The Irish Independent

Modern architecture in the early part of the 21st Century reflects the visions of science fiction writers and film makers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Remember Dan Dare? How about The Jetsons? Early episodes of Star Trek, anyone? If you are of the right vintage, all of these - plus a million half-baked science fiction comics and lots of 'documentaries' about how life would be in the 21st century - presented exciting visions of how our cities would evolve. The scene for the 21st century city was set in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Writers like Jules Verne and then HG Wells, followed by by film makers such as Fritz Lang (Metropolis) and William Cameron Menzies (director of the 1936 film of HG Wells' Shape of Things to Come) created an idea of how the future would look.