Future Holdings
by Matthew Conboy
portfolio special mention call 'Urbanautica Institute Awards 2023', 2023
Category: Representations of Space, Architecture, and Conflicts
Future Holdings (2016-present) documents the abandoned building site for a skyscraper called Sky City. Located on the edge of Changsha, China, a city with a population of over 10 million people, Sky City was designed to be the tallest building in the world. Shortly after construction began, work was halted, but not before a five-acre foundation was dug. Local residents allowed this foundation to fill with water and now use it as a fishing pond.
Future Holdings looks at issues of hubris, the relationship between humans and nature, and the evolution of megacities.
Review by URBANAUTICA
Many have ventured East since the 1990s to witness the tumultuous, monumental transformations that, in just a few decades, have reshaped the image of China. More than through art, music, or literature, China has presented itself through urban planning. Not so much through architecture. The city has knocked on the door of our gaze through the face of its metropolises, gigantic new town projects, ghostly residential complexes, and colossal infrastructures that have moved millions of inhabitants and financial capital. An urban earthquake like history has never recorded before. Some of these experiences and real estate operations have appeared or proven controversial, yet the power and magnitude of this effort of omnipotence is what most speaks to us about China today. The scale of this ambition places the human element—the experience of the resident, of those who inhabit these concrete walls, these façades of progress—into the background. There is no doubt that in China, the future of humanity and the destiny of megacities are being shaped. Future Holdings by Matthew Conboy compels us to reflect on all of this.
also from Urbanautica Institute Awards 2023