What if, Metropolis - Travelogue

There was a new beginning starting to form in the world, form follows function and the in the eyes of some, modernism was failing to capture their hearts. A colony was formed to fabricate a new city in all the luxurious that they enjoyed and to continue their exuberant lifestyles and escape the new modern forming world.

The inhabitants of Lapis, where extremely gifted bohemian craftsman and artists, carving their way for a very lucrative economy. Setting up a world class industrial enterprise providing their exquisite artistry to the worlds appetite. With the abundance of fortune to spare, Lapis was fabricated as though it was a fine piece of Art Nouveau in itself. No expense was spared on the aesthetics and lifestyle that this new city provided.

The city of Lapis (Brilliant blue) was designed to maximise the pleasures of life, through exquisite decor and lifestyle. A city of endless sustained pleasures, flamboyant architecture and  excessive splendour that stimulates ones sensual conscious to all the excitement. With a abundance of fine drinking establishments, Dancing theatres, boudoirs and smoking rooms the civilians of Lapis had all the elements to destroy this once beautiful city 

Due to the society mixing with the more vicious elements of life, the degeneration of this city is at full steam. The Dandies have turned into drunks, the dancer have turned into prostitutes and the artist smoke far to much opium. What once was a well maintained sparkling city, it is now run-down and mottled with dirt, like a decaying body losing its colour of life.

Through the day Lapis seems to be a ghost town, odd silhouette’s in top-hats and tails dishevelled from the nights exuberance, can be seen staggering between the buildings, their skin looks dull, exhausted and sickly. And this seems to be reflected in the decaying architecture of Lapis. The once gleaming glass domed buildings, seem to have a translucent sickly pale colour cast, as though the life is dying from this city.

However as night falls and the lights are turned on, something beautiful emerges from the decay Like a rose growing from a grave. Although Lapis is in social degeneration, There is something fascinating to see here when the life-switch is flicked on in the city and the eccentric and troubled inhabitants come out to fill their desires and habits. 

This was a city of glass domed structures and exuberant entrance halls, with jewelled façades that glimmer in the light. Though the jewels where not the most expensive, they where picked to give the most romanticised aesthetic pleasures. One can only imagine that when this city was in full bloom it would have been very pleasing to ones eye as the symmetrical forms and pearlecent glass work blend into something that would comfortably sit in the worlds best galleries. But today, the glass is tarnished and some of the jewels are missing due to the thieves and the need to feed their habits.

The heart of this city, is the entertainment district, located along the riverside, complexes of Café’s, Restaurants, Cabaret theatres and boudoirs that line the dockside, Neglected walkways decorated in the flamboyant flowing lines of art nouveau railings guide you down to the main complexes building with other stair wells effortlessly gliding of to the other establishments held within. When these formations where seen from above by the sight seeing balloons that used float high up knocking on the sky, they could classed as a piece of art in itself. These once grand viewing balloons are still lofting in the sky, clawing at the clouds trying to stay afloat.

A series of elaborate decorated bridges seem to effortlessly suspend the river linking the decadent metropolis  providing easy access on cobbled streets that when wet look like gems from the reflections of the glass.

In the distance Huge arched towers loom high up into the sky, that are the entrances to what used to be the most exotic parks in the world, the huge domed greenhouses used to exhibit some of the rarest botanical plants adding to the exotic pleasures that this city held. Though today they are abandoned and derelict, what once where shiny large gems that sat on the horizon are now skeletons of their former self.

The streets these days are filled with dancing females, dressed in jewls that eccenturate their eroticism trying to tempt the curious eyes of the passing dandies on the way to fuel dependency of alcohol and drugs. Their eccentric dress is in full bloom, acting as a gentlemen should before the debauchery sets it. Only for the females to wait for the easy pickings on the dandies return journey once they have had their evenings fix.
Once these Cabaret Dancers where celebrities, entertaining the public in the passionate theatres, But as the decadence of the city took its grip the boudoirs where becoming more popular and more profitable, so the cycle of the dancers progressed into escort and prostitution.

What once was the underpass network of the city, Where a gentleman could stumble his way back to his abode and not de-gentrify himself to much in public. Has now formed a place for the prostitutes and degenerates who have given up on the fundamental cultural needs of a working city - a underworld of addicts caused by the endless pleasures that Lapis provides, a city of its own destruction. Showing that the fabric of society which was the key for Lapis’s creation, has lead to the cities cultural decline and this once blossoming city, will suffer the same fate as the autumn leaves.