Architecture as Politics of Future

Architecture is again at the heart of the question of future on various scales: On the one hand, questions of how to control contingency and to reduce the uncertainy of the future, especially how to encounter future disasters and on the other hand, how to animate development, to generate economic future gains as well as political power. This coincides with the increasing demand towards sovereign power to protect populations against disasterous futures, to anticipate future better by advanced scientific predictions, economic calculations, to prepare and to take measures against natural disasters and economic crisis.

Taking architectural measures is not a guaranteed way to ensure the wellbeing and the security of the whole population: Coalitions of the economic elite, professionals and technocrats, decide, in accordance to the so-called laws of the market and by engaging emergency laws, who will live where and how. The distribution of architectural care and vulnerability seem to be uneven and create new forms of speculation. Since architects and planners are one of the many key actors in this process, we need to reflect on our role how we build and dwell together equal and hopeful urban futures.

These questions will be discussed through the case of urban transformation projects in Istanbul, a city with 15 million inhabitants under the shadow of an anticipated earthquake and land speculation; a showplace of neoliberal urban politics and urban movements.