The identity of cities is to a high extent defined by
traffic routes, electronic environments and architecture
- the latter often being a relic from the past.
The influence of digital media and virtual worlds, however,
require a re-location of architecture - and of town-planning.
Gsöllpointner gives an overall view of the interaction
between architecture, architectural theory and virtual worlds
comprising city and environment utopias, the development of
high-tech construction and de-constructivist architecture.

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Katharina Gsöllpointner

ARCHITECTURE AND ELECTRONICS

Utopias

For certain people, a city should exist solely in the rudimentary form of a Disneyland which utilizes the material structures available as a postmodern backdrop for its theme parks and shopping malls. Whether Vienna or Williamsburg, such cities find their identity in a past which is known only as a background for films. In fact, the cities on this planet are at present defined by the networks of roads (the "Autobahn" in Germany and Austria, the freeway and highway in America) and by the electronic communication that makes the global village a true village. Transportation, architecture and electronic environments therefore make up the actual identities of cities and are the areas in which communication takes place. The type of communication which is to be understood here is the coding and decoding of texts in visual, acoustic, written or linguistic form, manifested spatially in three-dimensions in architecture and urban planning (inasmuch as projects do not remain theoretical manifestos on paper or in the computer), or non-materially and meta-spatial as a part of the media reality.

The way in which architecture behaves with regard to the electronic, virtual world can be determined by examining the manifold realizations of virtual reality (VR). It will be possible to find the specific architecture and environment through the depiction of utopian cities in theme-park rides, the representation of metropolitan structures in films and on television, and in the utilization of VR applications in architecture.

In this case, the question of the electronic culture's reflection in the contemporary architecture of the so-called real reality or the "non-virtual reality" is much more interesting. Architecture as the representative of social and political structures can mean, on the one hand, depicting the affirmation of these kinds of relationships (e.g. representatives of postmodern architecture, such as Michael Graves as Disney World's signature architect with the Swan and Dolphin hotels; or the unspeakable architectural programs of the Prince of Wales, which exert a very real influence on the situations of British architects). These kinds of architecture accept the traditional language without interruption and without question, and often cement (in the literal sense of the word) historical squabbling with a reactionary attitude. Or, architecture can unmask and deconstruct such products and their prerequisites.

The fragmentation, questioning, dissolution and the production of new relationships of a constructed and coincidental environment can, however, appear only simultaneously with the knowledge of urban and transglobal (electronic) communication. A critical reflection of social reality can take place only in connection with the idea of an experimental and visionary alternative in the field of architecture and urban planning which not only foresees changes in our environment, but also implies them in artistic designs.