Turn the bend and the foreignness of the thing reveals itself, with its gunmetal-colored facade, surfaces jutting at oblique angles, and curves and lines that suggest automotive racing streaks or cooling pipes at a power-generation facility. It would fit right in with a fleet of Star Destroyers blasting some unfortunate rebel ship with turbolasers. -- The Atlantic Cities’ John Metcalfe, describing Zaha Hadid’s Library and Learning Center in Vienna
When architecture and Sci-Fi are mentioned in the same breath, it’s usually only to achieve an amusing, surface-level comparison. Zaha’s library? A “Star Destroyer.” OMA’s Casa da Música? A Sandcrawler. And while these unlikely likenesses certainly speak to Sci-Fi’s hold on architecture’s imagination, they don’t really delve into the potential Sci-Fi holds as a source of architectural inspiration.
Enter CLOG: SCI-FI. As does each issue of CLOG, SCI:FI “slows things down,” taking a good-hard look at architecture and science fiction’s long, fascinating relationship. And while it certainly provides many entertaining meanders into comics, literature, and film (including a peek into 2001: A Space Odyssey by ArchDaily contributors INTERIORS), SCI:FI really shines when it’s digging below the surface, exploring how both architecture and sci-fi reveal the dilemmas, fears, and desires of our society today.
