The un-built as TOOL FOR CRITICAL THINKING lies within its potential to challenge the way we approach, design and inhabit our (built) world. Through the limitless possibilities offered by the architectural imaginary1 - inherent to the very fact that these realities are not developed to be built but rather to be expressed through a variety of media - critical thinkers directly engage with the real to produce fictional or alternative narratives which ultimately beg us to question “What If”? What if we inhabited our planet differently?
Our world is, indeed, currently threatened by ecological, political, economic and sanitary emergencies. By providing alternatives to how things are, critical and un-built designs have the potential to make a meaningful contribution to real-life problems. In fact, the critical thinker, or businessman of ideas, directly engages with the real, and it is precisely the space between the fiction they produce and the reality that inspired it that collective, critical reflection emerges.2 In short, critical architecture and urban design aim to both disrupt through imagination and to resist passive acceptance of pre-defined frameworks through intellectual engagement.3 Moreover, critical projects are rarely built given the contingencies of the real world, hence they can be designed using a vast range of media. The critical thinker ultimately observes and accurately analyses impelling tangible issues to generate alternative scenarios and frictions; it might be uncomfortable to some and illuminating to others, yet the ambition and necessity is to generate a critical debate that is the seed of change.
Notes
1 K. Michael Hays, ”Architecture's Appearance and The Practices of Imagination”, Log No. 37, The Architectural Imagination (Spring/Summer 2016). 204-213.
2 Sarah Wigglesworth, “Critical practice”. The Journal of Architecture, 10:3 (2005). 335-346, DOI: 10.1080/13602360500162238
3 Idem.
