Critical Dystopias in the Digital Project

This paper argues for a reading of projects in architectural technology as science fiction, particularly as they intersect with the categories of utopia and dystopia. As the privileged cultural discourse to explore futurity, science fiction not only describes potential technological futures, but rather the synthesis of technology with socio-political, economic, environmental, and affective futures. The paper discusses the utopian ambitions of historical and recent projects. These are compared with Tom Moylan’s concept of the critical dystopia, as well as with the projects’ participation in long-standing «megatexts» within science fiction literature, showing each projects’ capacity to extrapolate from its specific novum to illustrate a unique socio-economic paradigm.