Situated on Portland street in central Manchester, the Centre for the Urban Built Environment continues to house projects and exhibitions that explore architecture as a platform for learning about the spaces we live in, and the ways in which we can think about developing them for the future. Supported by the University of Salford , CUBE gallery has constantly aimed to promote learning through group discussion across multiple disciplines. This mantle has been duly picked up and rearranged by Nils Norman in his current exhibition at the centre. Nils Norman constantly engages with urban spaces in accordance with their social history. Here Norman views CUBE Gallery and Central Manchester's own urban regeneration through the lens of Charles Fourier's Utopian Phalanstery,

Taking it's name from André Breton's 1947 publication Ode à Charles Fourier, Nil Norman presents us with a series of structures, designs and maquettes for future studios for the creative industries whereby participants are invited to learn using a combination of work and play.

First, a brief description of Charles Fourier's Utopian vision. Born in Besançon, France in 1772 Charles Fourier's philosophy was based on the principle that attraction stands as a universal principle for all things and that human passion should be set free above all else. He believed that the investigation into human passion, or what he called 'passionate attraction', could be reduced to an exact science and so set about devising an intricate system of classification whereby individuals could be identified and categorised according to their personal 'passions' for people and tasks. He dismissed ideas of sexual perversion and allowed for passions that were at the time perceived to be more marginal, such as homosexuality, polygamy and certain sexual fetiches. People would then be placed within a particular Phalanx (one out of many within the Phalanstery) so that they may live amongst others with corresponding preferences and carry out jobs that they were passionately attracted to - "opulence, sensual pleasures and global unity (1)" were for Fourier the key to human happiness. He called his Utopia 'Harmony'.

Nils Norman presents us with a proposal for a 'Phalanstery for Manchester,' his own take on Fourier's vision combined with a wry critique of corporate brain-storming and team building exercises. What we end up with is a suitably knowing model for an all too familiar social pedagogy.

In the main galley is a large climbing frame-like structure built specifically for the characteristically long, thin gallery space. This 'workstation', made almost entirely from unpainted wood is divided into three key areas - safe play, standard play and risky play. We are invited to walk and crawl through this 'climbable' sculpture and explore the aftermath of a 'play work' session that we're led to believe was carried out earlier by Jane, Kit, Francis, Nils and Katie; the results of which are scribbled onto white boards and onto pieces of paper neatly placed on display shelves within the relevant workstation. These results take the form of spider diagrams and mind maps, pencil drawings and small wooden maquettes for potential adventure playgrounds. We are invited to sit around the hot desk and to crawl like a seven year old through the wormery positioned at the centre of the structure, to emerge at the other end more in tune with our inner child. The 'risky play' area is complete with bunk bed-like ladders and a octagonal bench surrounding a trampoline which I sportingly had a bounce on.

As is intended, the whole scenario stinks of a corporate team building exercise; punctuated with posters on the surrounding walls featuring buzz words that reflect the play-worker ethos. It is this feeling of a forced informality that pervades the whole piece. One imagines open necked shirts and chinos worn by unfortunate colleagues invited to participate in blue sky thinking. It is this tediously reductive and worryingly nuanced approach to the categorisation of creativity that Norman picks up on and appropriately links to Fourier's ideas of institutional harmony. We must remember that Fourier's philosophy of attraction was conceived in direct opposition to the French Revolution and a 'Enlightened' logic, even if in hindsight Fourier can be accused of a similar rationalist methodology. It is with this point that I can begin to understand Norman's comparison of Fourier's Phalanxes through this very corporate notion of liberalisation.

Norman frequently criticises the effects of regeneration and urban development on the existing community and often cites homogenisation as a key consequence of these processes (fair enough). The results written on Norman's whiteboards reveal incredibly intricate and yet reductive systems of classification whereby boys and girls are discussed in terms of embarrassingly archaic divisions. For example, boys play football and girls love animals. Adult pass-times include art, running, and shopping. The notion that Norman brings to mind is that of a marketing team identifying demographics and of the designer-led didacticism that is frequently evident within Urban regeneration programmes. As with Fourier's Phalanstery, there is a very definite time and place for carrying out any given activity - Norman even supplies us with a time table that describes the activities that Nils and his team were expected to follow. This ominously hovers over the space and spans the entire length of the gallery wall. The feeling that you've entered into this very deliberate world is effectively emphasised by the designer-led interior of CUBE Gallery itself, complete with exposed beams and varnished floor boards.

I do feel however that Norman's comparison of corporate liberalisation with Fourier's Harmony is somehow unfair on Fourier. Although I can't deny that Fourier's system isn't at times uncomfortably selective (he suggests that Jews should be forced to carry out farm work) he does suggest radically credible interpretations of freedom and self-empowerment albeit in support of the institution. His denouncement of traditional marriage, his championing of an early Feminism and the demarginalisation of the elderly and 'deformed (1)' are just a few examples of this. Norman's Phalanstery is in comparison impotent and bland, any real notions of gendering and sexual drive have long since been neutered and it is as if he has failed to acknowledge that there's a different between a homogenisation and a systematisation. The comparisons that Norman makes between Fourier's system and the systems he associates with urban re-development are all too easy and seem to me to be rather lazy.

It could be that Norman is criticising what liberalisation has become, however. The writings of Charles Fourier enjoyed a resurgence in the late 1960s, such as his ideas of 'free love'; ideals that have long since been absorbed and rounded off by a late-capitalist logic. In this way Norman is successful in getting us to appreciate Fourier's Utopia in terms of the radicalism we have since lost; by referring us directly to its much blander cousin.

Charles Fourier's Phalanstery stood as a proposition for the way things could be whereas Nils Norman's Phalanstery stands as a model for the way things are. There's nothing new or unrecognisable here and as a result the mood that Norman creates is initially dis-spiriting. In creating this mood, however, he does push us to imagine alternatives and crucially to ask ourselves that all important question - if I may finish on an over-used corporate buzz-phrase - "what does the future look like?"

1. The Utopian Vision of Charles Fourier, Selected Texts on Work, Love and Passionate Attraction, translated and edited and with an introduction by Jonathan Beecher and Richard Bienvenu, Jonathan Cape 1972 (as published in The Faber book of Utopias, edited by John Carey, 1999)

Cube Centre for the Urban Built Environment

9 July 2011 – 20 August 2011

Mon-Fri 12-5:30pm
Saturdays 12-5pm
Sundays closed

Tom Walker lives and works in London. He studied Fine Art at Foundation at Leeds College of Art and Design and went on to complete his BA(Hons) Degree in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art and Design, graduating in 2009. He currently works as an Archive Assistant in Poplar and is an artist and freelance writer.