Speculative City, Crisis, Uncertainty and Projections in Architecture

This seminar outlines changes in the discourse and practice of architecture responding to crisis and uncertainty as an opportunity for new potentials, exploring social, political, and economic contexts and their influences on visionary architecture and urbanism. The course studies the current practices of the architecture of crisis and disruption as well as the historical significance of previous post-traumatic yet productive periods from the post-war periods in the U.S., the nadir in New York in the late 70s, and other seminal moments that projected and shaped the modern environment. Examining a selection of initiatives and their geographies, the course also investigates architecture in the current context of shifting demographics and social conventions, privatized collectivity, rising migrant populations, and heightened ecological and environmental concerns.