A COMPARITIVE STUDY OF CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE AND SCIENCE FICTION FILMS

In what distinct ways could the present course of events in the realm of architecture
(contemporary & futuristic) be influenced by science fiction films? And thereby, could this
present course of developments prove to be progressive or detrimental to the fate of humanity?
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What would life look like about 100 years from now?
A question that has plagued the minds of lay-men and theorists alike. And no one seems exempt from the vast, impending sense of oblivion that accompanies
said question. Obviously, nobody in the known universe has the power to asses and gauge the
future, yet – is it going to be just as the movies predict it will be? Or something completely
unknown?
To answer these questions, one must first begin to understand that in the past, science
fiction was commonly used to prophesize about fantastical renditions of what the artists, theorists and philosophers of that age used to predict for our (present) future – which we now
know from experience, has been greatly exaggerated in some cases, and in some cases has
been quite on the mark. Case in point, Arthur C. Clarke’s futuristic saga, 2001: A Space
Odyssey, which was written in the year 1968, and features a movie adaptation by the director
Stanley Kubrick, was one of the first of its kind to detail the intricacies of space flight and
what a travel to space might seem like. While we now know that some parts of the story were
a bit too advanced for their time – for example, the luxurious space travel as featured in the
lobby of the Galactic Hilton Hotel, there are also several other instances that mirror real life
events – like the Apollo 11 moon landing that happened the following year in 1969.
Therefore, to understand the effect of science fiction films on current architectural trends
and the future, it is important to comprehend the ways in which the influence of these
films can be materialized in real-life architecture and vice versa.
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The assumption that can be made from this questionnaire study is that films have been and will continue to
be able to predict the reality of the future to a certain degree. This degree, therefore depends
on several factors which go beyond and include the current rate of globalization, technological advancements, societal constructs, environmental concerns and the all- governing laws of physics. The three outcomes of these prophesies that can be predicted, however, can be useful in
assessing how much of the future that is depicted in science fiction films could actually
become reality; these outcomes include:
1. What is predicted can/will happen
2. What is predicted cannot/will not happen
3. What is not predicted can/will happen