pseudo-reality: good, bad, or otherwise?

The hyper-supplemented realities afforded by the Metropolis are striking initially – the first question simply being why? Koolhaas offers a suitable explanation in his “Life in the Metropolis” article, noting that the “simultaneous explosion of modern technologies and human population” that occurred on “limited territories” led to a “mutant form of human coexistence that is known as the Metropolis.” Suppressing these two existing elements (modern technology and human population” caused an upward-reaching slippage that led to a culture that can only be understood as one of congestion that thrives in a pseudo-reality.

Despite the new concentration of natural distaste into hyper-dense metropolitan centers, the idea of supplemental reality in and of itself is nothing new. After all, why restrict warmth to the hours of the sun when you have the capacity to supplement this with a man-made, controlled and accessible tool such as fire? Man has been supplementing his reality for centuries because our original reality was extremely dangerous – would you find food or be food today? Our society has consistently adapted itself away from these humble, animalistic beginnings and towards...something else. During such societal transformations, generational knowledge is lost; meaning that culture spans only a small chunk of time before being replaced by “new and better” practices. In contemporary society, man is no longer hunted by fierce predators, but he still can fear for his life. Far worse is the man-made predator, known widely as capitalism, which does not kill quickly but tosses society to and fro like a killer whale against a seal.

The second question surrounding the hyper-supplemented reality of the Metropolis centers around the effects of residing in such a pseudo-reality for an extended period of time. Much like the fallacy that is Hollywood (which seems to drive immersed actors toward the hyper-supplemental reality afforded by drugs), the metropolis must affect the psychological being in some manner. I am sure that we ourselves are affected on a daily basis by the pseudo-reality of building itself. We should not be able to see at night, but electricity allows us to do so. The concentration and extrapolation of these simple advances must have an effect on us. I am not sure how, as I have not spent much time in cities myself; but the question remains of interest. 

How can architecture contribute to our understanding of and experience through reality, but maintain significance in contemporary culture?