Seeking Cities of the Future: Techno-City Visions From the 1960s to the Present

Introduction

From a visionary perspective, the concept of the cities of the future creates a fundamental example set that carries dreams and predictions about what future life will be like. Cities are places where the future imagination is reflected (Donald, 1997). Therefore, how the future is imagined and predicted can be read, analyzed, and examined through representations, narratives, and projects produced for cities. Based on these approaches, it is suggested that the techno-city visions produced especially after 1960 and the discourses of the cities of the future have the potential to overcome current crises by systematic knowledge and the processing of imagination. In this range of relations, the main motivation of this paper is based on the notion that “imagination” is the key concept of how-to pre-experience alternative futures and how people can prepare themselves for these futures.

Focusing on the examples of techno-city productions that have the potential to significantly enrich our relationship between the present and the future, future projections of design and architecture can be decoded. For this purpose, previous attempts that provide future visions must be understood in their own circumstances. Experimental futuristic city examples and representations, which are considered attempts to make leaps in the linear timeline, produce discourses about both the atmosphere in which they are produced and the future. With these aspects, they are leaping towards the future from the present, and with the visions they put forward, they increase the environment of criticism and production. Therefore, it can be suggested that the key concept of future predictions is being visionary.

Semantically, being visionary requires the ability to imagine and anticipate what has not yet been realized, produced, and experienced in the context of design and architecture. From this point of view, two channels are powering “being visionary”: imagination in order to dream and the existing atmosphere in order to anticipate. The union of imagination and atmosphere prepares the common ground for future imagination. When this thought is evaluated in the context of the view of “The desire for a good city in the future is already present in the imagination of the past” (Donald, 1997), the relationship between the concepts of “being visionary” and ” city of the future” can be seen. As an example of being visionary, cities that carry dreams and predictions about how the future life will be mentioned.

A great number of projects, specifically the designs for future life, try to create a bridge for the gap between fantasy and reality. However, this gap is precisely what allows imagination to function: The possibilities of the gap between what is and what is desired. Evaluated from this thought, visionary city productions are generally instrumental designs and futuristic scenario maps, which establish valid and current ideas about the future. With a parallel point of view, Dobraszczyk (2019) interprets the visionary productions of the cities of the future as the product of a systematic knowledge accumulation that feeds on science-based and empirical data, and in this respect, beyond subjective predictions in his book. He argues that the main way to understand the future is through imagination. Correspondingly, according to Patt (2010), prediction is necessary to positively explain how something will work or what will happen, while imagination is freer and more ambiguous about what the future will look like. Therefore, it contains more potential imaginary productions. Based on these approaches, it can be said that the techno-city visions produced especially after 1960 and the discourses of the “cities of the future” they produced have the potential to overcome current crises, produced by systematic knowledge and the processing of imagination.