The Situationist City concept of Simon Sadler

Figure 1: The map from “The Situationist City” book cover by Simon Sadler

The Situationist City book written by Simon Sadler in 1998 and published in 1999 was a research about the ideas, work of arts and masterpieces that was left behind by the Situationist International. The situationist design came from the influence of the situational, external factors became more than the internal factors. “Situationists would use their experience of language as a way of revolutionizing our consciousness of the city” (Simon Sadler, The Situationist City p. 95–96). Put it simply, thoughts by situationists have been replaced by moving images. Artworks by situationist are mostly consist of maps, varies from normal direction maps to mind maps and “The situationist maps described an urban navigational system” (Simon Sadler, The Situationist City p. 88). The technique used by the situationist and applied in architecture is mapping. This technique provide advantageous to a design once it has marked in a well layout map that put the design in the middle of close by decent locations. Which can be easily access and applied through the users of that design.

Figure 2 & 3: Map designs from The Situationists City, including the cover map “the Naked City” from the cover page

I have applied the concept of situationism by using pencil and map the surroundings on A1 paper. I marked each location and connect them with UTS: inSEARCH. I managed to draw this through applying the location I’ve known and the surrounding streets that I’ve traveled to. Each locations are approximately close to inSEARCH and there are also many more streets surround the building. I used a map to draw the streets close to the marked locations. The technique of mapping the surroundings of the UTS: inSEARCH building is necessary for the architecture progress as it determine a good location for university students to attend inSEARCH with ease. At the same time each marked locations can also provide supports for the students as there are two close by ANZ ATM for money withdraw. As previous mentioned above, mapping in architecture can provide the most advantageous location for the designed building, where the designs are center and close to decent locations.

Figure 3 & 4: The map represented UTS: inSEARCH building, including it’s surroundings

References:

Simon Sadler. 1998, The Situationist City, The MIT Press, University of California, Davis