The art of... failing
The future is unpredictable, but we know one thing for certain: if we aren’t getting things wrong, we definitely aren’t getting it right, writes ANNA HART.
Failing.
Some of my favourite things on the planet are historical missteps, grand ideas based on future predictions that turned out to be wide of the mark. I’ve long been fascinated by retro visions of the future, architectural or design plans executed with blistering confidence, and dazzling wrongness, that today linger as monuments to our own misguidedness. An idea that boldly strode into the future, only to gaze over its shoulder and see society setting off on a different route.
One of my favourite architectural clangers is the
Futuro House, a round pre-fab cabin shaped like a flying saucer – complete with long spindly legs and aeroplane hatch entrance – designed by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen in the late 1960s. A product of post-war Finland, the Futuro House or Futuro Pod was conceived as a mobile ski chalet (everyone needs one!) and marketed to affluent young adults.
Suuronen’s big, bold idea, a future based on a fervent faith in modern technology and an equally fervent faith in the spending power of an emerging leisure-oriented society, was immediately given a lukewarm greeting by the present. Humankind stubbornly refused to evolve into an army of ski obsessives inhabiting weatherproof UFO cabins. Plastic was no longer hip by the late 1960s, less of a space-age wonder-material and more of an ugly ecological faux pas, and the 1973 Oil Crisis halted plastic production in its tracks.
But this mistake has brought me no end of joy. It pleases me greatly to think of these odd, plasticky 1960s UFO homes dotted around the planet in improbable locations. Seven of the world’s fleet of 63 Futuro houses eventually found their way to Australia. One specimen can be gleefully creeped over on the Instagram page of the Naiko Retreat on the Fleurieu Peninsula. Take a look at this failure; what a triumph it is.
In London, one of my favourite spots is the Barbican Estate, a residential complex of 2,000 flats and maisonettes adjacent to the Barbican performing arts centre, the largest of its kind in Europe. The housing complex was conceived in the late 1950s, but by the time the final tower was completed in 1976 the space age was ancient history, and affluent Londoners didn’t want selfcontained Brutalist concrete flats to shimmy around, clad in white Barbarella knee-high boots and Mary Quant minidresses. They wanted to waft around their veg patches in Laura Ashley florals at their country cottages in Hampstead or Surrey. In 2003, the Barbican was voted London’s Ugliest Building, but now, finally, it’s back in vogue. But the Barbican has not had an easy ride, and has been considered a gargantuan concrete failure for many more years than it has been considered kind of cool. After all, industrial, economic and social progress can take place faster than contractors can construct buildings. And human daydreams, ambitions and aspirations are fickle things indeed. Daydreams are a dangerous thing to bet on.
A couple of years ago I travelled to Lanzarote to tour the avantgarde architectural masterpieces of César Manrique, my favourite being the Jameos del Agua, a vast underground cave grotto complete with restaurant, disco, fake beach and 600-seat concert hall. Obviously, it’s impossible not to laugh at the DJ booth carved out of rock, a sort of Flintstones-meetsJetsons vision of a cartoon future that never came. But these retro visions of the future also make me wistful, because they’re all utopian to some degree. They’re all visions of the future designed to make us more cultured, more communityminded, more leisure-oriented. Retro visions of the future are heart-on-sleeve displays of hope for humanity – but humanity fell short of their predictions. These architects and designers and entrepreneurs didn’t disappoint us; we disappointed them.
I’m not saying that the world would be a better place if we all lived in plastic UFO ski chalets, drove DeLorean cars, travelled to work by jetpack and departed on holidays via Zeppelin. But I am grateful for every one of these grand failed experiments, these mistakes and missteps.
These outrageous failures show us how creative we can be as we try to build a new future.
And now, when the future feels unpredictable, and we’re faced with rebuilding the economy, the hospitality sector, the travel industry, the performing arts, the education system and even family life, I’m praying that we dare to dream big. I’m hoping we make some really big, beautiful mistakes in the next couple of years.
Because if we aren’t already getting some things wrong, we aren’t working hard enough. An absence of failures doesn’t equate to success; it means we’re playing it too safe, refusing to allow idealism in, trapped in the confines of a collective crisis of confidence. The future is wide open, and if we aren’t making mistakes, we’re making a mistake.
And now, when the future feels unpredictable, and we’re faced with rebuilding the economy, I’m praying that we dare to dream big.