The Sphere and the Return of High Modernism

Earnestness in Architecture

Look I didn’t get a PhD on the intersection of society and technology or anything, but I have seen Blade Runner 2049 at least 20 times so I think I’m qualified to speak on this particular topic. I’m confident in saying that the sphere in Las Vegas may be the single greatest work of architectural art since the Empire State Building.

Just hear me out okay? Look at this image. Just look at it. You’re a Formula 1 racer that makes millions of dollars a year for being at the absolute peak of your profession and this stupid idiot is just grinning at you as you round a corner at 100 miles per hour.

If you make the wrong move, your highly tuned race car will disintegrate at the atomic level and the entire time this stupid giant face is just winking at you like some sentient screensaver. It’s hilarious, how can you not love this?

It’s sort of like the dialectical opposite of every dystopian depiction of a cyberpunk hellhole that is choked with smog and neon. I mean don’t get me wrong, I think Los Angeles looks pretty cool in Blade Runner, but Niander Wallace in all his hubristic delusion could never have thought of something this utterly ridiculous.

All of this is to say I’m kind of glad this is what your technological future looks like. We won’t see smog-filled cities with flying cars and an abnormal number of ramen stands. Instead of the Zaibatsus of Neuromancer, it looks like we might just have lucked out and gotten a much funnier future.

We’re going to see an architecture that is built by a generation of zoomers and millennials who think the laughing emoji is the coolest thing in the world. Like the world’s greatest concert arena was also designed by your aunt that doesn’t stop spamming 2001-era memes on Facebook.

In short, the sphere kind of rocks because it’s earnest. Is it one of the most garish and insane things to have ever been built by mankind? Yeah sure maybe. But you know what? So was the Parthenon. Or do you think some giant painted statue of Zeus wasn’t the most kitsch thing in existence?

It’s awesome exactly because there isn’t one single hint of cynicism in the creation of this thing, it’s entirely sincere. Regardless of how you feel about the past 50 or so years of architecture, this is in my opinion a (welcome) return to a form of technological high modernism. Don’t believe me? Well, Art Deco was pretty garish too let me tell you.

The Original Las Vegas Sphere

I guess this is all my more sincere point. High modernism as an architectural trend reflected a sort of unvarnished optimism about the world. It was overly ornamental and reflected a complete lack of cynicism about what we could accomplish and build in the world. Art Deco at its best consistently reflected a motif of man in an industrial age shaping the world to be in our image—our shared ability to move forward the world in a way that we chose fit.

The sphere kind of captures all of this. It’s in most ways the first real 21st century piece of architecture. The skyscrapers that have been built so far are more just reflections of 20th century trends but this is something that comes purely from the information age. It’s a symbolic representation of what the next 100 years will look like and will act as the template for what comes after.

Does this mean I’m saying that a giant yellow emoji on a sphere in Las Vegas is the same thing as Promethean Liberalism? Yeah, it does actually. There was really no reason that people should have loved this thing as much as they have, but much like Taylor Swift deciding elections in foreign countries, the people have spoken.

I figure the alternatives would either be “crypto-cities” built by the dumbest guy you work with who thinks Bitcoin should be worth 1,000,000 dollars, or increasingly esoteric non-euclidian circles made out of glass by architects trying to impress their professor from grad school.

Now do I want one of these constructed in every single city in America? I mean no, not exactly, but as long as I don’t see advertisements in the night sky, I’ll count this as a win. Not that I would have complained too much if I had gotten to live in the Blade Runner timeline.