Architecture has long been one of the most powerful means of imagining, visualizing, and constructing futures. Like a projectile, the architectural project is thrown forward, reaching into and determining the conditions of what is to come. Time, in this sense, is a lens to understand how futures have been and can be made, successfully or not: spaces, materials, technologies, practices, organizations, rituals, and beyond. But where architecture ultimately lands— and what actually makes it to the end of the trajectory—can never be known fully in advance. Not to mention the multifarious costs and effects—the value—of bringing it down to earth.

Horizons is a collaboration between e-flux Architecture and the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam within the context of its 10th edition, IT’S ABOUT TIME: The Architecture of Change.

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7 essays
In Dubai’s industrial district of Al Quoz is a museum of failed futures. More precisely, it’s a warehouse filled with 3D-printed architectural models.
Faced with climate change and other interconnected existential crises in the twenty-first century, it is quickly becoming a cliché to say that there is a strong need to “imagine better futures.”
Paul Bouet
In February 2016, the solar power station of Ouarzazate was inaugurated in Morocco, on the north-western edges of the Sahara.
Stephanie Wakefield and Glenn Dyer
For the last two years, a battle has gripped the southern rim of Atlanta. Much more than a local conflict or environmental defense activism, the battle for the South River Forest brings to the fore critical questions of urban life in the age of climate change.
Gökçe Günel
In a context of uncertainty about the political, economic, and environmental future of the Arabian Peninsula, marketing and promotional material for NEOM plays a vital role, demonstrating that Saudi Arabia will diversify its economy away from fossil fuels and overcome possible ecological, social, and financial crises with the help of new design solutions, business models, and technological innovations.
“Before” and “after”: no expressions can be more commonplace, yet none, when you come to think about it, can be more perplexing.
Derk Loorbach, Véronique Patteeuw, Léa-Catherine Szacka, Peter Veenstra, and e-flux Architecture
Architecture has long been one of the most powerful means of imagining, visualizing, and constructing futures. Like a projectile, the architectural project is thrown forward, reaching into and determining the conditions of what is to come. But where architecture ultimately lands— and what actually makes it to the end of the trajectory—can never be known fully in advance. Not to mention the multifarious costs and effects—the value—of bringing it down to earth.
Category
Architecture, Urbanism, Utopia
Subject
Extractivism, Futures, Infrastructure

Horizons is a collaboration between e-flux Architecture and the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam.

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