Architectures of the Near Future

Nic Clear’s lecture, “Architectures of the Near Future: A Tribute to JG Ballard”, at the Bartlett, Wed 21 October:
http://www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/architecture/events/lectures/lectures

Nic Clear
Architectures of the Near Future: A Tribute to JG Ballard

JG Ballard was one of the most original and distinctive authors of the last part of the C20th and beginning of the C21st; his writing encompassed topics as diverse as ecological crisis, technological fetishism, urban ruination and suburban mob culture, he pursued these topics with a wit and inventiveness that is without equal.

Ballard’s understanding of architecture, and architects, and his prophetic visions made him one of the most important figures in the literary articulation of architectural issues and concerns.

From the description of futuristic houses that empathise with their inhabitants, to the bleak characterisation of gated communities consumed by sex, drugs and violence, Ballard’s world is highly prescient and ruthlessly unsentimental.

At a time when architectural discourse has become wholly subsumed by the money making pre-occupations of the architectural profession, the writings of JG Ballard serve as a reminder that architecture is about the people, the things that they do and the places where they do them, sometimes architecture will involve terrible people doing terrible things in terrible places; but the enduring nature of the human species is that we will always carry on, there is, after all, always the future.