Nowness - Illinois Institute of Technology

44 The Fifth Element,
Luc Besson, 1997
The three dimensional
city of today,
when confronted
with movement,
becomes a four
dimensional city.
As new technologies
add layers of virtual
information, we can
say that other
dimensions are introduced.
Could new
or existing materials
also harbor multiple
dimensions? If so,
they could help us
discover and create
the city and metropolis
of tomorrow.
Garbage City,
Bas Princen, 2009
In Cairo there exists
what is called the
“Garbage City”. It
exemplifies the fact
that planned cities
will never be used the
way they are planned,
and that earlier ideas
will always be transformed
by current
human behavior and
circumstance. Similar
to the urban condition
of Rio de Janeiro,
with its favelas, the
“Garbage City” is a
landscape that has
not been planned.
It is an informal
environment in which
people survive and
accomplish feats they
have never dreamed
of before. This
“Garbage City” represents
the strength
of human nature,
demonstrating that
it can and will be as
strong as necessary
to survive within such
a chaotic state.
Tokyo Highways,
Unknown
The 1964 Summer
Olympics were the
reason that infrastructure,
in a radical
way, became part of
the city of Tokyo—a
green human-scaled
metropolis with
distinctive neighborhoods,
which all
developed their own
identity. With a limited
amount of rules,
the urban landscape
changes every day.
This seems to be
the basic condition
allowing the creation
of an equilibrium
that at first glance
seems like a chaotic,
dense, vast agglomeration
of buildings,
each different from
the next, with each
built at a respectful
distance.
Jpeg ny02,
Thomas Ruff, 2004
Thomas Ruff manipulates
images that
he has collected from
other sources in order
to read them differently.
The photos
are taken separately
from one another
and certain colors
are repositioned
in order to evoke
distinct emotions. If
we want to develop
a new definition of
what cities and cultures
are and could
be, we must look to
other disciplines to
discover new tools.
This interdisciplinary
collaboration is currently
being explored
by, for instance, film
directors, who are
using new tools to
transform the image
of society and how
we experience it.
How should the architectural
discipline
react towards the
civilization we are
living within?
Robots,
Unknown
Since humans developed
the computer,
it has developed a
storage capacity
that is much greater
than that of the
human brain. Some
say that by 2030 the
computer will also
have more creative
capacity than the human
brain. Perhaps
by 2050 the computer
will be able to
reproduce itself. We
have created something
to help us, and
now find that it has
the potential to become
superior to us.
This shows that our
world is getting further
and further out
of our control and is
no longer directed by
a singular force.
45
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