The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) will open a new exhibition The Future City examining how future cities have been visualised over the last 100 years, considering what these depictions sought to explore, and outlining the UK’s key urban challenges over the coming decades.
Imagining the city of the future has long been a source of fascination for architects, artists, filmmakers and designers. Through drawings, maps and film, the exhibition will reveal a wide range of fantastical and utopian speculations, from tranquil green utopias and great domed constructions to vast, inter-connected mega-structures and machines.
Projects featured will include Cloud Skippers, the concept for flying machine-like cities dreamt up by New York designers, Architecture Office and the huge artificial landscaping of Singapore at One North by Zaha Hadid Architects. UK projects include the proposals for HS2 and designer Simon Elvins’ sound-mapping of Birmingham that reveals a hidden landscape of quiet spaces in the city.
RIBA President Stephen Hodder said: "Cities are at the heart of our country’s social, cultural and economic life. By 2065 the UK population may rise by 25% to as much as 80.5 million making it one of the EU’s most populous countries.
"This will create many challenges for cities and it presents a great opportunity for them to evolve and reinvent themselves, fostering a better quality of life for their inhabitants. This exhibition provides huge inspiration for the challenges of the next 50 years."
