Arata Isozaki's City in the Air

A post on Archdaily describes the theoretical urban design work of Arata Isozaki, the Japanese architect who won the Pritzker Prize in 2019. This design called for large support and service columns to support developments in the air, spreading in all directions at a height of 30 meters and above.

While this design recalls, in my mind, the work of Le Corbusier, the way in which Isozaki writes about this plan is very much rooted in an appreciation of ruins and building cycles, and is influenced by the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II:

"Future cities are themselves ruins. Our contemporary cities...are destined to live only a fleeting moment. Give up their energy and return to inert material. All of our proposals will be buried. And once again the incubation mechanism is reconstituted. That will be our Future."

He contrasted the ruins of his childhood with those of ancient Greece and Rome; while those ruins were formed over centuries, his environs were destroyed in a moment of obliteration.