Histories of the future

It can be argued that, in the prewar period, the Master Architect’s main feature was his (or her) ability to anticipate and to build the future. World War II brought great changes to the global geo-political and socioeconomic framework. Architects – the old and new masters as well as an army of lesser-known professionals – found themselves facing a world that had altered both the concept and the structure of the future. The prewar futures envisioned at conventions, exhibitions and fairs, or simply imagined in projects and books, were tested by postwar circumstances, while magazines and journals adapted to a different set of professional needs. Several prewar visions did actually become futures, but many did not. Some were adapted, some have been forgotten and some have been put to one side. As a result of all these transformations, even the prewar Master Architect has been, to some extent, revised. This issue is dedicated to histories of the future that have survived the prewar period in which they were conceived and found their place, conceptually and/or physically, in the postwar era.