In his new book The Earth That Modernism Built: Empire and the Rise of Planetary Design (University of Texas Press, 2024), Kenny Cupers shows how architectural modernism has been concerned with human impact on the planet all along—but in troublesome ways and with often brutal consequences. Aligning the emergence of ‘designs on the planet’ with imperialist discourse, the bookmakes environmental thinking in architecture and design accountable to enduring structures of global inequality and ecological crisis.

Image: Ceiling fresco detail at Duwisib Castle. Photo by Kenny Cupers, 2014.