur La Vtllt: ,
SADG Bulletin, supplement to
No 167. 'Mai '68.'
'The latest Lou Harris Poll shows that 62% of
the British public do not want to join the Six.
20% do and 18% are undecided.lnterestingly
82% o/those questioned thought that Britain
would join the Common Market any way.'
TIME, May 3ht 1971.
Social paradoxes of this kind no doubt
exercised the minds of Beaux-Arts students
during the autumn of 1967 when they sat
down for the last time to ponder the
intricacies of 'A swimming pool for the
members of a private club.'
540 AD/9/71
Technio.1ues et Architecture,
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__ ,_ .. ,_ .. ____ .. ____ ....
Map of the Paris region, showing projected new
towns reduced to five - Jan. 1961.
Cergy-Pontoise, Marne Valley, Melun Senart ,
Evry, Trappes.
Map showifll planning permissions
for new office development in the
Paris Region, 1962-1969.
The massive centralisation is evident.
,.
,
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o
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Three times the he@ht of all surrouridifll buildings,
the new Maine-Montparnasse tower is ironically the
site of many student interventions amofllst
construction workers.
' --.. -IP'IIJ':C!I'!'IIIII'IIJ!II
.. .t,

... uN ltURA"tl DoMiN
T tAl A/ t I( I..JI6S.. ,


The nportance of the events of May
1 96b m the process of dissolution to which
the ENSBA was already subject can scarcely
be exaggerated. As we have seen, reforms
had begun in response to mounting criticism
during the early 1960's, notably in the
formation of the Atelier Candilis/Josic in
J964. and in the splitting off of 'Group C'
which removed to the Grand Palais (in the
prestigious VIII arrondissement) in the
autumn of 1965. But without the short lived
but very real political power which resulted
from the solidarity of students and workers
during the most bodeful phase of the May
revolt, it is doubtful if on the one hand the
ENSBA students would have become
sufficiently radicalised to demand as much
freedom as they did in January 1969, or on
the other that the administration would have
been so terrorised as to abandon the lockout
policy with which they greeted the return to
civil order in June 1968. An important
element, then as now, was the division of
responsibility between the Ministry of
Education - which was responsible for the
administration of the French universities -
and the Ministry of Culture, which retained
responsibility for architectural education.
Many observers, Anatole Kopp among them,
believed that once the revolt had failed the
authorities would deal with further ENSBA
disturbances by closing down the school
altogether. This they tried, as we shall see,
but abandoned after a comparatively short
time.
The following chronology of the events
of May is brief and drawn from several
sources, each of which on its own is more
complete. A selected list of more detailed
accounts is given at the end of the section.
The political origins of the events of May
extend back as far as the tripartiste union of
socialists, communists and Gaullist
technocrats which briefly ruled France in
the aftermath of the German occupation.
Charles de Gaulle resigned from leadership
of this unlikely coalition (which had indeed
only come into existence under wartime
pressure) in 1946 and in 194 7 tripartisme
itself collapsed. Nonetheless with the return
of General de Gaulle to power in 1958 an
accommodation with the communists and
the old Resistance belief in his willingness to
undertake socialist reforms enabled him to
carry the Social Democrat and Socialist
parties with him for much of his period of
office. By 1967 this quiescence on
the part of the Left was wearing thin and
~ e r i o u s trouble began to flow from the ..;
unportant gains the centre parties made in E
the general elections of that year. In the ~
spring of 1967 France was gripped by a wave ~
of large scale strikes in .public as well as ;
private sectors, and for the first time :l
engineers, technicians and highly skilled ~
workers in advanced industries began to take ff
a serious part. In the universities and ~
lycees, growi ng protest at the Vietnam war g
(which, it will be remembered, particularly 1l
concerned the French as Vietnam ""
was a colony until 1956) had exacerbated
the process of radicalisation begun a
decade earher w1th Algena. In the
summer of 1967 a number of governmental
decrees began to dismantle the reigning
social security system and increase direct
charges, General de Gaulle's puppet premier
Georges Pompidou angered Socialist
Deputies by delaying parliamentary debate
of these measures indefinitely.
By the autumn two separate levels of
exasperation with Gaullist government were
becoming clearly defined. On one the
French Communist party, together with the
more moderate parties of the Left, were
growing increasingly militant over the
President's handling of social and labour
issues. By Christmas 1967 half a million
French workers were unemployed, a large
proportion of them skilled and many of
them representatives of the new
technologybased industries. A further three
million workers earned less than 12 for a
forty eight hour week, and the difference
between top and bottom salaries in industry
had increased by 40% since General de
Gaulle's return to power. On another level,
and one far more dangerous to the regime,
students and /yceens struggling under an
antiquated education system (which had
seen an increase in the number of university
students of over 100% between 1960 and
1967), were growing increasingly angry
over both the universities' failure to keep
pace with contemporary needs, and the
shabbiness and mediocrity of the technical
and managerial roles it offered to those who
survived years of Malthusian attrition in
order to graduate at aU. On this level,
dissaffection was already too severe to be
removed by piecemeal reforms; only a major
transformation of the whole education
process and its relation to the hated 'societe
spectaculaire marchande, might soothe- it.
Thus with the orthodox Left now fully
emerged from its somnambulant acceptance
of Gaullism, and a 'New Left' emerging in
the schools and universities. the 24 hour
Graffiti at Nanterre - 1968.
strike called by the CGT (the Communist
controlled Conjederatwn Gbu!rale du
Travail) and the CFDT (the formerly
Catholic Confederation rranratse
Democratique du Travail, which enjoyed a
heavy white collar representation) during the
winter of 1967 achieved the status of a
portent when it was noted that students of
eight Paris lycees joined in. The two levels of
dissent were coming together.
In the spring of 1968, the French
Communist party intensified its opposition
to the Vietnam war in an attempt to prevent
itself being outflanked by extremist student
and workers' organisations; in consequence
demonstrations against unemployment and
rule by Presidential Decree, and in favour of
university reform, tended to merge in the
eyes of the government into one threat of
disorders. Throughout April strikes and
university disturbances gained force; at
Nanterre (where a New Arts Faculty of th{l
University of Paris had been built in 1964 a.
part of a programme of decentralisation)
uproar broke out on the 25th April
following several student occupations and
the steady splintering of UNEF (the Union
Nationale des Etudiants de France, an
organisation with over 80,000 members
which had been losing central control ever
since the end of the Algerian War). On
Thursday May 2nd, the Faculty at Nanterre
was finally closed down following persistent
. . criticism by Daniel Cohn-Bendit and the '22
Mars' group. On the same day the right wing
'Occident' group attempted to burn down
student union offices at the Sorbonne.
Eyents escalated quickly following the
Nanterre closure and the following day CRS
(Compagnie Republicaine de Securite) riot
troops surrounded the Nan terre campus; in
Paris the Sorbonne and Science faculties
both closed - the former with much
violence by police with tear gas. Over the
weekend all demonstrations were banned
and the Ministef of Education branded the
student strikes as illegal.
Je mens
Jt toctncot
Sites of 20 buricades in the Latin Quarter.
Monday 6th May
60,000 demonstrators making their way
towards the Sorbonne were attacked by the
CRS. 739 demonstrators were hospitalised
and the first barricades to be erected in Paris
since 1944 sprung up around the Latin
Quarter. The University strikes spread
around the country, fifteen Paris lycees
struck in sympathy. The UNEF appealed to
the people of France for support: the CFDT
sympathised, the CGT did not.
Tuesday 7th May
UNEF and SNE Sup (the university
teachers union) drew up a joint list of
demands. Student strikes spread further and
appeals to workers were made. Further
demonstrations took place in Paris. The
French Con1munist Party denounced the
students as ' pampered adventurists': the
CFDT renewed its support. At this point it
became evident that without CGT support,
the insurrection - for that is what it had
become - was unlikely to succeed. From
then on everything depended on the support
of Unions and workers.
Wednesday 8th May
The Ecole des Beaux Arts struck. 20,000
students demonstrated in Paris and the three
emerging student leaders debated: Sauvageot
(UNEF), Geismar (SNE Sup) and Cohn
Bendit (22 Mars). A student demonstration
in Marseilles was supported by workers in
large numbers. The CGT asked the
government to reopen the faculties closed
down the week before.
Thursday 9th May
Lower echelons of the CGT supported a
student demonstration in Dijon.
Friday lOt h May
The Nanterre and Sorbonne faculties
reopened administrative staff only were
admitted to the latter. Demonstrations
occupied the day and by evening 50,000
students and sympathisers were in the Latin
Quarter. They erected sixty barricades and
that night a pitched battle with the CRS
took place. 180 cars were destroyed. CGT
and CFDT fi nally called a general strike for
Monday to protest against government
oppression.
Monday I 3th May
The General stnke was Widely
Over 600,000 marched in Paris, and student
and CGT contingents fraternised. CRS
troops withdrew from the Sorbonne and it
was re-occupied by the students, their
comites d'action located in the Censier
Annexe. Many Local Action Committees
were established in the provinces.
Tuesday 14th May
The Nanterre faculty declared itself
independent. Almost all universities in the
country were either occupied or on strike.
At 3 pm a provisional strike committee
informed the administrative council of the
ENSBA that the students were taking
possession of all premises. Joint
student/worker demonstrations took place
in Rouen. ORTF (Office de Radio et
Television Franfaises} finally acknowledged
the existence of student rebels. General de
Gaulle left on a state visit to Roumania.
Wednesday 15th May
Strikes and occupations of factories
spread throughout the country. The Odeon
national theatre was occupied by
demonstrators for public discussion. The
General Assembly of the ENSBA strikers
published a declaration of aims and
demands.
' We oppose the emptiness of educational
content and the pedagogical manner in which it
is put over because everything is organised so as
to ensure the production of human beings
without critical awareness or knowledge of
social and economic realities.
' We oppose the role which society expects
inteUectuals to play, along with technocrats, as
the watch-dogs in a system of bourgeois
economic production, seeing to it that each
man feels happy with his lot, even when he is
exploited.
' We want to fight against the domination of
education by the profession, by means of the
Ordre des A rahitectes or other corporate
bodies. The teaching of architecture should not
merely consist of the repe_tition of 'good
practice' until the pupil becomes a carbon copy
of the master. We want to fight against the
conditions in which architecture is
subordinated to the interests of public or
private promoters. How many architects have
agreed to cany out projects such as
SarceUes . ?
Thursday 16th May
StiU without official Union support the
wave of strikes and occupations spread
around France. Occupied faculties began to
organise staff/student management
committees. General de GauUe in Roumania
and Premier Pompidou in Paris conversed
telephone and the former decided to
advance the date of his return to the
Saturday. At ENSBA the Atelier Populo ire
for the production of posters and
propaganda material established itself in
occupied studios with a proclamation.
' We are the established ord!!r of
today. What IS bourgeois culture. It is the
means by which the forces of oppression of the
ruling class isolate and set apart the from
the workers by giving. them a privileged status.
Privilege locks the artist in an invisible prison.
The fundamental concepts which underlie t11is
act of isolation which bourgeois culture brings
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about are the idea that art is 'autonomous' and
the idea that 'creative freedom' is real freedom.
In giving the artist a privileged status, culture
places the art ist in a position where he is
absolutely harmless and yet can act as a safety
valve for the discontents bourgeois society
generates. This is the situation of every one of
us. We are aU bourgeois artists, how could it be
otherwise?'
Friday 17th May
The CGT became disturbed at the
increasing fraternisation between Its own
workers and the students. In the PCF (Parti
Communiste Fram;ais} !here were
acrimonious disputes between factions for
and against the students. The CFDT openly
called for further spreading of the strike
movement. Meanwhile the students
organised a demonstration march from one
side of Paris to the other, ending at the
Renault works at Boulogne-Billancourt
where the CGT endeavoured to prevent
fraternisation and occupation of the factory.
Saturday 18th May
General de Gaulle returned from
Roumania and an emergency cabinet
meeting was held. Public opinion polls
showed that 55% of the population
supported the students, 60% wished for 'a
new form of society', but opposed the
strike movement. All air and rail transport
was paralysed. The Gaullists began to
organise the CDR (Comitees de Defense de
Ia Republique) and the extreme right wing
organisations offered their support in return
for the release of General Salan. impnsoned
for treason at the close of the Algerian War.
In Cannes, the film festival was broken up
and many directors removed their enlries. At
ENSBA. the strike committee announced
that the course begun by the first year that
month was being abandoned as invalid.
..
Sunday 19th May
General de Gaulle held a ministerial
conference, he saw the choice facing him as
between reform and depraved disorder. 'Les
ref ormes, oui, Ia chien/it, non!' Format ion
of CDR's proceeded apace. The strike then
covered aU transport, the na lionalised
industries, the steel industry, the banks, the
public services including ORTr.
Monday 20th May
Georges Scguy, General Secretary of the
CGT declared himself unimpressed by ideas
of workers' control, reform of society and
suchlike. On Europe Radio No I he
announced the CGT's own aims.
... A general rise in wages, guaranteed full
employment, an earlier ret irement age,
reduction in worki ng hours wit hou t loss of pay,
the defence and e>.t ensio n of trades union
rights in factories.'
(These were almost exactly the concessions
General de Gaulle allowed afler the elections
held one month later). Meanwhile,
encouraged by marauding bands of CDR's,
many thousands of immigrant labourers and
their fami li es had begun to fl ee France.
Tuesday 21st May
At tlus point approximately ten mill ion
546 AD/9/71
workers and students were on stnke.
Essential public services were kept 111
operation by volunteer groups of key
workers occupying their factories. In Pekin,
effigies of General de Gaulle were burned by
demonstrators chanting 'Long live the Paris
Commune.' The strike committee at ENSBA
issued a pamphlet.
.. We are determined to transform what we
are in society. Let us make it clear that it is not
the forging of better links between art and
technology that we want - that would merely
intensify our alienation. We wa nt to open our
eyes to the problems of other workers, to
understand the historical reality of the world tn
which we live. No teacher can help us
familiarise ourselves with that r eality, we must
all teach ourselves. This does not mean that
objective- and therefore admissable -
knowledge does not exist . Older artists and
older teachers can help us to understand it. But
o nly on condition that they themselves have
decided to transform what they are in society,
and to take part in the work of self educatio n.'
Wednesday 22nd May
A motion of censure on the government
was heavily defeated, receiving only 223
votes. Daniel Cohn Bendit, who had been
speaking in Brussels, was refused re-entry
into France. The CGT and CFDT issued a
joint communique stating their willingness
to negotiate with the government more or
Jess on the lines laid down by Seguy's
broadcast. The isolation of the students had
begun.
offer began negotiations with General Mass
commander of the French Army of the u,
Rhine for military support in the event of
open insurrection.
Saturday 25th and Sunday 26th May
The government finally attempted to spl't
off the students by negotiating with
1
management and unions in the Rue de
Grenelle. the directors of thuty
theatres andMa1sons de Ia culture issued a
joint communique on the necessary
politicisation of culture.
Monday 27t h May
The Grenelle negotiations finally ted to
an offer of a minimum wage, a small
reduction in working hours and a 10% nsc to
all workers. All over the country the strikers
refused to accept the agreement, some CGT
contingents began to abandon their
leadership. The CFDT finally refused to sign
the 'Grenelle' agreement. The government
thereupon began to arm the CDR's, cut off
supplied of petrol to garages, and denounce
the students and strikers as tools of
organised crime. A referendum was promised
for June 4th. At the Charlety stadium in
Paris a mass meeting attended by 50,000
(including former Premier Pierre Mendes
France) debated the possibility of a new
society. By Wednesday 29th of May, the day
General de Gaulle made his secret flight to
Baden Baden to confer with General Massu,
the events of May had already passed their
peak. The revolutionary zeal of the uni ons
including the CFDT had terminated in the
proposal of the old socialist Pierre
Mendes-France as the leader of a new
government. This choice, unacceptable to
J the PCF or the CGT, and somewhat less than
! galvanising to the student activists of 22
! Mars UNEF and SNE Sup, marked the
Thursday 23rd May
Once again the CFDT raised its earl ier
demand for workers' control but the CGT
refused to foll ow suit. Independent radio
stations were told that henceforth they
would not be allowed to use roving
microphones in covering demonstrations and
meetings. Radio Luxembourg was
threatened with closure of its Paris office. ln
Pekin over a miUion Chinese marched to
express solidarity with ' The just struggle of
the French students and workers.' In
London the l.SE was occupied as an
expression of solidarity.
Friday 24th May
General de Gaulle made a broadcast via a
radio transmitter barricaded at the top of
the Eiffel Tower, manned by blackleg
technicians. He offered a referendum on
public participation in government in June.
A riot followed the close of a CGT
demonstration attended by 200,000. The
Bourse was set on fire and police stations
were sacked. General de Gaulle,
disappointed by the reception accorded his
failure of 'new forms of social organisation'
to progress beyond the level of images
reflected in the waU slogans, debates and
posters of precedi ng weeks. As Jean-Pierre
Vigier observed afterwards, l the established
institutions of opposition to the status quo
had revealed themselves utterly incapable
of tlunking beyond it.
' Political and economic organizations, founded
to oppose capitalism, have slowly acquired the
same hierarchical structures and methods of
acting as the system they cl aim to be attacking.
In other words, except for their rhetoric they
have actively attempted to integrate their
supporters into the system. They have
systematically minimised conflict and sought to
make temporary compromise after temporary
compromise. But these have never really been
compromised because the essential has always
been conceded . . They have become incapable
of proposing any meaningful alternative to the
present hierarchical system. '
The hiatus did not last long. Before the
end of the week the CGT renewed its efforts
to redirect the strike movement into
reformist channels with more limited aims.
Thus General de Gaulle's belated
arrangement with the French anny which
involved the declarati on of martial law
l. Jean Pierre Vigier Tfle Action Committees
1?68.
event of the PCF jo1mng the revolutionanes
_became an insurance policy almost as soon
as it was reached. On Thursday 30th May a
massive Gaullist demonstration in the Place
de Ia Concorde, facilitated by the use of
armY transport to convey suburban and
provmcial supporters to the centre, attracted
over one million participants. His confidence
restored, the General thereupon dissolved
the National Assembly and proposed a
general election in place of the referendum
previously offered. The PCF revealed that it
expected (instead of a revolutionary
conquest of the country) to increase its vote
by between four and six per cent.
On Saturday June 1st, the beginning of
the Bank holiday, normalisation was speeded
up by the release of petrol supplies delivered
to filling stations by troops driving civi lian
tankers. Queues a mile long formed with
owners pushing their cars so as not to
exhaust the few drops of petrol left in their
tanks for the homeward drive should
supplies t'ttn out. They did not, and the
holidays got off to a good start. The rest of
the story can be briefly told as the alliance
between students and workers was by then
effectively extinct. On Wednesday 12th June
Left wing student organisations were banned
and all demonstrations forbidden. On the
13th the workers councils were dissolved.
On the 14th General Salan was released from
pnson and an OAS amnesty granted. On
Sunday 16th the Sorbonne was cleared of
students by the police, and on Monday the
Odeon theatre also. During the night of the
26th/27th June, starting at four o'clock in
the morni ng, police attacked and cleared the
ENSBA. On Sunday 30th General de Gaulle
won h1s last electoral victory on a platform
of reform and participation- but no
fundamental social change. The events of
May were over.
'The histori cal role of the student commune wiU
be all the more enhanced by its never having
been anything but itself. Those who believe that
its mission was to trigger a workers' revolution
and those who feel that it should have
concentrated on university reform have
misunderstood its role. Precisely because it was
utopian rather than construc tive it was able to
envisage a future which embraced society as a
whole. Because it refused to compromise it is
already exemplary. Ed M .
1968 gar onn .
Accounts of the events of May 1968.
Refltions on the revolurion in France I 968
J::d. Charles Posner, Pelican 1970. ' '
'Architecture, Jl,fouvement, Continuite,
Bulletin de Ia Societe des Architec tes
boplomes par le Gouvernement, Supplement to
No 167, 'Special Mai 68'.
Partisans, No 42, MaifJuin 1968, 'Un seul
combat' Notes et etudes documentaires. Nos
3722/3723.
'Chronologie des evenements de MaifJ uin
1968'
La Documentation Francaise, Paris 1970.
Partisans. No 53, MaifJuin 1970, 'La selection
aux Beaux Arts'
Carre 8/eu, No 3, Feuille internationale
archotecture, Paris 1968.
Posters from the revolution, Dobson London
1969
'Arcl;itecture, Mouvement Continuite'
de Ia SADG, No 1'70, 'Mai '68 che1 les
architectes,' Monique et Raymond
J ean Michel Fourcade, Andre
?,lucksmann. 'Strategie et R evolution en
r ranee: J968 '.
548 AD/9/71

FONC"riONNfl
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I
"France" is pacified by riot police in the home -
aftermath of May 1968.
The Grand Palais in t he VIII arrondissement on the
banks of the Seine. Home of UPS and UP7.
With the end of the ENSBA occupation
and the dispersal of the strike committee in
June 1968, the future of the school of
architecture resumed the dubious aspect it
had enjoyed since the formation of Group C
in 1965. Since that date integration into the
university system had been one of the
principal reforms demanded by both
students and junior staff. The experience of
fraternisation afforded by the grouping of
several ateliers under the same roof at the
Grand Palais had stimulated even greater
interest in what came to be called the 'credit
card' system; a method whereby students
could accumulate credits (unites'de valeur)
in different courses within the university, all
of them contributing to the total necessary
for the award of a Diploma. The dissolution
of the schpol carried out at the height of the
events of May had however greatly increased
the confidence of the more radical students,
so much so that a communication from the
Ministry of Culture (20th August 1968)
proposing interim measures for the corning
academic year, which included abandonment
of the Prix de Rome and promised
'participation' in negotiations with the
university, was rejected as inadequate. A
further communication outlining an interim
structure of independent Unites
PMagogiques - five to be located in Paris,
and others in the provinces - was refused by
a large majority of students and staff. On the
16th September 1968 the AG (Assemblee
Genera/e) of students and teachers wrote an
Open letter to the Ministry of Culture
demanding unconditional reopening of the
school. An attempt at re-occupation by
force on the same day was prevented by the
police, although about thirty students
remained in the building for a time.
By the beginning of October the
ex-ENSBA section of the SNE Sup (the
union of teachers in Higher Education) had
prepared a list of their demands for the
future organisation of architectural
education. On 8th October the AG set forth
for the last time its arguments in favour of
integration with the university.
1. We are faghting against a feudal
institution.
Against a privileged corps of Patrons
(Mandarinat).
Against the absence of any objective
body of knowledge to underlie our
studies.
Against preferment awarded according to
subjective criteria - that is beautiful, he
is gifted etc.
Against the surxender of teaching to a
non-academic profession.
Against the encouragement of fantastic
projects whilst real crises - such as the
housing problem - are ignored.
2. We do not want Unites Pooagogiques
Because they will merely become
competitive schools.
Because they will foster the creation of
new hierarchies - Diplomas granted by
one will be more highly valued than those
granted by another etc.
Because they will adapt themselves to
existing economic forces and continue to
be at the service of the technocracy.
3. We want rat ional, object ive teaching.
A scientific evaluation of information.
Close ties with other disciplines engaged
in the development of new social
concepts.
Projects related to the social realities of
our time.
Consequently we demand from the
administration of the ENSBA clear
responses to the following demands.
The same regulations as are operative in
the university.
No examination for admission.
The same number of scholarships as are
available to. university students.
The same requirements for the selection
of staff.
The same administrative framework.
The possibility of exchanging credits with
other disciplines.
The same opportunities for research.
The document ended by demanding that
the admission class of 1967/8, whose efforts
had been interrupted by the May events and
the subsequent closure of the school, should
be promoted immediately to the second year
of the course. Furthermore, that years spent
trying to gain admission to ENSBA should
henceforth count as years passed in a course
of six years maximum duration.
Response to these demands arrived within
a few weeks. Although the matter of the
1968 admissionnistes was settled by some
manipulation of the old rules governing oral
exarninations, the Ministry of Culture
proved inflexible over the question of
integration with the university. On
December 6th 1968 a Ministerial Decree
created five Unites Ndagogiques of between
400 and 700 students in Paris; and thirteen
provincial Unites. The decentralisation of
ENSBA was described as follows.
'Thus the architectural section of the former
ENSBA wid give birth to pedajogical units with
complete economic and administrative
autonomy, and educational autonomy subject
to reservations arising from the necessity of a
common framework for the purposes oC
professional competence. The thirteen
provincial schools wid also operate as
autonomous pedagogical units.'
Faced with this act of force majeure
approximately half the ex-ENSBA students
and some staff elected to join one or other
of the five Paris Unites which were quickly
established as follows (in each case the
description of the aims of the Unite is taken
from the French official schoolleavers
publication issued by the Office National
d1nformation sur les Enseignements et les
Professions).
Unite Pedagogique No 1.
Location The former ENSBA building on
Aims
:
the Quai Malaquais.
To develop a critical attitude (at
the same time pragmatic) in the
face of environmental problems.
To seek to supply the needs of
the vast majority of the
population who are living in an
industrial society undergoing
continuous change, by means of
the development of an overview
which is both comprehensive
and technological.
When asked to describe this Unite an
architect and teacher who had played an
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two months imprisonment.
important part 111 the foundation ol Group C
in 1965 replied as follows.
This group shares a political attitude rather
than an attitude to design. They have achieved
a linguistic homogeneity. Within the limits of
their political stance they are tJying to develop
a way of teaching an architecture which
conforms to the official PCP line. Their results
are, I think. more efficient - but not better-
than any ot the other Unites.
A project 'Espaces de Transition'
exhibited in the studio of UP I in January
1971 was headed by the following slogan.
I( aU human activities were programmed 24
hours per day, and if all took place in
functionally isolated locations, man would
become a machine and li fe would become
impossible.
Unite Pedagogique No 2.
Location The former ENSBA building on
the Quai Malaquais.
Aims We are not prepared to let the
architectural profession die, nor
to let it be reduced to a
specialism. We are not prepared
to defend the unique, isolated
traditional practice of
architecture. We proclaim the
indissoluble union of practice
and research. Our UP is
organised around three
functions: information, research
and teaching. We train practical
men.
Unite Pedagogique No 3.
Location The fonner stables of the Royal
Palace at Versailles.
Aims To provide a broad education in
architecture so that the graduate
will be competent to operate at
all levels of society. To provide
specialised technical training
orientatt'd towards the
construction of buildings. To
this end the staff will operate
initially as encouragers of
imagi nation; secondarily as
sources of reference, and finally
as consul tants.
Unite Pedagogique No 4. (Unite Pedagogique
de Synthese)
Location Quai Malaquais.
Aims The aim of this, the Unite of
synthesis, is to train architects in
the broadest sense of the word.
Men capable of creating,
developing and finally directing
teams of specialists to bring into
being the products of the art of
building and the manipulation of
space.
The archi tect who previously described
UP I gave the following description of UPs
2,3 and 4.
Unite Pedagogique No 5
Location Grand-Palais. Avenue Franklin
D. Roosevelt.
Aims The organisation of teaching at
UP 5 provides both the
formation of an approach to
environmental design by means
of exercises in volume, colour
and form; and a sound
grounding in the human sciences
of psyche- sociology, urbanism,
geography and economics.
In the two years following the Ministerial
Decree of December 1968, three more
Unites were created. The first - UP 6
grew from a call put out by the AG on the
1Oth 1 anuary 1969 for a boycott on the
Unite structure initially proposed. This call
was answered by the signatures of 1,200
students and 78 staff- all of whom refused
to enrol in any of the five established Unites.
After a forcible occupation of their old
premises in the ENSBA buildings, and
several vicissitudes which will be described in
the next section, this group was given an
official (but tentative) designation UP 6.
More than two years after this concession
the official Information sur les
Enseignements. et les Professions publication
mentioned earlier still claimed that
information on the aims and organisation of
UP 6 had not yet arrived ('Renseignements
sur !'organisation des etudes non encore
parvenus'). In view of the importance of the
activities of UP 6 since 1969 this is
surprising.
UP 7 came into existence as an extension
of UP 5 with which it now shares the
cavernous volume of the Grand-Palais. UP 8
-as we shall see - was formed as a splinter
group from the mass of UP 6 late in I 969.
Unite Ndagogique No 7. Is listed in the
J:'nseignements elles Professions handbook
as is UP 8.
Unite Pedagogique No 7.
Location Grand-Palais. Avenue Franklin
D. Roosevelt.
Aims The aim of UP 7 is to train
architects capable of operating
on many levels, capable of
adapting to the shifts of a
society in gestation, and capable
of participating in its evolution.
Unite Pedagogique No 8.
Locati on Les Halles.
Aims The teachers of UP 8 endeavour
to instruct the fundamentals of
contemporary technology: the
rational basis of the conception
and realisation of projects; and
to interpret the spatial
consequences of the built
environment in terms of social
meaning.
The architect quoted earlier on
the subject of the original Unites, described
'UP's 5, 7 and 8 as follows.
These students and teachers are opportunists.
They have taken advantage of the disorder
which followed the collapse of ENSBA to take
upon themselves the teaching of a ' new' form
or archjtecture. The Ministry - eager to solve
its problem - has placed in their hands
problems which they are incapable of resolving,
whether they claim to be doing so or not.
Of the unacknowledged UP 6 the same
architect said.
These are the only people who believe that the
real structure of the new teaching must be
developed continuously, in the ligltt of
experiences and experiments which wiU
themselves define the architects role and his
task.
Students in these Unites are grouped around
the old academic Patrons who still romantically
believe in the obsolete teachings of the Beaux
Arts. These are small groups circling around old
men who are dying. They are also students who
are interested in obtaining diplomas as quickly
as possible and with the least di sturbance. Beaux-Arts students locked in after the attempted re-occupation of 16th September, 1968.
550
-
Redevelopment project for Saint Denis, Paris. UP I. Diploma proj ect 3111 Cycle.
Urban studies. Projects for town houses in Tuamotua, French Polynesia. UPJ. Versailles 2nd Cycle.
'The placing of a parallelepiped on an imaginary
site.' A project from the l st Cycle of UPS.
551
552 AD/9/71
(,es Cahiers d'UP 6. 1969-7 1
January lOth 1969. ' L' Appel du 10 Janvier'
Official reopening of the ex-ENSBA
buildings after their closure by the strike
committee during the May events. The wave
of criticism which had greeted the
inauguration of the new Unites Ndagogiques
culminated in the circulation of a petition,
eventually signed by 1,200 students and 78
staff. protesting at the way in which the new
order ignored their pleas of the previous
October (see 'Pacification') for integration
into the university.
We the undersigned deplore the recent
decsions of the Ministry which have presented
bOth students and staff with a fait accompli in
the form of Unites Pedagogiques created with
no consideration for their wish to have their
studies integrated with those of the university.
In the absence of any attempt to rationalise
architectural education the UP's will themselves
become merely competitive schools on the old
pattern.
We further protest at the entirely inadequate
thought given to the organisation, location and
financing of these UP's, particularly at a time
whed' of students has greatly
increased and the cost of technical education is
mounting.
We also deplore the failure of the proposals
to clarify the status of teachers in schools of
architecture.
Among the 78 staff who signed the
'Appel du 10 Janvier' were Faugeron (a
particular target for student dislike owing to
his close connections with the public works
prOJects of the Gaullists), Candilis and
Schein, but also the entire academic staff of
the former Group C. The UP arrangement in
fact pleased few apart from the government
who were eager to break up the mass of
students concentrated in the centre of Paris.
January 17th 1969 Assemblee Generale.
A meeting of the AG voted
overwhelmingly in favour of occupation of
the school premises by the signatories of the
Appel du 10 Janvier and the establishment
of courses of study related to the demands
of October 8th.
January l Oth 1969 'Rentree Sauvage'.
The occupation takes
place but the authorities react with
surprising flexibility. Confused at first as to
whether student opposition to the Decree of
Decem tier 6th establishing the five Unites
was political or academic in origin, they
resolved to test the matter by legitimising
the occupation. The 1,200 students and 78
staff are christened Unite Nc!agogique No 6
and given the same autonomy as the other
five. Ten new staff are appointed including
Le Dantec of Sartre's 'La Cause du Peuple:
February 25th 1969
A further meeting of the AG resolves not
to accept the status of UP but to allow 'the
present state of ambiguity to continue for as
long as in order that the maximum
amount of useful work may be done wrthout
official hindrance.' Work on the
development of an improved course
structure begins at once.
April 19th 1969. Political Aims.
Group EM 68 (t'nvironnement Mai '68)
prcscuts a fe.\IC! cl'Orientativn Pvlitique to
the Assemblee Genera/e. Taken in
conjuncti on with the demand for integration
with the university of October 8th 1968 this
document makes clear the position of UP 6
in relation to the ex-ENSBA administration
and the government.
WHERE WE STAND.
Environnement M.68 is dedicated to
returning to the people the power of
decision and the right to manage their
own affairs.
Environnement M.68 is a militant
organisation which welcomes all who
fight against:
The built environment created by the
bourgeoisie with its technocratic and
functional justifications.
and for:
A democratically organised built
environment achieved by the
transformation of the means of
construction.
WHAT DO WE DENOUNCE?
1. We denounce present methods of
environmental design and construction
which are merely instruments of
alienation in the hands of the ruling class
- in France the bourgeoisie.
2. We denounce the injustice of the present
processes of environmental design and
wnstruction whose results are endured
by oppressed classes who have no
means of influencing them.
3. We denounce the cartels which control
this process of development; the lobbies
and pressure groups, the banks,
professions, the administrative and
Unidentified photograph of wall list
technical bureaucracy who are all in the
service of the ruling cJas.,. We denounce
the mystification and alienation which
hides reality in this domain, and which
consequently operates as another form of
oppression.
4. We denounce the bourgeoi:. conception
of man, it is a mere alibi for an alienated
society.
S. We denounce bourgeois art and culture as
instruments of ideological domination in
their own right.
6. We denounce the class segregation
perpetuated and augmented by present
bourgeois urbanism.
7. We denounce the poverty which today
exists S<Jiely to protect land values.
WHAT WILL WE FIGHT FOR?
I. We will fight for the collective ownership
of land and the means of production
which will then be removed from the
realm of private profit.
2. We will fight to ensure that the users of
the environment are given the power to
design, construct , control and manage it:
they retain the power of real intervention
over matters that concern them.
3. We will fight to disseminate the truth
about the built environment outside the
corrupt channels of the bourgeois press.
4. We will fight to reform professional
education so that it can never again cease
to respond to the real needs of the
: people.
EM.61S.
Pour un environnement
Oemocratique.
EM 68 is henceforth to comprise seven
working groups: an information group, who
will take charge of the production and
editing of a monthly magazine; a liaison
'
.
( tJ'
' ,.. 1,
.. ' .. t
(. r- .
1
"1:.: 1: , ...
' ,
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:.. . !"' ,.
..... ..
553
group consisting of one member of each of
the other groups charged with liaison with
the AG; a group Ill charge of recruiting; a
group responsible for relations with other
organisations of parallel aims ; t wo groups
charged with the prosecution of community
action, one in and the other
diffused among several Bidonvilles in the
Paris area; and finally a group charged with
the production of 'White Papers' on the
theory of social archHecture.l
June 1969
Turning the referendum on
regionalisation into a vote of confidence,
General de Gaulle loses and resigns as
President. Malraux resigns as Minister of
Culture, he is succeeded by Michelet.
July. l969
Ignoring the conditions laid down by the
AG in October J 968 the Ministry of Culture
proposes a new conference to discuss the
precise role and status of teachers in the
UPs. Still intent on university integration
UP6.and several of provincial UPs refuse to
attend. Instead UP 6 publishes its own
statement of educational objectives. In
outline this plan involves the creation of
working groups or 'modules' to undertake
specific studies within the framework
outlined in October, so that:
1. More serious long term studies can be
undertaken.
2. By retaining the provisional character of
the teaching arrangements already
devised, the working groups should retain
the flexibility necessary for them to
adapt to the university system when
occasion serves.
3. A constant liaison should be maintained
with the university, relevant courses
there should be followed, and the level of
teaching in UP 6 should not be allowed
to revert to the old closed pattern.
4. The organisation of credits (Unites de
valeur) should be sufficiently flexible to
permit various graduations of study,
from major to minor, obligatory,
specialist and optional.
5. Each student should be able to determine
the object of his own studies and to
proceed towards that object by means of
attendance at the university and work at
UP 6 with his working group. Both to be
interchangeable.
These aims, spelt out in detail in
'ObJectifs des Etudiants et E'nsetgnants
Architectes et Plasticiens Groupes autour de
l'Appel du JOJanvier 1969', were based on
the existence of the Centre Experimentale
de Vincennes, a university department
established the previous year for the study
of environmental and urban problems in
which most of the ex-ENSBA students who
later formed UP 6 had enrolled during the
autumn of 1968-when it seemed that
ENSBA was not to reopen. Arrangements
with Vincennes were of course not
legitimised by the ex-ENSBA administration,
l . These are abstracts of lectures and books that
,ave been produced regularly since.
554
so course credits gained there were only
usable in the then ambiguous context of UP
6. This arrangement did however serve as a
bridgehead into the university system and
was jealously guarded as such. The three two
year cycles, out of which the six year course
at all the UP's was constructed, was only
adopted by UP 6 with the proviso that the
fust cycle of two years should retain parity
with courses at Vincennes so that students
could in theory decide at the end of that
time whether to continue their studies in
architecture or at the university. The
university issue, it will be remembered,
originated in the control of architectural
studies by the Ministry of Culture rather
than the Ministry of Education (in Engl ish
terms this roughly equates with the control
of all schools of architecture by the historic
buildings section of the Ministry of Works).
The entire dispute over university
integration was based on the ,ij1ndamentally
different attitudes to architecture taken by
the younger staff and students on the one
hand, and the Minister of Culture on the
other - particularly during the tir)1e when
Andre Malraux held that office. A cartoon
of the period showed an underling
explaining to Malraux that the students of
architecture were restive and wished to change
their course structure. Malraux replies
'Architecture? But surely these things are
eternal ... '
In response to the Ministerial initiative
over the question of the precise role and
status of teachers in the UP's, UP 6 f!llally
proposed an unofficial Federation of Unites
Pedagogiques for the purpose of
homologating at least the first of the two
year cycles so as to prevent the rebirth of
competitive schools. Several Paris and
provincial UPs joined this Federation which
was to have some influence during the strike
of November 1969.
problem is to remain optimistic in a situation
w1th no possible outcome." Caption to a cartoon
of Bernard Huet.
September 1969 Formation of UP 8.
to the splitting off of a number of stude
who form a separate Unite nts
Pedagog1que no 8. (No 7 having alread
formed at the Grand Palais). The reas/
this split a.re not entirely clear, and for
contacts VJa working groups were maint
long after. Bernard Huet, who left with
b.reakaway group and now teaches at uP 8
giVeS the follow!llg explanation. '
6 was a latge unstructured grou , Its
actions were spontaneous. Many orfts stud
have chosen a revolutionary mode of Politi
as a means ?f criticising
arch.ttectural practice and l respect their
many ot!ters however continue their
reacti?nary practice under the cloak of these
gauch1stes, as do many technocrats. The
is filled with inconsistencies, that is whygroweup
left.'
He later described the philosophy of uPS
as follows.2
' We do not wish to be concerned with plannin
social systems because that is a political
8
to be solved by politicians. What we
ask forts a framework, defined by politics
within which we can work.' '
Debate over the question of the political
value of architecture versus the architectural
value of political action became prominent
with the creation of UP 8. During the events
of May the pol itical.impera tives within the
school had been overwhelming. Now faced
with a non-revolutionary situation the
question of the social value. of architectural
studies came to the fore.
October 21st 1969. First riot since May.
Beginning of academic year 69/70. On
the 21st a fight between 100 ex-ENSBA
students and the police develops over a
demonstration held to coincide with the visit
of a high government official to a nearby
school. Carrying banners reading 'New
Society: Old Repression' and 'Three deaths
every day on building sites: this is bourgeois
architecture,' the students are forced back
into the courtyard of the ENSBA buildings.
Entrenched behind their railings they throw
missiles at the police, four of whom are
injured. (Le Monde 23 Oct).
Students occupy the office of the Director of the
Beaux-Arts for an emergency creche, October 1969.
October 23rd 1969. 'Creche Sauvage.'
The first attempt to open the school to
the outside world and intervene in social
crises. Noting that only nine children out of
every thousand has a place in a creche in
France, and claiming also that babysitting is
a principal cause of poor attendance at
Second issue of EM '68 appears,
containing reports from some working
groups - others have not reported. The
group has abandoned its permanent
headquarters at 118 Rue de Ia Tombe lssoire
as too expensive. Henceforth it wiU operate
from the homes of members. In VP 6 itself
disputes over the methods to be employed in
resolving the conflict between social needs
and the academic study of architecture lead 2. In conversation with the authors.
1
1 1
re,, t hirty students from UP 6 together
area Comlte d'Action occupy 1,000
wua
1
e feet of administration offices at the
scqhool including the Director's office,
s , . f ,,.,_. h s ,
declaring the opemng o a \.-,ec e auvage
for students and children fr?m the. area.
posters 1nvite mothers to brlllg thelf
children, and part of the school garden is
turned into a playground. The students
demand that the school pays for t.he child
rrunden;. The administration considers the
matter and the Director moves to an
adjoining a permanent creche
is established 10 a different part of the
school. The attempt to integrate with the
surrounding community is less successful.
November 1st, 1969. Exhibition destroyed
M. Michelet, Minister of Culture since the
resignation of General de Gaulle and M.
Malraux, opens an exhibition of plans and
models of the new towns to be constructed
around Paris as well as redevelopment
projeots-in the centre. this
exhibition as a provocatiOn Ill VIew of the
undesirable consequences of redevelopment
and the scandal of private sector
responsibility for all new students
of UP 6 disrupt the proceed!llgs,which are
taking place in the main courtyard of the
school,and hurl the exhibits into the road. A
few days later the commencement of the
construction course at UP 6 reveals that only
three staff are available for 400 students.
Outrage at this leads to a strike being called
which is joined by other UPs including some
from the provinces.
November 17th 1969. 'Cours sauvage'.
The Assemblee Generale delivers a
violent attack on the whole basis of
architectual teaching under the new system.
For a start the Ministry of Culture, disposing
of less than 0.4% of the national budget, has
responsibility for 6,000 students of
architecture, which it clearly cannot afford.
Furthermore the Malthusian selection
system has created a situation where France
has only about 8,000 architects (as opposed
to 20,000 in Italy or Britain for an
approximately similar population) and .entry
is heavily biased against lower class aspuants.
It can be clearly shown, they claim, that
professional protectionism has a .
connection with the inadequate prov1ston of
housing in France.
'The liberal profession is a myth rather than a
reality. Forty pet cent of the 200 in
the country handle over half the work available.
Only 22% of Architectes Dipl6mes par le
Gouvernement are in practice for themselves;
the remaining 78% are salaried The
social origins of Beaux Arts students d1splay the
bias built into the education system: only 6%
are working class. 20% middle class, and 74%
upper class. In order to find one architect of
working class origin we must go through
147,500 workers. In order to find one architect
of white collar origin we must go through
23,500 white collar workers. In order to find
one architect who is the son of a manager we
must go through 5,000 managers. In order to
find one architect who is the son of a
professional we need only go through 800
professionals. And in order to find one
The Ministry of Culture's exhibition of urbanism in the Paris region, destroyed in the courtyard of the
school. November 1969.
architect who is the son of an architect, we by redevelopment. A pamphlet called 'Why?
need through 43. This is our liberal was published to clarify the real task that lay
profession. . before UP 6.
We cannot seriously attempt to tram . Wh d f 1 'th hildren
architects of any social value unless we cOf!SJder 1. Y O am1 Jes Wl young c
the failures of current building policies, c.hietly and small incomes find it imposstble to
those $0verning redevelopment and housmg. obtain homes?
What ts at stake is not the survival of a . 2. Why does one have to wait for up to 10
profession but state of the pe?ple of this years for HIM (roughly equivalent to
country. To imaglne that we can unprove ?
own training as architects without denouncmg Council) accommodation.
the scandal of present building policies is an 3. Why must the majority of workers
illusion.' spend two or three hours per day
From this point on, the AG endeavoured travelling to and from work?
to set the demands of studdents and t
1
eache
1
rs 4. Why do poor families have to pay two
for an improved course an more re evan or three times more (in proportion to
teaching into a political perspective going far their budget) for their housing, than do
beyond student interests.J The of rich families?
inadequate budget, antiquated selectiOn, s. Why have two thirds of French houses
competitive Diplomas, insufficient staff and neither a shower nor a bath?
so on were to be viewed in the contexdt obf 6. Why do 15,000,000 French people live
actual social crises, such as those pose Y in conditions of overcrowding?
housing and the destruction of communities 7. Why are community services neither
constructed nor foreseen when suburban
3. Lcs Cahiers de Mai. No l 7.
555
Cours a ~ v a g e . The occupation of offices at the Ministry of !lousing: a poster following the arrest of 128 students who took part.
housing developments are planned?
8. Why does nursery school space exist for
only nine children in every thousand?
9. Why are the inhabitants of
redevelopment areas always rehoused in
the suburbs, miles from their old
community?
10. Why do 'efficient construction methods'
cost the lives of three workers every day
on the building sites of France?
11. Why are 70% of French construction
workers immigrants who live in
Bidonvilles or conditions of gross
overcrowding?
12. Why has the government given
responsibility for the construction of
HLM dwellings, services and roads,
entirely to the private sector?
13. Why have housing targets been reduced
by I 00,000 units for 1970?
These are your problems as well as ours.
We see them reflected in the absurdity of
our education system and our process of
selection. That is why we are on strike.
The effect of this new analysis was
electric. It was decided almost immediately
that the period of the strike should not be
wasted and that 'A school on strike should
not be an empty school.' The strike was
reinterpreted as a detournement of the
normal teaching programme: if there were
not sufficient teachers to give lectures in the
school, then the lectures would be held
outside it, out in the real world where the
evils the students wished to combat were to
be found. At the same time 'lectures in the
streets' would give them a chance to explain
their case to the people, to demonstrate to
them that they too shared their oppression,
to make contact with the people of Paris and
to see with their own eyes the
maladministration and speculation at the
heart of bourgeois rule.
For the next few weeks, until the budget
for UP 6 was increased and 50 more staff
employed, thus ending the strike, the
existing staff and students took their lecture
courses in the streets and in public places.
Lectures and demonstrations were held at
the Louvre - at the foot of the Victory of
Samothrace, at the headquarters of the
Ordre des Architectes, at the Institute of
Decorative Arts, at the Institute of
Environmental Science, at the offices of Le
Monde, at the UNESCO building, at the
market in Belleville - a working class area in
the process of redevelopment - and at the
Offices of the Ministry of Services and
Housing (Ministere d'Equipment et
Logement). Hubert Tonka, professor of the
history of urbanism at Vincennes held
lectures on consumer society in one of the
largest department stores in Paris. The
following account is of the temporary
occupation of the office of M. Chalandon,
Minister of Housing, it is given by the
lecturer who spoke at the time.
December 2nd 1969 An occupation.
'For the purposes of a lecture on the housing
problem we had decided to occupy one of the
offices in the Ministry of Services and Housing
for 45 minutes. We arrived at the office without
incident; it was extremely luxurious, hung with
tapestries and crystal chandeliers, its luxury is
astounding. A voice says ''This is my office.
What do you want?" "You'll see," we reply, and
as the occupant hastily leaves we si t down , all
150 of us with all the usual banners plus a new
one which reads "REGIONAL PLANNING =
PARISIAN CANCER+ SLUMS+ THE
DEPORTATION OF FARMERS." We had
intended to stay for three quarters of an hour
and hold three lectures, one on the recently
approved standards for HLM housing which
required lifts only above six storeys instead of
four, on the new smaller space standards and ..
the permittin$ of north facing rooms; another
on the conditions of immigrant workers in
Bidonvilles; and a third on uncontrolled rents
and property speculation. During the fust
lecture we discover that we have been
surrounded by police but they do not dare
interrupt until the lecture has ended. Then the
officer in charge asks me if I am the tutor. I
answer that I am, and am immediately pounced
on by several policemen. Comrades attempt to
defend me and the doors to the office are
broken durin$ the ensuing fight. One hundred
and twenty e1ght of us are arrested and taken in
police vans to Beaujon where we are installed
forty in each cell intended for twelve. Mter a
time we are both cold and hungry; some more
experienced comrades have prepared themselves
by wearing warm clothes. Our morale is high.
4. Beaujon. Central Police station for interrogation.
Much used during May 1968.
layout of Beaujon police station, showing time
and motion study carried out by a student. Solid
dots= Police. White dots = Students.
557
558 AD/9/71
we ask the police if it is bribery to ~ - p i t on them.
o response. We question them about Mmc
J'ompdou and the Markovi tch affair. Nothing
doing. ' At one a.m. the traditional
identification procedure takes place, we are
checked against our papers and photographed.
A comrade who was next to the smashed doors
is recognised by a policeman. Hardly aware of
his rights he signs a document and is charged
with oreak.ing and entering. He is later released
on bail.
' At 8.30 in the morning we are brought in
groups of ten to the police station for
questioning. We are asked to make a statement
but since we have not contacted lawyers we
refuse. At two o'clock in the afternoon we are
asked more precise questions: who broke the
doors? Who distributed leaflets; above all who
wrote "Chalandon creve salope" on the wall of
the office? We are also asked if we can identify
photographs of people we have never seen
before.
'At five o'clock I am asked if I am responsible
for the occupation. I reply that it was decided
upon by our Assembtee Gbzerale. At this very
moment other comrades are negotiating at the
Ministry of Culture to bring an end to the
strike. As soon as they hear of our plight they
refuse to negotiate further until we are freed. At
six o'clock we are released, except for the
ccSmfade who was charged - he is released
later.' Les Cahiers de Mai no 19.
December 5th 1969. Belleville.
Concurrent with the occupation of
Ministry offices, the cours sauvage at
Belleville also ended in arrest. On three
successive Fridays, UP 6 students and staff
had met in the open market at Belleville,
fratemising with the inhabitants and offering
their aid in combating eviction orders,
compulsory purchase and removal to distant
suburbs. They carried banners and
distributed leaflets which explained the
rights of the inhabitants under law - they
also attempted to explain their own
predicament, their strike, and what they
wanted to achieve. The attitude of people in
the market was at first one of resignation
and sympathy tinged with a patronising
concern for the 'Daddies boys'. On the last
morning eight police buses were waiting by
the entrance to Metro Menilmontant.
Fifteen students are arrested as soon as they
reach pavement level, the rest after they
have spent fifteen minutes in the market.
Some local sympathy is aroused by this
process. In all 80 students are searched, put
in police buses and released some hours later
- each having been fmed for disturbing the
peace. The demands for fmes are collected
and delivered to the Director of the
Beaux-Arts - the students having resolved
not to pay them. Operations in Belleville
continue afterward on a different basis,
small groups working from door to door.
Two factors helped to end these cours
sauvages; first the Ministry agreement to the
enlisting of another fifty staff for UP 6 -
the strike consequently did not outlast the
Christmas vacation. Second the attrition
involved in continual encounters with the
P?lice had begun to take its toll, both
duectly of the most courageous, and subtly
of the more timid - to whom the diploma
was still a matter of great importance,
although they affected to despise it. For the
THE GAUCHISTE GROUPS
THE TROTSKYITES
I. The 'Ligue Communiste. French section
of IV International. Leaders in the
communist commi ttees at the University.
Alms to establish Links with students.
Does not believe in university strategy,
but only university tactics within the
university. Publishes the newspaper
'Rouge'. Their leader was candidate at the
Presidential Elections in 1969. Joi nt
acti ons with the Uni ted Socialist Party.
2. Socialist Youth Alliance (A.J.S.)
Breakaway group of the IV Internat ional.
Operates mainly within the unions.
Newspaper 'Jeune Revolution.aire :
3. Revolutionary Marxist Alliance A
' Pablist' group, (based on interests of
immigrant worker population). Oriented
towards Third World as source of
rcvolu tionary impulse.
4. Lutte Ouvriere (L.O.) Beliefs on the same
lines as Ligue Communiste but differing
over their respective analyses of the
nature of the Socialist state.
THE MAOISTS
I . La Gauche Proletarienne (G.P.) Paper 'La
Cause du Peuple' Main activity towards
the workers sector. Fight against the
French Communist Party, who they
accuse of following a policy of class ..
collaboration. With the intensification of
the Student struggle in Europe, their
tendencies are more determined by
spontaneous pressures of their
environment than by their ideological
link with the politics of the Chinese
Communist Party. Dissolved by the
Ministere de I'Interieur.
Uiif
POll
SP
UN
MDNDE
......
NOUVEAU
3. L 'Humanite Rouge. Devoted to bringing
about unity of workers and students.
Grouped around newspaper 'L 'Humonite
Rouge'.
THE ANARCHISTS
Not specifically organized. do not believe
in setting up specific groups. Linked
with the 'lnternationale Situationiste:
Nixon's visit celebrated by students of UP6... Feb'69
559
I

militants however cours 'ilJUI'agc l:Ould be
represented as a trnunph By l:rcating an
apparently random 111cidcnt every day the
students were able to guarantee media
coverage as well as a certain amount of
police discomfiture, furthermore the issues
about which they were protesting could
scarcely escape public notice. Above all they
had succeeded in carrying their contestation
into the public arena and out of the confines
of the school.
The effectiveness of their operations in
specific redevelopment areas such as
Belleville was more doubtful which is to
say that the people whom they had intended
to help still remained at the mercy of the
rehousing programme. For this reason, as we
have seen, increasing emphasis came to be
laid on the activities of small groups often
working under the local Comites d'Action
(founded dtiring the May events) or in
association with Secours Rouge (an
organisation founded in November 1969 to
carry out activities similar to those organised
in Britain by SHELTER, RELEASE and
other more militant community action
groups).
January 1970. L' Affaire Le Dantee.
Le Dantec, a'rchitect and teacher at UP
6 had been for some time a member of the
left wing organisation 'La Gauche
Pro/etarienne', a group chiefly known for its
publication 'La Cause du Peup/e', and its
connection with Jean-Paul Sartre. 'La
Gauche Pro/etarienne' became a proscribed
organisation during 1969, a measure
intended to effectively muzzle 'La Cause du
Peuple' since censorship by prior restraint is
not practised in France. This aim was not
achieved, but a consequence of the
proscription of the organisation was that its
acknowledged leaders were not allowed to
consort together in future. Lc Dantec,
Director of 'La Cause du Peup/e '.
contravened this condition was arrested and
charged with 'incitement to crime. murder,
pillage and incendiarism.' His arrest
sentence to one year of imprisonment
caused uproar and indignation at UP 6. Le
Dantec's friend and political ally
Jean-Claude Vernier was immediately taken
onto the staff in his place an event which
was to have consequences one year later.
February 1970. Info Logement.
UP 6 begins to operate a citizens' advice
bureau for information on housing matters
560 AD/9/71
every Saturday. Posters request the public to
come ak1ng with thc1r housmg problems
May 1970. Visits to Building Sites.
Vernier, Le Dantec's replacement during
his absence in La Sante prison. organises
visits to major building sites in the Paris area
- notably at Maine Montpamasse. There the
students observe the grotesque contrast
between the site facilities-installed for the
management and the equivalent huts
provided for U1e workers: they arrange a
display of posters on the site drawing
attention to the disparity in luxury. At once
permanent visiting rights are removed.
Visits are forced down to one a week, then
half an hour a month, then finally canceUed
altogether.
May 15th 1970. La Maison du Peuple.
Although carried out six months after the
beginning of cours Sauvage, the construction
of the community centre in the Rue de
Fosse aux Astres at Vill eneuve Ia Garenne
represents the most charismatic achievement
of the students of UP 6 in adapting their
own studies to serve new social purposes. By
means of a detournement of the
conventional construction exercise they
were able to convert the building or a roof
for a delapidated barn into an act which
brought the attention of the French press to
the appalling conditions in which immigrant
workers live. More than that, they were able
six months later to force the authorities to
demolish an operational community centre
in full view of press and television cameras.
The following account is taken from a
pamphlet issued by a combined committee
of the local Comite d'Action and the
students of UP 6.
'Since 1964 Portuguese immigrant workers
have been living in a bidonville in the northern
suburb of Villeneuve Ia Garenne in extremely
deprived conditions. Since 1968 Ole local
administration has been attempting to force
them to leave the district by harrassment
without offering any alternative
accommodation. Last November tJey bulldozed
five of the dwellings and rehoused t11e
inhabitants in hostels lacking inside toilets,
showers, heating or visiting facilities. Since t11en,
despite some local protest, nothing has
happened apart from t11e continued
construction of new housing - aU of which is
too expensive for the workers to afford.
' In order to improve their own lot the
immigrants had been pressing for some time for
pennission to use an unoccupied barn on some
adjoining land. The utd not even
reply to their requests. At this point students of
the ex-ENSBA UP 6, together with the local
Comite d'Action resolved to complete the
partial roof of the barn and equip it as a
community centre with facilities for
child-minding and 'olplwbetisotion'. Neither the
walls nor the site belonged to us, nor did we
possess the resources to purchase the building
materials necessary for completion of the roof.
But we were confident that the needs o f the
immigrants constituted their own legality. We
did not bother to ask pennission because we
knew it would be refused: the building mat.erials
we obtained by ordering t11em through the
school for a construction exercise and t11en
transporting them to t11e Two hours after
we began work, the police arrived and t11e
mayor was reportedly ready to order bulldozers
in to demolish t11e building. lie did not. Today
VWeneuve-la-Garenne: building and demolition.
t11e sixteen families of workers who still Live in
the bidonville use the barn as a playroom for
their kids. Their parents' use it as a meeting
room and we hold information group
discussions there, explaining to them how they
can combat the injustices which 01ey endure in
their daily life, fake salary slips, illegal dismissal
and so on.'
On November 6th 1970, at 2.30 pm when
everyone was at work, a bulldozer guarded
by police demolished the community centre.
The reason given was that the owner of the
land on which it had stood had threatened
to sue the local authority for permitting
trespass. In an article entitled 'Who are the
destroyers? the Nouvelle Observateur for
November 1970 commented on the fact that
the left wing groups who had constructed
the building - called by the press
'destroyers' (casseurs) - had with some
justice written on the wall of one of the
adjoining apartment buildings after the
demolition
MAYOR+ POLICE= DESTROYERS.
On the 8th November eight people were
arrested for distributing pamphlets in the
area criticising the actions of the Mayor.
:'ON" RASE
Ia maison du peuple
"ON"
les
EN A MARREI
Two posters produced after the demolition of
Villeneuve-la-Garenne.
.LES HAUTS PLATEAUX
I ou
S a il r pcherchr ..,
pour une 1 yc"' :,, e
October 1970. La recuperation.
With the beginning of the Jcademic year
llJ70/7l. lundamental breaks began to oct:ur
m the hitherto united front presented by the
students of UP6 now swollen to nearly
I ,400 in number. Amongst the more
militant the concept of architecture for the
people seemed increasingly to lead away
from the study of architecture at all.
Intensified connections with local Comites
d'Action and organisations such as Secours
Rouge, together with the apparent political
success of social interventions such as
Villeneuve Ia Garenne, increased their
conviction that only direct social changes
could pave the way for a proletarian
architecture. Patience with the complex
ideas or detournement began to wear thin,
and the mi croscopic analysis of the social
impact or spaces themselves - as practised
by Lefebvre and the staff and students of UP
8 had long since been written off as 'an
old modernism, but more snobbish for the
elite of the left '.
5
At such a time the
collapse of the resolve of the
teaching staff seemed a typical but still
bitter blow. After holdjng out against the
Ministerial interpretation of UP course
structure for nearly two years, the staff -
fearful of a rumoured closure of UP 6 as a
reprisal for the excesses of cours sauvage
put forward proposals for the rationalisation
of instruction which involved increased
emphasis on scientific and technical
knowledge at the expense of ideological
purity. llenceforth projects carried out by
working groups were to be supervised by
multi-disciplinary teams of architects.
geographers. economists, sociologists and
planners. Irrespective of their effect upon
the students many of whom were only too
willing to return to a more established
framework these changes had the effect of
strengthening the intellectual credibility of
the staff, whilst at the same time sacrificing
much of the Oexibility which had been so
passionately defended two years before. As a
consequence a new polarisation began to
develop in UP6; the militants grew more
violent and the passives more technocratic.
The principal casualty was the sense of
adventurous possibility which had hitlle(to
held together the heterogeneous mass, fled
by I luet and the students of UP8 a year
before. Criticising the behaviour of the staff
a working group of students warned:
'Under the pretext of preventing the Ministiy
from closing UP6 these measures in fact only
presage a return to the teaching methods so
heavily criticised in 1968 and before. The more
various the credits awarded within the UP
become, the less chance will there be of
developing parity, and eventual integration, .
with the system. The value of a cred1t
(unite de l'oleur) will become the basis of the
system - and that credit will be useless outside
the Beau' Arts. All this talk of different
disciplines really only means the accretion of
bodies of isolated knowledge which never
subject their contradictions to outside criticism
through consultation or debate. Alienation can
be the only result of this process.'
s. Comite d'A ction: A rchiteccure, 'Plate-form de
Lutte '69/'70,' Novembre I 969
' If group' insist that Ole purpo..e of
L'Pfi is as a training centre for
ardutcl'fural office a nucleus for
contact with the trades union movement, an
infonnation centre for professionals: others are
equally detennmcd that it should be a base for
intervention in actual crises, for
collaboration with community gJOups, Comites
d 'Action, legal and social aid centres. That its
working groups should study the realities of the
economic and political proccs_..es t11at generate
t11e built environment from the standpoint of
the users, the the people.'
Lyceens' hunger strike over political privileges
prison.
January 1971. Hunger Strike.
Vernier hunger strikes in support of
students imprisoned without political
prisoners rights. His strike lasts 25 days - he
takes two days to recover. Wall notices
appear at ENSBA reading 'We want like
Vernier who reveal the truth: not guys like
Faugeron who will do anything to hide jt.'
January 1971. Release of Le Dantec - the
man in a glass booth.
Even as the technocratic backlash against
the spirit of cours sauvage gained strength,
the release or Le Dantec from prison
brought about another emotional crisis:
Vernier who had taken Lc Dantec's post
after latter's arrest. found that his
temporary contract was not renewed as soon
as Lc Dan tee's return was assured. News of
this roused the student body to a fury,
representations to the Director being no
avail, they bricked up the entrance to hlS
office and finally chained the assistant
Director M. Bourdale-Dufau inside the booth
reserved for the operative of the vehicle
entry barrier at the main gate of the school.
Locked in for two hours he was fed a
number of tracts and copies of the
revolutionary newspaper 'TOUT' to read.
Slogans were sprayed on the glass whilst he
was inside. Appending to this action the
justification that 'he should learn to do the
561
job of a worker', the students the
reinstatement of Vernier; hut one of thetr
number - an editor of TOUT was later
charged with assault on a civil servant.
February 1971. 'Mon Diplome! Gasp.'
Filled with contempt at the craven
fashion with which the majority of students
seemed to be reverting to the pre '68 pursuit
of a Diploma, at whatever cost in self
respect, person or persons unknown set fire
to the UP 6 records office. Most of the
documents relating to credits and
assessments were destroyed, giving rise to
the circulation of a Donald Duck poster and
a cartoon strip satirising the terror of the
ambitious that their Diplomas might elude
them after all.
February 1971 . La Majson du Peuple. II.
In the depths of this climate of
schadenfreude and profound gloom, a
working group of students resolved to
produce a newspaper devoted solely to
housing, employment and environmental
issues affecting the social victims of
bourgeois society. Taking the name 'La
Maison du Peuple' for its reference to
Villeneuve Ia Garenne as well as its ironic
reference to 'La Maison de Marie-Claire' the
middle-<:lass women's consumer magazine,
this group circularised their intentions and
endeavoured to raise money for publication.
Their request reflects much of the increased
desperation and reduced confidence of those
who had, as Anatole Kopp observed
6
,
attempted to re-ignite the events of May
every morning since, and failed.
Monsieur,
You know as well as we do that it is useless
to try to overcome the absurdity of the old
world solely by means of shitty little pamphlets.
That is why we have decided to divert our
forces to the home front, to the streets and
houses of our ci tles, and there to use every
possible means to resist the overwhelming
propaganda put forward in the interests of the
bourgeoisie by such specialist magazines as
L 'Architecture d'Aujourd'lwi and Urbanisme,
but above aU by La Maison de Marie-Claire,
t elevision, and the special correspondents of the
national press.
What we propose to do is indeed ambitious,
but its ambition corresponds to the value of t11e
goal we have aU sought since May: a new world.
We are ready to hurl ourselves into this
struggle but we need the means to do it. We
needto be able to avoid gauchiste navel-gazing
as well as affiliation with present political
parties if we are to produce a journal capable of
reaching those people who are concerned about
the role of the built enviionmcnt in everyday
life.
You are yourself in the service of capi tal, of
the bourgeoisie. We do not say this in any spirit
of moral condemnation, merely to state an
objective fact because it means that you are able
to aid us correspondingly: by means of money,
as a mark of your commitment to the cause of
the people.'
Accompanying 1h1s letter was a brief
description of the reasons for the action
they proposed to take
fn Pompidou's France, in Pompidou's
Euiope, flourishing, wall o ing in capital,
6. In conversation with the authors. Anatole Kopp.
562 AD/9/71
The Assistant Director of the Beaux-Arts chained in a glass booth.

"A t iny spark has burnt all my accumulated marks!" (with apologies to Chairman Mao). The car toon
depicts the despair of the ambitious who have been secretly gloating over the prospect of a diploma.
society is dying of its own environmcn t. The
chronic shortage of housing has now been
jomcd by more profound environmental
overwhelming traffic, poisoned air, polluted
water. Like the capitalist system the capitalist
environment is doomed .. .'
As well as a list of headings under which
articles would appear
Housing, re<fevelopment, bidonvilles, offices
and factories, building industzy, urban planning
and the misuse of public space, reviews and
criticisms, schools of arch.itecture (comment
poser 1m probteme aussi [oireux ?) , and an
information service of useful addresses and
groups.
By May 1971 the impossibility of raising
money and some disputes about editorial
policy had prevented the project from
advancing any further. It was then hoped to
start the paper in the autumn of 1971. The
group re-directed their attention towards
financing the construction of a new
permanent creche at the schooL
March 1971
!fn/o Logement' and the group 'Col/ectif
Logement' (the latter having produced an
admirably detailed survey of the history of
housing in France and the present operation
of housing policy
7
) join Secours Rouge and
move their base away from UP6. They begin
to engage themselves more directly in
community action in areas threatened by
redevelopment or demolition and change of
usc.
May 1971. Report on conditions of site
workers.
The Vernier visits resume on different
sites and 18 of his 70 students take jobs as
unskilled labourers at Belleville and Defense.
They begin a study of the hierarchy and
division of labour on the site, intending to
present a report questioning technocratic
theories of machine use at the opening of
the 1971/ 72 session. 'The site is organised in
relation to machines rather than workmen.'
!Jleir report will also discuss the political
Importance of students working as unskilled
labourers in order to foster links with the
workers themselves. Finally they will try to
relate a new form of architectural
curriculum to the human realities of building
construction. 'Let's get rid of this insane
teaching about space, this play which has
nothing to.do with reality. From now on the
Y 9 C
7
ollectif Logement, Secours Rouge. Paris. March
I .
building wtll bt lh( core of milll.tnl
11 liP(l.'
June 22nd 1971. Community action in the
XII arrondissement.
A group of UP6 students working in
conJunction with a local Comite d'Action
have called a public meeting to discuss the
course of redevel opment in the area. The
meeting is held in the crypt of a modern
church no other community hall is
avatlable and the priest is sympathetic to the
students - about ISO inhabitants of the
area, mostly women, have arrived at the
appointed time.
took thcu l'11ildren to our precious "park" then
we would be ahh.' to 'e<' just how much open
space we really have been given.'
Applause.
'If next Thursday those same mothers took
their children to the creche t11ere would be a
queue a mile long!'
'If did somctJ1ing like that each week then
the Mamster would remember who it was that
wrote to him!'
Prolonged applause.
'By God we'd have 1,000 mothers in the
criclle, 500 kids in the park, 2,000 kids in the
scrap-yards .. .'
'Violence never solves any ... ' breaks in a
C?IJncillor for the district, but laughter drowns
htS words. The man goes on to advocate
occupyng the neighbouring scrap-yards and
turning them into playgrounds.'
The equipment ancludes posters, which
explain the recent history of the district, and Interventions such as this were being
banners with slogans. There is also a film carried out in several areas this summer by
projector, tape recorder and multiple slide students of UP6;just as other students and
projectors. The posters reveal that the ff
redevelopment plan of 19S9 promised the sta were planning the 'reconquest of the
construction of 1,400 new flats to replace the city' by repossessing open spaces such as the
I ,700 desttoyed. In fact only 171 families out banks of the Seine now cut off more and
of I ,270 have been rehoused in the area - the more by urban motorways. At the same time
rcs.t been to move elsewhere. . the pursuit of objective knowledge in the
EvactJon comP.ensation was lOOFr per dweUmg. r f 1 I' I' h
Slogans read Who runs your quarter, them or 10rm o_ mu tH tSCtp mary tee mgue also
you?', 'What are we offering our children?' 'Better makes mroads, as does the analysts of urban
a scrap-yard than a lawn you're not allowed to space itself. The cours sauvages, occupations
walk on ' d d' f '
The
'ceti' b . 'th . It fiilm mtervent10ns an spora tc protests o the
m ng egms WI sunu aneous , miJ't t f UP6 b f
slides and sound track; children are seen playing I an s 0 . arc u_t one aspect o the
happily amongst crumbling houses, the former struggle whtch began wtth years of despair
life of the area with craftsmen work in small over a monstrously outdated, Malthusian
workshops _around_ buds and education system became by the
flowers, children sangang. Then bulldozers f ' 'J
appear and demolition begins, voices edited events o May 1968, and IS now mamtamed
from actual conversations with the inhabitants. as much by the fear of a monstrously
say thinft like 'Where are the old people going inhuman future in which Its protagonists
t? go?'' t's a rat, squashed it in _the door - as would have no place as by the dream of a
as a cat, the children were sleepang.' Next a . h' .
vo1ce over gives facts and statistics 'Officially new world m w 1ch It would be
you will get a two roomed flat for eight people,' unneccessary
a plan is shown, the slides begin to change more At I he time of writing the future of the
slowly. The move to the suburbs. A voice Tt d f UP 6 h h
intones 'Two to three hours travel a day just to rru I ant stu ents o angs in t e
get to work.' 'The young tzy to adapt, for the balance. They are now reduced to three
old it is a tragedy.' small working groups; the first centred
Now slides of the area, people laugh as they around Le Dantcc and Vernier's
recognise themselves or their colleagues; construction seminar (whose students are
snatches of taped conversation, self-eonscious,
angry, denouncing the system, their wasted working as labourers on building sites), the
lives. A crescendo of sound, endless distorting second composed of the group who
corridors in soulless blocks of flats form a attempted to start tllC maga;ine 'La Maison
haJi ucinatory final image. du Peup/e ';and the third a new audio-visual
Lights. A militant springs up. 'Now you have unit responsible for the fiilms and slide
seen. What do you think?' After a time several
speak, they arc all concerned, they must have displays used in intcrven lions of the type
another meeting, form a committee, attack described above. Seen ting the weakness of
spccitic problems. 'Is this meeting to defend the once all powerful AG, the administration
t11ose who have been rehoused or those who
have not been rehoused? How many here have now threatens to dismiss Lc Dantec, Vernier
not been rehoused?' and most of the part time staff appointed at
Silence. the time of the 1969 strike. The new
'Then why are you all here?' From above M' t f C 1 t M D h I t d
comes the sound of the church choir. The tnls er o u urc . u ame IS expec e
meeting assumes the aspect of a clandestine to take a stronger line with rebellious
Christian gathering in the catacombs. The fifty students than either of his two predecessors,
year old representative of the tenants and the demands of October 8th 1969 and
association talks of contracts with the April 19th 1969 may now be further away
govemmen t - he is greeted with cackles from from achievement than ever.
old women - the discussion grows more
r,olitical until an architectural student shouts The tide of events however runs in their
not worry about politics, let's wony favour. The social evils they attacked are real
about action.' and are worsening, and the prise de
'What solutions have you got then?'
'We brought 3 case, not a solution.' The conscience of the revolutionary student is
audience is getting very involved. ' If we're going printed onto our time. fn the end there will
to do something for our kids we need tQ pick up be no alternative for the administrations, the
a shovel, not a petition. I want to look after my ministries, the vovernments of the world but
own interests, not hand them over to someone 0
else. Forget about 300 signatures, get 300 to listen.
people and take them along to the l\Unister. The road of excess leads to the palace of
That would be something,' Laughter, applause. wisdom and it is the only one that does.
' If next Thursday al l the mothers in this area Blake.
/
,

f' ol.lll.,..oliS' l 01 l..EGPLITf <'e.n l ll S,.,,.,f',..<.ToN
I>IS 8t'SoiOS .-i,t$ '-' PE. 0 f'(.E
'
PRENDRE CE C(}Ori
..
ARCHITECTURE VERSUS POLITICS
'As we were walking, my wife and I , we saw from
afar a squatting man making incomprehensible
movements- a madman. As we walked closer, we
noticed that this man was sharpening a knife on
the edge of the pavement.'
Leo Tolstoy - as quoted
on a wall at the Beaux-Arts.
If effective political action is impossible
without some understanding of the
contradictions which exist in contemporary
society I ; then just such a contradiction
that of the bourgeois universit y - lies at the
heart of the student revolt. French
universities have, dunng the last decade
undergone an immense expansion, and a
partial result of that expansion has been the
unpalatable fact that the degree, once a
passport not only to a job, but also the
privileges of an elite position in society, has
1. Andre Glucksmann, Srrategif' et Revolution en
France. 1968
564 AD/9/71
NOUS f\EF'US
C .. A,"l"iEA
FoSJLJIIJJ( A!!RES
"Dare to take what they won't give you."
now become a qualification incapable of
guaranteeing either.2 l t is in this paradox
that student insurrection has found its
practical justification; its theoretical aims
however require it to go beyond this
position, to integrate itself into a broader
revoluti onary movement by forging Jinks
with the embattled working classes and
becoming co-belligerents with them. For th1s
reason student dissatisfaction docs not cease
with its opposition to elitism within the
university, it goes on to question the social
division of labour; the origin of all elitism.
This process can be clearly seen in the
activities of some of the students of Unite
Pedagogique No 6, ex-ENSBA, Paris.
Destruction versus detournement.
These students, unlike many in the
university (who sought principally to gain
control of their faculties so as to redirect
them according to party political objectives),
2. Andre Gorz, Les Temps Modemes. Nov. 1970
began instead to rebel against their probable
fate as architects - 'guard dogs of the
bourgeoisie' - and to choose between the
destruction of the institution within which
'guard dogs' were trained, and the subversion
of the aims of the institution whilst
maintaining it in existence. The first
alternative was followed for a time: 'Destroy
the University' was a popular slogan both
during and after the May events; the statues
at the old Beaux-Arts were toppled by the
old regime. But to some extent also the
second alternative triumphed in the end. To
close the school utterly and completely
to destroy any real possibility of systematiC
analysis and critique, there was stiU
that the school could do as an analytical tool
for the study of the real process of
construction of the built environment - not
as an alibi for bourgeois involvement in it
but as an exposition of the repression and
injustice at the very heart of the d
which architects had hitherto been trrune
1 ) manipulate. Detournement of this kind
rmed the basis of much of the action
out by UP6. The 'fn[o-Logement'
report on housing, the idea for the
newspaper 'La Maison du Peuple' (intended
as a counterpart to La Maison de
Marie-Qaire), the subversion of construction
exercises by operations such as
Villeneuve>la-Garenne - all represented
skilful means of keeping the school in being
whilst changing the meaning of its
curriculum.
Real objective versus clever feint.
'Contestation: the state of continual
confrontation and debate, 'is in itself
constructive ; it creates conditions in which
political life is possible.' So wrote
Glucksmann in Strategie et Revolution 3,
and his words have been echoed by more
than one UP6 student who has made a life
out of such conflict in the belief that it will
inevitably lead to revolution. 'When one is
fighting one cannot at the same time
Hubert Tonka - professor of
urbanism at the experimental university of
Vincennes - doubts the ultimate credibility
of a detournement such as that practised at
Villeneuve-la-Garenne in the context of the
great revolutionary struggle which the
students have essayed to join.
'To use a military analogy,' he explains4,
'Villeneuve>la-Garenne and the plight of the
working classes are a clever feint, not a real
attack on a real objective. The real objective
is within the university, within the
experience of the student-s themselves'. Yet
Tonka withholds his final judgement ; 'A few
intellectuals arrive with bricks and construct
a small building for immigrants, socially the
action is useless because it is done for and
not with the population of the area. But
politically it does succeed, it displays the
oppression of the oppressed, the immigrants
become conscious of class realities, of their
position vis-a-vis the capitalist system.'
The students themselves see
Villeneuve-la-Garenne as a myth - a
distorted representation of reality in which
the collective for an instant recognises itself.
Whether the immigrant workers or the
students of UP6 benefit most from this
process is immaterial, 'The primordial value
of an act of revolt resides in its spiritual
liberation of the oppressed.'S Such myths
are necessary to all revolutionaries in order
to sustain them in their trials.
Rival ideologies
If we temporarily disregard Tonka's
suggestion that the operations of cours
sauvages are but clever feints, it becomes
necessary to relate them to revolutionary
theories such as rose to prominence during
1968. These theories are of great
mterest because they extend beyond the
point of seizure of power, in their
concentration upon the theory of
'contestation' or struggle. After May, actions
3. Glucksmann, op. cit.
4. Hubert Tonka, in conversation with the authors.
S. Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth.. 1958
became subject to reinterpretation;
manifestations became mere performances,
revolutionary thought mere information t o
be homogenized by mass media. At this
point the development of the technique of
random action assumed great importance.
The cours sauvages, in their unpredictable,
symbolic intervention penetrated the media
blanket ; they attacked not only the ministry
but also public apathy over the
environmental crises they pointed up; they
gave the students a new (and much needed)
consciousness of what was possible. 'Mastery
of content , fonn and conununication
constitute the essentials of a tactic that must
shock in order to gain attention and gather
support t o ensure the growth of an idea.'6
The importance of a barricade does not
lie in its being a traffic hindrance, but in its
power to reveal the violence of the regime
through being also a symbol and a catalyst.
Concentration on this theoretical
understanding of revolutionary action
always leads to the fonnation of factions,
and the case of UP6 is no exception.
Representatives of one group (or
'Groupuscule', as small groups are called
after the famous L 'Humonite jibe of May
2nd 1968) constantly emphastse their
di fferences from other groups. First come
those subject to the Leninist theory that
' Political class-consciousness can only be
brought to the workers from outside, that is
to say from outside the sphere of relations
within which workers and empl oyers
interract. '7 Thus UP6 students work in
factories and in slums, trying to bring
about just such a class-consciousness. The
next group has faith in the
self-representation of popular will. As
Trotsky wrote: 'On one side we have a party
which thinks [or the proletariat, which
politically substitutes itself for it; on the
other a party which politically educates it
and mobi/ises it in order that it may exercise
its own pressure on the will of all groups and
parties. 8 Both these attitudes are present in
those actions ofUP6 epitomised by
Villeneuve-l a-Garenne, as is a third, a Maoist
belief in a 'spontaneous upsurge' of the
popular will. Beyond all these positions lies
the almost William Morris stance taken by
one of the putative editors of lA Maison du
.Peuple, who observed. 'It is impossible to
stop capitalism, so it is pointless to struggle
for industrialisation at all: we should
concentrate on marginal production, by
people for themselves. ' Recognition of these
divisions should not however obscure the
remarkable unity of effect that has obtained
since 1968: today the architectural student
endeavours to engage in the dialogue of
international political life - instead of
passively accepting its conclusions. Possessed
of this enquiring confidence, students have
discovered new forms of action and social
forces hitherto unrevealed; more
importantly they have resisted the tendency
of revolutionary movements to ossify and
6. Glucksmann, op. cit.
7. Lenin, 'What Is to be done, 1902
8. Leon Trotsky, Our political tasks, 1 904
duplica te the bur ea uc1,rcy of the
they daun to opposl'.q l hC) fL
1
IO\\
Glucksmann in ltis assessment of the role of
the movement in hais1ng between d1screte
Comites d'Action, each able to exploit a
local advantage such as has begun to be
revealed in the rcdcvl'!opment areas of the
XII arrondisscmem. Dunkerquc and Ulle.
The Comites d'Action themselves have
developed in embryo new socwl structures
and relationships w1thin the cxtstmg
structure, much as networks
developed during the war11me occupation.
This has enabled them to challenge at many
levels, thus avoiding the danger of bourgeois
society assimilating isolated cconom1c or
political activities which in unison might
achieve considerable gains.9 Such flexibility
has not however been achieved at UP6;
partly because many militant students
already belong to political organisations
outside the school, they have always been
obliged to use their speciality, the1r
expertise, when operating within or from it.
Collectif Logement and
Villencuve-la-Garenne represent classic
approaches-to-the-people with the aid of
specialist skms. The students of UP6 share
the Comite d'Action understanding of the
importance of acting on many levels
simultaneously; but mcrcasingly they find it
to do this without sacrificing
therr own speciality into the bargain. Within
specificity of the Construction Industry
ihterventions can be carried out with
flexibility outside it this tlcxibility ts
doubly necessary particularly as 'part of the
future of UP6 lies in the actions of the
Lyceens. t 0
Political space versus the specificity of
architecture.
Three postures have emerged m response
to this apparent weakness beyond the
specialist area. The first holds that space has
a political meaning, and thus that space can
be conceived as a socialist product as distinct
from a bourgeois one. The second denies this
and thus moves steadily away from the
speciality of architecture itself into direct
political action. A third holds that an
analysis of the building process in terms of
the class struggle will clarify the question;
without such an analysis the matter cannot
be clearly understood. Hcnn Lefebvre, an
exponent of the first hypothesis. maintains
that: 'Space is not a scientifically measurable
quantity which has been detoume by
ideology or by politics, it has always been
political and strategic in itself. If a space
looks neutral, indifferent to its contents,
therefore 'purely fonnal', abstract in a
rational sense, it is because it is already
occupied, organised, already the object of
ol d or lost strategies. Space is produced from
historical or natural elements, it is always
political and idcologicaJ.'ll
9. Jean-Pierre Vigier , Thf' action committees.
Reflections on the Revolution in France: 1968,
Pelican
10. Candilis, in conversalion with the authors
l J. Henri Lefebvre, ' Rel1exiuns sur lc Politiq uc de
565
Students at UPS often go beyond even
this position: they consider space n<?t merely
as a social product but even as a soctal
accelerator, a tool capable of speeding up
social tendencies of one kind or another:
' We say that space has a certain on
social behaviour, it does not transform tt ,
but it does act upon it in such a way that we as
architects can perhaps make possible certain
unspecified and unexpected possibilities
through the spaces we design.' 12 This
expression may in itself be the last
attenuated cry of the theory of
for the people, such as is to be 10
Melnikov and the other constructivists who
strove to make out of socialist art ' an
instrument of social transformati on, a
revolutionary tool, a means to transform the
relationship between the individual and
society by means of generating a new .
lifestyle, new and, new pnvate
and public codes of behavlOur. 13
Groups such as 'Utopie' reject this
hypothesis utterly. They that even
if the technical aspects of architecture are
abstracted, still architecture in itself is never
political, neither can be solved or
social goals achieved by architectural means,
or indeed by means of space at W.hether
it expresses bourgeois or proletanan mterests
architecture has always been linked to social
repression because it remains external to the
quotidian experience of people.
'There are many problems which are not
clarified at all by the militancy of UP6. If
the newspaper 'La Maison du Peuple' is
meant to be a proletarian equivalent to. 'La
Maison de Marie-Claire' then it stiU
represents only an undercapitalised attempt
to use the methods of the bourgeoisie
against itself. It is in any political
error: there is no spe,cific archttecture for
the people, all is for the
There is no proletarian sctence, there ts no
bourgeois science. No one has shown
me what is specifically bou rgeo1s about the
plan of a bourgeois house. . .
'Two tendencies are developmg at UP6.
on the one hand, outside organisations like
Secours Rouge to which many UP6
belong, try hard in the field of to
help people reduce their rents,
fight eviction etc. They do by usmg
law. Now the idea of studymg law and usmg
it does not seem bad in itself; but no
architectural t raining is necessary at all . As
at BelleviUe, what started out as a protest
over the environment ended as an attempt tc
save old people. Now l have no objection to
that - but one does not need to be an
architect to do it.
'The opposite tendency is to be seen
amongst those of the staff and. at
UP6 who, growing old or cauttous, to
produce an for the peopl.e.
Villeneuve-la-Garenne lies at the meetmg
point of these t wo tendencies. In the future
I think we shall see an extension of both.
Political acts involving building - for
12 Bernard Huet in conversation with the authors
13: Anatole Kopp, Espaces et Societes, Novembre
1970
566 AD/9/71
t. ES VIE.fJ1 sow'11'0IIS
C>lS c.oiiS !
. ?

I
c hr PI!S lET(
mstance erecting buildings for the people on
pnvate or property but there the
spec1ficity of the action be in the seizure
of the land, not in the destgn of what is
built. Also increasing efforts to prove that
.certain buildings or designs are political, or
'for the people', by means of more and more
signs and 'explanations' t<? effect. Both
attempts are hopeless; to lffiagme - as do
some at the Beaux-Arts - that it is possible
to act politically through urbanism,
archjtecture, or the detoumement of either
is a dream.' 14
The last of the three stances mentioned at
the beginning of this sec tion concerns the
rediscovery of the social repression which
exists within the building process by means
of direct experience. This programme,
presently being carried out by students in the
Vernier, Le Dantec group has resulted in
much political activity on building sites, in
attempts to generalise the realities of the
workers' approach to building, and in
experimental course struct ures utilising the
knowledge thus gained. Here is no dream,
and the proletarianisation of the profession
foreseen by Lefebvre l5 becomes a reality.
Order versus disorder
The principle of detoumement, which has
run as a leitmotif through the present article,
is important in that by subverting the end
instead of the means, it turns the fmal
product i nto a powerful of
Each of the actions descnbed earlier
effectively challenges societies' capacity to
'control unknown threats by elimi nating the
possibility of . .. By
taming the paths of soctal actions. 16
Through actions such as Villeneuvre or cours
sauvage 'the replanning of a transcen.den!
order of living that is immune to vanety 17
is rendered impossible.
Beyond their role in the relief obvious
social evils such actions tend to bnng about
an in the division of labour itself.
The clever feint becomes an integral part of
the real objective as the general effect of th.e
whole disturbs the organisation of bourgeots
society: 'A disordered, unstable social
would lead to structural changes in
itself, as well as to the indivi dual in his soctal
milieu.'l8 .
In this sense the conflicting theones
surrounding the political value of space serve
themselves as generators of a transcendental
disorder for the time being. Judging the
students on their actions rather than theu
1
deologies, one would expect in future that
this effective alliance would lead to furthet
development of the concept of random.
opportunist, guerilla tactics so. that centres
of fertile disorder will emerge m cl.ear
opposition to the official sanctuanes of
0
order.
14. Hubert Tonka. Op. Cit. /e
1 s. Henri Lefebvre, 'La vie quotidienne dans
-
monde rnoderne . r
16. Richard Sennett. The Uses of Drsorde'
Penguin, 1971
Operation smile! Student poster deriding Police
attempts to court poputanty.
J 7. Sennett. Op. Cit.
J 8. Sennett. Op. Cit.
The following reports are from H. ERG
(Housing. Experimental Research Group).
H. ERG is an interdisciplinary group and is
based in London and in the U.S. Its principal
investigators are Stephen Bodington,
Royston Landau, Howard Perlmutter and
cedric Price.
Evolutionary
housing:
Notes on the context and t he problem
Royston Landau
The theme of this outline is housing and
the timescale; why it is considered that the
circumstances of the present day are
requiring a new appreciation of the time
dimension; and how a revised approach will
open up new ranges of possibilities for
future' h!5using and for future physical
environments.
For more than 200 years Britain and
western societies have produced
multipletO mass housing through a
developi ng series of "house-producing
systems". House-producing systems were
first privately owned, later company owned
and then through a critical reform tradition
there emerged public sponsored systems.
House-producing systems in both public and
private sectors have predominantly aimed to
produce "fixed package" house types which
would be conceived as suiting the life-style
of potential users.
Traditionally, the lifestyle/physical-form
connection ei ther would not have been
recognized by the house-producing systems
or else would have been implicitly assumed.
But a gradual acceleration in the rate of
social behavioural change and the emergence
of new theories caused t he new concern for
human life-styles and behaviours, to be
exploited as an explicit aid for the design of
environments. Thus, the assumption was
made that the study of existing human
behaviours in their settings would provide
the basic facts for the making of future
settmgs.
Such an assumption raised a new series of
problems:
In mass housing it would hardly be
poss1ble to know those people or groups of
people for whom it was being built.
Even if this were possible, new housing
could be expected to outlast its initial
(studied) occupants, who would be replaced
by "unstudied" ones.
People for whom fixed housing packages
were built, could themselves change their
lifestyles during the occupancy of a single
house. Lifestyle change could affect family
cycles.
Rates of change of life-styles would be
unl ikely to be constant. With the current
state of exponential growth curves in
lation and technology alone, life styles
could be expected to alter substant ially
within one generation.
The same people could show different
behavi our in different settings. The detailed
study of a group in a particular setting may
have littl e bearing on the rehousing of that
same group in a new setting.
Thus it cannot be shown that form ought to
or can be val idly derived from behaviours in
t he context of mass housing, but t his raises a
further clcsely related range of problems
which ask to what extent a fixed form of
housing may be consi dered a vehicle for
lifestyl e and to what extent a maker of
lifestyl e. The Evolutionary Housing
programme centres attention on an approach
and a vocabulary of components for the
analysis and solution of this problem.
The acceptance of a behaviour concept
which has a potential for continuous change
raises the problem of how to devise a house
(or a building) to accommodate future
changing needs, making the assumption that
the programme for the study of existing
particular. houserelated human behaviour is
inadequate.
II
Assuming then, that the major obstacle
for the house-producing system is future
changing needs , then how to provide for
them becomes a new concern.
The design of any artifact assumes a
prediction by its producer on its future use
(as distinct from immediate use). The
futureuse aspect is not always expressed
explicitly, and sometimes not felt necessary
to be considered at all it it is believed that
future use will not be different from
immediate use.
But the timeconcern will relate to the
class of artifact. Certain classes of artifact
may not benefit from futureuse predictions
e.g. in a design for a shortlife,low cost
ceramic tea cup. it may be justifiable to
expect the style of tea-drinking to outlive
the life of the cup, and if it did not the
economic and resource waste would not be
significant. Prediction here is not a crucial
concern. Other classes of artifact may expect
longer lives e.g. the new city of Milton
Keynes will have a structure and
components which will be expected to
remain sat isfactory for many generations to
come.
The new housing need has been expressed
in terms of a longlife multi.generation
facility. The Greater London Council has
stated in respect to the half million new
homes it requires, "We cannot afford to put
capital into something that lasts less than 60
years, and we have to be sure that dwellings
put up in 1970 are not considered
substandard by the year 20001 ".
The problem of predicting housing
socioeconomic possibilities through
identifying variables and showing thei r
interactions in the environment, is one
1. Greater London Council, Tomorrow's London,
London, 1969.
involvmg multlvariables in opensystems.
Model techniques for the characterization of
such problems have two major diff iculties:
first, the question of multivariable
complexity, second, the problem of
unpredictable new variables entering the
system. The degree to which the
multi-variabl e compl exity quest ion is
exposed to diff iculty in social programmes
can be illustrated by showing that,even in a
simple system involving just ten variables,
the number of possibl e orderings would be
in excess of t hree million. But if the problem
becomes one of considering possible
orderings open to massive,environmental
systems, the task becomes impossible using
an objective, combinatorial approach. But
secondly, there is always a chance of the
intrusion, into a social open system, of
new variables, to be called here
"unpredictables", and the most revealing
thing to be said about unpredictables is t hat
they cannot be predicted. There is no way of
taking them into account,whether one
resorts to extrapolative, probabi listic or
stoch<>stic predictive methods.
The key to the difficulties lies in not
distinguishing between deductive and
non-deductive methods of inference. Using
rules of logic, certainty can only be
transmitted through deductive inference, so
<;ertainty can only move in the direction of
,;'articular conclusions from general
assumptions. Predictions, however, are
non-deductive, they attempt to arrive at
general conclusions from particular
conditions; there is no way for them to
transmit certainty, only, at best,highlevel
style guesses under certain favourable
conditions.
But it would be wrong to infer that if
truth transmission is logically impossi ble
that prediction must be abandonned, for it
has been shown that there are classes of
events t hat have been consistently predicted
with great accuracy. For example, it would
not be irresponsible to assume that accurate
predictions for solar eclipses can be made for
the next 500 years. Why, therefore, should
there be difficulty in accurately predicting
city futures for f ive years?
In understanding this question t he
concept of the system becomes useful.
Systems are not concerned with truth or
certainty transmissions. They are, however,
valuable in exposing the structure and the
complexity of the problem. Systems have
been characterized as relative sets of
components ranging from closed systems to
open systems. Popper's analogy of closed,
clocklike systems and open,cloudlike
systems2 classifies systems according to their
predictability characteristics. A closed (or
relatively closed) clocklike system is
discrete and highly predictable. An open
cloud like system is interactive beyond its
own parts, it responds or exchanges with its
environment and it is likely to behave in an
unpredictable way.
2. K. R. Popper, Of Cl ouds and Cl ocks, Washington
University, St. Louis, 1966. Also short version A D,
. 1969.

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