Space Brasilia: Difference between revisions

In speculative fiction, the architecture of alien species will often be oddly uniform across the board, with no variations owing to different styles being in fashion at different times, local environment or available materials. Might also apply to futuristic human cultures: it is rare to see a future city with architecture from different periods side by side, despite this being the norm in real life. Of course, while real-life housing developments are uniform in style and age, one does not usually build entire cities from scratch like this. One notable exception is the city of Brasilia, which was built quickly in a uniform Modernist style to be a new showcase capital for Brazil (as were [[Washington DC]], [[Australia (continentcountry)||Canberra]] and, even earlier, St.Petersburg) and has been criticized for its bland and antiseptic appearance (as the others named [[True Art Is Ancient|had been when]] ''[[True Art Is Ancient|their]]'' [[True Art Is Ancient|prevailing architecture was dated but not yet antique]]). See the "Future City" section at [http://davidszondy.com/future/city/futurecity.htm Tales of Future Past] for more on this. Not to be confused with [[Days of Future Past]].

A special case of [[Planet of Hats]]: it would usually be too much work to give an alien species or future humans more than one architectural style. The [[Shining City]] is usually described like this.

* The [[Lois McMaster Bujold]] novel ''[[Vorkosigan Saga|Brothers in Arms]]'' describes future London as averting this, being a weird mixture of architectural styles. [[Future Imperfect|Creepily]], when the style of "old London" is described, it is a late 20th century style, implying that all of the older architecture London is currently known for no longer exists. Given that the same book mentioned ''submarine rides on the lake Los Angeles'' it's safe to assume that Earth survived ''a lot'', and [[Earth That Used to Be Better|not all of it was pretty]]. The planet Barrayar is described in similar fashion. The capital of Vorbarr Sultana is a mishmash of old and new architecture, while newer cities like Hassadar are pure Space Brasilia.

* Averted in [[Alastair Reynolds]]' Revelation Space series, particularly by the shantytown-like cities on Sky's Edge. The "historical" buildings were actually often built from cargo containers and prefabricated materials and the newer ones are more natural. Most town squares in the oldest cities of Sky's Edge have a triangular shape, since they were built around the triangular atmospheric shuttles that brought the colonists to the planet's surface from the orbiting [[Generation Ship]]. Also, in the same series, Chasm City on the planet Yellowstone has enough variability in its architectural history, even though it's a typical high-tech metropolis.

* In ''[[Mass Effect]]'', when you visit the last planet in the game, you are able to see a ruined Prothean tower off in the distance. It seems to be identical in style to the skyscrapers on Feros, a distant planet where the environmental conditions seemed quite different.

** But both are built by the Protheans, who apparently only had one style of architecture, and certainly developed enough technology to build in that style anywhere they wanted.

* Can happen in the ''Rush Hour'' expansion to ''[[Sim CitySimCity]] 4'': you can choose from the six styles of building that will show up in your city; these are by default set to cycle every five years. This can lead to a fair number of very large neighborhoods looking very, very similar. However, you can change things up: in one direction, you can have the architectural styles build all at once; if you find that it makes things a bit ''too'' weird, you can keep the cycle but set it to change faster (e.g. once a year), which creates smaller single-style neighborhoods (which is actually mildly realistic for an expanding city). On the other hand, you can also slow the cycle or even ban up to five styles outright (if you like the Brasilia effect).