A1   Housing and the transport system

Introduction:  The “Myth Skyscraper”

In the 1920ies Europe was under a strong influence of America with regard to architecture. From now on the new trend was to build higher, more aesthetic and more modern. This kind of architecture was called “Art deco”. The Chrysler Building (319 metres) was an outstanding example of this new trend, which strongly influenced, among other things, the ideas of modernising European cities.

In this period people had the dream of buildings “touching the sky”, which was also supported by the invention of the electric elevator in the early 20^th century. Thus the vision of a cosmopolitan city without limits emerged. 

(picture on the right: top of the Chrysler Building)

Architecture in Brave New World:

-         architectural centre is the “Charing-T Tower”

-         buildings consist of sixty stories or even more

-         different casts live in different areas, which show houses varying in quality; alpha caste members live in apartments

-         there are extremely fast elevators connecting the buildings from roof to ground floor

-         roofs are used as landing platforms for the helicopters and planes

-         some buildings contain up to 4000 rooms

-         some facilities are area-wide              (i.e. Hounslow Feely Studios cover 7.5 hectares), some are even considered as towns

-         lights on rooftops; lighthouses for the helicopters and planes

-         parks in which one can play         Electro-magnetic Golf

Furnishing in Brave New World:

-         mainly luxuriously equipped

-         television boxes, radios playing synthetic music, vibro-vacuum massage machines, synthetic music machines (synthetic music plants), liquid air, boiling caffeine solution, hot contraceptives, different kinds of scent, synchronised electric clocks

-         many Escalator-Squash-Racquet Courts in good hotels

-         huge amounts of sanitation (a hundred baths)

Name: Helicopter

Facts:

Speed: 120 km/h (rising), forward speed unknown

Use: short-haul and city aircraft

Capacity: depends on model (less than in a rocket-plane)

Drive system: 2 air-screws, one on top (to ascend, descend), one in front (to advance)

Equipment: speedometer, accelerator, several levers, revolution-counter, super-charger

Highlights: can fly on its own planes after having reached a certain speed, window in the floor,

Miscellaneous: sound: humming, buzzing (from hornet to mosquito), parked in hangars, ability to hang motionless in the air, aluminium body, models: “Taxicopter”, “Sporticopter”, floodlights, sometimes serious accidents can happen, appear as often as cars nowadays

Name: Rocket-Plane

Facts:

Speed: 1250 km/h
Crew:  8 stewards

Use: long-haul aircraft (i.e. London – USA)

Capacity: made for many passengers

Appearance: streamlined, single-coloured (like a “scarlet insect” p. 54, l. 34) plane

Highlights: nosedive landing, very punctual (seven minutes delay on a NYC – London flight is much), able to fly through thunder-storms, able to land on roofs,

Miscellaneous: named: “Red Rocket”, “The Blue Pacific Rocket”, “The Bombay Green Rocket”, sounding deeper than helicopters: droning , buzzing

Name: Mono-Rail

Facts:

Speed: unknown

Drive system: moving on one rail

Capacity: mass transport system for lower caste population

Appearance: like a train

Miscellaneous: made for line haul, has a bell and whistles, needs stations, used to separate the lower caste population from the upper castes

Name: Lorry

no picture

Facts:

Speed: unknown

Use: agricultural commercial vehicle

Miscellaneous: made for landworkers and transporting crops                                            © David & Christoph