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Science-Fiction as a Method of Teaching and Influencing Architects and their Design Process.

by Aruzhan Sagynay (Jade)

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Acknowledgements.

Firstly, I would like to offer my gratitude and appreciation to my dissertation tutor, Stephen Parnell, who guided me through the year with unwavering dedication. The feedback and advice I received along the way is invaluable and will aid me in years to come. I am especially grateful for all the suggested reading, most of which have been crucial in the exploration of my topic.

I would also like to thank my parents, Mazilkhan Pussyrman and Zhadyragul Jiyengaziyeva, who have made many sacrifices and have put in a huge amount of effort to support my education at Newcastle University. They have also allowed me to stay in Newcastle during summer and Christmas break to maximise the time I could spend working on my dissertation. Without them, I would have not been able to get this far in my education.

Lastly, I would like to acknowledge my gratitude for my best friend Yanny (Sin Ian Si Tou), who has been my loyal companion in the days leading up to the deadline. I deeply appreciate the emotional support and encouraging words she has provided me with at the time of need. I am also thankful to her for offering her room as our study space, we have both been able to focus better and be productive in the company of each other.

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Dissertation on the advantages of reading Science-Fiction novels

by Architects and the methods of learning it provides them with.

ARUZHAN SAGYNAY (JADE) Course: BA Architecture (Stage 3) Student Number: 160732951 Module: ARC3060 - Dissertation in Architectural Studies Dissertation Tutor: Stephen Parnell

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1.

The relation of science-fiction to

the architecture field. ...................................1 2.

Introduction of themes for further

exploration. ....................................................6

2.1.

Theme 1. .............................. ...7

2.2.

Theme 2. .............................. ...9

2.3.

Theme 3. .............................. ...10

3.

High-Rise within the ‘Urban

Disaster Trilogy’. .......................................... ...13 3.1.

Crash. ......................................13 3.2.

Concrete Island. ................. ...15 3.3.

High-Rise. ............................. ...17 3.4.

‘Urban Disaster Trilogy’: analysis summary. ...................................... ...19 4.

Exploration of science-fiction

learning methods for architects through High-Rise novel as a case-study. .................21

4.1.

Method 1. ............................ ...21

4.2.

Method 2. ............................ ...25

4.3.

Method 3. ............................ ...30

5.

Conclusion. ..................................... ...36

6.

Bibliography. ................................... ...38

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The relation of science-fiction to the architecture field.

“The act of reading a SF text can disrupt, distance, and critically reframe our perception of the built environment.” – Butt 1.

Fiction is a genre concerned with imaginary events and situations and characters within these storylines.

Whereas architecture is a real-life science of solving issues related to inhabitation of space through artistic methods of creation. So where do these two terms meet, overlap and interact?

I want to start my exploration of the relation of Science-Fiction to Architecture, specifically Architects, with this statement by Levitas: “The relationship of architecture to the world is one of command.” 2 What this means is that often the spaces architects create with their designs dictate the way users behave, interact and move through them. In long-term and on a much broader scale this could result in political and economic changes and creation of new social structures, all which was directed by the environment that is surrounding the inhabitants. This notion often becomes a primary focus of the novelists within the SF genre. Levitas also mentions that architecture students are mostly subjected to cynically written works based

1 Amy Butt, ‘“Endless Forms, Vistas and Hues”: Why Architects Should Read Science Fiction’, Arq: Architectural Research Quarterly, 22.2 (2018), 157.

2 Ruth Levitas, Utopia as a Method: The Imaginary Reconstitution of Society (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 214.

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on flaws of modernism 3. Jameson, on the other hand, believes that the opposite is true and that the twentieth century SF works, such as illustrations, inspired the architects of the modernist era 4. Both statements are equally valid and represent the two sides of this relation between SF genre and Architects.

One cannot progress without the other: “The radical freedom of SF allows authors to undertake expansive and exhilarating worldbuilding, from the surreal tweaking of the disconcertingly familiar, to the construction of coherent universes. This is a space for architectural imagination to be unleashed, for new technologies to bend old rules. It is a site for architects to stretch out into the breathtaking scope of all that can be imagined, beyond that which can be realised.” – Butt 5.

Additionally, according to Butt, SF writings use cognitive estrangement to create their fictional realities, often involving the estrangement of the physical built environment surrounding the characters 6. This is supported by Jameson, who describes the method of creating believable realism within the SF world as “defamiliarization and restructuring” of our present environment and situation 7. He believes that we are not, in fact, seeing and imagining the future, but experiencing a different, Levitas, 214.

Fredric Jameson, Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions (London: Verso, 2007), 91.

5 Butt, 152.

6 Butt, 154.

7 Jameson, 286.

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as Butt would say “estranged”, present. What this means to me is that our present is too full of events, emotions and material things; it is too cluttered for us to comprehend in its entirety, and therefore requires SF to deconstruct it for us, to simplify it down to compact concepts and ideas: “I would argue, however, that the most characteristic SF does not seriously attempt to imagine the “real” future of our social system.

Rather, the multiple mock futures serve the quite different function of transforming our own present into the determinate past of something yet to come. … that upon our return from the imaginary constructs of SF is offered to us in the form of some future past world’s remote past, as if posthumous and as though collectively remembered.” – Jameson 8.

Butt compares the process of architectural design to the writing of a SF novel, so far as in both are concerned with predicting, “extrapolating”, the future beyond the present reality 9. Often, in the design process there are so many variables, that each new idea brought into the design becomes part of the nightmare of tangled concepts. What SF does, however, is take one of those concepts and project it far, or near, into the future by using extrapolation. This produces a clear outcome of each situation. Levitas, however, believes that “Utopia as Architecture is both less and more than a model or blueprint”: it is a suggestion of the possible and does not predict the 8 9

Jameson, 288.

Butt, 153.

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future, but it is also a means by which both author and reader can become someone different 10. Putting together the ideas of Butt and Levitas, I have come to realise that as much as the future cannot be ideally forecasted, the possibility to imagine it comes from what I would call “decision and consequence”. While we, all humans populating the world, don’t see the future with absolute clarity, we do know that certain actions lead to specific results. SF novelists take it to another level where a chain of actions happening in an estranged environment lead to an option of one of the futures. This “imaginative exercise” lets both writers and architects visualise the space and its effects.

Which is one of the essential lessons that have to be taken from SF by both architects and architecture students: “For the architect as reader, the active nature of the setting provides an insight into the imagined impact of the built environment. SF strips away the nuances of a multitude of influences that make architecturally deterministic readings of real space so problematic, to reveal commonly held assumptions about how space directs behaviour.” – Butt 11.

Levitas has found that for Coleman the meaning of utopian architecture is the opposite of capitalism 12. He believes that a true utopia is when the environment does not dictate and determine the actions of the Levitas, 198.

Butt, 155.

12 Levitas, 214.

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users, much like a contradiction to Levitas’ statement at the start of this chapter. Which means the utopia is forever unreachable and unachievable by the present society. However, would the opposite be true?

Is Dystopia, then, defined by spaces and facilities that direct the inhabitants’ movement and interaction? If so, can we not say that our present is a dystopia since most of the public spaces in our realm are most often than not owned by someone and are intended for a specific purpose, as well as to control and restrict us? I believe we can’t, at least not yet. I agree that most dystopias, such as the “High-Rise” by Ballard, which I will be looking at in the rest of my dissertation, are the kind of dystopias which are created by a failure of capitalistic notions, but they are not our reality. For now, these novels are just warnings to architects and the rest of the readers. Warnings which we should heed.

In conclusion, drawing from ideas by Butt and Levitas, reading SF can benefit architects and architecture students in a variety of ways. Levitas strongly believes that utopia as part of SF genre should exclusively be used as a method and not the final destination 13.

Whereas Butt demonstrates a specific way of using SF for the advantage of architects’ design process 14.

13 14

Levitas, 217.

Butt.

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Introduction of themes for further exploration.

“I think that unless you’ve got a really powerful imagination (it doesn’t matter what form or medium it is), you will have nothing.” – Ballard, in an interview with A. Juno and V. Vale (1982) 1.

The imagination is what leads us ahead: what creates the stories we read and buildings we inhabit. Jameson remarks on the notion that the imaginary sciencefiction projects have long since been inspiring the architects of modernity and our time 2. This is the most straightforward approach one can take when linking the science-fiction novels to architecture field, trying to understand their relation to one another. It is clearly logical; however, there is a more complex speculation behind it. Fortin believes that architects’ job is much like science-fiction writers’, so far as in both are tasked with predicting the future 3. In a way, Tobe agrees with both Jameson and Fortin, but does not wholly support either of them with his statement; the intangible future is not something we can guess, as what we attempt to understand about the future quite quickly becomes irrelevant with the flow of time, therefore we can only

Andrea Juno and V Vale, RE/SEARCH: J. G. Ballard (San Francisco: Re/Search Publications, 1984), 10.

2 Fredric Jameson, Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions (London: Verso, 2007), 91.

3 David T. Fortin, Architecture and Science-Fiction Film (London: Routledge, 2016), 62.

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design from what our past saw as the future 4. In his written answers to an interview conducted in 1970, Ballard writes that “the human being is a nervous and fearful creature” who despises change, but is willing to accept it once the confidence has been instilled in him; thus, science-fiction is a tool by which one can engage the imagination, introduce and explain concepts and increase the understanding of opportunities 5. In this chapter I am going to look into the methods by which science-fiction could be used to the advantage of the architecture field and how reading it would benefit the architects. I will primarily indicate three core themes, which will be explored through the case study in my later chapters.

2.1 Seeing the surrounding through the objective eyes of the protagonist. Understanding the reactions of the societies to the environment. Imagining the behaviour of communities within a setting.

In this part I want to focus on the subjectivity of perception of our environment and the collective reaction of the society to the built surroundings.

According to Bruno, architecture is not just the physical representation of the imagined designs, it is also heavily adapted, influenced and controlled by its users, so much that it becomes overcome with emotions and histories of those who inhabit it 6. This 4 Renee Tobe, Film, Architecture and Spatial Imagination (London: Routledge, 2018), 125.

5 James Goddard, ‘Everything Is Science Fiction!’, in The JG Ballard Book, ed. Rick McGrath (Canada: The Terminal Press, 2013), 29-30.

6 Giuliana Bruno, Atlas of Emotion: Journeys in Art, Architecture and Film (London: Verso, 2002), 66.

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could easily explain why the final product of any architectural design will never be the intended pristine polished structure that we see right after its construction. Time and people will inevitably affect it in often unpredictable ways. In regards to film industry, Tobe mentions that architecture is both less and more significant to the overall picture: it acts as the background, which is often not remarked upon, but could also be a crucial to the protagonist or the story plot-point 7. I believe that the same could be said about novels or even real life. Shonfield carries on this notion by questioning if we can accept that the architecture is not this pure, clean, unspoiled unit, but rather a result of our perception of it; this would mean, in her opinion, that the we can allow ourselves to grasp that “fictional representations of the architecture and the city are understood as the architectural equivalent of the dream record” 8. This results in architecture, especially fictional one, being closely related to our psyche. According to Butt, Ursula K. Le Guin states that science-fiction is a metaphorical genre which uses symbols to represent realities; for example, landscapes and built environments could denote economic systems, political or social structures, and, on occasion, human’s inner self 9. Finally, the importance of science-fiction to architects’ vision could be understood through Maskin, an architect who wrote a short science-fiction story, and what he Tobe, 33.

Katherine Shonfield, Walls Have Feelings: Architecture, Film and the City (London: Routledge, 2000), 160.

9 Amy Butt, ‘“Endless Forms, Vistas and Hues”: Why Architects Should Read Science Fiction’, Arq: Architectural Research Quarterly, 22.2 (2018), 155.

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believes he learned from it. In his article, Rhodes mentions that Maskin realised the importance of objectivity and ability to see through the inhabitant’s eyes, as this proves to make it easier to identify mistakes and flaws in the design 10. Which leads me on to my next theme.

2.2 Realising the mistakes of present time architecture by reading science-fiction, which, in essence, is a criticism of the current existence. Seeing the problems, their effects, and understanding the lacking requirements for success.

Sellars explains that architects do not have the luxury of endangering human lives while shaping our environment, there is no space for trial and error, ergo they have to learn from fictional works, where humans are imaginary and the deaths are only virtual and there could not possibly be a physically real dire outcome 11. Carrying on from this, Charley not only believes that science-fiction can be a test ground for future designs, but that it can also serve as a scrutineer and embody the mistakes of architects’ imagination 12.

Butt further supports this point by writing that “qualities of alienation and estrangement” allow the reality to reflect back to us through the imaginative works, 10 Margaret Rhodes, ‘Writing Sci-Fi Could Make Architects Better at Their Jobs’, Wired, 1 April 2016 <https://www.wired.com/2016/04/writing-sci-fimake-architects-better-jobs/> [accessed 4 January 2020].

11 Simon Sellars, ‘Stereoscopic Urbanism: JG Ballard and the Built Environment’, Architectural Design, Architectures of the Near Future, 79.5 (2009), 86.

12 Jonathan Charley, ‘Time, Space and Narrative: Reflections on Architecture, Literature and Modernity’, in Writing the Modern City (London: Routledge, 2012), 14.

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meaning that “fiction reveals truth by holding up a mirror to the world” 13. Additionally, Wilson believes that Utopia’s ideals often align with total control and inflexibility 14, whereas most authors would agree that Dystopia is, in fact, synonymous to dominating, commanding, unquestionable authority while utopia is absolute freedom. Whichever is true, both fall under the science-fiction genre, whose architecture does sometimes determine the societies and social structures originating in the story. According to Coleman, “world of architecture will come closest to being utopian when they are equally specific and open, which will go far in assuring their continuing usefulness into the future, in both technical and emotional senses” 15. However, we are far from reaching these ideals, and even science-fiction novels have not been able to produce the image of such architecture. What is left for us is to observe the current architectural mistakes being blown up into disaster in science-fiction, and learn not to repeat them.

2.3 Looking into the future as a different present.

Teaching architects to isolate a particular concept and extrapolate, project it into the future to see its consequences. Understand the future rather than predict it.

Butt, 153.

Robin Wilson, Image, Text, Architecture: The Utopics of Architectural Media (Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2015), 27.

15 Nathaniel Coleman, ‘Introduction: Architecture and Utopia’, in Imagining and Making the World: Reconsidering Architecture and Utopia (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2011), 19.

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Going back to the analysis of Utopia, Levitas believes that it can simply stand back and present to us a possible future for the society, but also engage the writer and reader to imagine something other than now and here 16. Jameson argues, however, that the future is not represented in a straightforward way that will allow us to perfectly picture it in our minds, but instead it is done through “defamiliarising” us with our present and recreating an experience other than our reality through familiar features and traits mixed in with innovative notions 17. This creates enough familiarity for the readers to be able to relate to and comprehend the setting and surrounding environment of the action, but also removes it from the present reality through means of time, space, technology, etc. This is not dissimilar to the process of architectural design, thus Butt states that science-fiction provides architect with an exercise where they can “extend the line of extrapolation beyond the completion date for the architectural project, a space to dwell in the effect of architectural design far beyond any post-occupancy evaluation” 18. This, in science-fiction, is done through eliminating unnecessary factors and focusing on specific concepts, whose chain of consequences leads to a future result, understanding of which would be impossible to achieve once all the factors are present and taken into consideration. As I mentioned earlier, absolute utopia is never achieved due to the limits of our imagination, thus leaving science-fiction 16 Ruth Levitas, Utopia as a Method: The Imaginary Reconstitution of Society (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 198.

17 Jameson, 286.

18 Butt, 153.

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genre systematically unfulfilled and somewhat lacking.

In the words of Wilson, it would be called “impoverished”; however, according to him, Jameson suggests a positive result of such ‘imaginative lapses’, which allows readers to strip themselves of ignorance by grasping the constraints of human imagination and contemplating the current state of our time 19.

I will further explore all three themes through my casestudy – High-Rise by J.G. Ballard – after introducing it in the next chapter.

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Wilson, 26.

High-Rise within the ‘Urban Disaster Trilogy’.

“The relationship of architecture to the world is one of command.” – Levitas 1.

To explore the benefits of reading science-fiction novels for architects and students of an architecture degree I will use the example of J. G. Ballard’s HighRise as a case study. However, to be able to fully comprehend this piece of work, I believe it is necessary to have an understanding of his full ‘Urban Disaster trilogy’, which also includes Crash and Concrete Island novels.

3.1 Crash.

The trilogy begins with Crash, in which the narrator – ‘James Ballard’ – experiences a car accident and consequently becomes acquainted with Dr. Robert Vaughan, a so-called car-crash enthusiast. In the car which crashed into ‘Ballard’s’ was a woman with her husband. Having survived the accident, ‘Ballard’ himself now sees how cars and roads have taken a large part of the city. As he realises their significance, he develops an obsession with cars and believes that the world is destined to perish in a huge road accident. He begins to rent every possible car to drive around the city and he often revisits the scene of his car-crash. He ends up meeting the widow (Helen), whose husband died as the result of their accident, 1 Ruth Levitas, Utopia as a Method: The Imaginary Reconstitution of Society (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).

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and starts an affair with her. They only ever happen to make love in his car, as that is what creates a connection between them. He also realises that he is being watched whenever him and Helen are going places. They soon meet the observer, Vaughan, who shows them an album filled with photographs of accidents’ victims, including ‘Ballard’. One time, after the three of them witness a staged accident, ‘Ballard’ notices Vaughan’s arousal. Together they start searching for more crashes on highways and picking up women to whom Vaughan makes love while ‘Ballard’ drives. Having seen an actress playing out a car accident, Vaughan begins planning his death with her by means of a real car-crash. After taking drugs Vaughan makes love to ‘Ballard’ but tries to run him over the next morning. He then follows ‘Ballard’ and his wife around trying to cause an accident. Later, he steals their car. He kills himself in crash with a bus, rather than actress’ limousine as originally planned.

‘Ballard’ and his wife wait for their own deaths as they continue seeking out accidents.

In his book about the author of Crash, J. G. Ballard, Gasiorek writes that it is unclear whether the novel is a story of caution and a warning or an immoral celebration of unconventional sexual desires 2.

According to him, critics vary in their opinion on the matter, and even Ballard himself is uneasy and shifts between the declarations. It is also believed that the understanding between reality and fiction is blurred within the novel, which creates a hyperreality. And, 2 Andrzej Gasiorek, Contemporary British Novelists: JG Ballard (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005), 18.

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although the metaphor of a car-crash being “a symbol of sexual fulfilment” is used as the basis of the plot, the characters themselves do not recognise it as a metaphor 3. The involvement of something other, the machine, is ever-present throughout the storyline. The violence and the physical damage received from an accident, the psychological effect on the protagonist’s traumatised mind, the desires discovered by the characters – all these are a result of interaction and involvement with the technological realm. It is an undoubtedly fundamental concept of the novel: the machine largely overtaking, dominating and controlling most of the protagonist’s social relationships 4.

3.2 Concrete Island.

Curiously, the next novel in the series – Concrete Island – involves a car crash which sets off the series.

Architect Robert Maitland, the protagonist, flies over the railing of the highway and gets trapped between the lanes. Unnoticed by the drivers due to the fastpaced movement of cars, he is unable to get help and escape. While stuck on the island, he reminisces about his double life: on one side of which is his family, his wife and son, on the other is his mistress. The island is not just a physical location of his imprisonment, but also a symbol of his inner conscious. Soon, Maitland realises the futility of his attempts to escape and learns to adapt to his new surroundings. He meets two other inhabitants of the island and tries to manipulate them 3 4

Gasiorek, 83-84.

Gasiorek, 84-96.

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and establish dominance. However, by the end of the novel, Maitland understands that he has always been happier in isolation and decides to stay on the island.

One of the themes which play throughout the novel is the idea that humanity has become very segregated and self-absorbed. The technology that we now own does not only serve us and simplify our lives, but also drives us further apart 5. This could be seen through Maitland’s escape attempts: while the cars exist to increase the travel pace of the current generation, the society is in fact oblivious to their surroundings and is unable to notice anything out of their narrow line of vision. On his way to recovery and the path of finding himself, Maitland starts to create a closer relationship with the island. In a way, he lets the island represent his innermost self, which in turn results in a method of healing. Separating negative parts of his personality and leaving pieces of himself on the island’s landscape, he unclutters, lightens and purifies his individual. Although, this connection leads him to see the island as an ally, a safe place, which in turn makes him aggressive and manipulative 6. “To James Graham Ballard an important task of the writer is to demonstrate the implications of the absolute individuality of the world that each man sees and to extend those implications to the production of responses.” – Brigg 7. We see and understand things each in our own way, which results in the actions we take and results we gain. All of those are personally Gasiorek, 111-112.

Gasiorek, 114-119.

7 Peter Brigg, ‘JG Ballard: Time Out of Mind’, in The JG Ballard Book, ed. Rick McGrath (Canada: The Terminal Press, 2013), 131.

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right to us in the moment. Likewise, Maitland perceives his surroundings in such light that validates his decisions to himself. Overall, the novelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s situation is a result of technology being so inherently present in humanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lives, that it mediates our interaction and creates the isolation we do not even recognise. The theme of the machine overtaking our existence is as clearly identified in Concrete Island, as it was in Crash.

3.3 High-Rise.

Finally, High-Rise, believed to be the more successful novel of the trilogy, presents a type of isolation, following on from the previous book. Main character, doctor and lecturer Robert Liang, moves into a newly built tower block, which provides its inhabitants with all the possible amenities. The possibility of shopping, getting a haircut, attending a school, going out for dinners, sorting out your finances â&#x20AC;&#x201C; all within the comfortable reach of the living quarters, give no reason for tenants to leave the site of the building.

However, it does not take too long for this paradise to manifest itself as a war zone. As the main character befriends his neighbours, the social structure of the high-rise starts to gradually disintegrate and fall into chaos. Without an outward perspective, an ability to glean the situation with clear vision, the occupants soon engage in wild and, on occasion, inhuman behaviour. The initial small disputes and confrontations between residents soon become outright acts of violence and cruelty. Inhabitants start to take over and privatise the public spaces, fighting for territory. A hierarchy of social systems occurs as the highest floors

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quite literary become the upper class, making the bottom floor residents lower class. The tenants abandon any kind of life independent of the tower block and devote themselves wholly to the life within.

They lose any sense of time and space, severing any connection to and isolating themselves from the rest of humanity. All occupants learn to adapt to the environment and no one takes any action towards changing the existing situation.

The tower-block in High-Rise is an exemplary representation of modernist architecture, which was originally designed after World War Two to solve the housing problem and provide the residents with all the required amenities. This, however, often backfired and hardly ever functioned according to its intended plan.

Gasiorek mentions the reverse roles of the characters and the high-rise itself: the protagonists acting as robotic replicated creatures, whereas the building almost develops a consciousness of its own, begins to control the environment and isolates the inhabitants from the external influence, thus trapping them inside to stew in their own shortcomings 8. As the architect of the tower-block comprises the occupants’ numbers, his creation resembles that of Victor Frankenstein’s in Mary Shelley’s gothic horror novel. Becoming a monster by turning its back on the creator and instead encouraging and aiding his demise. On the other end are the humans who have themselves turned into “an advanced species of machine”, surviving and thriving by staying indifferent, cold and unemotional. “HighRise is chilling because it traces a logic that connects 8

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Gasiorek, 120-127.

an initial disorientation in physical space to the loss of bearings in moral space.” – Gasiorek 9.

3.4 ‘Urban Disaster Trilogy’: analysis summary.

The idea of the machine runs throughout all of the ‘Urban Disaster trilogy’ even if in contrasting ways.

Initially, in Crash, the machine is quite simply the cars, around the idea of which revolves the plot of the story.

Here, the machine dominates the scene and controls the humanity. In Concrete Island, the machine is still a car. However, instead of overtaking protagonist’s life, it is the means by which the story is launched and the character reaches the primary setting of the novel. It also provides the protagonist with the necessities required to survive the stranded existence on the island. High-Rise takes the concept of the machine as the thematic core in a totally new direction by implying that the occupants of the tower-block become the machine themselves, turning into identical, indistinguishable from one another humans, which act mechanically rather than deliberately.

All three novels are somewhat static and do not progress into any direction, mostly revolving around one idea or location. In a way, Ballard took one simple notion and protruded it out into motion with fierce logic, predictable consequences and understandable outcomes. It is in the nature of his writing style to be able to see how a certain detail might affect the environment around. This is one of the reasons I chose Ballard as the author of my case study.

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Gasiorek.

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Additionally, the theme of isolation is present throughout the trilogy. The characters either separate themselves from the rest of the population due to their radical views; or get trapped within a setting which regulates and governs their behaviour. Either of the situations result in close-mindedness and inability to escape due to being conditioned to see the reality in a certain way.

In its essence, the trilogy is a review of flaws and faults of modernist ideals. It exhibits modernist architecture and its grave outcomes. The highways connecting the widespread city in Crash and Concrete Island are the cause of the accident, the obsession over the cars in first, and the trapping between the roads in second.

More plainly, the ideals are expressed and exhibited in the High-Riseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tower-block. As Levitas believes, written fictional works on architecture, that we are often exposed to, display the negative effects of modernity 10. Obviously, as fiction, the novels take situations a notch too far, but they clearly display problems occurring at the time and the ones hopefully to be avoided in the future. The readers can either perceive this as a warning or an inescapable catastrophe.

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Levitas.

Exploration of science-fiction learning methods for architects through High-Rise novel as a case-study.

4.1 Method 1: Seeing the surrounding through the objective eyes of the protagonist. Understanding the reactions of the societies to the environment.

Imagining the behaviour of communities within a setting. “…the world they respond to is the world as they understand it to be.” – Brigg 1.

As I have mentioned earlier, in my methodology chapter, Bruno remarks on the purity of architecture being distinctly non-existent due to the users influencing the space and inflicting their own personal reality on it 2. This ultimately means that while creating designs for their projects, architects should bear in mind the future inhabitants of the space. Not only so far as in the kind of amenities that should be provided, but just as much consider how the final product will be further transformed by the type of occupants it will serve. Looking at Ballard’s High-Rise, we can see that the dwellers of the tower-block are almost all at different ranges of middle-class:

1 Peter Brigg, ‘JG Ballard: Time Out of Mind’, in The JG Ballard Book, ed. Rick McGrath (Canada: The Terminal Press, 2013), 131.

2 Giuliana Bruno, Atlas of Emotion: Journeys in Art, Architecture and Film (London: Verso, 2002), 66.

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“In a sense, these people were the vanguard of a well-to-do and well-educated proletariat of the future, boxed up in these expensive apartments with their elegant furniture and intelligent sensibilities, and no possibility of escape.” – J.G. Ballard 3.

In a physical sense, the high-rise unquestionably responds to the needs of these inhabitants, providing them with all the possible necessities. However, as pointed out in the first chapter of the novel, the building was designed to accommodate each person separately on their own, not the created society as a whole 4.

Again, looking back on to my methodology, I’d like to repeat and expand on the ideas of Butt. Firstly, she mentions the parallels between the landscapes and built-environment of science-fiction novels and the political, economic or social structures existing in the fictional society 5. She also believes that there are comparisons which could be drawn between the written world’s systems and those of real life, which are more obscure and veiled. This results in her statement that “reading can be complemented by an appreciation of the built environment’s role as an active narrative device” 6. This puts the architecture at the forefront of significance to the story-line, making it

J.G. Ballard, High-Rise (1975) (London: Harper Perennial, 2006).

Ballard.

5 Amy Butt, ‘“Endless Forms, Vistas and Hues”: Why Architects Should Read Science Fiction’, Arq: Architectural Research Quarterly, 22.2 (2018), 155.

6 Butt.

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more than simply the background, which only proves Tobe’s point about the duality of its importance 7.

Returning to Butt, we can see that she establishes how this could contribute to architects’ knowledge and understanding. According to her, the pivotal role that the setting plays in science-fiction delivers awareness of the consequences of the built environment 8.

“These people were content with their environment, and felt no particular objection to an impersonal steel and concrete landscape, no qualms about the invasion of their privacy by government agencies and organizations, and if anything welcoming these intrusions, using them for their own purposes. These people were the first to master a new kind of 20th century life. They thrived on the rapid turnover of acquaintances, the lack of involvement with others, and the total selfsufficiency of lives which, needing nothing, were never disappointed.” – J.G. Ballard 9.

According to Rhodes, Maskin believes that writing, and, by extension, reading, science-fiction allows for an objective view of the environment through the character’s eyes; this, in turn, teaches architects to see the possible flaws of the creations. Not everything that is physically correct will always serve its purpose and

7 Renee Tobe, Film, Architecture and Spatial Imagination (London: Routledge, 2018), 33.

8 Butt.

9 Ballard.

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work as architects desired it to 10. Looking at the passage above from Ballard’s High-Rise, it is evident that the occupants of the tower-block were satisfied with the conditions they were provided. Yet the situation in the end turned majorly disastrous due to the humanity’s adaptability. What we can see is that though their physical needs were met, the design of the tower-block drove people apart, forcing them to become self-sufficient in more ways than one. This led to territorial, envious and malicious behaviour. As if in wilderness, every man for himself. Naturally, this is not the course of events that the architect, Anthony Royal, originally anticipated; he could not possibly see the ways that his creation would affect its inhabitants. This is something all real-life architects could take from the novel: seeing through the eyes of the users in more ways than one.

Strengthening my point is Ultav’s statement that landscapes are core entities in the science-fiction of Ballard. It is explained that he links the inner self of characters, their minds, to the surroundings and spaces they inhabit; thus, any alteration in the landscape and the surrounding environment ultimately results in humans’ adaptation to it 11.

Additionally, according to Ultav, Ballard’s characters “appear as alienated bodies reacting against the new modern situation”; she also states that Taylor believes 10 Margaret Rhodes, ‘Writing Sci-Fi Could Make Architects Better at Their Jobs’, Wired, 1 April 2016 <https://www.wired.com/2016/04/writing-sci-fimake-architects-better-jobs/> [accessed 4 January 2020].

11 Zeynep Tuna Ultav, ‘Reading Science Fiction Novels As An Architectural Research Method: The Case Study Of J. G. Ballard’s High Rise’, in Design Research Society, 2006, 5.

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that the adjustment of the built environment modifies the characters’ subjectivity 12.

“A new social type was being created by the apartment building, a cool, unemotional personality impervious to the psychological pressures of high-rise life, with minimal needs for privacy, who thrived like an advanced species of machine in the neutral atmosphere. This was the sort of resident who was content to do nothing but sit in his over-priced apartment, watch television with the sound turned down, and wait for his neighbours to make a mistake.”

– J.G. Ballard 13.

This passage of the High-Rise novel proves that Anthony Royal unintentionally designed a building suited for automatons. This clearly influenced the occupants and conditioned them to become robotic somnambules.

4.2 Method 2: Realising the mistakes of present time architecture by reading science-fiction, which, in essence, is a criticism of the current existence. Seeing the problems, their effects, and understanding the lacking requirements for success.

“The imagination according to Ballard is the source of redemption and transcendence – what makes us fly – but it also contains the dangers of obsession and self-

12 13

Ultav.

Ballard.

25

destruction – what absorbs our identity and reduces it to nothing.” – Costa 14.

As we have previously established, science-fiction often depicts fatal or grave outcomes of certain built environments, thus eliminating the need for architects to generate errors and faulty designs resulting in dire situations. Fictional virtual deaths are preferred over the loss of real human lives. This is what could be learned from reading science-fiction: which mistakes to avoid. All of these are ideas of Sellars, who also believes that Ballard’s novels specifically should be read, studied and learned from by architects 15.

Despite being a perfectly functional building, which provided the occupants with all the possible services and facilities, the tower-block in High-Rise was flawed and defective: “Without knowing it, he had constructed a gigantic vertical zoo, its hundreds of cages stacked above each other. All the events of the past few months made sense if one realised that these brilliant and exotic creatures had learned to open the doors.” – J.G. Ballard 16. “…the run-down nature of the high-rise was a model of the world into which the future was carrying them, a landscape beyond 14 Jordi Costa, ‘Ballardoscope: Some Attempts at Approaching the Writer as a Visionary’, in The JG Ballard Book, ed. Rick McGrath (Canada: The Terminal Press, 2013), 170.

15 Simon Sellars, ‘Stereoscopic Urbanism: JG Ballard and the Built Environment’, Architectural Design, Architectures of the Near Future, 79.5 (2009), 86.

16 Ballard.

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technology where everything was either derelict or more ambiguously recombined in unexpected but more meaningful ways” – J.G. Ballard 17.

The building was not designed to encourage social interaction or even create an atmosphere in which the inhabitants would exchange pleasantries. Instead, it isolated them from each other and made them desire more than they had, it taught them to be territorial and inspired fighting and skirmishes.

Concluding all of the above, Charley writes that it is appealing to imagine writers as critics and editors who reveal the flaws of threatening architectural notions and indicate the aspects in need of improvement 18.

This might very well be the case, because even if most science-fiction novels focus on a futuristic concept of the future, the architecture in it could only be inspired by the existing structures. Continuing on from this, it is fair to mention that Ballard does not create new worlds of never-before-seen, but rather focuses on the existing present time in future perspective; according to Ultav, he constructs his near future through magnified criticism of certain present time features 19.

This idea of isolating and exploding a certain flawed aspect into the future to realise its consequences will be further explored in the next section of this chapter.

Ballard.

Jonathan Charley, ‘Time, Space and Narrative: Reflections on Architecture, Literature and Modernity’, in Writing the Modern City (London: Routledge, 2012), 14.

19 Ultav, 4-5.

17 18

27

Butt believes that what science-fiction writers are really doing is “holding up a mirror” to the architects and the world in general, showing them the error of their ways 20. Regardless of how you put it, the meaning is clear: reading science-fiction will expose the truth and open architects’ eyes to the reality of what they produce.

One of such flaws in Ballard’s high-rise is isolation, the themes of which are apparent throughout the novel.

Ultav believes that the characters are as much isolated from the nature as they are from each other 21: “Secure within the shell of the high-rise, like passengers on board an automatically-piloted airliner, they were free to behave in any way they wished, explore the darkest corners they could find.” – J.G. Ballard 22.

Isolation from nature, consequently, leads to isolation in time: “The internal time of the high-rise, like an artificial psychological climate, operated to its own rhythms, generated by a combination of alcohol and insomnia.” – J.G. Ballard 23.

Unable to escape the situation due to the way the inhabitants conditioned themselves to perceive their surroundings. Believing that everything they might need already exists within the apartment complex results in their staying in. They, by extension, cut Butt, 153.

Ultav, 6.

22 Ballard.

23 Ballard.

20 21

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themselves off from the outside world. Time becomes irrelevant, as only the inner events of the tower-block matter. There is no possible way for the characters to wake up from their twisted depravity and debauchery. The immorality of their behaviour will prevail due to inability to see the outer world and the reality of their wrongdoings.

It is clear that the environment controls the minds and actions of the characters by engraining itself in their subconscious. This is reflective of the concept mentioned in the methodology and the first part of this chapter about the parallels between the built landscapes and the psyche of the humans. It now carries on to the current chapter with the added idea of utopian architecture being one of absolute power and command 24. However, as previously mentioned in my methodology, it is often believed that dystopia is total control and utopia is freedom in its highest sense.

This would classify Ballard’s High-Rise as a dystopia, due to the flawed dominating architecture and broken system. In Coleman’s understanding, Utopia should be every bit as restricting as it is flexible; it should acquire a tentative balance which will prove to be utilitarian far into the future in all possible ways 25.

“All the evidence over several decades cast a critical light on the high-rise as a viable social structure, but cost-effectiveness in the area of

24 Robin Wilson, Image, Text, Architecture: The Utopics of Architectural Media (Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2015), 27.

25 Nathaniel Coleman, ‘Introduction: Architecture and Utopia’, in Imagining and Making the World: Reconsidering Architecture and Utopia (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2011), 19.

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public housing and the profitability in the private sector kept pushing these vertical townships into the sky, against the real needs of their occupants. The psychology of high-rise life had been exposed with damaging results.

Living in high-rises required a special type of behaviour, one that was acquiescent, restrained, even perhaps slightly mad. A psychotic would have a ball here.” – J.G. Ballard.

Sellars believes that Ballard’s desire to explore spatial dynamics as a narrative aid in understanding the city, makes his novels into a crucial reading material for architects who wish to provide us with ‘user friendly’ built environment, rather than aim for “shiny icons designed by remote starchitects” 26. It is of no doubt that Ballard is considered to be one of the best science-fiction novelists of his time and that architecture as a profession could learn exponentially from his works. However, all science-fiction should be regarded as educational for architecture students and architects both.

4.3 Method 3: Looking into the future as a different present. Teaching architects to isolate a particular concept and extrapolate, project it into the future to see its consequences. Understand the future rather than predict it.

26

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Sellars, 86.

“The future is a better key to the present than the past.” – J.G. Ballard in an essay 27.

As previously have been established, utopia can act as a speculative concept of the future society, but can also play a more active role in reader’s and writer’s interaction with the story: by submerging them and allowing for perception of themselves and the environment as something else 28. Which leads me onwards on to Jameson’s point. He believes that science-fiction relies on reader’s imagination; while it does not specify the depiction of the future, it gives us enough of a resemblance to the present and restructures it for the purpose of estrangement 29. This evidently creates an air of realism to the otherwise fictional worlds. Readers are able to relate and comprehend the defamiliarised fictional reality while also receiving the experience of alternative existence.

It is apparent that Ballard’s High-Rise is particularly grounded, depicting the mundane, for its generation, environment gone awry: “The building was a monument to good taste, to the well-designed kitchen, to sophisticated utensils and fabrics, to elegant and never ostentatious furnishings. In short, to that whole aesthetic sensibility which these well-educated, professional people had inherited from all the Andrea Juno and V Vale, RE/SEARCH: J. G. Ballard (San Francisco: Re/Search Publications, 1984), 99.

28 Ruth Levitas, Utopia as a Method: The Imaginary Reconstitution of Society (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 198.

29 Fredric Jameson, Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions (London: Verso, 2007), 286.

27

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schools of industrial design, all the awardwinning schemes of interior decoration institutionalized by the last quarter of the century.” – J.G. Ballard 30.

Jameson points out that Ballard’s work specifically defies the notion of directly represented future, and rather focuses on restructuring and defamiliarising our present using the aforementioned method. He also mentions that the majority of science-fiction work does not endeavour to construct genuine reality of the future; instead, the various possible futures’ function is to turn our current present time into the history of “something yet to come” 31. Consequently, this teaches architects to have an open mind about their projects, to understand the future that their designs will be shaping.

“For all its size, the high-rise contained an impressive range of services. The entire 10th floor was given over to a wide concourse, as large as an aircraft carrier's flight-deck, which contained a supermarket, bank and hairdressing salon, a swimming-pool and gymnasium, a well-stocked liquor store and a junior school for the few young children in the block. High above Laing, on the 35th floor, was a second, smaller swimming-pool, a sauna and a restaurant. Delighted by this glut of

30 31

32

Ballard.

Jameson, 288.

conveniences, Laing made less and less effort to leave the building...” – J.G. Ballard 32.

The users of any architectural space are one of the crucial elements when it comes to designing and planning the project. According to Butt, the action of inhabiting fictional spaces and envisioning the fabrication of the built environment by novelists is closely resembling that of architect’s design process.

This results in science-fiction providing architects with “an imaginative exercise” that teaches to extrapolate into the future far past the moment of design realisation and completion 33. Which means that architects learn not only to see the immediate results of their work, but also comprehend the long-lasting impact they will impose on the local society.

Butt also believes that science-fiction provides what most academic and educational architectural texts do not. Science-fiction does not attempt to gauge the whole scope of architectural nuances; it only removes the mass of them to expose speculations about the controlled behaviour within a space 34. This simply means that unlike a real-life design project, sciencefiction allows architects and writers to overlook a multitude of aspects and focus primarily on one, zoom in on it to understand its repercussion. For example, in High-Rise Ballard focuses on the tower-block only, removing the rest of the built environment:

Ballard.

Butt, 153.

34 Butt, 155.

32 33

33

“The massive scale of the glass and concrete architecture, and its striking situation on a bend of the river, sharply separated the development project from the run down areas around it, decaying nineteenth century terraced houses and empty factories already zoned for reclamation...” – J.G. Ballard 35.

However, no matter its usefulness, science-fiction always falls short in being able to represent a future, as not one of us is able to see the real progression of events through time and space. It is believed to be ‘impoverished’ by Jameson, and as Wilson writes, understood as a “systematic failing in the genre”.

Nevertheless, according to Wilson, Jameson sees a bright side to it: science-fiction assists the readers in exploring the limits of their imagination and making sense of the present that they are shaping 36. After all, however much we try to comprehend and predict the future, it never really happens, it just turns into our newest present, thus the cycle repeats. This quote from one of the finishing chapters of High-Rise shows the protagonist reaching the same conclusion: “…future that had already taken place, and was now exhausted.” – J.G. Ballard 37.

The architects who are designing our built environment should not endeavour to predict a future, but rather understand the present with such clarity

Ballard.

Wilson, 26.

37 Ballard.

35 36

34

that lets them make the right decisions about the future they are shaping with their own hands.

35

Conclusion.

“The central points of my argument are that utopia should be understood as a method…” – mentions Levitas in a conclusion of his book 1.

To summarise my dissertation, it is fair to say that there is a strong relation between science-fiction novels and architecture design process. A built environment dictates the way users behave in it. Science-fiction often focuses on this aspect of architecture and explores it as a primary theme. Both architecture and science-fiction are concerned with extrapolating future. However, while architects are generally not allowed to make dire mistakes which could lead to fatal consequences, novelist are able to explore all the dark and twisted possibilities of the fictional future they are establishing.

Using the case-study of High-Rise by J.G. Ballard, I proved that reading science-fiction can be beneficial to architects. As in the first quote of this chapter, it is believed by Levitas and many other authors that science-fiction should not be used as a final destination to look up to, but rather as a method of learning. In my methodology I have indicated three themes for exploration, which I have looked at through the lens of my case-study to further examine and support my ideas. First, there is the concept of objectivity: architects, while reading science-fiction, 1 Ruth Levitas, Utopia as a Method: The Imaginary Reconstitution of Society (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 217.

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perceive the built environment through the eyes of the protagonist, they learn to understand the way societies function when faced with a specific type of architecture and how they behave. Then, there is the notion that science-fiction is a mirror which allows architects to face the real-life problems and potential consequences of existing architecture within the fictional environment. Lastly, what architects could take away from reading science-fiction is a method of understanding the future by focusing on one concept and extending it beyond present time. Science-fiction teaches architects to be successful by comprehending the current situation so well, that they could imagine the needs for shaping the future.

Thus, science-fiction is a strong tool in architectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s arsenal for enriching their technique for approaching design process.

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Bibliography.

Ballard, J.G., High-Rise (1975) (London: Harper Perennial, 2006) Brigg, Peter, ‘JG Ballard: Time Out of Mind’, in The JG Ballard Book, ed. Rick McGrath (Canada: The Terminal Press, 2013) Bruno, Giuliana, Atlas of Emotion: Journeys in Art, Architecture and Film (London: Verso, 2002) Butt, Amy, ‘“Endless Forms, Vistas and Hues”: Why Architects Should Read Science Fiction’, Arq: Architectural Research Quarterly, 22.2 (2018), 151– 60 Charley, Jonathan, ‘Time, Space and Narrative: Reflections on Architecture, Literature and Modernity’, in Writing the Modern City (London: Routledge, 2012), pp. 1–18 Coleman, Nathaniel, ‘Introduction: Architecture and Utopia’, in Imagining and Making the World: Reconsidering Architecture and Utopia (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2011), pp. 1–25 Costa, Jordi, ‘Ballardoscope: Some Attempts at Approaching the Writer as a Visionary’, in The JG Ballard Book, ed. Rick McGrath (Canada: The Terminal Press, 2013) Finkelstein, Haim, ‘“Deserts of Vast Eternity”: J.G. Ballard and Robert Smithson’, Foundation, 1987, pp. 50–62

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Fortin, David T., Architecture and Science-Fiction Film (London: Routledge, 2016) Gasiorek, Andrzej, Contemporary British Novelists: JG Ballard (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005) Goddard, James, ‘Everything Is Science Fiction!’, in The JG Ballard Book, ed. Rick McGrath (Canada: The Terminal Press, 2013) Hancock, Philip, Andre Spicer, and Zhongyuan Zhang, ‘Hyper-Organizational Space in the Work of J. G. Ballard’, SAGE Journals, Organization Articles, 15 (6) (2008), 889–910 Jameson, Fredric, Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions (London: Verso, 2007) Juno, Andrea, and V Vale, RE/SEARCH: J. G. Ballard (San Francisco: Re/Search Publications, 1984) Levitas, Ruth, Utopia as a Method: The Imaginary Reconstitution of Society (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) Rhodes, Margaret, ‘Writing Sci-Fi Could Make Architects Better at Their Jobs’, Wired, 1 April 2016 <https://www.wired.com/2016/04/writing-sci-fimake-architects-better-jobs/> [accessed 4 January 2020] Sellars, Simon, ‘Stereoscopic Urbanism: JG Ballard and the Built Environment’, Architectural Design, Architectures of the Near Future, 79.5 (2009), 82–87

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Shonfield, Katherine, Walls Have Feelings: Architecture, Film and the City (London: Routledge, 2000) Tobe, Renee, Film, Architecture and Spatial Imagination (London: Routledge, 2018) Ultav, Zeynep Tuna, ‘Reading Science Fiction Novels As An Architectural Research Method: The Case Study Of J. G. Ballard’s High Rise’, in Design Research Society, 2006, pp. 1–10 Wilson, Robin, Image, Text, Architecture: The Utopics of Architectural Media (Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2015)

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