Science Fiction or Future City? - By: altfilms

Most contemporary architectural designs seem like science fiction but these visions have been a growing trend since the beginning of the twentieth century. Artists like Antonio Sant’Elia, Constant Nieuwenhuy and the London architects of Archigram were the first ones to conceptualize these future cities and even though they were never created, the drawings and plans influenced others. Rem Koolhaas and Shigeru Ban are just some of the more contemporary visionaries that brought these concepts to life. Together they all recognized the need for new buildings that can occupy our evolving society that is becoming more populous and technologically advanced. I will use examples from science fiction film to show a rejection of this future city and how these responses imitate society’s anxiety towards technology.

Sant’Elia’s drawing of The New City (1914) is a high-rise structure that has tall pylons attached to the exterior, giving it an industrial feel of steamships and factories. These vertical beams serve as elevator shafts that transport the people vertically while the horizontal movement of traffic comes from the tunnels that surround the exterior. The repetitive windows and symmetry of the exterior makes the purpose of this building unclear and we can’t tell weather it’s an apartment block, shopping center, or a work environment. This monumental ghost town also lacks any people or green space.

This cold and undesirable setting can also be seen in Archigrams designs. It’s Plug in City (1966) is a complicated stream of structures that are mended together like Lego blocks. In Simon Sadler book called Archigram: Architecture without Architecture, the city is described

having expandable apartments that were slung happily down the outside of the large A-frame substructures, rearranged by the cranes sliding back and forth above. It would be like an inland port, goods arriving by monorail and transferred by gantry, weather barrage balloons bobbing above, and sounds of delight drifting through the open framework from the colorful leisure sectors within.[1]

This massive super structure would cover the planet with cranes and metals, leaving little room for nature or space. The Homes Study (1964) is a drawing of two figures laying down in a room the size of a walk in closet. The space lacks any decorative elements, making it resemble a prison cell rather than housing for a civilian. Like Sant’Elia’s city, Archigrams main concern was traffic control. Sadler describes the commute to work being short and taken through weather proof tubes. The job would be close to shops and entertainment centers, generating multi activity leisures. Longer journeys would require cars that could be stored within local silos.[2] This system of buildings didn’t have a town hall or a center because it was more self running than that.

These ideas of decentralization can also be seen in Constant Nieuwenhuy work. Mark Wigleys book states that New Babylon (1960’s)

disintegrated traditional architecture along with the social institutions that it popped up. His future city is a vast network of enormous multilevel interior spaces propagates to eventually cover the planet. These interconnected “sectors” float above the ground on tall columns while vehicular traffic rushes underneath and air traffic lands on the roof, the inhabitants drift by foot through the huge labyrinthine interiors, endlessly reconstructing the atmosphere of the spaces.[3]

This “network” is something the other artists were interested in as well. Together, they made an attempt to solve the problems our world will face in the future. In doing so, anxieties of what these buildings will do to society come up. Their imposing qualities threaten the well being and happiness of later generations and this negativity can be seen in many films.

Scott Ridley’s Blade Runner (1982) is set in the year 2019. It’s based in Los Angeles and the opening scene starts off with a dark polluted city. The lights and fire pits are the only light sources that come through the dark abyss. Just like the New Babylon and Plug in City, every inch of ground is covered with buildings. The flying cars and pedestrians travel horizontally, while the elevators go vertically, just like in Sant’Elia’s New City. All the buildings seem tall, cold and closely condensed, giving off a claustrophobic vibe. The noise of the machines, advertisements, people, and traffic are so unbearable that Decker (Bladerunner) cant even concentrate on reading a newspaper. Dietrich Neumanns book states that “the key concept of the city’s architecture was that of retrofitting or layering; the continuous repair and adaptation to changing needs, which lead to the compelling imagery of webs of pipes, ducts, and technological debris”.[4]

These elements of noise and constant repair are also the key elements seen in Archigrams Plug in City. Ridley and his team have also borrowed Nievunhuys idea to use rooftops as landing pads. This combination was used to create a world where everything is covered with dirt and pollution and “A decade after it’s release, Ridley Scott declared that Blade Runner depicts a road we’re heading down now- class separation, the growing gulf between rich and poor, the population explosion- and it offers no solutions.”[5]

This isn’t the only film that included these models in their sets. Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) has a similar architectural layout as Blade Runner. In it, there is a vertical hierarchy with the wealthier residents closer to the sun and the poor working class underground. The fast paced traffic movement and emphasis on traffic control are also big factors in the scenes. Unlike Ridley, Fritz Lang focuses on the repression of the working class where they have to work long and grueling hours with no breaks so that the privileged can enjoy their luxuries above ground. Neumann stated that

The city sucks the country dry, insatiably and incessantly demanding and devouring fresh streams of men till it wearies and dies in the midst of an almost uninhabited waste of country. Von Harbor developed this image into a complex and compelling metaphor for the city as a being, whose individual but interdependent spaces- the skyscrapers, machine halls, and catacombs- fulfilled the body’s functions as its heart, hands, and mind.[6]

These negative responses make a claim of the negative impact of technology and this theme keeps reappearing in films. Most people think, what’s the big deal? They’re just drawings and movies that a bunch of pessimistic weirdoes have created. The big deal is that these buildings are being created today and that it’s not science fiction anymore. A string of contemporary architects have been influenced by these futuristic visionaries and have built actual structures.

Rem Koolhaas is just one of them and his buildings are very linear and clean cut. His Seattle Public Library (2004) is a collection of geometric shapes stacked on top of each other. The steel mesh screen banded with the fragile glass gives the building strength. The transparency and lightness of the material also blurs the boundaries between the interior and exterior. His Chinese Television Tower has a very similar exterior and it creates an almost monumental effect because its scale. The repetitive geometry might give it a clean appearance but some argue it lacks individuality. Many films express their concern by linking these perfect forms to control. Terry Gilliam shows us the type of control architecture can achieve through the film Brazil (1985). The clean lines of the office space blend perfectly with the workers repetitive movements. Even the gray ducts and filing cabinets match the suits of the workers. Individual identity is turned into a collective one that prizes hard work. Ben Wheelers Reality is What You Can Get Away With connects the architecture to these ideas by stating,

The frequent characteristic of the topography of Brazil is the tiled square, apparent in Jill’s bathroom, windows, public transportation and the torture chamber of the final scene. The square is considered to be the most perfect geometric form, as endlessly replicable as it is functional. Such persistent mise-en-scene can be read as a representation of the modernist bureaucratic maze that entraps its inhabitants like rats, and is a recurrent theme throughout the Gilliam filmography.[7]

This turns Rem Koolhaas ideas of uniformity into a negative and expresses our society’s anxiety of being controlled. Turning our world into a perfectly geometric one goes against nature because it’s restrictive. Wheeler takes it even further by analyzing another scene. “In the film’s second dream sequence the serene pastoral landscape of Sam’s subconscious is ripped apart as ‘monolithic stone skyscrapers’ erupt from the ground with ‘nothing whatsoever to interfere with their clean, harsh, rectilinear design. These huge impersonal blocks are representatives of the modernist artistic temperament, which as David Harvey has asserted, boasts a ‘prevailing passion for … uniformity and the power of the straight line.”[8] Ban’s transparent material doesn’t give us much comfort either. Without any solid walls someone might feel exposed and vulnerable. This lack of privacy is quite unsettling and it makes us much easier to control. It’s easy to see why film makers have interpreted these works as a threat but not all of them are the same.

Some stray away from this rigidness and try to accomplish something more natural. This approach seems to carry the least amount of resistance in our society because it’s been around since the beginning of time. Shigeru Ban is an architect that does just that by making environmentally friendly structures out of recycled materials. The Biocycle states,

His Nomadic Museum is made up of 148 used steel cargo containers, stacked and secured to a height of 34 feet for the walls and a roof peak of 56 feet. The columns and roof supports are composed of specially designed paper tubes made of recycled paper and include an inner and outer waterproof “membrane” coated with waterproof sealant. The fabric sheath of pressed tea bags is used as an inner lining for the structure, blocking the openings between the crates. The main pathway through the exhibit is 12 feet wide made of recycled scaffold planking, bordered by river stones. Thirty-seven of the containers will be used to ship the exhibit and structure to the next exhibition site.[9]

While Ban uses these materials to help the poor, film uses it as a caution of the future. George Millers film Mad Max the Road Warrior (1981) describes a world that has been destroyed by technology and its greed. A great war turned it into a wasteland where the survivors have no choice but to construct their buildings out of junk. Everything is rusting and covered by dust as if it’s been there for a hundred years. The main town’s entrance is constructed out of used tires and scraps of metal, making it seem very brittle. There is no foundation and if needed, it could be moved. This feature can be seen in Bans Nomadic Museum (2005), where the structures don’t have to be pinned down to exist. Both are constructed out of materials when the shelter is needed. Steven Goldman thinks this architecture might be “projecting the consequences of science and technology as politically or environmentally disastrous and that the “Mad Max” series of films attaches only ugliness to machinery.”[10]

It’s obvious that the film industry thinks technology will be the end of humanity. So far Brazil has shown us that these buildings are capable of turning our bodies into mindless working machines that are obsessed with their jobs. Mad Max has shown us the consequences of such ideas and that if we continue acting the same our planet will turn into a wasteland. Blade Runners and Metropolises version if the future shows a loud and polluted city where the working class has to live in. The few individuals with enough money will be the only ones able to escape by buying property on the top, closest to the sun and away from all the smog and noise. Whatever you choose, they are all equally as depressing. These alternate worlds have borrowed cutting edge and futuristic architecture to show their frustration and anxiety. Whatever the consequence, we are heading towards a world that will implement such structures into the environment. We can just hope for the best and try to adapt to whatever future we will be given.

[1] Sadler Simon. Archigram: Architecture without Architecture. The MIT Press. 2005. pg 18

[2] Sadler pg 20

[3] Wigley Mark. Constant’s New Babylon. Netherlands. 1999. pg 162

[4] Neumann Dietrich. Film Architecture, From Metropolis to Blade Runner. Prestel. 1999. pg 152

[5] Neumann pg 44

[6] Neumann pg 34

[7] Wheeler Ben. Reality is What You Can Get Away With: Fantastic Imaginings, Rebellion and Control in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. Critical Survey, Volume 17. 2005. pg 99

[8] Wheeler. Pg 100

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