Left up to Tomás Saraceno, the buildings of the future might look a lot like kites. Not just any kite, either. In his most recent work, the Argentinian artist re-imagines buildings as massive, shimmering pyramids that would lift off land and float in the air on a windy day. Commissioned to accompany the Maasvlakte 2 expansion of Rotterdam’s port, Saraceno’s Solar Bell sculpture is a fantastical look at what could be possible if air replaced land as the basis for future architecture.
Despite its futuristic aesthetic, the Solar Bell was actually inspired by a century-old flying machine designed by Alexander Graham Bell. You probably know Bell as the man who invented the telephone, but he was actually quite active in the early days of aviation when engineers were exploring how to make manned flight a reality. Bell’s tetrahedron-shaped kite concept looked to maximize surface area and minimize weight through the use of light, pyramid-shaped sails. The idea was to make a machine capable of carrying a man and a motor into flight, and though he did achieve that, Bell’s kite ultimately failed to inspire the future of manned flight.
via Wired
