"An imaginary labyrinth 650 miles square"

Rob Beschizza 4:50 am Mon Mar 15, 2010

Will Insley's ONECITY project envisaged a grid of arcologies stretching across the great plains, each 2.5 miles square. His interests, Insley wrote, have very little do do with planning theories, but instead the 'dark cities' of mythology. From a 1984 NYT story by Vivien Raynor:

It's clear, however, that the city's inhabitants are segregated into day people, wholesome types who study at home with their children by means of electronic devices, and night people. "Tattered ghosts in phosphorescent clothing," [who] "often carry around personal abstract structures" that they exchange "according to mysterious rituals."

BLDGBLOG points out the curious resemblance of Insley's illustrations to sewing diagrams, "megastructures are produced on massive looms, needles and yawn moving to a hypnotic drone in semi-darkness." But I'm reminded (especially by this one) of proposals for monuments to place over nuclear waste dumps, to serve as warnings for future civilizations or extraterrestrial visitors.

Dark Cities [BLDGBLOG] and pics from The Nonist

ART: WILL INSLEY'S VISIONS OF A LABYRINTHINE CITY [NYT, 1984]

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