Modern Architecture And Dystopia In James Graham Ballad’s High-Rise
Abstract
This article takes a look at the role that modernist architecture plays in J.G. Ballard's novel High-Rise, as well as the ideological and psychological implications that it has in a dystopian urban setting. By relying on the concepts of Le Corbusier, Heidegger, Foucault, and Jameson, it argues that modernist architecture is responsible for the creation of alienation, instability, and regression rather than the rationality and social cohesion that it was intended to foster. The high-rise building in the book, which is modelled after Le Corbusier's concept of the perfect "vertical village," transforms into a scene of social breakdown, psychological misery, and class struggle, so showing the authoritarian and dehumanising aspects of urban architecture. In a manner that is congruent with Foucault's views on power and surveillance, Ballard portrays the High-rise as a panoptic structure that simultaneously confines its inhabitants while simultaneously providing them with the impression of autonomy. This viewpoint is utilised throughout the book in order to draw attention to the discrepancies that exist between human psychology and architectural reason, while also condemning the failure of modernist ideals. As a result of its existence in a liminal region that calls into question the urban mythologies of social engineering and progress, High-Rise defies both the utopian and dystopian classifications.
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