Does anybody remember the movie ¨The Illustrated Man¨, based on Ray Bradbury´s book? The story of the children that were inside this white apartment and had the room with the African lions in an African landscape? This house reminds me the story, and I don´t like it....
At last, the children send their parents to this particular room and the lions kill them. How could anybody raise up children inside a container?
From ¨The Veldt¨, by Ray Bradbury:
¨They walked down the hall of their soundproofed Happylife Home, which had cost them thirty thousand dollars installed, this house which clothed and fed and rocked them to sleep and played and sang and was good to them. Their approach sensitized a switch somewhere and the nursery light flicked on when they came within ten feet of it. Similarly, behind them, in the halls, lights went on and off as they left them behind, with a soft automaticity.
'Well,' said George Hadley.
They stood on the thatched floor of the nursery. It was forty feet across by forty feet long and thirty feet high; it had cost half again as much as the rest of the house. 'But nothing's too good for our children,' George had said. The nursery was silent. It was empty as a jungle glade at hot high noon. The walls were blank and two dimensional. Now, as George and Lydia Hadley stood in the center of the room, the walls began to purr and recede into crystalline distance, it seemed, and presently an African veldt appeared, in three dimensions, on all sides, in color reproduced to the final pebble and bit of straw. The ceiling above them became a deep sky with a hot yellow sun.
George Hadley felt the perspiration start on his brow.
'Let's get out of this sun,' he said. 'This is a little too real. But I don't see anything wrong.'
'Wait a moment, you'll see,' said his wife.¨
Download ¨The illustrated man¨:
House designed by Level archs., Tokyo, Japan.
Pictures from architectural record construction
Hello Myriam,
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree and remember that chilling scene from the movie. Like much science/social fiction that predicts the future, I think that episode almost eerily foretold of the alienation of many young people (including children) in today's secular world. This white house somehow reminds me of McDonald's restaurants--plastic and devoid of nature. If only all children--and adults too!--could live in or at least always have access to a Never Ending House like the structures built by Sir Edward James!
Yours is a very interesting blog--so much useful information. I found it through your photo of "Trees path in Huntington Beach Central Park" (I thought it was a painting--perhaps just the way the image appears on the screen.) I shall visit again.
Thank you,
Lynne
Hello Lynne, thank you for your visit and comment. The trees path in Huntington Beach is a picture I took myself, then I filtered it, changed the colors and made a painting in pastels. The one you've seen is the filtered picture.
ReplyDeleteRegarding this house, I think it's even worst than the Mc Donald's. Curiously, I've posted it in FB and my youngest daughter clicked "like" . I was astonished, I asked, do you like it? And she said, yes, it's cool. She liked the children playing inside but couldn't imagine the spatiality of it.
Hope to " see you" again, regards,
Hi again,
ReplyDeleteInteresting that your daughter liked the house, but I can see how a child would initially be drawn to the simplicity of it. It is really more like a "play area" than a living space. In fact, it's sort of like a child's drawing of a house--just a big box with a few windows.
All the best,
Lynne
P.S.: Myriam, would you consider posting your pastel painting of the Huntington Beach trees?--I'd love to see it and maybe others would too.
ReplyDeleteLynne
Hello Lynne, I´m happy that you came back. I´m not sure about what my youngest daughter thinks, she is 14 years old, but she likes to play at the beach, in open spaces, I´ll ask her again. I have the pastel painting in a box, together with others. I moved to a smaller place and regreattably have no room enough for our stuff, my husband is an architect and plastic artist too, we have also paintings against the garage wall, waiting.... If I find it, I´ll post it, thank you so much.
ReplyDelete