Last Futures

Last Futures: Nature, Technology and the End of Architecture
By Douglas Murphy

It may seem odd to include a book on architecture in the second half of the twentieth century as part of a science fiction column, but how we imagined the future in the past, and how we thought we might live in different ways on Earth (as well as in space and on other planets), is very much part of the same speculative enterprise.

Douglas Murphy discusses many of the essential elements and iconic buildings from the age of modularity, glass envelopes, and the mega-structure, but it’s his interpretation of the meaning of it all that make this such a fascinating book. The cover photograph of Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome from Montreal’s Expo ’67 engulfed in flames sets the tone: a blazing Gotterdammerung marking the end not just of architecture but of optimism and history.

From space exploration our dreams of a final frontier of freedom retreated to cyberspace, and from an attempt to enclose the natural world inside giant glass structures came a rejection of nature entirely, as something alien to human reality. Instead, the future, the world we now live in, would be a more conservative place, one made in the image of capitalism triumphant. Technology wouldn’t liberate us but divide and keep watch over us, and homes would become an asset class.

Just look around.