Back to the Future: The City of the Future and its Architecture in Science Fiction Films

This paper investigates the portrayal of future city and its architecture in science fiction films tracing how this image has changed over time. Films such as Metropolis (1927) and Blade Runner (1982) predicted a future not far from our current time. Comparing the images in these films to our current built environment would give insights about how accurate these predictions were and how reliable science fiction films are in predicting the future. Whether these visions were close to reality or not, it is evident that seeing cities through the eyes of filmmakers opens many theoretical debates about the future of the city and its architecture giving important insights to architects and planners to read and manage their cities in a different critical way. Since the production of the earliest science fiction films in the silent film era, few films have been produced again, this paper identifies these films and examines different versions of future cities in these films through a case study. The investigated case study is Blade Runner (1982 and 2017) where a comparative analysis between the architectural signifiers and their significances is conducted. It can be seen that the prediction of future architecture has changed over time which is attributed to the differences in motives and significances behind implementing these architectural elements across different versions of the same film. This paper attempts to raise attention toward the mutual relationship between film and architecture and the role science fiction films play in predicting the future of our city and its architecture.