ABSTRACT
An image soon stops persuading or even making any impression at all if it disconcerts us at no cost, without any element of truth.3
Roger Caillois, “The Image”
Defining SF in Literature
SF is a radical starting point for architectural discourse, particularly if we look initially beyond the formal qualities of the buildings and special effects on-screen. Thus, the essential first question to ask is-what is sciencefiction? While this appears at first to be a rather straightforward query, genre distinctions are increasingly suspect and thus necessitate some critical deliberation. According to Gül Kaçmaz Erk the term was first coined by Hugo Gernsback in his 1929 novel Ralph 124C41+ and is defined by Erk as, “fiction based on imagined future scientific or technological advances and major social or environmental changes.”4 Andrew Milner, citing John Clute and Peter Nicholls, instead argues Gernsback coined the term “scientification” in 1926 but that “science fiction” was not used commonly until John W. Campbell Jr. changed the name of a “pulp” publication called Astounding Stories to Astounding Science Fiction after 1938.5 While Erk’s definition may appear to be an acceptable position from which to proceed with an architectural discussion, the debate within SF criticism warrants closer attention as this is essential to our current inquiry into the concept of home.
