A new architecture of fascism: Aesthetics of nature and purity in generative design

Abstract

Architectural scholarship has long examined how historical space has been used by fascists to evince claims of nativist essentialism. This paper observes new spatial relations within the rise of fascist politics in recent years, not derived from imagined architectural histories but from images of high-tech futurity. This work observes that imagined future spaces of current fascist movements have featured algorithmically generated organic white shapes and vertical greenery—and asks why these projects would adopt iconography that is typically associated with sustainability. Examining contemporary projects of ecological urbanism, I discuss how the aesthetics of generative architecture are often paired with reactionary rhetoric of a return to a hygienically pure natural order which has been corrupted by modernity, with digital algorithms envisioned as a form of connection to an essentialist vitalism. Discussing the regular adoption of self-consciously “futuristic” imagery derived from popular culture, this work argues that these forms of contemporary sustainable design offer an aestheticization of politics, normalizing the unequal social relations produced by neoliberal capitalism, and allowing an easy adoption by fascist movements.

Keywords

Generative architecture sustainability ecofascism AI images kitsch

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