Towards Another Architecture: New Visions for the 21st Century

Published 100 years ago, Le Corbusier's Vers une Architecture was conceived as a way of making sense architecturally of a moment of profound social and technological change. Today, we live at another pivotal moment for architecture and for the wider world. The climate emergency alone requires us to rethink everything we have previously taken for granted about how we conceive and construct buildings. One of the great ironies of Le Corbusier's messianic vision is that the very thing he so celebrated - unbridled industry - has led us to the climate emergency. Yet, moments of crisis and transformation are also opportunities for overturning conventions, facing uncomfortable truths and forcing disciplinary and societal 'reset'.

What we need is not a new architecture, as Le Corbusier was popularly mistranslated as advocating, but another one: an architecture that is not bound to a single vision or future, but is diverse, pluralist and sustains multiple conversations about the active role that architects might play in the world.

Towards Another Architecture brings together contributions from practitioners and thinkers working in a range of fields and geographies to advocate their vision(s) for another architecture. Bold and original, optimistic without being na?ve, it offers a space for multiple and sometimes conflicting or competing viewpoints, but which collectively point to the urgency of the situation and the ingenuity of architects in responding to it.

Owen Hopkins is an architectural writer, historian and curator. He is director of the Farrell Centre - a centre for architecture and cities in Newcastle, UK and was previously senior curator at Sir John Soane's Museum and architecture programme curator at the Royal Academy of Arts.

The Farrell Centre is public centre for architecture and cities based at Newcastle University. It opened in April 2023 with the mission to engage and involve the public with the forces driving urban change to help bring about a built environment that is more inclusive, sustainable and democratic.