COLLAGE

Fifth Year Architecture

Site Analysis was a Group Project 

           with Gabriela Bustamante

Ch. 6 The Crisis of Utopia: Le Corbusier at Algiers

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According to Tafuri, the crisis of utopia lies with the crisis of modern architecture and the capitalist environment. The crisis in modern architecture can be credited to political involvement. Tafuri says, “Almost all the initial blame for this crisis is attributed to the political involutions of European fascism on the one hand and Stalinism on the other” (Tafuri, 134). The minimal decoration, symmetry, and separate districts are Stalinist planning devices seen in Le Corbusier’s utopian master plans. The scale in which Le Corbusier designed utopian cities focused solely on a unitary image without consideration of content. Le Corbusier removes diversity to encourage a singular architecture, but the ideology is at odds with the capitalist ad hoc development of the city today.
 
The residents of Ciudad Kennedy have turned this unitary utopian city and transformed it into a collage city. Ciudad Kennedy started as a singular formal utopian housing project that, over time, has integrated commercial and public buildings although into the spaces dedicated to central parks. Commercial buildings have been combined with housing, and the housing units are layered onto existing buildings. This project highlights the collage of the former utopian plan.