Open access
FROM ANTONIO SANT'ELIA'S „CITY OF THE FUTURE” TO THE CONTEMPORARY VIRTUAL CITY
Tadeusz MICZKA1
Media
Publication language: English
Journal article
Transformations No. 3-4 (90-91) 2016, Publication date: 20 November 2016
Keywords: City of the future, Second Life, information city
Abstract The author of the presentation concentrates on the period in the history of architecture which tried and is still trying to replace the opinion that city is a place when man lives with an opinion that city can be a space where man will be more and more liberated from various restrictions. The futurist Sant’Elia and his urban projects from 1913 and 1914 are perceived as the precursors of this way of thinking, and various versions of urbanity in digital Second Life, which have been shared with the users since 2003, are perceived as the latest concretization of the idea. The author analyzes the future of virtual cities considering the opinion of the researchers who say that the relation between realty and virtual reality is not determined by processes of bifurcation anymore, because they were replaced by the processes of transversality. Manuel Castells’ hypothesis saying that “The century of information introduces us into new urban form – information city” (Network Society) is also taken into account. The author asks: will virtual cities become just an element of computer games or will they influence the reality and functionality of contemporary urban societies?
Institute of Cultural and Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Silesia, Katowice, Poland
E-mail: tmiczka@interia.pl