A new architecture of fascism
Aesthetics of nature and purity in generative design
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22434840 |
|---|---|
| Authors | M Tvorun-Dunn (0000-0001-8092-5393, Tokyo International University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Publication date | 2026-07-14 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Environment and Planning E Nature and Space (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2514-8486 • E-ISSN: 2514-8494 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/25148486261468015 |
| OpenAlex | W7168258483 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 34 |
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.
Essentialism · Generative grammar · Metaphor · Natural (archaeology) · Politics · Reactionary · Rhetoric · Scholarship · Architecture · Architecture and Computational Design · Architecture, Modernity, and Design · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society
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Modern Architecture, Empire, and Race in Fascist Italy
Planetary Improvement
Heritage and the ‘Heartland’
The Architecture of Neoliberalism
The New Imperialism
Building the Visible Immortality of the Nation
What’s Happened to the People?” Gentrification and Racial Segregation in Brooklyn
Capitalism with a Transhuman Face
Destructive creation
City planning, urban imaginary, and the branded space
Neoliberalism's Imagined Futures
Nekronology
No Future
Montage space
Imagined Futures
Eco-fascism or the everyday churn of late capitalism
Collection introduction
Ecological infrastructure in a critical-historical perspective
Defining Ecofascism
Kitsch as a Repetitive System
The Alt-Right
Software, Sovereignty and the Post-Neoliberal Politics of Exit
Reactionary modernism
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |