Saturday, May 30, 2026

Together they define Socioplastics as a city of texts, an unbuilt architecture, a hidden grammar, a projected urban model, a pedagogical infrastructure, a cosmogram, a written world, a portable museum, a montage city and an embodied field. The project’s strength lies in joining these lines without dissolving them: text becomes architecture, architecture becomes archive, archive becomes machine, machine becomes pedagogy, pedagogy returns to the city, and the city returns to the body.

1. Unbuilt City / Visionary Architecture / Textual Urbanism - Boullée, Ledoux, Piranesi, Sant’Elia, El Lissitzky, Cedric Price, Archigram, Constant Nieuwenhuys, Superstudio, Lebbeus Woods. Idea: Socioplastics as unbuilt architecture: a city of texts operating before physical construction. 2. Ideas That Grow Before They Are Seen - Yona Friedman, Buckminster Fuller, Frei Otto, Japanese Metabolists, Archizoom, Hugh Ferriss, OMA / early Rem Koolhaas, Dogma, Aby Warburg, Jorge Luis Borges. Idea: systems, atlases, libraries and metabolic structures that acquire force before becoming visible. 3. Hidden Form / Rule / Map / Urban Memory - Vitruvius, Alberti, Filarete, Athanasius Kircher, Giambattista Nolli, John Soane, Charles Fourier, Viollet-le-Duc, Camillo Sitte, Aldo Rossi. Idea: architecture as invisible grammar: treatise, map, proportion, museum, memory and civic form. 4. Projected Cities / Urban Models as Total Form - Ebenezer Howard, Arturo Soria y Mata, Tony Garnier, Ivan Leonidov, Konstantin Melnikov, Moisei Ginzburg, Nikolai Ladovsky, Bruno Taut, Herman Sörgel, Patrick Geddes. Idea: the city as social model, infrastructure, labour, perception, mobility and projected life. 5. Pedagogical Infrastructure / Archive / Public Knowledge - Paul Otlet, László Moholy-Nagy, Otto Neurath, Diderot / d’Alembert, Comenius, Melvil Dewey, Vannevar Bush, György Kepes, John Dewey, Paulo Freire. Idea: knowledge organised to be taught, accessed, classified, visualised and socially activated. 6. Cosmograms / Machines of Total Knowledge - Ramon Llull, Giordano Bruno, Leibniz, Robert Fludd, Hildegard von Bingen, William Blake, Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace, Gustav Fechner, Stéphane Mallarmé. Idea: wheels, diagrams, monads, symbolic machines, visions and total books as architectures of thought.7. Written Worlds / Text / Book / Code / Idea - Thomas More, Tommaso Campanella, Francis Bacon, Jonathan Swift, Laurence Sterne, Novalis, Georges Perec, Italo Svevo, Raymond Roussel, Paul Valéry. Idea: the book as city, island, code, procedure, fragment, taxonomy and inhabitable intellectual world. 8. A Museum in a Suitcase / Memory Theatre / Portable Archive - Giulio Camillo, Robert Hooke, John Wilkins, Francis Yates, Gaston Bachelard, André Malraux, Walter Benjamin, André Breton, Joseph Cornell, Marcel Duchamp. Idea: memory folded into theatres, boxes, cabinets, interiors, collections, museums without walls and portable systems. 9. Montage City / Assemblage City / Edge City - Sergei Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov, Jean Epstein, Siegfried Kracauer, Walter Ruttmann, Fernand Léger, Guy Debord, Henri Lefebvre, Michel de Certeau, Maya Deren. Idea: the city as cut, rhythm, sequence, dérive, montage, walking, everyday practice and moving perception. 10. A Body Is a Field / Ground / Power / Landscape - Robert Smithson, Nancy Holt, Michael Heizer, Walter De Maria, Richard Long, Hamish Fulton, Ana Mendieta, Agnes Denes, Christo & Jeanne-Claude, Chris Burden. Idea: the body as field: walking, cutting, planting, wrapping, enduring, risking, marking and leaving traces.

Bibliography

1. Unbuilt City / Visionary Architecture / Textual Urbanism

Boullée, E.-L. (1976) Architecture: Essay on Art. London: Academy Editions.
Ledoux, C.-N. (1804) L’architecture considérée sous le rapport de l’art, des mœurs et de la législation. Paris: H.L. Perronneau.
Piranesi, G.B. (1761) Le carceri d’invenzione. Rome: Giovanni Battista Piranesi.
Sant’Elia, A. (1914) ‘Manifesto of Futurist Architecture’, in Apollonio, U. (ed.) (1973) Futurist Manifestos. London: Thames & Hudson.
Lissitzky, E. (1968) Russia: An Architecture for World Revolution. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Price, C. (2003) Cedric Price: The Square Book. Chichester: Wiley-Academy.
Cook, P. (ed.) (1972) Archigram. London: Studio Vista.
Wigley, M. (1998) Constant’s New Babylon: The Hyper-Architecture of Desire. Rotterdam: 010 Publishers.
Superstudio (2003) Superstudio: Life Without Objects. Milan: Skira.
Woods, L. (1992) Anarchitecture: Architecture Is a Political Act. London: Academy Editions.

2. Ideas That Grow Before They Are Seen

Friedman, Y. (1975) Toward a Scientific Architecture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Fuller, R.B. (1969) Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
Otto, F. (1967) Tensile Structures. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Koolhaas, R. and Obrist, H.U. (2011) Project Japan: Metabolism Talks. Cologne: Taschen.
Archizoom Associati (2006) Archizoom Associati 1966–1974. Milan: Electa.
Ferriss, H. (1929) The Metropolis of Tomorrow. New York: Ives Washburn.
Koolhaas, R. (1978) Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan. New York: Oxford University Press.
Aureli, P.V. (2011) The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Warburg, A. (1999) The Renewal of Pagan Antiquity: Contributions to the Cultural History of the European Renaissance. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute.
Borges, J.L. (1962) Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings. New York: New Directions.

3. Hidden Form / Rule / Map / Urban Memory

Vitruvius (1999) Ten Books on Architecture. Translated by I.D. Rowland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Alberti, L.B. (1988) On the Art of Building in Ten Books. Translated by J. Rykwert, N. Leach and R. Tavernor. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Filarete (1965) Treatise on Architecture. Translated by J.R. Spencer. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Kircher, A. (1665) Mundus subterraneus. Amsterdam: Janssonius and Weyerstraet.
Nolli, G.B. (1748) Nuova pianta di Roma. Rome: Giambattista Nolli.
Soane, J. (1830) Description of the House and Museum on the North Side of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. London: James Moyes.
Fourier, C. (1971) Design for Utopia: Selected Writings. New York: Schocken Books.
Viollet-le-Duc, E.-E. (1990) The Foundations of Architecture: Selections from the Dictionnaire raisonné. New York: George Braziller.
Sitte, C. (1965) City Planning According to Artistic Principles. New York: Random House.
Rossi, A. (1982) The Architecture of the City. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

4. Projected Cities / Urban Models as Total Form

Howard, E. (1902) Garden Cities of To-morrow. London: Swan Sonnenschein.
Soria y Mata, A. (1882) ‘La ciudad lineal’, El Progreso, Madrid.
Garnier, T. (1917) Une cité industrielle. Paris: Auguste Vincent.
Gozak, A. and Leonidov, A. (1988) Ivan Leonidov. London: Academy Editions.
Melnikov, K. (1969) Konstantin Melnikov. Moscow: Soviet Artist.
Ginzburg, M. (1982) Style and Epoch. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Khan-Magomedov, S.O. (1987) Pioneers of Soviet Architecture. London: Thames & Hudson.
Taut, B. (1919) Alpine Architektur. Hagen: Folkwang Verlag.
Sörgel, H. (1932) Atlantropa. Zurich: Fretz & Wasmuth.
Geddes, P. (1915) Cities in Evolution. London: Williams & Norgate.

5. Pedagogical Infrastructure / Archive / Public Knowledge

Otlet, P. (1934) Traité de documentation: Le livre sur le livre. Brussels: Mundaneum.
Moholy-Nagy, L. (1947) Vision in Motion. Chicago: Paul Theobald.
Neurath, O. (1936) International Picture Language. London: Kegan Paul.
Diderot, D. and d’Alembert, J. le R. (1751–1772) Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers. Paris: Briasson.
Comenius, J.A. (1658) Orbis sensualium pictus. Nuremberg: Michael Endter.
Dewey, M. (1876) A Classification and Subject Index for Cataloguing and Arranging the Books and Pamphlets of a Library. Amherst: Amherst College Library.
Bush, V. (1945) ‘As We May Think’, The Atlantic Monthly, 176(1), pp. 101–108.
Kepes, G. (1944) Language of Vision. Chicago: Paul Theobald.
Dewey, J. (1938) Experience and Education. New York: Macmillan.
Freire, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Herder and Herder.

6. Cosmograms / Machines of Total Knowledge

Llull, R. (1993) Doctor Illuminatus: A Ramon Llull Reader. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Bruno, G. (1991) On the Infinite, the Universe and the Worlds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Leibniz, G.W. (1989) Philosophical Essays. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Fludd, R. (1617–1621) Utriusque cosmi maioris scilicet et minoris metaphysica, physica atque technica historia. Oppenheim: Johann Theodor de Bry.
Hildegard of Bingen (1990) Scivias. New York: Paulist Press.
Blake, W. (2008) The Complete Illuminated Books. London: Thames & Hudson.
Babbage, C. (1864) Passages from the Life of a Philosopher. London: Longman.
Lovelace, A. (1843) ‘Notes by the Translator’, in Menabrea, L.F., ‘Sketch of the Analytical Engine Invented by Charles Babbage’, Scientific Memoirs, 3, pp. 666–731.
Fechner, G.T. (1966) Elements of Psychophysics. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Mallarmé, S. (2006) Collected Poems and Other Verse. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

7. Written Worlds / Text / Book / Code / Idea

More, T. (2002) Utopia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Campanella, T. (1981) The City of the Sun. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Bacon, F. (2000) The New Atlantis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Swift, J. (2005) Gulliver’s Travels. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sterne, L. (2009) The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Novalis (1997) Philosophical Writings. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Perec, G. (1996) Life: A User’s Manual. London: Vintage.
Svevo, I. (2001) Zeno’s Conscience. New York: Vintage.
Roussel, R. (2011) Locus Solus. Richmond: Oneworld Classics.
Valéry, P. (1973) Monsieur Teste. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

8. A Museum in a Suitcase / Memory Theatre / Portable Archive

Camillo, G. (2017) The Idea of the Theater. New York: Routledge.
Hooke, R. (1665) Micrographia. London: Royal Society.
Wilkins, J. (1668) An Essay Towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language. London: Sa. Gellibrand.
Yates, F.A. (1966) The Art of Memory. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Bachelard, G. (1994) The Poetics of Space. Boston: Beacon Press.
Malraux, A. (1967) Museum Without Walls. London: Secker & Warburg.
Benjamin, W. (1999) The Arcades Project. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Breton, A. (1960) Nadja. New York: Grove Press.
Cornell, J. (1980) Joseph Cornell. New York: Museum of Modern Art.
Duchamp, M. (1989) Manual of Instructions for Marcel Duchamp Étant donnés. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art.

9. Montage City / Assemblage City / Edge City

Eisenstein, S. (1949) Film Form: Essays in Film Theory. New York: Harcourt.
Vertov, D. (1984) Kino-Eye: The Writings of Dziga Vertov. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Epstein, J. (2012) Critical Essays and New Translations. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Kracauer, S. (1960) Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality. New York: Oxford University Press.
Ruttmann, W. (1927) Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt. Berlin: Deutsche Vereins-Film.
Léger, F. (1973) Functions of Painting. New York: Viking Press.
Debord, G. (1994) The Society of the Spectacle. New York: Zone Books.
Lefebvre, H. (1991) The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell.
de Certeau, M. (1984) The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Deren, M. (2005) Essential Deren: Collected Writings on Film. Kingston, NY: Documentext.

10. A Body Is a Field / Ground / Power / Landscape

Smithson, R. (1996) Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Holt, N. (2012) Nancy Holt: Sightlines. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Heizer, M. (1984) Michael Heizer: Sculpture in Reverse. Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art.
De Maria, W. (2011) Walter De Maria: Trilogies. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Long, R. (2007) Richard Long: Walking and Marking. Edinburgh: National Galleries of Scotland.
Fulton, H. (2002) Hamish Fulton: Walking Journey. London: Tate Publishing.
Mendieta, A. (2004) Ana Mendieta: Earth Body. Washington, DC: Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.
Denes, A. (2008) Agnes Denes. New York: Firstsite / The Drawing Center.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude (2005) Christo and Jeanne-Claude: On the Way to The Gates, Central Park, New York City. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Burden, C. (2007) Chris Burden. London: Locus+.