Future urban environments in science fiction: Initiated thought experiments

• Is it possible that science fiction-films have influenced modern architecture and buildings in the real world? Ideas about the design and purpose of future cities often start with visions. Science fiction can be understood as a kind of thought experiment. The experimenter, the writer or filmmaker, begins with a hypothesis and sets up initial conditions. SF writers take notice of their colleagues’ work and results; they often borrow fundamental concepts from previous generations of writers. Authors elaborate on and transform these concepts, apply and test them in new situations, and add new ideas. I argue that our capacity to imagine things and phenomena that do not yet exist is important in the process of constructing and reorganizing human life and, hence, also urban environments. The concepts of “city” and “countryside”, both of which are often projected and experienced as opposites, with contradictions and conflicts built into them, are examined. Urban Transition through some of the most influential dystopian sf-movies with Metropolis is my starting point, films where the idea of the city can be said to be the main protagonist.

Subject headings

HUMANIORA  -- Annan humaniora (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Other Humanities (hsv//eng)

Keyword

science fiction

dystopia

archetypes

city

countryside

Hållbar stadsutveckling

Sustainable Urban Development

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kap (subject category)