Event
GHD Ubbo Emmius Conference
Location
University of Groningen
Date
3.10.2025.
Jana Čulek was invited to give a keynote lecture as part of the GHD Ubbo Emmius Conference “When Dreams Decay: Utopia and Dystopia through Architecture”. at the University of Groningen. The lecture, titled “What About Utopia?” gave an introduction into utopia as a critical method – a simultaneous way of reflecting on the world we live in and an approach to spatial, research, and educational practice.
Lecture Synopsis
The lecture introduced utopia not only as an imagined destination but as a critical method—a way of thinking, questioning, and projecting beyond the constraints of the present. Beginning with definitions drawn from philosophy, literature, and architecture, it outlined how utopia can be rethought as a methodological tool rather than a fixed outcome, linking these ideas with case studies explored during Jana’s doctoral research.
With this framework in place, the lecture traced some of the major themes with which utopian thinking has engaged over the past century—questions of technology, housing, governance, and production—while considering how these concerns might be expanded or reframed in relation to today’s challenges.
The lecture also reflected on the practical application of utopian approaches in both spatial practice and education through sharing examples from Jana’s own work, including the most recent contribution to the Venice Architecture Biennale, showing how utopian methods can inform design processes, research and interventions. The lecture also introduce the Edutopia project, which seeks to translate utopian methodologies into pedagogical tools for spatial students, with the aim of cultivating more holistic, transversal, and critically imaginative approaches to the built environment.
By repositioning utopia as a generative method rather than a static blueprint, the lecture aims to invite participants to see it as a resource for both rethinking past trajectories and shaping new futures.
About the Event
“On the 3rd of October 2025, the Conference Committee of GHD Ubbo Emmius will be hosting our annual day-long historical conference. This year, the conference is titled “When Dreams Decay: Utopia and Dystopia through Architecture.” It will explore the connection between ideology, the lived space around us and how those themes function and converge in service or disservice of humanity. Architecture is an ever-present part of our lived experience, after all. Throughout history, it has both formed and been formed by socio-political environments and cultural norms. During this conference, these expressions of identity throughout history will be explored and celebrated. The aim of this theme is to find a connection between the significance of the architecture of the past and the expectations of the architecture of the future. What shaped the built environment of the past and what underlying principles will shape the built environment of the future? How can examples of dystopian or utopian architecture aid us in understanding the history in which they were built? Architecture has been a pillar of importance to the construction and maintenance of national identities, and has been a gateway to the spatial expression of social- and individual agency.”