THE ALWEG MONORAIL SYSTEM is best exemplified by the Seattle Monorail. Built for the 1962 Seattle "Century 21" World's Fair this ALWEG monorail is still in service today and in the year 2000 - after 38 years - at last reached the century it presaged in the early Sixties of the Twentieth Century.
As if to celebrate this achievement the Seattle ALWEG monorail has had the honor of being integrated in the fantastic architectural complex of the "Experience Music Project" designed by Frank O. Gehry in the year 2000. Thanks to the initiative of the "EMP's" founders, Paul G. Allen and Jody Allen Patton, and Frank O. Gehry's innovative spirit the Seattle ALWEG monorail has at last arrived in its own future. Part of the futuristic ALWEG monorail plans had always been the often illustrated possibility to let these trains also pass through buildings. Frank O. Gehry has let this vision materialize.
Since June 18, 2004, the EMP is also the home of the Science Fiction Museum adding yet another highly interesting dimension to the passage of the Alweg monorail through the EMP complex. Monorail technology in its various forms has from the earliest works of science fiction literature on always been a part of both the realistic and the phantastic worlds of science fiction. (Monorail technology is one realm of science fiction that has become reality and this is one of those stories that excellently illustrates the often futile struggle that innovative technologies face again and again in the so called modern world ... ) The Alweg monorail concept offers transit technology that is friendly to commuters and the environment. The original Alweg vision emphasizes that technology should always serve its user, - never vice versa ! And part of that vision is also city planning not for the drawing-board, but for the people who live in cities ...
Daily traffic congestion demonstrates aptly that conventional city-planning has perpetuated one of science fiction's negative visions: traffic collapse. (The worldwide inability of city-planners to make positive visions come true also shows that in contrast to science fiction - considered non-serious by many planning experts - serious and scientifically accepted futurology is not fictitious ... )
This website is dedicated to the history of the ALWEG monorail system in memory of my father, ROLF KRISCHER (May 1911 - March 2000), mechanical engineer for the ALWEG FORSCHUNGGESELLSCHAFT, Germany, and its American subsidiary Wegematic Corporation from 1953 to 1967. The Seattle Monorail was his most prominent project and we lived in Seattle from 1962 to 1966.
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