Floating
Cities
The
initial use of the Waterpod hopes to provide ideas and plans for similar
structures, beginning a slow process of growth and augmentations onto
this and other Waterpods, as well as other floating platforms that will
begin to be inhabitated. These structures may progressively replaces pre-existing
urban structures, especially those that lie near the waterways. At first
they will become sociocultural centers and meeting spaces; then, as their
number is augmented and the links that unite them are increased, activity
within the structures may begin to become more specialized in relation
to the residential areas, thus creating the city and town makeup that
we are familliar with on land. A slow and continuous flux, characterized
by displacement, slow or rapid movement, allowing the land to be given
back to nature to rejuvenate.
Proclamations of Antonio Sant’Elia from his Manifesto of
Futurist Architecture:
1. That Futurist architecture is the architecture of calculation, of audacious
temerity and of simplicity; the architecture of reinforced concrete, of
steel, glass, cardboard, textile fiber, and of all those substitutes for
wood, stone and brick that enable us to obtain maximum elasticity and
lightness;
2. That Futurist architecture is not because of this an arid combination
of practicality and usefulness, but remains art, i.e. synthesis and expression;
3. That oblique and elliptic lines are dynamic, and by their very nature
possess an emotive power a thousand times stronger than perpendiculars
and horizontals, and that no integral, dynamic architecture can exist
that does not include these;
4. That decoration as an element superimposed on architecture is absurd,
and that the decorative value of Futurist architecture depends solely
on the use and original arrangement of raw or bare or violently colored
materials;
5. That, just as the ancients drew inspiration for their art from the
elements of nature, we—who are materially and spiritually artificial—must
find that inspiration in the elements of the utterly new mechanical world
we have created, and of which architecture must be the most beautiful
expression, the most complete synthesis, the most efficacious integration;
6. That architecture as the art of arranging forms according to pre-established
criteria is finished;
7. That by the term architecture is meant the endeavor to harmonize the
environment with Man with freedom and great audacity, that is to transform
the world of things into a direct projection of the world of the spirit;
8. From an architecture conceived in this way no formal or linear habit
can grow, since the fundamental characteristics of Futurist architecture
will be its impermanence and transience. Things will endure less than
us. Every generation must build its own city. This constant renewal of
the architectonic environment will contribute to the victory of Futurism
which has already been affirmed by words-in-freedom, plastic dynamism,
music without quadrature and the art of noises, and for which we fight
without respite against traditionalist cowardice.
Constant
Nieuwenhuis
A
nomadic town
We are the living symbols of a world without frontiers, a world of freedom,
without weapons, where each may travel without let or hindrance from the
steppes of central Asia to the Atlantic Coast, from the high plateau of
South Africa to the forests of Finland.
-- Vaida Voivod III, President of the World Community of Gypsies (quoted
from an interview published by Algemeen Handelsblad, Amsterdam, 18 May
1963.
For many a year the gypsies who stopped awhile in the little Piedmontese
town of Alba were in the habit of camping beneath the roof that, once
a week, on Saturday, housed the livestock market. There they lit their
fires, hung their tents from the pillars to protect or isolate themselves,
improvised shelters with the aid of boxes and planks left behind by the
traders. The need to clean up the market place every time the Zingari
passed through had led the town council to forbid them access. In compensation,
they were assigned a bit of grassland on the banks of the Tamaro, the
little river that goes through the town: the most miserable of patches!
It's there that in December 1956 I went to see them in the company of
the painter [Guiseppe] Pinot Gallizio, the owner of this uneven, muddy,
desolate terrain, who'd given it to them. They'd closed off the space
between some caravans with planks and petrol cans, they'd made an enclosure,
a 'Gypsy Town.'
That was the day I conceived the scheme for a permanent encampment for
the gypsies of Alba and that project is the origin of the series of maquettes
of New Babylon. Of a New Babylon where, under one roof, with the aid of
moveable elements, a shared residence is built; a temporary, constantly
remodeled living area; a camp for nomads on a planetary scale.
Apostrupture
Project
The
Apostrupture Project is a proposal for the city of New York
to take control of the rising sea-levels, and save Lower Manhattan
as well as parts of Brooklyn, Governors Island, and Staten Island.
With
this plan, we expect that ten to twenty feet of shoreline will be lost,
but this is a
much better result than fifty feet up to two miles if nothing is done
in the next few years.
To
make the most of the situation of flooded grounds, New York will want
to dig deep into
the solid bedrock to begin the walls of structural glass. Structural glass
is reinforced with
layers of clear acrylic and plastic, and can be layered into one-foot
thick sections.
Structural glass was brought to my attention by Claude, as the initial
plan was
to use a translucent cement, but this would not give the desired effect.
By
creating a leak-proof wall of structural glass around the areas that we
want to save,
this will give New York the potential for a new, large tourist attraction.
A Mega-Sea
World Complex. The Sea Wall would be open to public viewing in some areas,
but
a museum would be created at the base of Manhattan, the area where the
sea
inundates the land, and where it is required that there be a barrier or
a second
wall to reinforce the structural glass even more. This area would be steel
on one side and reinforced glass on another. It would be a museum, a
timeline alongside clean, spectacular views of the ocean elements.
Seawall
2, 2001. Ink and Pencil on Paper.
Seawall
1 2001. Ink and Pencil on Paper.
Seawall
4, Erecting, 2001. Ink and Pencil on Paper.
Seawall
3, 2001. Ink and Pencil on Paper.
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