The relationship between science fiction and architecture
It is indisputable that architecture and science fiction are interconnected and that a process exist where both feed off from one another.
I have been always fascinated by science fiction threw all kinds, but my favourites always where those about future such as star trek and star wars
( even though it suppose do be a long time ago ; ).
Last semester I realized that there is a big connection between science fiction and architecture and became very excited. Since that point i use to design and create buildings like I use to build Lego spaceships as a young boy. When I watch a science fiction movie these days and see the landscape of a city, I instantly try to find similarities in style from things we know from reality.
Coruscant for example: is a planet in the star wars universe, whose surface consists of one big multilevel megalopolis. George Lucas calls him self a “Victorian” type and so this future mega city ended up having an “art deco” kind of style. The skyscrapers, so tall that you can hardly figure out where they start, do remind us on buildings such as the Chrysler Building in New York, one of the art deco icons.
Another very famous science fiction movie is “Blade Runner” (1982). The city landscape, where cars like in star wars of course do fly, became often described as a celebration of the post-modern. The basic shapes such as the cube, pyramid and cylinder are here like in the real existing post-modern architectur dominant. The interior in some of the rooms got columns, another stylistic device of the post-modern.
The planet Naboo, also a planet in the star wars universe, became an example for the use of a roman style, what some of us might find a bit odd for a science fiction movie. The temple and city landscape instantly reminds us of north Italian cities such as Trento. Its classic an baroque at once.
Science fiction and architecture do also have in common the search for an answer on the question how the future would look like and in particular how we might life. Thereby many famous architects did also a great peace of science fiction.
Buckminster Fuller as one of the most famous, had the idea of a super dome which would completely cover downtown Manhattan to save the humans in the cities or the planet from the humans. Concerning the time, nuclear bombs might have been a bigger threat than the environmental change.
One of the most exciting ideas where “Moving-Cities” from Ron Herron. The idea is typical for the 60´s, a decade where in the US everything seemed to be possible. Each house was supposed to be home for 20.000 people and constantly travelling to the regions where workers would be needed. Due to the constantly changing location they also would have been a difficult target for a possible nuclear attack. Let that huge constructions travel through the landscape, seemed to be possible through Cape Kennedy.
Frank Lloyd Wright presented in the 30´s his vision of a deurbanised city, where people would have been extremely mobile, as it turned out to become real, but unfortunately not electric based like he imagined. He also thought of a very high sophisticated communication system, which would provide us everywhere anytime with information’s we might need. Every family would have got, thanks to the decentralization, a very large parcel of 4000m² to produce it’s own food and become independent. This most certainly did not turn out to become true.
Le Corbusier got in the 20´s a very radical vision : “Plan Voisin” . The idea was to tear down a big part of the old town of Paris and build up a group of extremely large living-towers which would have been very efficient. Unfortunately this became in a different scale reality and an urban disaster.
Nowadays terms such as “science fiction”-, “high-tech”- or “cyber”- architecture are commonly used to describe a new modern style of architecture.
The world exposition 1967 in Montréal Canada was heavily influenced by science fiction and the spirit of the time that everything is possible. Thereby some of the ideas and visions became science fact.
Buckminster Fuller build to represent the US, his famous geodesic dome which had the function of a biosphere.
Safdie Moshe build his, also very famous, “Habitat 67”, a huge building complex consisting of 357 rectangular blocks. Each of those blocks is one module.
Probably the most famous examples of the connection between fantasy and reality is the “Centre Georges Pompidou” by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers. The technical facilities have not, as usual been hidden, instead they became part of the facade.
A very contemporary example for “high-tech” architecture is the Sainsbury Centre at the University of East Anglie in Norwhich by Norman Foster. The hangar appearance of the building and it´s steal facade, which integrates the construction and the technical facilities for the needs to create an environment, which allows art exhibitions, is what it takes to call this building “hight-tech”.
