N = 2 (this and judge dredd) right now, but was there a rise in fiction in the 70’s/80’s where they did the ‘people live their whole lives in a skyscraper and didn’t come out’ thing? Is there some underlying societal fear I’m not super aware of? Or am I making too much of two examples?
It was (is) a real thing that archtitects have thought about. In 1969, the concept was named arcology. I learned about them through SimCity 2000 which helped popularize the concept.
I think, culturally, it’s an offshoot of Modernist thought. One trend in modernism is that science can be used to find more efficient ways to live, and that science will lead to human dominion over all natural processes. Some thinkers took this to one (terrible) conclusion and wondered about if people could live, work, and socialize all within one building; one efficient and contained (and human controlled) space.
Real skyscrapers were often designed with this in mind, and we still see the echoes of it today with concepts for Mars colonies and hanging-building mega-cities in Tokyo.
Yes I know about archologies, but those are all just concept ideas, which is interesting that it lead to these dystopian ideas. I was wondering if there was more to it than just that.
The building also incorporates shops including an architectural bookshop, a rooftop gallery, educational facilities, a hotel that is open to the public, and a restaurant, “Le Ventre de l’Architecte” (“The Belly of the Architect”).
It was a huge trend after the war for a variety of economic and ideological reasons.
The Tcity serie are all about that too, Mark Adlard wrote about the potential path things were on with everyone living in a fully automated society within dense housing blocks. It was inspired by the emerging post industrialisation in the north of England which was at its peak in the late seventies (before thatcher and the Tories gutted it) there are some fantastic descriptions of the cultural implications exploring things like boredom and their attempts to alleviate it.
The failed utopianism of the north, and various other projects like the London tower block communities, just before the wave broke inspired a lot of English sci-fi, it was an era when the future must have seemed so open and undecided. The early signs of collapse starting to show but it sill being so uncertain if and how the chips will fall.
Harry Harrison though American lived in the UK and was closely involved in that same sci-fi scene, his series the stainless steel rat draws from.a lot of that same energy but from just after the wave broke and the capitalistic realism washed away all the beautiful castles built on the sand. ‘We must live as stainless steel rats in the wainscott of their society’
I can’t even remember what the thread is about, so I doubt this is related, but they’re great series worth finding if anyone loves old sci-fi.
I recall reading quite a few of those, but don’t recall any specific building ones, esp not which much themes of ‘people stop interacting with the outside world’.
The Caves of Steel was basically named for it, with a major plot point revolving around the fact that everyone is too agoraphobic to have committed the murder because of generations spent living in giant domed cities kept isolated from the natural world.
There’s a bit in foundation (iirc) where they go to earth (or somewhere) in the distant future and everyone is totally isolated living in their own super secure little underground bubbles. (or am I thinking of a Clarke short story?) No one even bothers messaging each other anymore because they have nothing to say to each other, they just stay in their own closed system safe from all dangers.
@barsquid Ahem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Rise_(novel)
N = 2 (this and judge dredd) right now, but was there a rise in fiction in the 70’s/80’s where they did the ‘people live their whole lives in a skyscraper and didn’t come out’ thing? Is there some underlying societal fear I’m not super aware of? Or am I making too much of two examples?
It was (is) a real thing that archtitects have thought about. In 1969, the concept was named arcology. I learned about them through SimCity 2000 which helped popularize the concept.
I think, culturally, it’s an offshoot of Modernist thought. One trend in modernism is that science can be used to find more efficient ways to live, and that science will lead to human dominion over all natural processes. Some thinkers took this to one (terrible) conclusion and wondered about if people could live, work, and socialize all within one building; one efficient and contained (and human controlled) space.
Real skyscrapers were often designed with this in mind, and we still see the echoes of it today with concepts for Mars colonies and hanging-building mega-cities in Tokyo.
Whittier in Alaska is mostly all in a single building.
Yes I know about archologies, but those are all just concept ideas, which is interesting that it lead to these dystopian ideas. I was wondering if there was more to it than just that.
Look up also extremely influential architect and noted fascist Le Corbusier.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unité_d'habitation
It was a huge trend after the war for a variety of economic and ideological reasons.
The Tcity serie are all about that too, Mark Adlard wrote about the potential path things were on with everyone living in a fully automated society within dense housing blocks. It was inspired by the emerging post industrialisation in the north of England which was at its peak in the late seventies (before thatcher and the Tories gutted it) there are some fantastic descriptions of the cultural implications exploring things like boredom and their attempts to alleviate it.
The failed utopianism of the north, and various other projects like the London tower block communities, just before the wave broke inspired a lot of English sci-fi, it was an era when the future must have seemed so open and undecided. The early signs of collapse starting to show but it sill being so uncertain if and how the chips will fall.
Harry Harrison though American lived in the UK and was closely involved in that same sci-fi scene, his series the stainless steel rat draws from.a lot of that same energy but from just after the wave broke and the capitalistic realism washed away all the beautiful castles built on the sand. ‘We must live as stainless steel rats in the wainscott of their society’
I can’t even remember what the thread is about, so I doubt this is related, but they’re great series worth finding if anyone loves old sci-fi.
@Soyweiser It was a bigger theme earlier: 50s/60s. Asimov, Bradbury, and I think Heinlein all used it.
I recall reading quite a few of those, but don’t recall any specific building ones, esp not which much themes of ‘people stop interacting with the outside world’.
The Caves of Steel was basically named for it, with a major plot point revolving around the fact that everyone is too agoraphobic to have committed the murder because of generations spent living in giant domed cities kept isolated from the natural world.
@Soyweiser Not as a primary focus, but as a background fact, e.g. Trantor in Foundation.
The granddaddy of those would be E.M. Forster’s The Machine Stops, from 1909
There’s a bit in foundation (iirc) where they go to earth (or somewhere) in the distant future and everyone is totally isolated living in their own super secure little underground bubbles. (or am I thinking of a Clarke short story?) No one even bothers messaging each other anymore because they have nothing to say to each other, they just stay in their own closed system safe from all dangers.
Also James Blish, in the of-their-time-but-still-worth-reading Cities in Flight series.
That’d probably be Ballard trickling down into pop culture
also, to some extent, poul anderson’s war of the wing-men.