Monuments of architecture and creators of the transcendence - Doomsday Structures (Part 5) - Arctic City

Images from the public domain

When the book Population Bomb by Paul Ralph Ehrlich was released in 1968, it was amidst the first recordable data from the United Nations on population growth and climbing birth rates.  The concern prior to what we now know as global warming, at that time of the mid 20th Century, was the 'here and now' of environmental concerns, as the impact felt by industrial cities after World War Two became more apparent.  Immigration and fertility rates spiked and so did the issues pertaining to waste and air quality.  Which, before environmental protection and industry controls on by-products and pollution, the ultimate issue that city planners faced – was the fact there were too many people confined into a compressed area and this effect on the city environment was evident without the statistics.  It is when the environmental movements started in the 1970s, that deforestation was, as other issues relating to environmental degradation, became the most prominent concern. When Ralph Ehrlich offered an analysis it is the human race responsible for the erosion of natural resources, whilst it expands at an insatiable rate, that, at the time, the consensus was equally agreed that with a dramatic spike in birth rates – humanity is literally chocking off its lifeblood and future.  Cities around the world would not be able to cope and this is when a manifestation of ground level idealism grows, away from scientific lore. We are able to see the consequences.  Increased traffic on the roads, inflated prices of food, the quality of living becomes secondary.  Over development and corruption, which in a mindless way ensure that a city grows at an insatiable rate.  For better or worst, the emotive of frustration of its citizens becomes more evident.  Yet, even today with the disproportional birth rates to West and East, stricter controls on industry and better air quality – the problems have only been masked. 

Frei Otto in 1970, the famed German architect devised by what was deemed as a feasible project, to build a city in the Arctic, already renown for creating a tent city  in 1967 for  the West German Expo, he, along side other hired architects was Kenai Tange, who was known for planning and implementing mega structure designs.  The concept project commissioned by the chemical company Hoechst AG, in a idea to build an inhabitable area that by its design within the natural environment, would be defined as harsh and unlivable.  Impractical as a city housing 40,000 people without protection.  Unless it was shielded, the engineering plan was to form a 2km inflated dome over the  city complex, an enclosed self sufficient eco-centre without relying on the outside environment for resources.  Heating and energy of the dome would occur from nuclear powered generators, and it has to be reminded that at that time of the early 70's we were still amidst a dream of the nuclear age, despite the cold war – for peaceful purposes, it heralded the chance to have unlimited clean power.  This was the hope of an idea of spreading out the growing population, in a sense relocating the populus of established cities to different parts on the Earth, whilst separation our encroachment onto the natural flora.  The concept and modeling which Otto and his team put together was very impressive, however the technological details with its engineering schematics would still have to be ironed out, but Otto had shown that durable synthetic materials for his inflated dome could be a reality, after his successful Berlin project for the 1967 of West Berlin's 'tent city'.   However, in respect to the Arctic City's intention to manage the population spike and its the impact on limited resources, it also, in my opinion represented another aspect of fears of the time.  Could we survive a nuclear winter?  

Otto's domed complex built to withstand subzero temperatures, in an underlying benefit of creating a self sufficient atmospheric eco-city, not effected by the harsh conditions of the Arctic.  Offers more of a Doomsday Structure perspective, rather than a ecological minded Utopia.  And if we, the human race, do alter the natural environment, we won't be able to destroy the Earth, that is an impossibility.  But, we will destroy ourselves. The Earth, although it make take thousands of years, will recalibrate again.  The human race would suffer greatly from the altered environments, we didn't evolve as hardy as some of the other animals that have adapted to the harshness of extreme summers and winters.  When you look at the models and diagrams of the Arctic City.   It's starkness and detachment from the familiarity of what we know as a city complex enclosure offers, in its a protection.  Is to shield us from nature.  To live within our own created balance.

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A.Glass 2019