lectures; thirty students from UP 6 together

with the area Comite d'Action occupy 3,000

square feet of administration offices at the
school, including the Director's office,
declaring the opening of a 'Creche Sauvage'
for students and children from the area.
Posters invite mothers to bring their
children, and part of the school garden is
turned into a playground. The students
demand that the school pays for the child
rninders. The administration considers the
matter and the Director moves to an
adjoining office. Finally a permanent creche
is established in a different part of the
school. The attempt to integrate with the
surrounding community is less successful.

November l st, 1969. Exhibition destroyed

M. Michelet, Minister of Culture since the
resignation of General de Gaulle and M.
Malraux, opens an exhibition of plans and
models of the new towns to be constructed
around Paris as well as redevelopment
projects in the centre. Regarding this
exhibition as a provocation in view of the
un desirable consequences of redevelopment
and the scandal of private sector
responsibility for all new towns, the students
of UP 6 disrupt the proceed ings, which are
taking place in the main courtyard of the
school,and hurl the exhibits into the road. A
few days later the commencement of the
construction course at UP 6 reveals that only
three staff are available for 400 students.
Outrage at this leads to a strike being called
which is joined by other UPs including some
from the provinces.

November 17th 1969. 'Cours sauvage'.

The Assemb/ee Generate delivers a
violent attack on the whole basis of
architectual teach ing under the new system.
For a start the Ministry of Culture, disp osing
of less than 0.4% of the national budget, has
responsibility for 6,000 students of
architecture, which it clearly cannot afford .
Furthermore the Malthusian selection
system has created a situation where France
has only about 8,000 architects (as opposed
to 20,000 in Italy or Britain for an
approximately similar population) and entry
is heavily biased against lower class aspirants.
It can be clearly shown, they claim, that
professional protectionism has a close
connection with the inadequate provision of
housing in France.
'T he liberal profession is a my th ra ther th an a
reality. Forty per cent of the 200 prac tices in
the country handle over ltalf th e work available.
O nly 22% o f Arcllitectes Dip/6mes par le
Gouvernement are in practice for themselves;
the remaining 78% are salaried workers. T he
social o rigins of Bea ux Arts stud ents display the
bias built in to the education sys tem: o nly 6%
are working class. 20% middle class, and 74%
uppe r class. In order to find one archi tec t of
working class o rigin we mus t go through
147,500 workers. In order to find one architect
of white coUar origin we must go t.h rough
23,500 white collar wo rkers. In order to find
one architect who is the son of a manager we
mus t go through 5,000 ma nagers. In order to
find one architect who is the son of a
pro fessio nal we need o nly go through 800
professionals. And in order to find o ne
The Ministry of C ulture's exhibition of urba nism in the Paris region, destro yed in the courtyard of the
school. Novemb er 1969.
architect who is the son of an architect, we
need only f> through 43. T his is o ur liberal
professio n.
We cannot serio usly a ttempt to train
architects of any social value un less we consi der
the failures of current building policies, c hiefly
those ~verning redevelo pment and housing.
What IS a t stake is no t th e survival of a
professio n bu t the state of the people of this
country. T o imagine that we can improve our
own training as architects with out denou ncing
the scandal of presen t building polk ies is an
iUusio n.'
From this point on, the AG endeavoured
to set the demands of students and teachers
for an improved course and more relevant
teaching into a political perspective going far
beyond student interests.3 The problems of
inadequate budget, antiquated selection,
competitive Diplomas, insufficient staff and
so on were to be viewed in the context of
actual social crises, such as those posed by
housing and the destruction of communities
3. Les Cah iers de Mni. No 17.
by redevelopment. A pamphlet called 'Why?
was published to clarify the real task that lay
before UP 6.
1. Why do families with young children
and small incomes find it impossable to
obtain homes?
2. Why does one have to wait for up to I 0
years for HlM (roughly equivalent to
Council)acconunodation?
3. Why must the majority of worker..
spend two or three hours per day
travelling to and from work?
4. Why do poor families have to pay two
or three times more (in proportion to
their budget) for their housing, than do
rich families?
5. Why have two thirds of French houses
neither a shower nor a bath?
6. Why do 15,000,000 French people live
in conditions of overcrowding?
7. Why are community services neither
constructed nor foreseen when suburban
555

Cours Sa}lvage. The occupatio n of offices at the Ministry ofHousi~: a poster follo wing th e arrest of 128 students who took part.
housing developments are planned?
8. Why does nursery school space exist for
only nine children in every thousand?
9. Why are the inhabitants of
redevelopment areas always rehoused in
the suburbs, miles from their old
community?
10. Why do 'efficient construction methods'
cost the lives of three workers every day
on the building sites of France?
11. Why are 70% of French construction
workers immigrants who live in
Bidonvilles or conditions of gross
overcrowding?
12. Why has the government given
responsibility for the construction of
HLM dwellings, services and roads,
entirely to the private sector?
13. Why have housing targets been reduced
by I 00,000 units for 1970 ?
These are your problems as well as ours.
We see them reflected in the absurdity of
o ur education system and our process of
selection. That is why we are on strike.
The effect of this new analysis was
electric. It was decided almost immediately
that the period of the strike should not be
wasted and that 'A school on strike should
not be an empty school.' The strike was
reinterpreted as a detournement of the
normal teaching programme: if there were
not sufficient teachers to give lectures in the
school, then the lectures would be held
outside it, out in the real world where the
evils the students wished to combat were to
be found. At the same time 'lectures in the
streets' would give them a chance to explain
their case to the people, to demonstrate to
them that they too shared their oppression,
UL
to make contact with the people o f Paris and
to see with their own eyes the
maladministration and speculation at the
heart of bourgeois rule.
For the next few weeks, until the budget
for UP 6 was increased and 50 more staff
employed, thus ending the strike, the
existing staff and students took their lecture
courses in the streets and in public places.
Lectures and demonstrations were held at
the Louvre - at the foot o f the Victory of
Samothrace, at the head quarters of the
Ordre des Architectes, at the Institute of
Decorative Arts, at the Institute of
Environmental Science, at the offices o f Le
Monde, at the UNESCO building, at the
market in Belleville a working class area in
the process of redevelopment - and at the
Offices of the Ministry o f Services and
Housing (Ministere d'Equipment et
Logement). Hubert Tonka, professor of the
history of urbanism at Vincennes held
lectures on consumer society in one of the
largest department stores in Paris. The
following account is o f the temporary
occupation of the office of M. Chalandon,
Minister of Housing, it is given by the
lecturer who spoke at the time.
December 2nd 1969 An occupation.
' For the purposes of a lecture on the housing
problem we had d ecided to occupy o ne of the
offices in the Ministry of Services and Housing
for 45 minu tes. We arrived at th e office without
incident; it was ex tremely lu xurious, hung with
tapestries and crystal chandeliers, its luxury is
aslounding. A voice says "This is my office.
What do you want?" " You' ll see," we reply, and
as the occupan t hastily leaves we sit down, all
ISO of us with all the usual banners plus a new
one which reads " REGIONAL PLANNING =
PARISIAN CANCER + SLUMS + THE
DEPORTATION OF FARMERS." We had
intended to stay for three quarters of an hour
and hold three lectures, one on the recently
approved standards for HLM housing which
required lifts o nly above six storeys instead of
four, o n the new smaller space standards and ~
the permit tin$ of north facing rooms; another
on the conditions of immigrant workers in
Bidonvilles; and a third on uncontrolled rents
and property speculation. Daring the flf'St
lecture we d iscover that we have been
surrounded by police but they do not <bze
interrupt until the lecture has ended. Then the
officer in charge asks me if I am the tutor. I
answer th at I am, and am immediately pounced
on by several policemen. Comrades attempt to
defend me and the doors to the office are
broken durin$ the ensuing fight. One hundred
and twenty e1ght of us are arrested and taken in
police vans to Beaujon where we are installed
forty in each cell intended for twelve. After a
time we are both cold and hungry; some more
experienced comudes have prepared themselves
by wearing wann clothes. Our morale is high.
4. Beaujon. Central Police station for interrogation.
Much used during May 1968.
-s-
i
~:t\;~1,.·:_.!_:____,
\
~ .. ..
\.
~
I ll.
Layout of Beaujon police station, showing time
and motion study carried out by a student. Solid
dots= Police. White d.o ts = Students.
557
---r- ~~-----~--~~~----
to manipulate. Detoumement of this kind
formed the basis of much of the action
carried out by UP6. The 'Info-Logement'
report on housing, the idea for the
newspaper 'La Maison du Peuple' (intended
as a counterpart to La Maison de
Marie-04ire), the subversion of construction
exercises by operations such as
Villeneuve-la-Garenne - all represented
sldlful means of keeping the school in being
whilst changing the meaning of its
curriculum.
Real objective ve~us clever feint.
'Contestation: the state of continual
confrontation and debate, 'is in itself
constructive; it creates conditions in which
political life is possible.' So wrote
Glucksmann in Strategi.e et Revolution 3 ,
and his words have been echoed by more
than one UP6 student who has made a life
out of such conflict in the belief that it will
inevitably lead to revolution. 'When one is
fighting one cannot at the same time
we~ken.' Yet Hubert Tonka - professor of
urbanism at the experimental university of
Vincennes - doubts the ultimate credibility
of a detoumement such as that practised at
Villeneuve-la-Garenne in the context of the
great revolutionary struggle which the
students have essayed to join.
'To use a military analogy,' he explains4,
'Villeneuve-la-Garenne and the plight of the
working classes are a clever feint, not a real
attack on a real objective. The real objective
is within the university, within the
experience of the student-s themselves'. Yet
Tonka withholds his final judgement; 'A few
intellectuals arrive with bricks and construct
a small building for immigrants, socially the
action is useless because it is done for and
"not with the population of the area. But
politically it does succeed, it displays the
oppression of the oppressed, the immigrants
become conscious of class realities, of their
position vis-Q-vis the capitalist system.'
The students themselves see
Villeneuve-la-Garenne as a myth - a
distorted representation of reality in which
the collective for an instant recognises itself.
Whether the immigrant workers or the
students of UP6 benefit most from this
process is immaterial, 'The primordial value
of an act of revolt resides in its spiritual
liberation of the oppressed. •s Such myths
are necessary to all-revolutionaries in order
to sustain them in their trials.
Rival ideologies
If we temporarily disregard Tonka's
suggestion that the operations of cours
sauvages are but clever feints, it becomes
necessary to relate them to revolutionary
theories such as rose to prominence during
May 1968. These theories are of great
interest because they extend beyond the
point of seizure of power, in their
concentration upon the theory of
'contestation' or struggle. ~er May, actions
3. Glucksmann, op. clt.
4. Hubert Tonka, In conversation with the authors.
5. Frantz Fanon, The Wntched of the Earth._ 1958
became subject to reinterpretation;
manifestations became mere performances,
revolutionary thought mere information to
be homogenized by mass media. At this
point the development of the technique of
random action assumed great importance.
The coun sauvages, in their unpredictable,
symbolic intervention penetrated the media
blanket ; they attacked not only the ministry
but also public apathy over the
environmental crises they pointed up; they
gave the students a new (and much needed)
consciousness of what was possible. 'Mastery
of content, form and communication
constitute the essentials of a tactic that must
shock in order to gain attention and gather
support to ensure the growth of an idea.'6
The importance of a barricade does not
lie in its being a traffic hindrance, but in its
power to reveal the violence of the regime
through being also a symbol and a catalyst.
Concentration on this theoretical
understanding of revolutionary action
always leads to the formation of factions,
and the case of UP6 is no exception.
Representatives of one group (or
'Groupuscule', as small groups are called
after the famous L 'Humanite jibe of May
2nd 1968) ~onstantly emphasJse their
differences from other groups. First come
those subject to the Leninist theory that
' Political class-consciousness can only be
brought to the workers from outside, that is
to say from outside the sphere of relations
within which workers and employers
interract. '7 Thus UP6 students work in
factories and live in slums, trying to bring
about just such a class-consciousness. The
next group has faith in the
self-representation of popular will. As
Trotsky wrote: 'On one side we have a party
which thinks for the proletariat, which
politically substitutes itself for it; on the
other a party which politically educates it
and mobilises it in order that it may exercise
its own pressure on the will of all groups and
parties.'8 Both these attitudes are present in
those actions of UP6 epitomised by
Villeneuve-la-Garenne, as is a third, a Maoist
belief in a 'spontaneous upsurge' of the
popular will. Beyond all these positions lies
the almost William Morris stance taken by
one of the putative editors of La Maison du
Peuple, who observed. 'It is impossible to
'stop capitalism, so it is pointless to struggle
for industrialisation at all: we should
concentrate on marginal production, by
people for themselves.' Recognition of these
divisions should not however obscure the
remarkable unity of effect that has obtained
since 1%8: today the architectural student
endeavours to engage in the dialogue of
international political life - instead of
passively accepting its conclusions. Possessed
of this enquiring confidence, students have
discovered new forms of action and social
forces hitherto unrevealed; more
importantly they have resisted the tendency
of revolutionary movements to ossify and
6. Glucksmann, op. cit.
7. Lenin, 'What Is to be done,' 1902
S. Leon Trotsky, Our poll deal tasks, 1904
duplicate the bureaucracy of the system
they claim to oppose.9 They follow
Glucksmann in his assessment of the role of
the movement in liaising between discrete
Comites d'Action, each able to exploit a
local advantage such as has begun to be
revealed in the redevelopment areas of the
'XII arrondissement, Dunkerque and Ulle.
The Comites d'Action themselves have
develope<1 in embryo new social structures
and relationships within the existing
structure, much as resistance networks
developed during the wartime occupation.
This has enabled them to challenge at many
levels, thus avoiding the danger of bourgeois
society assimilating isolated economic or
political activities which in unison might
achieve considerable gains.9 Such flexibility
has not however been achieved at UP6;
partly because many militant students
already belong to political organisations
outside the school, they have always been
obliged to use their speciality, their
expertise, when operating within or from it.
Collectif Logement and
Villeneuve-la-Garenne represent classic
approaches-to-the-people with the aid of
specialist skills. The students of UP6 share
the Comite d'Action understanding of the
importance of acting on many levels
simultaneously; but increasingly they fmd it
impossible to do this without sacrificing
their own speciality into the bargain. Within
the specificity of the Construction Industry
interventions can be carried out with
flexibility - outside it this flexibility is
doubly necessary particularly as 'part of the
future of UP6 lies in the actions of the
Lyceens. •1 o
Political space versus the specifJCity of
architecture.
Three postures have emerged in response
to this apparent weakness beyond the
specialist area. The first holds that space has
a political meaning, and thus that space can
be conceived as a socialist product as distinct
from a bourgeois one. The second denies this
and thus moves steadily away from the
speciality of architecture itself into direct
political action. A third holds that an
analysis of the building process in terms of
the class struggle will clarify the question;
without such an analysis the matter cannot
be clearly understood. Henri Lefebvre, an
exponent of the first hypothesis, maintains
that: 'Space is not a scientifically measurable
quantity which has been detourne by
ideology or by politics, it has always been
political and strategic in itself. If a space
looks neutral, indifferent to its contents,
therefore 'purely formal', abstract in a
rational sense, it is because it is already
occupied, organised, already the object of
old or lost strategies. Space is produced from
historical or natural elements, it is always
political and ideological. •11
9. Jean·Pierre Vigier, The action commiNeu.
Reflections on the Revolution fn France: 1968,
Pelican
I 0. Candilis, In conversation with the authors
11. Henri LefebVre, 'Rene~i9ns sur le Politiql.le de
565
 ...
Students at Ol>S often go beyond. even
this position: they consider spade not merely
as a social product but even as a social
accelerator, a tool capable of speedmg up
social tendencies of on!! kind or another:
'We say th;rt spaqe has.~ 1:ertain influence on
social behaviour,tit 6oei flot truosfotm it,
but it does act upon .it i:n such a wa;y-that we as
architects can Q~hap$ make possible certain
unspecified a11 d-unex~ed possibilities
through the spaces we design.' 12 This
expression may in itself be the last
attenuated cry of the theory of architecture
for the people, soch as is to be found in
Melnikov and the other:constructiTists who
strove to make (),Ut of socialist art 'an
instrument of social transformation, a
revolutionary tool, a means to trafls!orm th6
relationship between ttte individual ind • •
society by means ofgetictating a new ·
lifestyle, new environment and new private · •
and public code:~ of"beh:1viour.'t 3 _ attempts to generalise the realities of the
Groups such as 'Uto}iie' reject t~is
hypothesis utterly. They maintam tftat even
if the technical aspects Uf.architecture are
abstracted, still archite~h.ire in itsc.Jt: is never
political, neithef!can. p~blems tie ;otved or
social goals achieved b~rchitectut:a} means,
or indeed by mcllns .of wace at all-. :Whether
it expresses bo~eois qtproletarii!ll interests
architecture has always been linked -to social
repression became it remains external to the
quotidian experience of people.
'There are many problems which are not
clarified at all b.y the ~litancy oUJP6. If •
the newspaper 'La MlfiS{in dtt P~~ is
meant to be a proletarian equiyale;trt:.to. 'Lo
Maison de Man"i:!Ciaire' then it st.jtl
represents only an ur\c1ercapitallsed attempt
to use the methods of tile bourgeoisie.
against itself. It ts m aiW case a poHtichl
error: there is no.:;pccific architecfote for
the people, all architecture 1S for the people
There is no proletarian·science, there is no
bourgeots science. No Qne has ever: shown
me what is specifically;bourgeois about the
plan of a bourgeois houte.
'Two tendet1Cies are. aeveloplDLat UP6:
on the one hand, outside organisations like
Secours Rouge t.o which many U£'6 students
belong, try hard in theJield of housing to
help people reduce their extortionate rents,
fight eviction ete. They do this by using the
law. Now the .idea of sfudying law ~d using
it does not seem bad in .itself; but no
architectural training 1$ necessary at all. A:>
at Belleville. what started out as a protest
over the enviror\Jnent c!l'lded as an attempt t<'
save old people. Now Lhave no objectiQn to
that but one does nqt need to.~l! an
architect to do it.
'The opposite tend~ncy is to be ~~ri
amongst those qf the staff and students at ·
UP6 who, growmg old or cautious, strive to
produce an 'architecture for the.p~ople.'
Villeneuve-la-Garenne 'ies at the meeting
point of these two tendencies. In the future
I think we shall.sec an extension of both.
Political acts inuolving ~uilding for
: ,. ~ ~
.. 12. Bernard Hue;,: on ~nvH!Iation autho~
\J.thn'e
.' 13. Anatole Ko!Jp, Espac~~t SocietJ!, Nooembre
1970
• ; 566 AD/9/71
..
<$
instance erecting buildings for the people on
L!S Vlf.IJ1 $W1' 1'1VS
oas <-•~>~s.' private or state property - but there the
specificity of the action will be in the seizure
of the land, not in the design of what is
built. Also increasing efforts to prove that
certain buildings or designs are political, or
'for the people', by means of more and more
signs and 'explanations' to that effect. Both
attempts are hopeless; to imagine as do
• some at the Beaux-Arts- that it is possible
to act politically through urbanism,
architecture, or the detoumement of either
is a dream.' 14
The last of the three stances mentioned at
the beginning of this section concerns the
c.o"1~~ ~vi? rediscovery of the social repression which
exists within the building process by means
~~~H----tt-6 11
of direct experience. This programme,
presently bein~ carried out by students in the
Vernier, Le Dantec grou p has resulted in
much political activity on building sites, in
workers' approach to building, and in
experimental course structures utilising the
knowledge thus gained. Here is no dream,
and the proletarianisation of the profession
foreseen by Lefebvre1S becomes a reality.
Order versus disorder
The principle of detoumement, which has
run as a leitmotif through the present article,
is important in that by subverting the end
instead of the means, it turns the final
product into a powerful agent of change.
PAW.'f'ftlllf. Each of the actions described earlier
UNOl70t.1
effectively challenges societies' capacity to
~ f'I/IW 'control unknown threats by eliminating the
~ . . ...
____,_,~$ . possibility of experiencing surprises ... By
taming the paths of social actions.' 16
'flni~~'tt 1 Through actions such as Villeneuvre or cours
souvage 'the replanning of a transcendent
order of living that is immune to variety'17
is rendered impossible.
Beyond their role in the relief of obvious
social evils, such actions tend to bring about
an upheaval in the division of labour itself.
The clever feint becomes an integral part of
the real objective as the general effect of the
whole disturbs the organisation of bourgeois
society: 'A disordered, unstable social life
would lead to structural clzanges in the city
itself, as well as to the individual in his social
milieu.' 18
In this sens~ the conflicting theories
surrounding the political value of space serve
themselves as generators of a transcendental
disorder [or the time being. Judging the
students on their actions rather than their
ideologies, one would expect in future that
this effective alliance would lead to further
development of the concept of random,
opportunist, guerilla tactics so that centres
of fertile disorder will emerge in clear
opposition to the official sanctuaries of
order. 0
-
14. Hubert Tonka. Op. Cil.
I 5. Henri Lefebvre, 'La vie quotidienne dans le
monde moderne
•
16. Richard Sennett. Tire Uses of Disorder,
Operation sm'ite! Student poster deriding Police
attempts to court popula.rrty.
Penguin, 1971
17. Sennett. Op. Cit.
18. Sennett. Op. Cit .