What We Are Coming To
An 1895 drawing by Grant E. Hamilton for Judge Magazine, called What We Are Coming To. The illustration depicts an apartment house of the future, showing a fantastical building with myriad uses packed into it, complete with a spiraling trolley system coiling around the structure.
If you wanted to cram every possible building type into a single structure, what might that structure look like? It’s a hell of a design problem, and the image above shows one artist’s idea of what it might look like. It’s an illustration by Grant E. Hamilton, called What We Are Coming To. It appeared in an 1895 issue of Judge magazine, with the description ‘Judge’s combination apartment house of the future.’
It’s a wild image, and there’s no point trying to understand how it functions (believe me, I’ve tried), because, in short, it doesn’t. But that’s not the point. The point is, as the needs of density rise over time, how will our buildings cope? This was a more complicated question back in 1895, because many common skyscraper technologies hadn’t become mainstream yet. Still, that didn’t stop Hamilton from speculating. He essentially created an arcology for his day, which is a high-density human habitat meant to have a low impact on its environment. This is generally seen as a positive thing, however there’s an air of cynicism in Hamilton’s drawing, as if he’s lamenting the ever-growing need for density in urban areas of his time. I’d be interested to hear his thoughts on the supertall, mixed-use skyscrapers of today.
Another intriguing thought to ponder is how this structure would be received if it got built. I suspect the novelty of the first one would make it quite popular with the public, however if every block in a city had one of these, the chaos that would result would be unbearable for most of us. As the saying goes, when there’s one of something, it’s special, but if everything is that thing, it’s no longer special. Regardless of all that, Hamilton’s illustration is super interesting to study, and I’d love to take a ride up that spiraling railroad, all the way to the top.