It's Not The End of the World but You Can See it From There

Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between literature and architecture with an organising focus on contemporary fiction. The connections between the two vocations have been variously demonstrated by scholars and practitioners in both fields. Usually these connections are read through with an ideology that is symbiotic and celebratory - certainly architecture and writing share potent connections structurally, philosophically and aesthetically. What is curious then, is the prevailing mood of urban alienation in contemporary fiction and more recently an emerging sense of suburban despair. Undoubtedly failings, dystopian visions and vacuous spectacles drive the urban vision from a literary point of view. Poetic reverie has been reserved historically for nature and it is natural aspects which continue to underpin many contemporary urban representations at the micro level; the depiction of rooms and houses, the line between beauty and function is usually enhanced not by what is built necessarily but the built environments proximity to natural forms: light, water, views, the passage of air. This paper suggests that a potential nexus between nature writing, fiction, and innovations in domestic and landscape architecture could posit alternatives to the prevailing myths about cities and suburbs that would be mutually enriching.