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OK talk to me about architecture and interior design.
Most of my stories are a blend of futuristic technology levels and magic-fantastic elements.
But invariably, every important building ends up being some combination of glass, cement, stone, and pillared marble columns, almost all carpets are berber or burgundy, of course they have tapestries... I just can't seem to escape this style because I lack knowledge/ways-to-describe what modern and futuristic buildings are actually made with/look like.
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Spend a little time on www.cgsociety.org, browsing the 2D and 3D galleries of featured work. The spectrum of imaginative architecture in every conceivable derivative and combination of historical Earth styles, tweaked for "coolness factor", is amazing.
Note from Kathleen: edited to attempt to fix the link.
[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited June 18, 2008).]
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Architecture and Interior design are both Dewey decimal categories for library sorting. I've studied what's available at the local library for insight into those topics. I didn't limit myself to modern or futuristic areas, though. Historic design styles also offer opportunities for fiction writing. Consider a Georgian revival building made with cast-in-place styrofoam coated with polymer resins and reinforced with metalic bearing struts as an example of a present-day futuristic building technique.
Frank Lloyd Wright practiced geometrical improbabilities in his designs. He stretched the limits of architecture by challenging the maxim "form follows function."
Building shapes don't rigidly conform to rectangular or cylindrical geometry anymore. Cantilevered sections protrude over open spaces, cantenary arches, spherical and conical sections, shapes resembling natural world configurations, nautilus-like chambering.
Interior design adapts to fashion trends, or sets them. Rocco, art deco, post modern, whatever. Historic trends cycle back into fashion. Wall tapestries come and go, as do frescoes. Stone and brick again lines interior walls for decorative purposes.
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I'd look outside my own country for inspiration.
In Seattle there's the Space Needle, and Toronto has its CN Tower. But first, there was the Empire State. It was only possible because of the contemporaneous invention of structural steel (upon which the walls of the building could be hung), tall cranes, and elevators.
Also in Florida, there's Epcot, Disney's vision of future communities. The most wondrous building is the modernistic hotel (Contemporary Resort) with the monorail running straight through the middle. And also there's the geodesic ball, of course.
My own country has inspiration too. London offers a splendid range of architecture. The Albert Hall is a concert hall; it's round. (Round is much harder to build than straight.)
St Pancras is probably one of the world's most beautiful railway stations, recently restored thank goodness. It's mostly red brick. I believe they built railway stations like palaces (look also at Milan's amazing railway station) to build public confidence in a steaming, oily, noisy mode of transport which in its early days was regarded as unsafe. (Insurance companies and banks used to live in large impressive buildings, to make people feel their money was safe.)
London also has some fabulous art deco Underground stations which were built just after reinforced concrete was invented. They delight in vast, airy ceiling spans which give a sense of enormous space, spans which had previously been impossible. They're a celebration of art deco style, beautiful to look at. Even the signage uses a font carefully designed to be read easily and quickly from a moving train.
Buildings say something about their builders, and the people who live or work in them. Their form follows function, and takes advantage of modern materials and technologies. They always try to span further, higher (look at American cities: the tallest skyscraper is the last one built), more transparently, more grandly, more efficiently, ...
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I think an oft badly handled element is history in building/ city design. Too many movies and books handle a city as if it were all built at once. But remember there will be historical relics, badly designed buildings, mistakes, egos, politics, trends, economy, personalities, all of it mixed into a building or city.
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It's a work by Gehry, and I'm a fan. His buildings are all really wacky, I love it. They seem futuristic to me.
Alternatively, you could try looking at things by Gaudi. His projects are amazing. Crazy, but amazing. Over at Liberty Hall we had a flash challenge using a photo of a Gaudi building as a trigger, it was loads of fun.
Make some carpets thick plush, or of a special material that dampens and feels soft underfoot, yet somehow supports the walker. Cushioned. Springy.
Ceremonial/important buildings in various cultures tend to be really old, so you might be able to explain/justify your decisions on marble columns as being old, but if you were looking to differentiate things, consider making them tall and open to the elements but covered by a force field. Or on the site of the former xyz (something mundane) building if you're setting your scenes in current cities. That would work for a made-up city, for that matter. Most buildings are known by their street address or the company that owns them, so it could be "on the site of the former RR Donnelly building, CNA insurance building, AT&T building." or things like that (bonus points if you can identify the city where those three buildings exist...Pat I'm counting on you, LOL)
Good luck, sounds like you've got a lot of good ideas already.
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Well, I usually have an idea of the floorplan of whatever thing my characters happen to be inhabiting at the moment...in the final days of typewriting-only, I used to sketch them out on the manuscript...which I had to give up 'cause it was impossible for me to do on the computer screen. I can see them pretty well in my mind...but the fine detail usually gets left out.
If I could think of something really innovative, I'd probably be building it rather than writing about it. Such is the fate of the science fiction idea...
Gehry did the fabulous Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain as well. Gaudi's La Sacrada Familia in Barcelona is stunning--I thought futuristic architecture had to be modern, or at least post-Art Deco.
It's true too that old buildings are often known by their first name--the Hoover Building just outside London is one of our national Art Deco treasures, though Hoover sold it long ago. (Which reminds me, I should have mentioned NYC's Chrysler Building as inspirational too, with its stainless steel spire and gargoyles.)
Sorry, KayTi, I did not get to know Chicago as well as I would have liked. As well as the jazz 'n blues, I loved Chicago's pride in its architecture, featuring some of the loveliest and oldest American skyscrapers--the Wrigley building comes to mind. For any writer who loves architecture I'd recommend Erik Larson's "Devil in the White City", a portrayal of the 19th century architects who built the Columbia Exhibition. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil_in_the_White_City
Nor did I spend enough time in Nashville with its live music and, I now realise, its Batman Building.
I can see the attraction of using a fantastic building as a trigger for a flash fiction piece, and will try it when I'm short of ideas.
Someone's planning a tower that's a mile high. That's four Empire States on top of each other.
There are challenges which could be plot devices. If there were an express elevator, we might pass out due to the rapid change in air pressure. One tall tower (not the mile high one, another that's only a third of a mile high) has a giant pendulum in the top, a ball which swings to counteract swaying due to the wind. Dramatic possibilities or what?!
I'm in search of confirmation that the Sears Tower in Chicago works the same way you're describing, with not a pendulum, but giant plates that shift around to counterbalance wind forces. I saw it on pbs once I'm sure, can't find the supporting link right now but I'm sure it's out there.
And Pat - I have been in the batman building! So funny. I did a video shoot there years ago. We arrived in Nashville at 8 or 9 PM, starving because we drove from Birminham after a full day's work. That batman building is a sight to see at night.
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So funny. I did a video shoot there years ago. We arrived in Nashville at 8 or 9 PM, starving because we drove from Birminham after a full day's work. That batman building is a sight to see at night.
