Eu-topías, Ou-topías
We are hosting the main exhibition of this fifth edition of Mugak/ The Basque Country International Architecture Biennial, promoted by the Department of Housing and Urban Agenda of the Basque Government, “Eu-topias, Ou-topias,” which will be open to visitors until February 22.
This is a collective exhibition in which, through pieces representing projects by renowned figures in architecture and the arts, visitors are invited to reflect on the theme of this edition of the biennial, “Castles in the air, or how to build utopia today.”
Throughout the three rooms of the Basque Architecture Institute, representations of proposals created by Constant Nieuwenhuys, Sir Peter Cook, Rem Koolhaas, David Brown, John Porral, Lugadero, Richard Sennet, Txuspo Poyo, Juno Calypso, Aristide Antonas, and Professor Lesley Lokko OBE are on display. All of them show a series of utopian and dystopian projects, but also utopias that imagine possible futures.
First Room: Utopia as Escape
“This is not a documentary exhibition, nor an archive tracing the history of utopias. It is a space for reflecting on the creative power of utopia—its elusive or escapist nature, but also its regenerative and reconstructive potential. It shows the evocative and transformative force of the creative impulse, while warning of the dangers of turning these ideas into reality,” explained María Arana, curator of Mugak/ 2025.
The exhibition unfolds across three spaces. The first, devoted to escapist utopias, opens with New Babylon, the utopian project developed by Dutch artist Constant Nieuwenhuys between 1956 and 1974. More than a real city, it was an artistic and theoretical vision of a society liberated from productive labour through automation, where individuals could devote their lives to play, creativity, and experimentation. Today, the project serves as a critique of the global standardisation of cities, the commodification of leisure, and the obsession with productivity—resonating with contemporary realities such as digital work or crises like climate change and migration.
The acclaimed British architect Sir Peter Cook contributes Plug-in City and Filter City, projects that explore the city as a playful machine where human intervention is free and creative. Plug-in City, conceived in the 1960s, imagined a technological megastructure in which housing units could be freely connected, replaced, or upgraded—combining nomadic and communal lifestyles. Filter City, presented in 2020, revisited that idea of flexibility, adapting it to a contemporary context that integrates vegetation and landscape into architecture, creating permeable, playful, and organic spaces.
Another leading figure featured is Rem Koolhaas, with Exodus and Hyperbuilding. The former, developed in 1972, marked Koolhaas’s international debut: it imagines a walled strip in central London—a “zone of architectural excellence” isolated from the rest of the city. This ironic dystopia critiques the naïve utopianism of the 1960s, exposing architecture’s ambivalent power to shape social life, diversity, and contrast. Hyperbuilding (1996), designed by OMA in collaboration with Yasuda Studio for Bangkok, takes this idea to the extreme: a vertical mega-infrastructure capable of housing up to half a million people. Koolhaas describes it as an “anti-skyscraper”—a structure that integrates housing, work, education, healthcare, commerce, and culture.
Second Room: Regenerative and Decolonial Utopias
Upon entering, visitors are greeted by a set of hanging publications—a selection curated by Arana alongside various publishers and invited authors. These works evoke the literary origins of early utopias and the emergence of utopian literature across centuries.
The room continues with projects functioning as experimental cartographies for possible futures. The first piece, The Available City by architect and urban planner David Brown (former artistic director of the fourth Chicago Architecture Biennial), proposes an urban intervention based on reclaiming the city’s 13,000 vacant lots. Conceived as an interconnected urban system rather than isolated plots, the project invites citizen participation in defining and activating these new spaces.
Next is the African Futures Institute, founded in 2021 by Professor Lesley Lokko in Accra, Ghana. The installation represents a new model for teaching architecture and the built environment. Its mission is to combine physical and digital spaces to place Africa at the centre of a global, inclusive, and diverse dialogue on today’s most urgent challenges. With a mobile presence across the continent, it serves as a platform for imagining African futures centred on decolonisation, social justice, migration, and sustainability—conceiving architecture as a tool for building fairer and regenerative societies.
An adjoining room houses TOP(IA)S. Here, utopia is not an escapist refuge but a field of experimentation connecting aesthetic speculation with the social and environmental urgencies of our time. Two complementary projects engage in dialogue: The Bedroom Script by Madrid-based architect and programmer John Porral explores how AI can construct intimate spatial scripts, transforming the bedroom into a mutable stage responsive to emotions and interactions. The second, We Make Cities by the transdisciplinary Seville-based practice Lugadero, presents an installation of future imaginaries for the three Basque capitals—resulting from collaborative workshops with the San Sebastián School of Architecture, the IDarte Higher School of Art and Design in Vitoria-Gasteiz, and IED Kunsthal in Bilbao. The project also includes a video interview with sociologist Richard Sennett, recorded specifically for this Biennial.
Third Room: A Cloister of Dystopias
The upper cloister of the Basque Institute of Architecture hosts the final works, in a section titled “Dystopia in the Age of Hostility.” These projects illustrate how the architectural and political utopias of the 20th century have evolved into landscapes tinged with dystopia.
The first is U.N(INVERSE) by Navarrese artist Txuspo Poyo, exploring the relationship between modern architecture, cinema, and political power, taking as its starting point the United Nations headquarters in New York. The piece poetically questions ideals of universal fraternity and institutional transparency, exposing the tensions and fragilities of that imaginary without resorting to literal representation. It includes a 19-minute 3D animation in which architectural images are recombined and displaced.
London-based photographer and visual artist Juno Calypso contributes What to Do with a Million Years, a photographic project set in a luxury underground home. Built in the 1960s on the outskirts of Las Vegas by the founder of Avon Cosmetics as a shelter from possible nuclear war, the 1,500 m² house lies eight metres below ground and includes systems simulating daylight cycles, as well as lavish interiors with pools, jacuzzis, hand-painted murals, and gold-and-crystal décor. The founder lived there with his wife until the 1980s, and it has remained untouched since. The work consists of self-portraits of the artist throughout the residence—a visual journey through a beautiful refuge that engages with dystopian imagery and the defensive architecture of the Cold War, when nuclear fear fuelled hidden, self-sufficient structures.
Finally, hanging from the cloister’s ceiling are the Inverted Tents of Greek architect Aristide Antonas—an experiment rethinking how to inhabit cities in crisis. These suspended tents occupy abandoned buildings, freeing the ground for collective activities such as debates, games, or community gatherings. Inspired by the Nakagin Capsule Tower, these units do not seek individual autonomy but rather promote coexistence and the reuse of existing infrastructure.
A full press dossier for the exhibition can be found at the link provided here.
