Situationist architecture
Introduction
The Situationist International (SI) was a revolutionary organization of artists and intellectuals (see Situationism) whose main objective was to liquidate class society as an oppressive system and to combat the contemporary ideological system of Western civilization: the so-called capitalist domination and the dictatorship of the commodity. The SI came, ideologically speaking, to the mix of different revolutionary movements that have appeared since the century until its day, notably the Marxist thought of Anton Pannekoek, Amadeo Bordiga of Rosa Luxemburg, Georg Lukács, the group Socialisme ou barbarie (Claude Lefort and Cornelius Castoriadis), as well as the so-called Council Communism or "Counselism" advocated by the aforementioned Pannekoek and Paul Mattick. Founded in 1957, it represents in its beginnings the will to overcome the revolutionary attempts of the artistic avant-garde of the first half of the century: Dadaism, Surrealism and Lettrism.[1].
Founded in July 1957 at the Cosio di Arroscia Conference, the Situationist International was born from the fusion of several avant-garde movements (the Lettrist International that had broken with the Lettrism of Isidore Isou, the International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus, the London Psychogeographic Committee and a group of Italian painters). The founding document, Rapport sur la construction de situations, was written by Guy Debord in 1957. In this text, Debord raises the demand to "change the world" and considers the possibility of overcoming all artistic forms through "a unitary use of all media in order to change everyday life."
One of the main objectives of the Situationist International was to realize the promises contained in the development of the contemporary production apparatus and the liberation of historical conditions for the sake of a reappropriation of reality in all aspects of life. Overcoming art was his initial project. The Situationists criticized and ridiculed contemporary art to demonstrate the falsity and superficiality of bourgeois culture.
The Situationist International quickly oriented itself towards criticism of the society of the spectacle, or "spectacular-commercial society", accompanied by a desire for social revolution. In 1962 there was a split between "artists" and "revolutionaries", excluding artists.
From an organizational point of view, the SI retains the Marxist position of a theoretical party that represents the highest level of revolutionary consciousness. The theorization of this position will occur quite late in the (bulletin nº11), adopted by the seventh conference of the SI in 1967. This position becomes in France one of the references of councilism after the events of May 1968.