7 City Landscapes at World’s End
Forget the science fiction and fantasy film versions for the moment: what would day-to-day life really be like after the catastrophic end of the world as we know it? More lifelike than most post-apocalyptic movies, these art cities are grounded in compelling (and creepy) ways.
From Studio Lindfors via BldgBlog – the same visionaries who have rendered vibrant images of cloud cities and futuristic floating suburbs – comes a flooded world conceived as a real place, complete with resurrected forms of archaic water transportation. Realistic cities are rendered as semi-submerged, emerging as partial ruins from the risen seas and oceans now covering each urban landscape.
Writers, filmmakers and television producers have given us many dazzling glimpses of possible futures. Some such novels, movies and TV series feature idealized utopian visions while others show a world after ‘the fall’ – cities unlike any we have ever seen. These hybrid drawing-collage-model pieces show something curiously in between extremes.
In this series of unique post-apocalyptic renditions, the art is tied to the everyday activities of ordinary citizens surviving in the wake of a radically changed planetary surface. A few are worm’s- or bird’s-eye views but most of these images illustrate areas from a human height and perspective.
Whether you believe in human-caused climate change or not, the water levels are rising and the ice is melting. Designing urban centers around eventual realities (like raised water levels) is not far-fetched or pure fantasy – it is a fast-approaching, future-city context. This is a vision of ‘life on the ground’ as they say – or at least a series of pictures showing what might replace it.
From BLDGBLG:
“Similar in spirit to Squint Opera’s earlier look at a Flooded London, Aqualta is hard—if not impossible—to separate from the context of melting ice caps and global climate change. However, it deserves visual attention in its own right, even outside such politically charged discussions.”
“Far from stoking fear about a coming catastrophe, both of these projects—Studio Lindfors and Squint Opera—offer a vision in which people, and the cities they live in, have learned to adapt to the overwhelming presence of water. Indeed, Times Square, in Studio Lindfors’s vision, is radiant, markedly improved by the reflective waters that now flow through it. Of course New York should be at least partially flooded, one might be tempted to think; of course the future of urban planning involves designing with water.”
