The Future (A History)

McDonads’ McRib sandwich is a boneless rib sandwich (never...

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 10:33:30 -0400

McDonads’ McRib sandwich is a boneless rib sandwich (never mind that ribs are bones) in which the meat has been molded into the shape of meat that appears to be still on the bone. It is food shaped into a fantasy of food and a statement insisting that we can dictate the form of our environment if we choose.

Photos by Bologna & Ketchup.

The US Interstate Highway system was a self-fulfilling prophecy,...

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 10:39:23 -0400

The US Interstate Highway system was a self-fulfilling prophecy, simultaneously imagining and creating a future in which American life was centered around the car. All around it sprung up architecture built at the scale of the automobile, rather than in the individual. Our celebration of the train was destroyed, not by physically ripping up the tracks, but by laying down countless miles of asphalt criss-crossing every which way and utterly unavoidable.

There was a great article in the New York Times this past April...

Thu, 09 Aug 2012 10:36:16 -0400

There was a great article in the New York Times this past April about the decision on whether or not to preserve the insane building above. The article relates closely to the previous posts in this blog about Brutalism, Le Corbusier and preservation. Check it out here.

Photo is by Fred R. Conrad.

In 2011 Rem Koolhaas’ OMA mounted a show in collaboration...

Tue, 07 Aug 2012 10:23:33 -0400

In 2011 Rem Koolhaas’ OMA mounted a show in collaboration with the New Museum called Cronocaos that asked viewers to reconsider what, how and why we preserve things, mostly architecture, but also nature. Preservation, it points out, prevents its subject from transforming into something new and better. It attempts to hold on to authenticity… but as my friend Ben Cannon would ask: does authenticity even exist in the first place? Preservation prevents us from creating a new future, unless that future is a museum. Hopefully, humanity can learn to strike the right balance between preservation and creative destruction.

The top photos are by OMA. The bottom ones are by Benoit Pailley and Gloria Suzie Kim.

The Saarinen designed TWA terminal at JFK airport embodies the...

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 10:15:12 -0400

The Saarinen designed TWA terminal at JFK airport embodies the optimism of the jet age. It seems like it is about to take off. Yet this year is the terminal’s fiftieth anniversary and it is still right there, too small and modest to be economically useful to the 21st century airline industry, beyond iconification. JetBlue has built a new terminal encircling it, proudly showing it off, jealously guarding it, nervously encasing it in glass and cautiously reaching out its arms to this beautiful relic.

The image on the top was created with CGI by Happy Finish. Below are photos by Ezra Stoller (from 1962) and Thalassa! Thalassa! (from the present, seen from the JetBlue terminal).

In the 20th century modernist forms extended their reach onto...

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 10:30:51 -0400

In the 20th century modernist forms extended their reach onto our plates.

What are baby carrots anyway? Why is a turkey breast at the deli shaped so differently than a breast on a whole turkey? Once we seemed to be charting a road towards food in pill form; I’m glad that that is subsiding for the moment.

The photo on the left was taken in Connecticut at the Danbury...

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 09:47:46 -0400

The photo on the left was taken in Connecticut at the Danbury Fair in 1981 and I was in attendance that summer at the tender age of one. This was the 140th and final year that the fair was in existence.

Five years later it was replaced by the Danbury Fair Mall which paid homage to its carnival roots in the design of its glass and steel.

The photo on the left is by Robert Miller from the Danbury News Times; the photo on the right is by Daniel Case.

Societal values can be expressed through toasters. via none...

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 09:47:13 -0400

Societal values can be expressed through toasters.

via none other than toaster.org

The insignia for the military unit charged with capturing aerial...

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 10:00:05 -0400

The insignia for the military unit charged with capturing aerial photographs of the atomic bomb tests on Bikini Atoll in 1946.

The layers of technology at play here are astounding: a photographer operating a camera, being flown in a plane, documenting a nuclear bomb. This image captures it all.

More information about this can be found at Ephemera Studies.

A beautiful compact history of Brutalism was assembled by Samuel...

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 10:00:06 -0400

A beautiful compact history of Brutalism was assembled by Samuel Medina at Architizer. Check it out here.

Raw concrete. With fossilized impressions of the wood frame it was poured into. Eat your heart out, Lorax.

Radio! The top image depicts Radioland at the Great Lakes...

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 10:01:05 -0400

Radio!

The top image depicts Radioland at the Great Lakes Exposition in Cleveland in 1936-1937 (image courtesy of Corbis). Below is Radio City Music Hall in New York City, photographed by Henri Silberman.

When we start naming places after a piece of new technology, that technology must be really really important.

I was recently asked to write a few paragraphs for a project...

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 10:00:06 -0500

I was recently asked to write a few paragraphs for a project called Past Shock that examines the relationship between the future and the past. My words were placed in the company of architects, artists and thinkers including Eva Franch, Edouard Salier and Lebbeus Woods, making me feel like a very small (and honored) fish.

Past Shock is launched by CityVision Magazine and curated by Francesco Lipari. It’s a thought provoking read, and has plans to grow. Check it out here.

The Fisher Space Pen - a ballpoint that works in zero gravity....

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:00:05 -0500

The Fisher Space Pen - a ballpoint that works in zero gravity. Used by American and Soviet astronauts alike. Get yours for $34.17 (at the time of this posting) here.

Maglev trains. Maglev = Magnetic Levitation. And they really...

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 10:00:05 -0500

Maglev trains.

Maglev = Magnetic Levitation.

And they really exist today.

More info can be found at Popular Mechanics.

High Court in Chandigarh, India. By Le Corbusier. Photo by...

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 10:00:06 -0500

High Court in Chandigarh, India. By Le Corbusier.

Photo by robespiero.

Can styles of movement evoke the future? I think so,...

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:02:06 -0500

Can styles of movement evoke the future? I think so, particularly when transposing robotic motions on to people. Also, when an artist breaks down gender and body image barriers, that makes a video seem more evocative of the future than the past. Then there’s the fashion choices. Check out the subtle quick distortions added occasionally on top of the natural lens distortions. Directed by Hype Williams.

In the future, skyscrapers will not be simple rectangular prisms...

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:00:00 -0500

In the future, skyscrapers will not be simple rectangular prisms says Rem Koolhaas, in Seattle and Bejing above.

The electric belt. Don’t believe anything you read on the...

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 10:00:05 -0500

The electric belt. Don’t believe anything you read on the internet of 1900.

Simon was minimally expressive with negligible human face-like...

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:00:06 -0500

Simon was minimally expressive with negligible human face-like features. Yet they gave it a name, and set it on the floor for us to interact with and play with, like a primitive robot friend with an overgrown competitive streak (he always had to win in the end, didn’t he?).

Simon was an experiment that asked “what’s the minimum that a robot needs to do for children to build a relationship with it?” It prepared and conditioned us kids for the future of living and working amongst robots that inevitably awaited us.

I have decided to both clarify and narrow the focus of this...

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 10:00:05 -0500

I have decided to both clarify and narrow the focus of this blog: from this point on I will be omitting science fiction. This blog will collect images and videos specifically of realized projects that express an idea about what the future will look like.

The incredible blog Paleofuture is a wonderful survery of how we have fantasized about the future, and there’s no point in replicating effort. Here we will dive into objects that have actually been created (and designs intended for production).

For example, though tempting, the architecture in Buck Rogers comics will fall outside the purview of this project. This will free up more space to consider real world subjects, such as the buildings by Zaha Hadid, and what they say about our conception of the future.

In short, R2D2 is out, but Roombas are in.

(Photo above by Eirik Newth).