Author: Marco Voltolina
Note: this article contains spoilers for the third season of Westworld.
Tv series can be considered a major art form of our time, if not the main. They are the mirror of our society, reflecting our deepest concerns and depicting our dreams as well as our nightmares. By analysing the cities, buildings and spaces that appear in television, we can deepen our understanding of the issues that affect today's architecture and the challenges that await us in the near future.
This is especially true for a genre that in the last years has become quite popular: dystopian TV shows. In a series of three articles, we will discuss the take of Westworld, Mr. Robot and Black Mirror on the theme of smart homes. We have chosen to focus on homes because they are the space that is closest to people's everyday life, with which everyone easily identifies themselves. With this journey through the world of television, we will try to understand how our homes are changing and what new problems we are going to face.
We will start with HBO's Westworld (2016-ongoing), and specifically with the opening scene of the premiere of season 3. After the first two seasons set in a Wild-West-themed amusement park populated by androids, called "hosts", the third season, set in the year 2058, explores the "real" world outside the park: a dystopian society controlled by the tech company Incite Inc. and by its almost omniscient Artificial Intelligence, named "Rehoboam".
The first episode of the season opens in a seaside luxury villa in Beihai, in Southern China. Dolores, a host from the Westworld park, hacks the house's computer system and attacks its owner, Gerald, a former employee at Incite Inc., in order to extort from him some important documents. The scene, about ten minutes long, occurs in the middle of the night. While Gerald is sleeping along with his wife Eunice, Dolores plays with the technologies of his smart home: she hacks the HVAC system, increasing the level of carbon dioxide in the air, she lights the fireplaces, blocks all the entrances and plays an opera song at full volume. Then she goes for a swim in the villa's pool.
Figure 1. Dolores hacks the HVAC system of Gerald's smart home, increasing the levels of carbon dioxide and decreasing those of oxygen. Source: "Parce Domine", 04:42.
Gerald wakes up confused, as he tries to understand what is happening. The house's system does not answer to him and he is unable to escape. Dolores gets out of the pool, naked. She puts on a robe, enters the house and confronts Gerry, forcing him to wear a pair of VR spectacles that make him relive the time when he abused and killed his first wife. At this point Gerald is desperate and terrified, and Dolores threatens to kill him unless he agrees to give her the documents she wants. Gerald obeys but, as the android is finally leaving, he attacks her from behind with a golf club, only to discover that it was just a hologram. Gerald loses his balance, slips, hits his head and dies. Then the real Dolores appears and tells Eunice that she is giving her freedom.
This scene prompts some interesting reflections. First of all, it shows the risks of letting technology get out of hand. When we lose control over the technical tools that we have created – and that are supposed to grant us freedom – those tools become means of coercion that impose limits instead of giving opportunities: a smart home thus turns into a prison. This concept is eloquently expressed by Dolores when she points out to Gerald: "You [humans] want to be the dominant species, but you built the whole world with things made like me" ("Parce Domine", 07:17). We are surrounded by more and more technological appliances. We delegate more and more everyday tasks to algorithms that we often do not even understand. This way, we end up renouncing to our freedom and trusting machines with decisions that should belong to us.
How free are we? Can we actually make meaningful choices in our lives? Is technology a means to enhance our freedom or does it erase it? Throughout its three seasons, Westworld has kept challenging its viewers with these deep questions. In the case of Gerald's smart home, automation seems to constitute a limit: as soon as the system is hacked, there is no way for its human owner to bypass the problems with "analog" solutions. There is no physical key that Gerald can use to open the automatically locked doors, no way to open a window and let oxygen enter his house, and no button to stop the music. Gerald's life relies on the algorithms that run his home to the point that he cannot do a thing on his own. It is almost as if the villa is not really his home: he does not seem to know anything about it, or about how it works. In other words, technology has severed the deep – maybe we could even define it holy – bond that connects a house to its inhabitants. Is this inevitable? Are we condemned to spend our future living in homes that we do not understand, that we do not care about? These questions must be taken into consideration by the architects that aspire to build good, comfortable houses in the 21st century.
Another interesting theme that appears in the scene that we examined is the helplessness of humans in front of the divine power of technology. Many scholars point out that today algorithms are acquiring a sort of "godly" status in our society, and Westworld itself is imbued with Christian symbology and biblical references. The very title of this episode is "Parce Domine", a quote from the Book of Joel, in the Old Testament, which translates as "Spare thy people, O Lord" (King James Version, Joel 2.17): the cry of humans asking for mercy to their omnipotent out-of-control Technological God?
But the parallels do not end here. During the whole scene, Dolores is a representation of both technological and divine power. First she takes a bath, which can be seen as a ritual of cleansing and purification. Then she performs a series of "miracles" that are meant to instil in Gerald fear and respect rather than to hurt him. The carbon dioxide level is increased to 2,000 ppm, an amount that can only cause a light headache. The fireplaces are lit, but the flames do not fill the house. The doors are locked, but after a few minutes Dolores lets Gerald exit his rooms. And the music, of course, is innocuous. Dolores gets what she wants: Gerald is terrified, kneeling before her, and he accepts her will. Then she judges him and punishes him with death.
Spirituality and religion have been for centuries an essential component of people's everyday life. Traditional houses all over the world often include altars or spaces expressely devoted to prayer or veneration of the family's ancestors. Will technology take the place of religion? Will home automation systems like Amazon Alexa become our new Lares, the ancient Roman guardian deities of the household?
Figure 2. Gerald is on his knees before Dolores as she obtains the documents she is after. Source: "Parce Domine", 11:05.
Finally, another issue is worth mentioning: the relationship between the digital components and the physical space of Gerald's residence. What kind of architecture will combine with technology to create the automated homes of the future?
Westworld answers the question by filming this scene at the Crescent House, a luxury seaside villa by American architect Wallace Cunningham (b. 1954), located in Encinitas, approximately 40 km north of San Diego, in California. The building is mostly made of steel, concrete and glass, with large windows offering spectacular views on the ocean. At the center of the project lies an infinity pool (the one where Dolores swims), with the shape of a crescent moon.
Figure 3. Courtyard of Gerald's villa. Source: "Parce Domine", 04:33.
Figure 4. Courtyard and pool of Gerald's villa. Source: "Parce Domine", 03:19.
Figure 5. Terrace of Gerald's villa. Source: "Parce Domine", 02:54.
Figure 6. Staircase of Gerald's villa. Source: "Parce Domine", 08:30.
Figure 7. Master bedroom of Gerald's villa. Source: "Parce Domine", 03:38.
It is without doubt a space of great architectural quality, yet its cold colours (mostly grey, white and blue), smooth surfaces and geometrical shapes give an impression of impersonality. The house does not seem to say anything about the character of the owner, and does not convey any particular emotion except for calmness and indifference. Even the walls are almost completely empty, without any paintings or pictures. In the age of automation, Swiss-French modern architect Le Corbusier's (1887-1965) vision of the house as a "machine for living in" is taken to the extreme: Westworld portrays the smart home as a functional mechanism where there is no room for emotions and dreams.
Westworld fathoms the future of our homes as cold, impersonal places with a minimalist aesthetic, places where technological efficiency overshadows the personal, emotional relationship that should always exist between a house and its inhabitants. Again, wheter this dystopia will become reality is up to tomorrow's architects, as well as to our whole society.
Sources:
Davidson, Justin. "How Real Architecture Inspired Westworld's Futuristic Cities". Vulture, 17 March 2020.
Niola, Gabriele. "How Westworld imagined the year 2058 reusing real architecture". Domus, 3 April 2020.
"Parce Domine". Westworld, written by Lisa Joy & Jonathan Nolan, directed by Jonathan Nolan, season 3, episode 1, HBO, 15 March 2020.
Ra Moon. "Where was Westworld filmed? Guide to ALL the Filming Locations including Season 3". Atlas of Wonders.
Söns, Heike. "The Crescent: Museum Architecture for a Beach House". AzureAzure: A Privileged Life, 3 March 2014.
"The Philosophy of Westworld - Wisecrack Edition", YouTube, uploaded by Wisecrack, 27 February 2017.
Source of the cover image: "Parce Domine", 09:36.
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