Architecture and Social Dreaming: Three Generations of Attempts to Revolutionize Architecture, from Le Corbusier to Ant Farm and Critical Speculative Design

The following paper analyzes three architectural manifestos from the 20th and early 21st centuries: Le Corbusier’s Towards a New Architecture, Ant Farm Collective’s Inflatocookbook, and the more recent Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby. Our approach to the texts uses a preliminary conceptualization of “capitalist modernities”. The paper argues that capitalist modernities are not a mere aesthetic style or monolithic historical period but a continuously evolving, self-critical sociocultural condition that propels architecture’s evolution and its socially oriented conscience. To maintain its modern character, new architecture engages in political critique, prompting professionals to shift from practical concerns towards more imaginative and speculative applications of architectural knowledge. By tracing this trajectory, the paper emphasizes the persistent struggle within architecture to assert political agency amidst the forces of modernities.