World As an Architectural Project

"The world's growing vulnerability to large scale risks is prompting action at the global scale. This book proposes that architects have played an under recognized but important role in imagining the future of the planet through world-scale projects, while examining the institutional and political scenarios that would make this possible. In so doing, they've reflected on the planetary repercussions wrought of diverse political, social, technological and environmental currents. Rather than indulging in the cliché of the megalomaniac architect, this book aims to presents a discipline reflecting on its own responsibilities, in which geographic and holistic considerations inform ethical and aesthetical positions. From Le Corbusier to Buckminster Fuller from Zaha Hadid to Super Studio and Design Earth, it provides a historical reference of 50 speculative projects from 1882 to the present. The book is the first compilation of its kind, as well as a critical reflection on the world as an architectural project. Curiously, architects have undertaken the world as a project before the advent of contemporary globalization and its associated risks. Their 'ecumenal' aspirations date back to the 19th century. While these visions may not resemble what globalization has produced in terms of physical environment, some tend to be anticipatorily critical of the inequalities it would eventually generate, and of the morass that urbanization would bring about. Some others caution against mistaking imagining the world as a totality for controlling it as such, while they stress the need for an architectural vocabulary to make it legible. The book shows how the world has been a rich domain for the modern architectural imaginary. It is also an invitation to reclaim the scale and challenges of the world, the whole world, as a vital architectural project"--