The "Floating Asylum," the Armée du salut, and Le Corbusier:

Diane Morgan
2014 Utopian Studies  
This article examines the case of a neglected "heterotopian" space, Le Corbusier's "floating asylum", commissioned by the French Salvation Army. It uses archival material to explore the potentially far-reaching contribution "heterotopia" can make to a "utopian" project for social transformation, as well as indicating how "dystopian" aspects can infilitrate the same initiative. My analysis focuses on the different texts available in French of Foucault's problematic ideas on "other spaces".It
more » ... draws attention to a another occluded "debate", one that did not take place as such, between Foucault, Gauchet and Swain as to what types of spaces asylums actually were and intended to be. It also reflects on the place of asylum today and how hospitality might be extended to those who are socially excluded. "A boat is a floating piece of space, a place without place, which lives by itself, which is closed in on itself and that is at the same time exposed to the infinity of the sea..." Michel Foucault "Of Other Spaces" (1967/1984/1986) "Nowadays one cannot conceive a utopia that does not address itself to nomads, peoples and individuals, to the homeless, to the excluded." René Schérer (2009, 17) 2 .
doi:10.5325/utopianstudies.25.1.0087 fatcat:hbslpxoiuvhcjflvuhrusimxoe