1. 

The planning and design of new residential areas have so far been based on acceptance of the existing social forms and conventions. Thus, of the existing family structure with family units consisting of father, mother and children. 

In this way, one has been prevented from relating architectural experiments to experiments in a broader, that is, social, sense. And thus, residential architecture has become a formalistic and, in the negative sense, aesthetic phenomenon. 

The possibilities for innovative work here consist largely in the creation of tenement barracks or single-family houses which, for example, from the point of view of mental hygiene are "healthier" or from the point of view of aesthetics "nicer" in a new and different way. 

The result is a moving about with given things in a closed repertoire of possibilities. And in our opinion, this moving about is not made less conventional by the architect collaborating with a visual artist. The visual artist's function is in reality limited to just making everything a little ”nicer.” 

In any case, he becomes a dog in a game of skittles. Either he must submit to the function, which makes him a supplier of decorative ornamentation. Or function must submit to him, thereby authoritatively squeezing people into an ornament. The divorce between architecture and visual art is at this level a definitive historical fact.

2. 

In addition, it is problematic whether the social, religious and ethical functions and justifications that the conventional family model originally had are still true for everyone in society. In other words: Doesn't architecture, regardless of its possible aesthetic radicality, become reactionary and convention-preserving by always passively mirroring social models that are not always universally obvious? 

Social security functions have increasingly shifted from the family to society. And for example, the sexual morality derived from Christianity with "the one and only" and all that has disintegrated for large groups of the population.  

Various outsider groups (hippies, yippies, mods, greasers, bikers, dropouts of all persuasions) have therefore already for a long time, consciously or unconsciously, been experimenting with and living in other social models. And there are many indications that the underlying structures that have hitherto determined our image of people and the world around us are slowly being replaced by completely new ones that can only gradually be glimpsed. 

It is therefore not immediately obvious that the design of a new residential area of the kind required by the competition and in its context must simply operate on the basis of an unreflective acceptance of current well-known models and mental structures. 

In fact, there is a need for housing designs in population groups that favour other models. And from a general democratic point of view, there should be nothing to prevent these population groups from the opportunity to live in accordance with their minority norms. 

Furthermore, it must be noted that in a transitional period such as this, when old structures encounter new ones, and where the new can hardly be predicted, it is impossible to establish unambiguous and sustainable functional criteria that can make it reasonable to build towns and houses to last several hundred years. Classical functionalism, which is still the most widespread architectural philosophy, presupposes a unified culture that does not exist. It thereby acquires pronounced authoritarian traits that render it useless.

3.

If you compare what has been established in points 1 and 2 about the aesthetic and social aspects in connection with the problem of housing design now in the late 1960s, the following project is the obvious logical consequence: 

We propose the creation of an EXPERIMENTAL CITY, where the design of housing units and, in connection with this, the other urban functions are determined by experiments with new social models.  

Such an experimental city should accommodate as many alternative models as possible, from extremely social and collective to extremely individualistic. In this way, the city will contain a wide range of different life forms, from which the individual can freely choose on the basis of his or her personal wishes and norms. It will also have the advantage that it is not based on a closed set of axioms, a value system that is imposed on everyone. Such a system does not exist in these years. On the contrary, it will be based on an open series of value points, as each model represents such a point that can be functionally determined. 

The architectural design of the home will in each case be determined by the social model it is intended to promote and support. And it is quite obvious that such a city can only come into being if, in addition to architects and (perhaps) visual artists, sociologists and psychologists are involved. 

It is the latter who must formulate and gradually correct the social models, while it is the task of the former to reflect them in a residential environment, since functional criteria are still useful if, as proposed here, they are used relativistically. 
The experimental city thus becomes a unique phenomenon, a kind of social laboratory. Here, the community can try out new models as they emerge, modify them, and use what proves durable and practical. 

It will therefore be necessary to work architecturally with very flexible elements and structural formations, since the housing environment is a completely integral part of the experimental conditions, which should preferably be changed along the way. Increased flexibility also means increased leeway for each person’s individual deviations, which is an important additional benefit.

4.

As examples of how we imagine experiments of this kind, we can imagine two, completely different types of collective forms of life: One in which the concept of family and thus "the private" is still maintained but broadened to extended families. And one where the concept of family and private life is completely dissolved. As far as extended families are concerned, one can imagine family units consisting of, for example, about 10 adults plus children instead of the current family's father, mother plus child/children. In such an extended family, one must imagine that the marriage situation has been abolished between the adults, so that the children are children of all the adults and, conversely, the adults are parents of all the children. 

This model is not without advantages and alluring sides, and it is likely to attract many people already now. Among other things, it means a break with the traditional hierarchical family structure, more democratic equality and an immediate possibility of overcoming problems of loneliness, for example.  

In addition, from a housing economic point of view, it offers opportunities for significant savings. Toilet and kitchen units will be significantly fewer in a residential block designed for extended families, etc. 

Against this model, for example, one can position with another, where the concept of family is eliminated. Marriages do not exist, and the upbringing of children is carried out exclusively by public institutions. Each individual lives separately in a type of cell that serves only as a sleeping place and an opportunity to withdraw.  

Otherwise, all life takes place in public, and as much emphasis as possible has been placed on the public facilities compared to the private "homes". For example, all food is consumed in public eateries, just as all social contacts and leisure activities take place out in the environment, as the entire environment in a way becomes the individual's home. 

This model of "collective loners" and a totally proximous sexual pattern is also likely to attract a lot of people, and it will also be cheaper than the current family structure.

5. 

There is a dialectical relationship between the social forms and the way homes and cities are designed. They mutually condition each other. And if new paths are to be beaten, architecture is to help establish a more inclusive and generous society, the ways of life and their architectural expression must be developed at the same time as the two sides of the same coin that they are.   

And here the political utopias do not help us, insofar as they offer solutions to completely different problem areas. Socialism, for example, can offer a better solution to the problem of the fair distribution of goods than capitalism. But it is not a "social model" in the more existential sense the term is used here. For example, it is impossible to determine which of the above models is "more socialist." 

The models we are talking about here are connected to the underlying (and at least not in the first instance economically determined) structures that govern people’s perceptions of themselves and their surroundings and thus their wishes and preferences. 

By working with these structures in an experimental city, as the one proposed here, architecture is torn away from its current conservatively formalistic and aestheticizing straitjacket and becomes socially co-creative. 

In addition, it will be the first art form to obtain actual experimental status in a stricter scientific sense. Its results will not be predictable, and it will have to continually change its hypotheses as experiments progress, which in turn will have far-reaching and beneficial formal consequences. It follows from the above that we have not been able to enter the competition with carefully crafted detailed proposals and drawings that tacitly accept architecture's current position as a socially conservative, non-experimental art form. 

Instead, our project has become this meta-reasoning about the axioms of the competition itself – a kind of verbal poster for a certain attitude. 

It is to an extreme degree and quite deliberately what practical architects call "desk architecture." But the architecture and urban planning of the future must, we believe, become a kind of desk architecture, where the formal design of details means nothing compared to the design of a supporting idea and attitude. The Experiment City is not an ordinary aesthetic architectural utopia, located in some future landscape. It must be built now. And it is needed now.