In yesterday's post we looked at a structure that in 1967 was considered as extremely modern and innovatively futuristic, but was based on a system that revealed itself as being a failure as the years passed.
Design and architecturally-wise it is interesting to go back in time and explore utopian projects for the future planned 50 or 60 years ago. In 1953 Italian magazine Settimana Incom started for example publishing a series of colourful illustrations by Louis Bulgarini that tried to depict the city of the future.
Called "Megistopoli" the city was supposed to develop vertically on a circular map, with a massive central skyscraper with a body formed by high-rises and a series of lower skyscrapers surrrounding it. Schools, offices and entertainment places such as theatres and cinemas would be located in the lower floors, while hospitals in the higher levels. A ring of parks and gardens separated these main structures from a series of small villas and houses forming a sort of quiet suburban belt.
As for means of transport, the project suggested there would be no cars, but flying machines so there would be more elevated platforms located at different levels of the skyscrapers. At the moment there is a lot of talk about autonomous drones that can transport humans and cool flying taxis. Proper technologies for such machines are still being developed, but the utopian solutions suggested to us in sci-fi books and illustrations at times feel desirable and fun and keep on making us dream about a better future for our urban environments and our societies.
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.