| Publication Overview December 2006
Britain's big cities are beginning to resemble the sets of sci-fi movies. Birmingham's Selfridges store, the towering Swiss Re headquarters in London and The Sage concert hall in Gateshead are unashamedly big, bold and futuristic.
All three appear in Buildings For Tomorrow, in which Paul Cattermole argues that many of today's most significant structures are inspired by science fiction, or at least a similar creative process. The High Desert House, for instance, wouldn't look out of place on the Star Wars planet of Tattooine. The simple geometrical shapes of Casa Hernandez resemble the early CGI of Tron and the Phaeno Science Centre just looks like a huge spacecraft. Sometimes the link is even more explicit: see Elrod House featured in the Bond film Diamonds Are Forever.
The book's sub-title is 'Architecture That Changed Our World', but that's not entirely true of all 40 buildings. Cattermole describes the huge 'space cucumber' of the Kunsthaus Graz as architecturally flawed. The joints in its outer skin collect ice during the winter, and its light bulbs are difficult to change. In contrast, the Swiss Re building wins praise for using only half as much energy as a conventional tower block.
All this food for thought makes Buildings For Tomorrow the best kind of coffee table book. Once its exquisite photographs draw you in, you'1l find you can't stop reading.
Graham Southorn is journalist specialising in technology | 
