Another regime or, a tale of two cities ; Basel Munich 2089

Europe 2089: Unwitnessed by the world, the continent, now a provincial backwater, has developed a unique immaterial way of life. Based on a shift to social consumption, its still capitalist economy has significantly decreased its need for material resources. And buildings and cities, as factories of immaterial labour, have become the main facilitators of this new regime. This book is not only a speculation about our future that, beyond left-right politics, tries to connect themes as diverse as neoliberalism, social media, the prosumer or our ever-present tangible desires. But, by recapturing Europe’s fictional history through the lens of Basel and Munich, it can also be read as a strategy proposal of how to overcome our materialistic dependencies for the coming times of scarcity. And the (golden) possibilities this could hold for architecture and urbanism. Our urban civilisation follows patterns of self-organisation that we are only able to recognize if we take games of thought like this one seriously. Dirk Baecker, Zeppelin University.