81–90 of 115 posts
Why “bizzare”? And what is “Logan’s Run”? That building is absolutely breathtaking! It’s maybe my favorite structure on the planet. And it would be so cool if it got rebuilt (without the asbestos)! By the way, I really enjoyed this documentary: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/nakagincapsuletower
1976 dystopian fiction. It had a look and feel that matches up with this architecture.
I published a photobook 'Danchi Dreams' in 2018 that captured the massive Japanese apartment blocks from the same era as Nakagin. The apartment buildings, known as 'danchi', were constructed from the 1960s - 1980s to replace burnt-out cities and house a booming population. Though they might not be quite as spectacular as what the Metabolists dreamed up I think they shared a forward-looking vision for what the modern…
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What do you mean replaced? There's more art than ever, isn't there?
Perhaps the idea is that today generally speaking there's a clearer separation between art and engineering. We tend to have functional things, or ones focused on impressive visuals at the expense of the functionality. Comparatively very few things want to be both. The car wanted to be both engineering and "art" in the 50s-60s, in the 70s buildings had their turn with all kinds of experimental architecture. In the 80s…
Why “bizzare”? And what is “Logan’s Run”? That building is absolutely breathtaking! It’s maybe my favorite structure on the planet. And it would be so cool if it got rebuilt (without the asbestos)! By the way, I really enjoyed this documentary: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/nakagincapsuletower
Logan's Run: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan%27s_Run_(film) 1976 dystopian fiction. It had a look and feel that matches up with this architecture.
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From the article, it seem like the main failure was in execution. The pods were designed to be replaceable, swapped out regularly as needs changed. In practice, swapping out a single pod was impossible, due to the construction. For some reason, I'm really sad to see this go. I remember it being all over the UK media when I was a kid.
I think that > swapped out regularly as needs changed was the key design mistake, because it glosses over the fact that people get attached to things for sentimental reasons. Even if it were easier to swap out pods, I bet that some people would stubbornly remain in their older pods "because it is the pod I grew up in" for example. Designers in all sorts of fields (even software) often fall for this fallacy, because i…
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The observations on modernity are important. In a sense, future — as in this optimistic, curious interest and anticipation — is a thing of the past. We have replaced art by engineering (for the most part with a rather short term perspective) and lost emotions on the way. I think, this is one of the reasons for the retro trend we've seen in the last decade. – I also think, the 1970s were actually already a bit late to…
What do you mean replaced? There's more art than ever, isn't there?
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It's a big mystery for me how the things went down since seventies. I think the first signs of not decline, but I'd say "wind down" were quite apparent in eighties already.
Oh you had smartphones and the web in the 70s ?
Now we have them, and don't much give a damn how sci-fi the semi industry became.
Concordes on other sides were a cult icon even when they were flying. People were saving money to "fly on a Concorde once in a lifetime"
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Politics is everything. We have wristwatch and pocket supercomputers with access to a global network. But many people also live in a far more precarious economy, the global network is far too much a source of poor-quality or tainted information and toxic social experiences, monitoring and manipulation of all kinds are pervasive, and a compulsory personal ethic of branding, consumption, and selling is far more prevale…
> But many people also live in a far more precarious economy, [...] What? Global inequality has dropped through the floor compared to the 70s. People in India and China used to starve, now they have smartphones.
Also, from a US-centric point of view, it seems to me that economic inequality has gotten worse since the 70s, or at least the 80s. See for example: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-... or https://academic.oup.com/cje/article-abstract/37/4/921/17127....
I'm not sure what the parent commenter meant, but when I think "precarious economy", I'm thinking about things like wage stagnation and rising costs of healthcare, housing, and debt, rather than the fact that people now have iPhones (which for many are only affordable if paid for in monthly installments over years).
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Concorde failed because of politics, not technology. The US wanted to make way for its own SST project so it limited Concorde's access to the US market. A Concorde B variant with an even longer range and quieter engines was already being developed, and airlines were very interested in it. if the US market had been more open it's likely other markets would have followed suit. Once it was stabilised in the market other…
Concorde failed because of the technology. It was hugely expensive and consumed mass amounts of fuel (13x the fuel per passenger of a 747-200). It used 2 tons of fuel just to taxi to the runway for takeoff! I dispute that airlines were actually interested in a Concorde B. The economic problems of supersonic flight would have remained. There's a reason Boeing abandoned any pretense of interest in SST after Congress de…
Metabolism (the architectural movement that underpinned the Capsule Tower) fascinates me because of its grand scope, one that sought to build an entire society that would suit the needs of the modern person. A building like the Capsule Tower was only a small part of a totalising vision which included ideas for reimagining the Tokyo Bay with vast arcologies. For those interested in Metabolism a fascinating book on the…
The lowest price I can find is $155 on Amazon. Is there any place I can still find this book?
https://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/architecture/all/...