This is a review on two articles, 'Cities in Transition' by Arie Graafland and 'Onmythologisering van de verbeelding, de (her)opleving van de nomadische stad' by Jeroen Boomgaard together with the litarature source 'Geopolitics of hibernation; the drift of situationist urbanism' by Thomas Y. Levin.

"The city is no city anymore, it seems to fall apart through lack and loss of its (historical) references. Voids of recognition. The diversity in the city perceives the given urban qualities and the liveableness of the urban situation, which can not even be called urban anymore. It has become a void, a left-over of the buildingcorporations; space that is lost besides the densified mass-consumption of the housingmarket. With the cultural diversity on top of this, the liveableness of the city is fading. The society shows little interest in its fading and vanishing urban context. The social disturbance of the individualization and economic globalization are beginning to show, they have lived their longest years."

The Situationist International (SI) was formed in 1957 at a conference in Italy. The SI delegates from three (at the time) leading avant-garde groups; the Lettrist International (founded in 1952 and based in France), the International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus (founded in 1953 and based in Italy), and COBRA (founded in 1948 and based in Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam, thus the name of the group).
When aware of the similarity between the groups, they had a sufficiently similar ideological orientation, they united to experiment with means of aesthetic intervention in contemporary culture with the goal of precipitating revolution and destroying the artificial barriers between art and life.
The new SI, whose leading members included Guy Debord, Asger Jorn and Raoul Vaneigem, advanced beyond previous theory to develop a penetrating and sophisticated critique of modern society. Besides the identity of the group as an avant-garde movement, they had political ambitions a well. The Situationists were especially noted for having had a wide influence on the nation-wide wildcat general strike that began in Paris on May 1968. Shortly thereafter, in 1972, the SI disbanded. Their ideas, however, continue to exert influence on contemporary avant-garde groups. They emphasized their ideas during the transformation of capitalism from an industrial to a postindustrial society; from a production market to a consumers market.

The three basic ideas were the Situation construite (the constructed situation), Détournement, and the Dérive. Combined, these playful and subversive practices would be translated in an unitary urbanism, and can be seen as an attempt to implement the ideas of surrealism and dada for the aesthetic praxis of the city, … "leading to the integrated construction of an environment dynamically linked to behavioral experiments".
"Situation construite" is defined, as published in Internationale Situationniste #1, 1958, as: "A moment of life, concretely and deliberately constructed by the collective organization of unitary environment and the free play of events".
"Détournement" is used as an abbreviation for the formula: "détournement of prefabricated aesthetic elements" Which can be explained as: "The integration of past or present artistic production into a superior environmental construction. In this sense, there cannot be situationist painting, or music, but a situationist use of these media. In a more primitive sense, détournement from within old cultural spheres is a form of propaganda, which lays witness to the depletion and waning importance of these spheres".
"Dérive" [literally: "drifting"] can be explained as: "An experimental mode of behavior linked to the conditions of urban society: a technique for hastily passing through varied environments. Also used, more particularly, to designate the duration of a prolonged exercise of such an experiment". And as Debord explains it, in his "Theory of the dérive", published in Internationale Situationniste #2, 1958:
"In a dérive one or more persons during a certain period drop their relations, their work and leisure activities, and all their other usual motives for movement and action, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there. Chance is a less important factor in this activity than one might think: from a dérive point of view cities have psychogeographical contours, with constant currents, fixed points and vortexes that strongly discourage entry into or exit from certain zones."
The practice of the dérive can be seen as the data gathering of the "psychogeography", which is defined as "the study of the precise laws and the exact effects of the geographic environment, built or unbuilt, in terms of its direct influence on the affective behavior of individuals". The data-gathering of the dérive is also intimately connected to the détournement; "the creative pillaging, ripping out of context and re-inscribing of extant cultural material".

Ambiences in a city are still often a result of the historical context in which they have grown. The new architecture and plans for urban situation is resulting in a disappearing notion of those ambiences which can even be seen in the present, in cities where the historical context has vanished. Thus resulting in "orphan cities", where every relation and context has gone to the extent that the city in itself has become the orphan of its context. In relation to the Netherlands this "becoming orphanage" is clearly seen in a city as Rotterdam, but is also pointed out in the theoretical presence of the so called "Randstad" area, which is the name for the ring of four cities, namely Amsterdam, Utrecht, The Hague and Rotterdam.

The main idea or opinion of the SI is to break free from the political bureaucracy that restricts the real experience of quotidian life and the "freedom" of the inhabitants of a nation to roam and walk, see, smell, and act in a way that would enrich the urban situation. Therefore the life as leaded under such a political system is not a free society. For years the Dutch nation is "drugged" by the successes of the individualization and economic globalization. This has overshadowed problems that are still present in society. In all drugged experiences and circumstances the overwhelming feeling of success and "happiness" is more powerful than the realization of the real world; you"re just too influenced to notice it for a fact and even if you still do so, you won"t be able to give in to the fact that reality is more realistic than the influence of any possible drug. The nation has the same overwhelmed feeling as a person would have under influence. Realistic problems aren"t noticed upon and more or less ignored or became a product of the so called "poldermodel", which consists of a lot of talk, but without the appropriate action resulting to it. When things go well, problems are ignored, seem to be a conclusive statement that has become reality.
Products or "symptoms", as Delft professor in urbanism Dirk Frieling, calls it, of this globalization are myths like an "empty" Green Heart and a "full" Randstad area. Holland seems to be overplanned with ideas, but those ideas, whether or not they could work, aren"t consistently applied. It seems to be that the ideas of the plans for Holland are applied randomly instead of consistently. Each year other ideas would be combined and the older ideas modified. The Betuwelijn, Schiphol Airport, the HSL, but also projects like the announced second Maasvlakte and a second national airport are not well combined with the historical perspective of the urban en geographical surroundings. They are more or less inserted into a "soup" of existing ideas, in a way that quantity is more important than quality.
The Randstad is a perfect example of a, although probably well contemplated idea, myth of the Netherlands. Does it exist? Or doesn"t it exist? It can be seen as in "The Nothingness of Urbanism and The Nothingness of The Spectacle" (Raoul Vaneigem):
"Urbanism does not exist: it is nothing but an ideology in Marx's sense of the term. Architecture does really exist, like Coca-Cola. it is a production clothed in ideology but real, falsely satisfying a false need. Urbanism, however, is comparable to the publicity display surrounding Coca-Cola, pure spectacular ideology."
The Randstad is presented as the "drink Coca-Cola" propaganda of the Netherlands. Although there is no formal reality in it"s existence, the ring of four cities, Amsterdam, Utrecht, The Hague and Rotterdam does provide the nation with a market strategy to attract consumers. The only on paper existing megalopolis of the Randstad doesn"t act a one major city, as Dutch urbanist Niek de Boer points out:
"[...] it would be irresponsible to include all the activities that take place in the area and add them all up together as if the Randstad functioned as a single urban entity The Randstad definitely does not perform as a metropolis of more than eight million inhabitants. It simply does not have the metropolitan quality of a Paris or a London. […] if the Randstad is a metropolis, it should operate on the level of importance it claims by virtue of its population level and its being situated in the center of Europe. Since it does not function at this level in cultural, economic or juridical aspects, it should not be considered a metropolis."

In Rotterdam the problem is clearly visible. The historical context of the city, the harbor, seems disconnected from the city, or its presence seems almost impossible to detect.
The ideas of the SI glamouresly apply to the city of Rotterdam. It has become a result of political malfunction in urban planning.
Where in the historical context the port of Rotterdam could be seen as the "motor" for the city, as the port offered a great share of jobs to the local Rotterdam occupation, today the port and the city are grown apart, the are separated not only in means of labor, as the port extensively automated and mechanized tasks, also they are separated in a geographical sense. The port grows towards the sea, especially if the new second maasvlakte would appear, and the city in itself densifies and focuses more on the financial and transportational business than on the labor force for the port.
Although the port of Rotterdam is still the largest in the world, it could lose this position to ports nearby as Antwerpen and Hamburg. As a result of a Dutch political statement the amount of cargo could rapidly decline; all cargo form the Chinese will be banned, if there is only an unsignificantly amount of fireworks on a cargoship, thus resulting that the Chinese cargoships evade to Antwerpen. Besides this boycott of the Chinese cargo with fireworks, all containers now need to be scanned for the possibility of illegally imported goods. This scanning is a time consuming process, which results in a lesser amount of containers that can be dealt with in a single day.
For many years the city profited from the income of the port activities and as a result the city could grow. However this benefit seems to vanish, as the relation between the port and the city looses its meaning. On a symposium about the construction of the second maasvlakte, organized by VNO-NCW in april 1997, the Dutch research institute of Nijenrode pulled in OMA for an urban proposal. Their opinion is very clear. As the relation between the port and the city of Rotterdam seems to have no or very little meaning nowadays, this only historical connection has to be cut loose. Only when the two are disconnected in a way the city of Rotterdam could flourish again and survive.
'In the world of globalization, a strong and permanent identity is not an unconditional advantage', as OMA states: "the less identity the better". As an example Koolhaas mentions Signapore. "The port is no longer a conceptual theme, but only the financial backer".
"Not only has Singapore reasoned itself out of quicksand like a Baron Munchausen, but also it continually reinvents and questions itself. Permanently afraid for its survival, it follows a strategy of contradictory, varying, successive identities". The port of Signapore is hardly visible anymore, the coastline has changed radically and reconfigured into an idyllic shore.
In the article by Arie Graafland (Cities in Transition, february 2002)), he compares this idealization to a world where the fun never ends, a comparison is made to Disneyworld, a place solely for recreation as a artificial world of a-topia
"Even aside from the differences in climate, this seems too eccentric to consider. Or not? Dutch museums are introducing more and more 'events', and 'science parks' are popping up everywhere; spectacular buildings are made to pull in more visitors, and going to a theme park has become an everyday activity. There is no life without events; this appears to constitute our new 'identity'. In other words: the port project offers grounds for a critical view of the livability of the city of Rotterdam".
As the relationship between the port and the city declines, the meaning and application of the SI central practices changes. Areas are abandoned as the port moves towards the sea, voids could appear that probably would be a good place for the psychogeographers and the practice of the dérive.
In the visionary 1953 essay by Ivan Chtchegloff "Formulary for a New Urbanism", Chtchgeloff calls for "a new architecture capable of transforming the reigning conceptions of time and space, an architecture that will be both a means of knowledge and a means of action, a modifiable, malleable architecture that will change partially and even totally depending upon the desires of its inhabitants"
This seems to be in contradiction with the consciousness of the city of Rotterdam, at least in that city it would hardly apply. As seen earlier Rotterdam has rapidly changed over the years as the relation between the port and the city has deminished. The cities own population has adapted this image as a mental map for action. Just the thought of this unlivability makes people apply it, as would it be reality. To the outside world Rotterdam seems an unlivable city where sharp contrasts dominate, and many employed inhabitants desert the city as a result of the mental imaginary idea as soon as they have outgrown a subsistence level income. The migrate to urban areas in the Green Heart. As a result the Green Heart shrinks like the tropical rainforests. Although the political plans were to leave it intact, due to the conditions the government has tolerated "this damage" to this Green buffer zone.

The urban milieu and space are in a way a product of the "poldermodel", where too many plans and ideas are thought of, but none properly executed. As space has become a product of the political, bureaucratic turmoil, the condition in which this space can be experienced is directly under the influence of the political system, and is therefore not a free society. Although the SI originally "attached" the capitalist system, it can in a way also be applied on other political systems. If, in any way possible the organization of space and society are under a direct influence of the bureaucratic environment, space is not a neutral terrain that we, the people, simply use to stroll upon or inhabit. The psychogeography studies this exact influence, the specific effects of a geographical environment on the emotions and behavior of individuals. Space is socio-historically specific; space is different in every society, as it is a product of it. Therefore, if space is "controlled", desire and imagination are also controlled. The SI has come up with several practices to avoid this controlled state of mind, as mentioned before. The détournement of the lived environment is the beginning of the contestation of society, followed by the supersession of "urbanism" by "unitary urbanism".
"The revolution, then, is nothing less than the destruction of the spectacular, the exposure and transcendence of the ideological. The thrust is at everyday life."

Only when the city of Rotterdam is disconnected from the huge port area, in a form of détournement makes the dérive possible which then could lead to a new enthrolling, spectacular urban situation. Instead of a static controlled environment, that is dominated by the building corporations and makes the urban ambience to a void, a leftover of the massive structures that dominate the city center, the urban decomposition must take place in order to create a whole new ambience of a new city; the disconnected city revives. If the city is to dangle on with the port facility the dullness would stay and any new intervention to the city center is seen as a new complementary state to the complete city that includes the port area.
The same "problem" appears in the Randstad area. As is stated in the article of Arie Graafland the Randstad is in fact not a city, it"s merely a clustering of urban areas, that all together don"t function as one big organism. It cannot be seen as one city solely on the facts of it, like the amount of inhabitants or density per square kilometer, it needs to have one heart. Now it still is a combination of separate limbs, disconnected from each other. Although it is possible to identify the several different limbs, it is not possible to speak about one "normal" functioning body. Instead the limbs are all functioning on their own, as self, unique identifiable parts that breathe individually. This is also a result of the malfunctioning of the execution of the urban renewal plans, stated by politics; it"s merely a theoretical statement to attract business.

Where Arie Graafland well articulates the problem of Cities in Transition, like Rotterdam or Signapore, the article of Jeroen Boomgaard (Onmythologisering van de verbeelding, january 2002) gives, a possible solution or upgrade for this problem, although it is theoretical political and social before in any sense concretely architectural. Even though the SI movement was founded in 1957 and abolished in 1972, the ideas still stand, and are in fact regaining appreciation in present urbanism. There is a new change ahead, not from production to consumption, but in fact a similar type of change, that lies in the transformation of the city. The economic globalization and individualization have reached a peak in their existence. The social climate and "neighbourhoodwatch"-like environments with their increasing expression of losing grip on real life leads to a renewed discussion on how to "manage" the cities ambiences. Not only has the well balanced, non-provocative way of building reached its limit, society as a whole seems to articulate this problem, which can only be solved if the increasing monotony of urban habitat is changed in a way that it expresses more ambiences to experience and makes it possible to wonder about.