Dewan Architects + Engineers have unveiled Babel 4.0, a project which the firm with headquarters in the UAE describes as “the first architecturally-inspired NFT from the Middle East.” A reinterpretation of the mythical Tower of Babel, the project speculates on the role of architects and designers in shaping futuristic metaverse landscapes.
Available now on OpenSea, the project consists of an infinitely-propagating helix form. Visitors to the tower begin at a communal space at ground level, before ascending anticlockwise through exhibition and museum levels which exhibit user-generated NFTs in a virtual museum. The public exhibition spaces are currently reserved for 100 invited members, which may be extended at a later date.
The silos are intended as a platform to promote interaction between digital artistic communities, building on a renewed popular focus on the metaverse. “Babel 4.0 is not a physical building and intentionally opposes style, location, culture, and budget but is a blank canvas for hybrid cultures,” Dewan explained. “Our plan is to launch this NFT collection which will encourage academia, government bodies, architects, engineers, universities, material and product producers, and the community to interact and exchange ideas in a virtual world.”
The tower’s infinite ramp is supported by a network of shortcuts including stairs, slides, and cables. Meanwhile, elevators and teleportation transport enable long-distance journeys. As the tower has no owners, visitors can dictate how long they stay in the tower by transitioning through various time zones and shortcuts.
The tower also contains its own parliament and speaking corner above lush virtual gardens, allowing architects, designers, project managers, and suppliers to share thoughts which will inform the evolution of both the metaverse and the real world. In reference to the 100 gates in the original Tower of Babel, Dewan intends to create 100 NFTs as part of the Babel 4.0 collection, which will be donated to prominent academics and leaders in the fields of design and architecture. The NFTs will be used and exchanged among the recipients for plots in the tower to access various exhibition or presentation spaces.
Babel 4.0 is the latest in a series of recent explorations into the connection between NFT and architecture. Earlier this month, ONE Sotheby and Voxel Architects announced plans to create a digital twin NFT of a home in Florida. In December 2021, it was revealed that NFTs would play a central role in the 2022 Tallinn Architecture Biennale, while in September, Refik Anadol unveiled a “first of its kind” AI artwork NFT collection.
Babel 4.0 is also not the first project to draw a connection between NFTs and mythical urbanism. In April of last year, we covered the unveiling of an NFT collection inspired by Calvino’s “Invisible Cities” showcasing a range of real and imagined cityscapes .
9 Comments
The OG is always better.
Unrelated, but these NFTs are silly.
"NFTs" guarantee an article and clicks. Take an old project, slap NFT on the title, and you've got something newsworthy.
"Now Featuring Testicles!"
And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.
And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
Tower of Babel is an odd figure, because it did not end well.
And the Lord said, Behold, the people are one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.
So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
Genesis 11
I also wonder whether any of these folks ever actually READ the story of Babel when they so proudly use it as inspiration.
There's an interesting thesis to be made regarding how the internet was supposed to be a tool to bring people together yet has divided us more than I ever thought possible.
There's a reason these stories have endured through cultures, over the ages. We ignore them at our peril.
I'm curious, given this Old Testament pabulum, and we're talking about a vengeful God, tell me why "one people" fully vested in one another is a bad thing again? Sounds like OT God is a dick, and definitely not a Communist.
Tower of Babel II:
LIVE AHEAD
YOUR CITY
WITHIN THE CITY
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They both Babel towers look amazing!
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