Chimera: The Architecture of Contemporary Utopias

A symposium celebrating the launch of AD Vol 96.2 issue co-edited by Elena Manferdini and Damjan Jovanovic.

Are utopias still necessary—and if so, for whom? Fifty years ago, architects imagined worlds to come. Today, many have ceded the future to market logic, treating global capitalism as inevitable and reality as fixed. In this climate—where techno-optimism competes with ecological despair—it seems easier to picture the end of everything than the transformation of anything. The system endures because it convinces us that change itself is impossible. This issue of Architectural Design Magazine (AD) intervenes precisely there. It argues that when collective imagination falters, the utopian impulse returns—not as a blueprint for perfection, but as a means of reopening what can still be conceived and made. As planetary computation, climate instability, and synthetic cognition converge, utopia becomes a tool for speculative world-building: a way to design new systems, meanings, and realities. 

 Contributors navigate this shifting terrain—from those who embrace technological acceleration as an instrument of renewal to others who call for a metaphysical architecture that resists exhausted capitalist logics.Across these positions, utopia emerges as an operative framework for projecting alternative futures. Here, architecture’s task is not merely to shape space, but to construct worlds capacious enough to hold complexity—and to sustain coexistence amidst crisis.

Schedule:

March 26, 2026, 6pm-7pm (off-site)

Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles 1023 Hilgard Ave Los Angeles, CA 90024 6:05pm: Welcome by Emanuele Amendola (IIC LA Director) 6:10pm: Introduction by Elena Manferdini 6:15pm: Carlo Ratti (MIT, PoliMI) 6:55pm: Q&A 7:00pm: Reception

March 27, 2026, 5pm-7pm

SCI-Arc W.M. Keck Lecture Hall 960 East 3rd Street Los Angeles, CA 90013 5:05pm: Welcome by Winka Dubbeldam 5:10pm: Introduction by Elena Manferdini and Damjan Jovanovic 5:30pm: Panel Discussion 1 Moderator: Damjan Jovanovic Panelists: Adil Bokhari (ETH); Jennifer Chen (SCI-Arc), Graham Harman (SCI-Arc) + Jack Oliva-Rendler (B.Arch ’17), Robert Cha (B.Arch ’09) 6:20pm: Panel Discussion 2 Moderator: Elena Manferdini Panelists: Liam Young (SCI-Arc), John Cooper (SCI-Arc) and Krish Dittmer (M.Arch ’25), Andrew Witt (WashU), Carlo Ratti (MIT, PoliMI) 7:00pm: Reception