This Masters of Architecture Theory Seminar, Oppressed Fantasies, Liberatory Constructions, was held at TU-Darmstadt, Architekturtheorie und -wissenschaft. The students investigated the potential for architecture and artworks to comment, critique and enact alternative worlds. To what extent can architecture support struggles for emancipation and human rights? We discussed architects, writers, activists, and mythical characters such as Eileen Gray, Lebbeus Woods, Phyllis Birkby, Ursula K. Le Guin, Henri Lefebvre, Audre Lorde, Rosa Luxemburg, and Pandora.

Students participated in a collaborative world-building project that tied critical thinking and literary development into architectural drawings. The course was organised as a series of full day workshops, in which there was time for collective study and production. The exercises, experiments and collective methods for textural and visual material served as tools for a praxis that integrates theory and technical expertise in architecture.

A selection of student responses to the writing of the ‘protagonists’, whose writings make up this collection, is attached to this collection.