The Utopian Impulse,
2022: From the Planet to Prague.
Architecture participates in the making of societies by providing possible imaginaries about how we can live together. Beyond giving form to preexisting social, economic, energetic, environmental, cultural and political arrangements, architecture has the ability – and responsibility – to produce new articulations of the social contract in all its manifestations.
Current issues around climate and inequality have been at the core of many of the utopian visions of futures past. Utopia, a term widely used in architecture, political philosophy, and literary circles since its coining in 1516 by Thomas More, has meant many things over time. Despite their differences, positive utopias, negative utopias, agrarian utopias, feminist utopias, industrial utopias, all share the impulse to produce an alternative to the status quo and to existing forms of inhabitation. A utopia in its essence, puts in doubt a dominant ideological framework, proclaims a new desirable condition, and develops a methodology of action.
The Future Architectures Platform / Studio A2 focuses on the production of ideas and work that aims to develop new forms of living that aspire to enable a more free and equitable society by looking into methods of co-operation, co-financing, co-living, co-working, co-education, and co-creation.