Le Grand Jeu à Venir

For the Situationist International, urban planning occupies a specific place as the spatial form of the domination of the commodity, or as the natural setting of capitalism. This collection of texts on the city and architecture seeks to restore the polemical and revolutionary character of the movement’s artistic and political programme.

It demonstrates the primordial role played by the city, understood as the privileged site where the major transformations of French society began to emerge in the early 1960s. The events of May 1968 would make concrete the role of the street as a setting, or as a series of “situations”, for expressions of protest and for the détournement of elements belonging to the sphere of the established order.

For the Situationists, true construction is the construction of barricades, and the highest state of urbanity is that of the city in celebration and revolt. The first part of the book presents texts written before the movement’s official launch, from 1954 to 1957. The second contains a selection of texts published in the journal Internationale situationniste between 1957 and 1972.

The final part brings together writings by Guy Debord and several essays by Constant on New Babylon. Some of these texts are being published for the first time in this anthology. Each part is preceded by an introduction outlining the main events of the period and highlighting the fundamental concepts developed in the texts.