The Arcades Project - Operi

Under the heading "Le Garantisme d'ouIe" 1 and
in conjunction with the amelioration of popular speech habits and of the musical
education of the people (worker-choirs of the theater of Toulouse!), Fourier treats
of measures to he taken against noise, He wants the workshops isolatcd and, for
the most part, transferred to the suburbs. (W17,2]
Town-Planning: '"A man who wishes to have a hrilliant drawing room is keenly
aware that the heauty of the principal room cannot do without that of the avenues.
What is one to think of an elegant salon that requires the visitor, on his way there,
first to pass through a courtyard littered with refuse, a stairwell full of rubbish,
and an antechamber provided with old and uncouth furnishings? , , . Why is it,
then, that the good taste evinced by each individual in the decOl'ation of his private
abode is not met with, as well, in our architects responsihle for those collcctivc
abodes known as cities? And why hasIl't one of the myriad princes and artists . ..
ever had the idea of adorning, in appropriate degree, thc three components: faubourgs,
annexes, and avenues , .. ?" Charles Fourier, Cites ouvriikes: Modifications
a introduire dans l'architecture des villes (Paris, 1849), pp. 19-20. Among
many other prescriptions for urhan planning, Fourier imagines some that would
allow one to recognizc, from the increasing or decreasing decoration on the huildings,
whether one was approaching or moving away from a city. [W17,3]
Barharian, civilized, and harmonian town planning: " A harharian town is formed
ofhuildings haphazardly assemhled , . . and confusedly groupcd along streets that
are tortuous, narrow, hadly constructed, unsafe, and unhealthy. Such, in general,
arc the cities of France . ... Civilized towns have a monotonous, imperfeet order,
a checkerhoard pattern, as in . , . Philadelphia, Amsterdam, Nancy, Turin, the
new parts of London and Marseilles, and ot.her cities which one knows by heart as
soon as one has looked ut three or four strccts. Further inspection would he
pointless and dispiriting." In contrast to this: I . "neutral hurmony," "which reconciles
incoherent order with a combined order." Fouricr, Cites ouvrie1'es, pp. 17-
18. [W17,4]
The Hannonians neither acknowledge nor desire any holidays. [WI7a,l]
[n Die heilige Familie (wherc'?)'2 Marx refers to Fourier. [W17a,2]
Toussenel, in 1848, was among the founders of the Societe Rcpuhlicaine Centrale
(B1au'lui's club). [W17a,3]
Claude-Nicolas Ledoux: "'Like all the eommunal dwellings envisioned for Chaux,
the hospice (a low-rise structure ringed hy arcades and enclosing a square courtyard)
has the task of furthering thc moral elevation of humankind, insofar as it
carefully tests the people it shelters, allows the good their freedom, and detains thc
had for compulsory lahor. To what extent t.he artist was gripped by the reformist
ideas of those days ean be seen in the peculiar project of the 'oikema.' Already