What do architectural plans tell us about the future? And who gets to decide on the future direction of architectural development may already have been prefigured?
If Britain is to snap out of its economic and social stagnation, it must choose between two contrasting prospects. On one end, a futurist vision of prosperity. On the other, a utopian idyll of environmental harmony. Nowhere is this illusory choice more stark than in the debate about development and construction in an era of housing shortage. Architects and builders are creating sophisticated strategies to sway public opinion towards anglofuturism or ecotopia in favour of their ideals and profit motives.
In this talk, the architecture critic Tim Abrahams explores these possible futures by focusing on their aesthetic propositions. How do these visual representations of the future play to current social conditions? What do they suggest the much vaunted drive to growth will look like?
Dogs That Don’t Bark will explore the way visualisations of near futures – anglofuturisms and ecotopias – are being deployed to re-write planning legislation and convince the British public to forgo its resistance to new developments. To what dastardly ends is architecture being used, and what is lacking from visions of the future produced by think-tanks and contemporary architects? What method underpins this system of image production? Can architecture preserve its autonomy and, indeed, should it?
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