Social Condenser

The writing of Delirious New York served as the fundamental basis of much of rem Koolhaas’s theories and concepts. He uses the Downtown Athletics Club as the tool for representing his ideas about how programmatic combinations could inspire vibrancy of interactions within spaces.

“AConstructivistSocialCondenser:amachinetogenerate andintensifydesirableformsof humanintercourse” (Koolhaas,1994 : ).

Koolhaas’s theory of the social condenser was inspired by the theories of Russian constructivist Ivan Leonidov. In his writings, Leonidov proposed a series of formulae for the creation of his socialist condenser (Özkan, 2008):

Socially interactive, programmatically condensed: Architecture that defines a flexible and unified organic process with active improvisation of users.

A minimum architecture and a maximum programme: To define a collection of activities that combines a strip of void with an intense programme.

Innocent pleasure inside versus corruption outside: Definition of the limits of space, establishing spatial relationships between the inside and outside.

A city within a city: To create a pattern of activity generators that guarantee constant programmatic instability.

Architectural specificity with programmatic indeterminacy: To create an envelope that is capable of absorbing perpetual states of revision.

Exodus

Koolhaas developed his interest in the social condenser when he was part of the AA. His thesis, Exodus offered a framework for creating vibrancy in city spaces (Cerra, n.d.). It suggested that through these diverse programmatic combinations, the people of the city would want to occupy its space. The strip and void became the method he would use to represent this. Like the Berlin Wall, the intervention would lie amongst the city’s activities, creating a strip in the landscape. However, the relationship it had with the people would be different. The symbol for division became an element of connection, able to generate attractive social environments for citizens. The wall was reinterpreted through the injection of programme.

Parc de la Villette

An element of fascination for Koolhaas was the skyscraper, with programmatic combinations stacked vertically. The Downtown Athletics Club was understood by Koolhaas as a layering of programmatic strips. He understood that density and verticality had produced an architecture able to facilitate social interactions on a grand scale.

Koolhaas would use this concept for his approach to the design of Parc de la Villette in 1982. The skyscraper was put on its side and extrapolated across the park. Each floor would become a different activity. The layering of these strips would generate a new social condenser within the landscape.