# Hubert Tonka

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{{short description|French sociologist and urban planner}}
{{Infobox person
| name        = Hubert Tonka
| image       = <!-- just the filename, without the File: or Image: prefix or enclosing [brackets](/source/brackets) -->
| alt         = 
| caption     = 
| birth_name  = 
| birth_date  = 1943
| birth_place = 
| death_date  = <!-- {{Death date and age|YYYY|MM|DD|YYYY|MM|DD}} or {{Death-date and age|Month DD, YYYY|Month DD, YYYY}} (death date then birth date) -->
| death_place = 
| known_for   = ''Utopie'' magazine
| occupation  = Sociologist
}}
'''Hubert Tonka''' (born 1943) is a French sociologist and urban planner who edited the ''Utopie'' magazine, and was one of the leaders of the ''Utopie'' movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s.{{sfn|Utopia Deferred}}

==Career==

For family reasons, Tonka had to start work at a very young age. In Paris around 1960, he was taking night classes for a diploma in urban planning while working in the day, where he met other members of what would become the ''Utopie'' group.{{sfn|Colomina|2010|p=197}} He worked as a plasterer during the day.{{sfn|Harris|Berke|2011|p=34}} He became the assistant of [Henri Lefebvre](/source/Henri_Lefebvre), who was a professor at the [University of Paris](/source/University_of_Paris)'s institute of urban planning.{{sfn|Stanek|2011|p=24}} He was an aesthete and a refined typographer. By the end of 1966, he was a member of the editorial committee of ''Melp!'', the [École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts](/source/%C3%89cole_Nationale_Sup%C3%A9rieure_des_Beaux-Arts) student association's review, along with [Jacques Barda](/source/Jacques_Barda), [Roland Castro](/source/Roland_Castro), [Pierre Granveaud](/source/Pierre_Granveaud) and [Antoine Grumbach](/source/Antoine_Grumbach).{{sfn|Dessauce|1999|p=52}} ''Melp!'' helped to articulate the dissatisfaction of students in the lead-up to the [protests of 1968](/source/protests_of_1968).{{sfn|Colomina|2010|p=100}} Tonka was co-founder of the [Vincennes](/source/Vincennes) department of urbanism.{{sfn|Damamme|2008|p=228}}

The ''Utopie'' group originated from a meeting at Lefebvre's house in 1966. It included the architects Jean Aubert, [Jean-Paul Jungmann](/source/Jean-Paul_Jungmann) and [Antoine Stinco](/source/Antoine_Stinco), the landscape architect [Isabelle Auricoste](/source/Isabelle_Auricoste) (his wife) and the sociologists [Jean Baudrillard](/source/Jean_Baudrillard), [René Lourau](/source/Ren%C3%A9_Lourau) and [Catherine Cot](/source/Catherine_Cot).{{sfn|Utopia Deferred}} ''Utopie, review de sociologie de l'urbain'' first appeared in May 1967, with Tonka as managing editor.{{sfn|Genosko|1994|p=166}}
Tonka created L'Imprimerie Quotidienne, which printed the magazine.{{sfn|Colomina|2010|p=352}} Tonka edited and promoted collections of Baudrillard's essays, helping to draw the attention of the public to his views, which were at first Marxist but later moved towards the centre.{{sfn|Stewart|2011|p=2}}

Tonka became a Director at the French Institute of Architecture (1987) and a professor of architecture and contemporary art in Bordeaux and Angers (1994).{{sfn|La Librairie Dialogues}} In the 1990s, Tonka and singer, songwriter and author [Jeanne-Marie Sens](/source/Jeanne-Marie_Sens) founded the publishing house [Sens & Tonka](/source/Sens_%26_Tonka). Tonka and Sens co-authored and published several books on architecture.

==Views==

Tonka gave life to the Pneumatic concepts of the ''Utopie'' group, which advocated ephemeral, inflatable structures.{{sfn|Dessauce|1999|p=52}} Tonka held extreme left opinions, close to the anarchists, that could be traced back to [Rosa Luxemburg](/source/Rosa_Luxemburg) and [Mikhail Bakunin](/source/Mikhail_Bakunin).{{sfn|Dessauce|1999|p=38}} Talking of the intellectual roots of the ''Utopie'' group, Tonka said:{{sfn|Dessauce|1999|p=41}}
{{blockquote 
 |I have a whole culture which comes from Batavian Marxism, that is to say Anton Pannekoek and Herman Gorter, and it has nothing to do with French Marxism.  I discovered this culture in working in the Institute of Social History in Amsterdam... I discovered "secrets" from Lefebvre, who did not want to widen that membership ... there was also Archigram, there was also the Situs [situationists], and then there was everything that was around and that we saw: there was ''Arguments, Socialisme ou Barbarie''...}}
In a 1971 interview, Tonka said, "To imagine ... that it is possible to act politically through urbanism, architecture, and the detournement of either is a dream." He believed that only a revolution could change society, and this could only happen in spite of architecture, which is by definition repressive.{{sfn|Stanek|2011|p=245}}

==Selected bibliography==
{{Refbegin}}
* {{cite book
 |title=L'Hôtel industriel Berlier, Paris 13e arrondissement, France, de Dominique Perrault, architecte
 |author1=Jeanne-Marie Sens |author2=Dominique Perrault |author3=Hubert Tonka |author4=Georges Fessy |publisher=Pandora |year=1991
 |pages=56}}
* {{cite book
 |title=Là & ailleurs: Massimiliano Fuksas : vingt-cinq années d'architecture en Italie, en France, et en Allemagne
 |author1=Jeanne-Marie Sens |author2=Massimiliano Fuksas |author3=Hubert Tonka |author4=Doriana O. Mandrelli |publisher=Pandora |year=1991
 |pages=104}}
* {{cite book
 |title=Locus & Beyond: Massimiliano Fuksas : Twenty-five Years of Architecture in Italy, France, and Germany
 |author1=Jeanne-Marie Sens |author2=Hubert Tonka |author3=Massimiliano Fuksas |author4=Doriana O. Mandrelli |publisher=Pandora Editions |year=1992 |isbn=9782742100248 |pages=104}}
* {{cite book
 |title ="Le bateau ivre" de Jean Nouvel: immeuble Cartier, 261 boulevard Raspail à Paris
 |isbn=9782910170547
 |author=Hubert Tonka
 |author2=Jean Nouvel
 |author3=Sens, Jeanne-Marie Sens
 |publisher=Sens & Tonka |year=1994 |pages=95}}
* {{cite book
 |title=Une maison particulière à Floirac (Gironde) de Anne Lacaton & Jean-Philippe Vassal, architectes
 |author=Hubert Tonka
 |publisher=Sens & Tonka |year=1994 |isbn=2910170152
 |pages=44}}
* {{cite book
 |title="Rouge & noir": le stadium à Vitrolles de [Rudy Ricciotti](/source/Rudy_Ricciotti), architecte
 |author1=Hubert Tonka |author2=Rudy Ricciotti |author3=Jeanne-Marie Sens |publisher=Sens & Tonka |year=1995 |isbn=9782910170127 |page=70}}
* {{cite book
 |title=Les ateliers du parc: école d'architecture de Normandie à Rouen de Patrice Mottini, architecte
 |author1=Jeanne-Marie Sens |author2=Hubert Tonka |publisher=Sens & Tonka |year=1997 |isbn=9782910170264 |pages=70}}
* {{cite book
 |title=Dominique Perrault: morceaux choisis : exposition itinérante, 2002
 |author1=Brigitte David |author2=Jeanne-Marie Sens |author3=Hubert Tonka |author4=Dominique Perrault |publisher=Sens & Tonka |year=2002 |pages=141}}
{{Refend}}

==References==
;Citations
{{Reflist |colwidth=30em}}
;Sources
* {{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9z_zrQLuY3kC&pg=PA197
 |title=Clip, Stamp, Fold: The Radical Architecture of Little Magazines 196x 197x
 |first=Beatriz |last=Colomina
 |publisher=ACTAR Publishers |year=2010 |isbn=978-8496954526}}
* {{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OK2RtTLkUakC&pg=PA228
 |title=Mai-Juin 68
 |first=Dominique |last=Damamme
 |publisher=Editions de l'Atelier |year=2008 |isbn=978-2708239760}}
* {{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pGzZYJd4BmwC&pg=PT53
 |title=The Inflatable Moment: Pneumatics and Protest in '68
 |first=Marc |last=Dessauce
 |publisher=Princeton Architectural Press |year=1999 |isbn=1568981767}}
* {{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AofPjTZZhXcC&pg=PA166
 |title=Baudrillard and Signs: Signification Ablaze
 |first=Gary |last=Genosko
 |publisher=Routledge |year=1994 |isbn=0415112575}}
* {{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hli5J3R77MAC&pg=PT34
 |title=Architecture of the Everyday
 |first1=Steven |last1=Harris |first2=Deborah |last2=Berke
 |publisher=Chronicle Books |year=2011 |isbn=978-1616891206}}
* {{cite web |ref={{harvid|La Librairie Dialogues}} |url=http://www.librairiedialogues.fr/personne/hubert-tonka/87933/
 |title=Hubert Tonka Biographie
 |work=La Librairie Dialogues
 |access-date=2012-05-21}}
* {{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IJAsBHN02nwC&pg=PA24
 |title=Henri Lefebvre on Space: Architecture, Urban Research, and the Production of Theory
 |first=Lukasz |last=Stanek
 |publisher=U of Minnesota Press |year=2011 |isbn=978-0816666164}}
* {{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e5erLSkdKKgC&pg=PA2
 |title=Kierkegaard's Influence on the Social Sciences
 |first=Jon |last=Stewart
 |publisher=Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. |year=2011 |isbn=978-1409434900}}
* {{cite web
 |ref         = {{harvid|Utopia Deferred}}
 |url         = http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10974
 |title       = Utopia Deferred
 |work        = The MIT Press
 |access-date  = 2012-05-20
 |url-status     = dead
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20120129112734/http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10974
 |archive-date = 2012-01-29
 }}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tonka, Hubert}}
Category:French sociologists
Category:Living people
Category:1943 births
Category:French urban planners
Category:French male writers

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Hubert Tonka](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Tonka) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Tonka?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.
