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Presenting an architectural
aesthetic of cold, heartless, and mistreated spaces to match closely with the
central character's conduct toward all people, Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange
paints the streets of London in a violent, abhorrent light. With his gang of "droogs",
Alex had the rule of the streets, raping and beating people for amusement and
to assert his power. Described as taking place in the not too distant future in
a Fascist England, A Clockwork Orange has taken modern architectural style and
used it to describe what is to come. By looking at the Tavy Bridge Centre in
Thamesmead South, used for Alex’s apartment complex, and the
Brunel University Lecture Centre, used as the Ludovico Medical Facility, it
can be seen that A Clockwork Orange has created a very tangible, believable world
that could still be considered as a possible architectural future. The
Tavy Bridge Centre and the surrounding Thamesmead South area was constructed in
various stages over twenty years starting in the mid 1960s. Acting as the main
housing development for a larger area that would eventually include commercial
and production facilities, it was once dubbed the "Town of the twenty-first
century" (Hidden
London). Grand in scope, the Thamesmead South, East, and Central complexes
made use of the land previously occupied by the military. Though Thamesmead South
is completed, it sadly remains under populated and is attached to a too small
downtown core area. It has since been called an "unspeakable concrete disaster"
(Worldwide
Guide). Brunel University Lecture Centre speaks a similar architectural language
as the Tavy Bridge Centre in terms of materials and monolithic construction, though
it is better composed and remains a central hub to the University
campus. But why are these archetypes consistently used in films to portray
the future? In terms of style, the modern movement attempts to eliminate ornamental
elements to maintain simple lines, elegant volumes, and to express structure.
Yet today, most Western homes are constructed in 'traditional' style where ornamentation
is still encouraged, materiality is warm in appearance, and oversimplification
may be perceived as cheap. Therefore, it is still in the mindset of the population
as a whole that the architectural future is still in a realm of simplicity and
stark style, detached from the sentimental qualities of 'traditional' architecture. The heavy-handed, fascist qualities of the two examples in the film contribute well to the proposed storyline. Their cold style reflects the heartless treatment of people throughout A Clockwork Orange. They are without sympathy, driven only by their functions to serve people in the most minimal way possible, by sheltering them but not necessarily comfortably. Even their size is intimidating; the housing complex through its unending repetition of living units and the Ludovico Medical Facility by its shear volume. A Clockwork Orange presents its audience with a world bent on being a cold and inhospitable place. Its representation of the architectural future reinforces this statement by depicting structures that are modern by design and foreboding by architectural language. The opposite can be said as well, that the story, set in the near future, dictates that these buildings are the future of architecture and not the remnants of a "concrete disaster" and a University Campus. |