Habitat 67 (Moshe Safdie)

Thinking Through Alfred Gell (1945-1997)’s “Art and Agency” and “The Technology of Enchantment”

Architecture as a Social Index of Intentional Revolution

Habitat 67 is not simply a housing complex. It is an artificial organism—an architectural agent attempting to reconfigure the way humans live, connect, and inhabit space. For Alfred Gell, art arises when an object is not only an artifact but an index of complex intentionalities—personal, social, technological. Safdie’s Habitat fulfills this with rare clarity.

The building stands as an index of architectural will, externalizing the utopian promise of the 1960s. Each prefabricated module, with its own garden, light, and privacy, is a re-inscription of the human being’s right to autonomy within community. But this is not mere functionalism—it is deeply enchanted through the strangeness of form and the technological feat of stacking.

As Gell argues, enchantment arises when technical mastery becomes opaque, producing awe. Habitat’s appearance resists simplification: it looks like a concrete beehive dream, but its modules are calculated down to engineering tolerances. The very ability to stack pre-made living units while maintaining structural harmony evokes Gell’s notion of magical causality: it seems improbable, almost impossible—and thus, it acts upon the viewer.

Distributed Agency in Modular Networks

The enchantment of Habitat 67 also lies in its modular logic, which resonates with Gell’s concept of distributed personhood. Each module is a quasi-autonomous unit, yet fully dependent on its adjacent neighbors. It indexes both individual identity and communal interdependence. It is a system where architecture performs social philosophy.

Furthermore, this structure expresses Gell’s idea of indexical permanence—the work of art as a durable substitute for the intentional mind. Habitat 67 permanently archives the aspirations of a time: it acts in society as a political and aesthetic provocation long after the original agent (Safdie) has departed.