Land of the Setting Sun

SAN FRANCISCO is about as far West as it gets – right on the setting sun’s doorstep. Nevertheless, this place plays a pivotal role in moulding the world of tomorrow – because the Bay Area is the beating heart of the digital age. A trip to the crucible of the future.

- Gero Gunther

The rectangular edifice of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art looks pale, as if all traces of art and even life itself have been sucked right out of it. The neighbouring skyscrapers are devoid of colour as well. Something’s seriously amiss in this city that is so colourful in reality. Suddenly movement enters the tableau: a massive index finger races down Market Street, threatening to push the venerable Ferry Building on the Embarcadero straight into the ivory-coloured waters of San Francisco Bay.

Sarah Brin’s finger stops just in time. A software developer for Autodesk, Inc., the last thing she wants to do is trash the authentically detailed model of San Francisco that her company has created. The miniature monochrome plastic model is a three-dimensional printout. City planners can alter it on a computer to their heart’s content, then generate a new 3D model. It’s a very useful urban planning tool, and also symbolic of the development of this west coast metropolis: nowhere else in the world are advances in digital technology applied as immediately as in San Francisco. Brin’s fingertip now hovers over the replica of the waterfront building in which she is currently situated. Her company is one of the worldwide market leaders in computer-aided design. “What we do here,” she says, “is difficult to categorise. It’s a new kind of creativity.”