Archinect - News

Whatever happened to Liberland?

2019-08-22T18:38:00-04:00

Liberland’s earthly domain is a constellation of locations and events that gravitate around the unoccupied Gornja Siga. These props, in various stages of construction, share a fundamental quality of ephemerality and mobility, as if recalling their origins as a dream spawned on the internet.

The self-declared libertarian micronation of Liberland has vanished somewhat from the media's spotlight since its founder and current President, Vít Jedlička, planted the utopia's state flag on Gornja Siga, an unoccupied Danube island between Serbia and Croatia, in 2015. Liberland instantly found an early and vocal supporter in Patrik Schumacher, director of Zaha Hadid Architects and outspoken evangelist for free market capitalism, but what has really been happening since then?

Hans Larsson's recent Volume piece brings us up to speed and talks about the Schumacher-juried Liberland master plan design competition, decentralized autonomous blockchain governance, and neo-metabolist-inspired off-grid floating settlements.

"When seen from the right angle, the elements coalesce into an image of a new country being born," Larsson writes. "Shift your position slightly and you see a banal hoax. But if enough people buy into it, does this even matter?"

Could this be the political/architectural diagram we have been waiting for?

2019-03-27T13:56:00-04:00

Can the relationship between architecture and politics ever be summarized by a well-organized diagram? San Francisco based writer Julia Galef recently offered a proposal on Twitter for distinguishing the four main political groups by their architectural preferences in a familiar format in the social media universe.

It recalls the drawings made by architect Leon Krier, who often preferred images over lengthy texts as a means of communicating architectural styles against their political intentions.

Patrik Schumacher calls for a 'capitalist revolution' to fix housing

2018-05-15T15:06:00-04:00

Housing is one of our most essential and cherished commodities. It is rightly one of our biggest markets, but unfortunately one of the most politicised, suffocating under quasi-socialist political interventionism. The loss of prosperity in our whole society is enormous. Not only because of poor housing provision, but because of its stifling impact on all economic activities. That’s why the need for a capitalist revolution is so urgent.

It's been a bit quiet around Zaha Hadid Architects principal and outspoken free-market evangelist Patrik Schumacher since his last big public statement calling for the elimination of social housing caused an overwhelming backlash, but now he's back with a new commentary piece on how to fix housing via privatization and deregulation, published in The Guardian.

What's new with the promise of the floating city?

2018-05-01T16:13:00-04:00

A plan to build a platform in a tropical lagoon caught heat from locals, and a campaign stoked by opposition politician Valentina Cross swept away their proposals for an inaugural colony. In February, the Tahitian government stated publicly that an agreement with the Seasteading Institute in 2017 was now outdated and non-binding. [...] That leaves the Institute, and their movement, once again at sea, shopping for a new host nation willing to take on a partnership.

In her article for CityLab, writer Hettie O'Brien looks into the Seasteading Institute's promise of a libertarian offshore utopia in Polynesia and the challenges the movement has been facing recently.

Introducing Liberland, an aspirational libertarian micro-nation along the Danube

2015-08-12T13:58:00-04:00

Gornja Siga has come, over the last few months, to assume an outsize role in the imagination of many — not only in Europe, but also in the Middle East and in the United States...What novel society might be accomplished in a place like this, with no national claim or tenant? Such were the thoughts that had for some time inflamed the spirit of Vit Jedlicka, a 31-year-old Czech politician who traveled to the land earlier this year and, in broad daylight, planted a new flag in its unstable soil.

The New York Times has posted a riveting portrait of the ongoing movement to establish a libertarian micro state in the borderlands of Serbia and Croatia. While unmentioned in the article, there's already fascinating connections between the potential state and the world of architecture.

Last month, the self-described libertarian and Director of Zaha Hadid Architects, Patrik Schumacher posted on Facebook, "LIVE AND LET LIVE IN LIBERLAND !!! Lets support Vit Jedlicka's effort to establish the first libertarian country in Europe."

Schumacher visited Jedlicka at the "Czech embassy of Liberland" – aka his apartment in Prague – to talk about "entrepreneurship, markets, free money and about the possibility of a free market urban and architectural order."

In the posting, Schumacher admits he is "itching to get involved" in the project. Schumacher is a well-known proponent of free market principles, often discussing libertarianism in conjunction with his own theories regarding architecture's au...