'Planning for Utopia'. Provoking the Architectural Imaginary in the Contemporary Urban Context

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This article reflects upon a collaborative project called Planning for Utopia, involvingRobin Wilson, a writer and curator of art and architecture, and the artist and architect Sophie Warren and Jonathan Mosley. The project was co-supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the University of the West of England. Our aim was to explore the role of the utopian imagination in the built environment professions of architecture and urban planning through means of a direct strategy of provocation. In January 2007 we began to devise a utopian scheme for a central London site in images, models and text. This was eventually conceived as a 'Vertical Common' and raised questions in comparison to expected development schemes for the site regarding conservation, ownership and prescription of use. This we intended to submit for planning consent and expert consultation. On the basis of this series of 'interviews' we would record and analyse the response from the various professionals and professional bodies, evaluating the terms by which they interpret, endorse or reject the ideas we put forward. We thus sought to bring a product of the utopian imagination into a strategic process of intervention and negotiation, in order to establish a critical dialogue with institutions.