The David Winton Bell Gallery will present Building Expectation: Past
\nand Present Visions of the Architectural Future from September 3
\nthrough November 6. An opening reception and lecture by the exhibition
\ncurator Nathaniel Walker will be held on Friday, September 9, from
\n5:30\u20137:30 p.m.<\/p>\n
It has been said that the past is a foreign country\u2014but it is the
\nfuture that remains undiscovered. Despite the obvious truth that no
\none has been to the future, that no one has even seen a photograph of
\nit, the last two centuries have witnessed the rise of a body of visual
\ncodes and tropes that are commonly seen and understood as
\n\u201cfuturistic.\u201d These \u201cprogressive\u201d or \u201cmodern\u201d attributes are derived
\nfrom an entirely imaginary landscape, indicative of a destination that
\nis impossible to visit; yet nearly everyone can recognize the place
\nwhere no one has been.<\/p>\n
Building Expectation: Past and Present Visions of the Architectural
\nFuture offers a glimpse into this undiscovered country, presenting a
\ncollection of historic and ongoing visions of the future from the
\nnineteenth century until the present day. The focus of the show is
\nless upon canonical designers or art-historical movements and more
\nupon broadly based, popular speculation in the public sphere. The
\nexhibition\u2019s content has been drawn from a number of university
\nlibraries and private collections, as well as the Swiss
\nstate-supported museum of utopia known as the Maison d\u2019Ailleurs (House
\nof Elsewhere). Many of these objects have never before been exhibited
\nin the United States.<\/p>\n
The \u201cworld of tomorrow\u201d has usually been imagined first and foremost
\nas a place\u2014the new Promised Land, the millennial landscape. And
\narchitecture, cast since the Enlightenment as the calling card for
\ncultural and technological periods in the \u201cgrand narrative\u201d of human
\ndevelopment and progress, has always been one of the future\u2019s most
\nrevealing and recognizable features. The exhibition\u2019s collection of
\npast architectural visions has been divided into three categories,
\neach highlighting a different motive or guiding principle in the
\ncrafting of future worlds. First are imaginary places designed to
\narticulate and support political reform schemes, such as Robert Owen\u2019s
\nearly-Victorian industrial paradise of New Harmony, brought to life in
\nthe highly detailed drawings he published to advocate a new world
\norder framed by garden-filled Gothic factories-for-living. The second
\ngroup of futuristic visions consists of exotic locales crafted to make
\nmoney on the open market by functioning as amusing and\/or inspiring
\ndistractions, such as the sparkling, whirring glass cities which fill
\nearly-twentieth century pulp magazines and utopian romance novels.
\nThe final category of past visions is made up of futuristic cityscapes
\nconstructed to lend the prestige and promise of \u201cthe future\u201d to
\npersonalities, products, and corporations by cleverly (and often
\nbeautifully) drawn lines of association, such as Syd Mead\u2019s 1969
\n\u201cPortfolio of Probabilities\u201d commissioned by United States Steel.
\nConsidered together, the many futuristic codes created and deployed in
\nthese different categories of vision are revealed not as truly
\n\u201cforward-looking\u201d glimpses of tomorrow, but rather as artifacts of the
\npast that have been aesthetically formed and have acquired meaning in
\nhistorical processes of their own.<\/p>\n
The final portion of the exhibition is dedicated to contemporary
\nvisions of the future, chosen or commissioned for their makers\u2019
\nability to continue the critical conversation about the \u201cworld of
\ntomorrow.\u201d A number of the participants offer futuristic design
\nparadigms that openly defy some of the most persistent dogmas of
\nprogressive Modernism, while others take the conceptual processes of
\ntechnological evolution to their furthest extremes. All of them call
\ninto question those aspects of \u201cthe future\u201d that have been, and often
\nstill are, taken for granted. Artists such as Pippi Zornoza, Jane
\nMasters, and Brian Knep, all based in New England, have created large
\ninstallations that are architectural in their scope as well as their
\ncontent. Others such as Swiss artist Christian Waldvogel and the
\nurban design firm DPZ are showing works resulting from years of study
\nand refinement in sites around the world.<\/p>\n
Spanning the gap between past visions and contemporary concepts of the
\nfuture is a new drawing by illustrator Katherine Roy. It depicts the
\nwonderful but deeply troubled city of \u201cIndustria,\u201d a radiant urban
\nlandscape described in the largely forgotten 1884 novel Ignis by Comte
\nDidier de Chousy. A fevered, delirious paradise, it is the stage for a
\nsatirical tragic comedy of utopian proportions, and Roy\u2019s illustration
\nspeaks on multiple levels to the past and ongoing cultural processes
\nthat may be said to \u201cbuild expectation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The David Winton Bell Gallery will present Building Expectation: Past and Present Visions of the Architectural Future from September 3 through November 6. An opening reception and lecture by the exhibition curator Nathaniel Walker will be held on Friday, September … Continue reading