Prospective images: GEAM’s projects of a mobile utopia

Abstract

In the 1960s, architectural utopia became a popular topic in the press and architecture schools. Much has been written on utopia’s intermediate position between modern and postmodern architecture. But the utopian images themselves have so far been overlooked. This article focuses on the Groupe d’Études d’Architecture Mobile (GEAM) to specify the role of the utopian image between technological, political, and architectural debates. The analysis demonstrates that the changes in architectural utopia refer less to a transition towards postmodernism, history, and the end of utopia than to a change in image culture. This is when new modelling techniques and the use of new communicative images as photocollage, different types of illustrations, and techniques of simulation enter the field. They all belong to a new class of prospective architectural images that emerged from the fusion of prognosis and design. Originating from postwar planning culture, technological, and scientific innovations, they describe a new relation towards the future that oscillates between prefiguration and openness.