Re: Art, Environment and Architecture(was)Extropic Flare In NY Art , Scene

Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@www.aeiveos.com)
Thu, 23 Sep 1999 12:32:19 -0700 (PDT)

On Thu, 23 Sep 1999 QueeneMUSE@aol.com wrote:

>
> As materials become less rigid, designs are becoming more and more *organic*
> i.e.: curved & colorful - as opposed to boxy, black, darth vader like
> squares of the retro-future.
>
> ( PS if anyone has good references for images that deal with what a city
> might look like after nan - let me know)
>

There is a city, I believe in Arizona, being constructed in an architectural/ecological framework by an architect (whose name I don't remember), who apparently came to America to study under Frank Lloyd Wright. The gentleman, I believe is now in his '80s and his students/city citizens slowly build/add-on to the city as funds from lectures, tours, etc. permit.

[I'm sure someone on this list can fill in the details...]

This might serve as an interesting starting place for cities of the future (as well as an interesting lecture for Extro5).

One thing that is clear is that cities of the future will have *much* more variety. We are now cost constrained in most of our architecture. When we are freed from such constraints people will be able to build much more imaginatively. You may have triangle-city, box-city, sphere-city, pentagon-city, 

bucky-ball-city, blue-city, green-city, red-city, light-city,
heavy-city, soft-city, hard-city, rough-city, smooth-city,
clear-city, opaque-city, sun-city, rainy-city, windy-city,
snow-city, ice-city, water-city, lumpy-city, and so on and so forth. The architectural possibilities seem really stunning.

It will be interesting to see whether we explore all of these possibilities to their fullest extent or whether we decide that it is meaningless. Would you want to live in a city that through its fundamental architecture promotes violence or adventure (crim-city, insan-city), or extreme regularity and safety (bordo-city) or simply chaos (randomo-city)?

And would you want to live in a city at all, if instead you can be uploaded and live in any virtua-city?

Robert