La « ville-tour » : fiction et visée prospective

The representations of the city in the literature constitute the field in which these works are inscribed. The analysis focuses on two novels of science fiction: High-Rise by J. G. Ballard (1930-2009), english novelist, and The World Inside by R. Silverberg (1935-), american author of science fiction. In both cases, political anticipation dominates. The construction of the story rests on a narrative device involving a social and urban order of verticality, producing a world, a society, a city, a mode of dwelling, all dominated by vertical principles. In the 1970s, the history of the Western world experienced a moment of rupture. The modern relationship of society to this world has inflected. Change affects urbanism and architecture as much as, for example, science fiction, which now makes the reality of the moment its main source of inspiration. At the same time, the construction of towers is experiencing a new episode of its history which has started in the beginning of the 20th century. This paper aims at deciphering the mechanisms inherent to this vertical territorial organizations by promoting the idea of ​​“ville-tour”. Hence, it is possible to glimpse in the imaginary world that these stories promote, the possibility of a prospective of the vertical city. Methodologically, the geocritical approach is mobilized. After examining the foundations of the “ville-tour” and the changes to which it leads, the paper invites us to situate the contribution of fiction to a prospective study mainly in the disturbances that these fictions reveal. Two issues emerge: one is linked to the very reality of public space while the other questions the conditions of conception of a vertical urbanity. The conclusion invites us to extend the research: what belongs to the hybrid buildings seems to hold at a distance the “ville-tour” project’s of the untenable figure from the social condenser finally promoted by these novels.