The film Gattaca directed and written by Andrew Niccol, is set in a society that can genetically create the best combinations of genes at birth, meaning parents could create the perfect child. The society presented in Gattaca prizes genetic perfection over human spirit, achievements and character. The people who have superior genes have all the favorable, well paying and important jobs, while the normal people, with all their natural genetic “defects” get the dirty and mundane jobs. The perfect genetic humans are favored in the society and create a world lacking character and diversity. This relates to modernist architecture, which is ultimately based on simplicity, functionality, clean designs, perfect angles. Most modernist architecture also lacks character and diversity, being focused on the high end of the market, with the designs being bland, monotoned buildings that are very clean-cut, they removed the character and uniqueness that is in the small imperfections and individual features of a normal, hand crafted house. The society in Gattaca is like this -everyone is becoming genetically perfect, meaning they are becoming more and more the same. Just like in buildings and design, its often the individual imperfections and differences that create individual character, and overall a interesting and healthy society. Modern architecture is creating a monotonous and bland sector of architecture, just as the “perfect” genetically crafted humans in Gattaca are creating a boring, characterless society. This shows that our world needs diversity to be interesting, and that modern architecture needs improvement!!!!
