Science Fiction Ruins

This science fiction illustration is by the British artist Tony Roberts. It was published in the Heavy Metal Magazine in 1982.

Once more it’s Lady Liberty who bears witness to a bygone history of mankind.

Bone Architecture

Santiago Calatrava Valls is an internationally famous Spanish star architect and designer. In his native Valencia he designed the "Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències" (constructed 1996-2009).

Despite the gigantic museum is far from being something like a ruin, the whole construction resembles the skeleton of a whale and uses therefore the old romantic connection between ruins, skeletons, death and decay. Though Calatrava’s construction is of a clean, fresh washed white death and decay are omnipresent.

The Book of Eli

The Book of Eli is an upcoming post-apocalyptic action film starring Denzel Washington. The film is directed by the Hughes brothers and is scheduled to be released in January 2010.


The trailer and the images are stylish dark and are showing strong influences of Mad Max, Cyborg and Fallout 3. So let’s hope that it will be better than the last Terminator, but that should'nt be very difficult.

Borderlands

Borderlands is a science fiction shooter game developed by Gearbox Software for Windows, Xbox and PlayStation and released end of 2007.

The Background is set on the planet of Pandora where rich mines of minerals have attracted colonists. After the "gold rush" the colonists live in isolated settlements and many became bandits.



I dont’t want to evaluate the game here, but the scenery formed by abandoned industrial complexes and rests of alien ruins looks therefore a lot like that of post-apocalytic games. But above all it underlines the importance of a good ruin decoration for shooter games.

Landscapes With Ruins

Jan Asselijn was a Dutch Baroque Era Painter (c.1615-1652) who was specialized in landscapes. Like many of the artists of his time he traveled to Italy and must have been very impressed by the Roman ruins there.


His Italian landscape paintings are normally dominated by these enormous ruins. They seem to be a part of nature but also witnesses of a greater and glorious past.