Paleotopia is based on the anarcho-primitivist vision of a future society and its alternative model for life on Earth. After the collapse of human civilization, caused primarly by global warming, humanity has decided to divide the entire plain surface of the land into a strict orthogonal grid, thus creating a system of equal squares punctuated by ‘Monoliths’ containing a specific function (kitchen, toilet, bath, bed, working table, dining table, shelfs, wardrobe and depository).
In a physical sense, the GRID is realized through ‘algae-pipeline’ – a sophisticated pipeline system transmitting glowing bio-fuel extracted from algae, which is then converted to electricity powering devices, and simultaneously serves as a continuous public lighting. This Cartesian quadratic punctuated space, achieved with the aforementioned low-tech monoliths and hi-tech pipeline, should be understood as an absolute visual-architectonic metaphor for rational and equitable usage of resources and contentment of all human physiological needs. The GRID thus becomes a common space that keeps the human body alive, a combination of a house, city and infrastructure, but simultaneously none of it.
By abandoning the idea of progress, ownership and a permanent private habitat, as well as power and violence that consequently arise from them, this New Humanity returnes to the primordial nomadic lifestyle of hunter-gatherers, this time supported by the architecture, energy and resources of the GRID. Free from desire and all formal structures, without any need for money or employment, life for them becomes an endless journey and adventure between nature and the GRID with unlimited enjoyment of the spontaneous and unpredictable social processes that such a lifestyle amplifies.
Eliminating social stratification, coercion and alienation, although located in the future, the New Humanity of Paleotopia retrieves to the non-alienated living of the pre-cultural Palaeolithic, only this time cleansed of the fear for survival thanks to the GRID. Because of the generic spatial monotony and the absence of culture in this ultimate non-place, the past and the future coagulate into the eternal present.
“When humanity will be reasonable enough to follow their natural instincts,
it will unite across the frontiers and constitute the Cosmos.
They will have no need of law-courts or police, no temples or public worship, and use no money
— free gifts taking the place of the exchanges.”, Peter Kropotkin
author: Filip Pračić
School of Architecture, University of Zagreb
