Frank Lloyd Wright’s The Illinois was an ambitious vision for a mile-high skyscraper in Chicago, combining an unconventional structural system with his ideas about how cities could grow vertically. This project was intended to be a fully autonomous vertical city, integrating infrastructure, housing, workspaces, and transportation into a single structure.
In 1921, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe proposed the Friedrichstrasse Skyscraper, a radical glass-and-steel tower that was never built. Its bold geometry and transparent structure went on to influence modern skyscraper design for decades.
The Lens is a competition proposal for Canada’s LGBTQ2+ National Monument, featuring a canted, triangular ring that transforms the pink triangle from a symbol of persecution into a beacon of identity. Positioned as a “concave lens” overlooking the Ottawa River, the project integrates evocative, symbolic architecture with a restorative landscape to create a space for healing, reflection, and celebration of the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community.
MVRDV’s competition entry In Living Colour transforms a former industrial quay in Kaunas into a vibrant, mixed-use neighborhood featuring multi-layered public spaces and color-graded architectural phases. The proposed design balances acoustic street barriers with a sunlit riverfront promenade, incorporating timber-construction showcases to pioneer sustainable urban development in Lithuania.
The competition entry for a memorial proposing a water purification plant on the Bhopal Gas Tragedy site, by GDK Designs is based on transforming toxic land into renewed life, symbolising healing and collective remembrance through purification.
The collection of select unbuilt works by Gautam Bhatia is an exploration by him to propose elastic ideas of architecture that explore different approaches to public and living spaces.
The competition entry design for Bombay High Court by Sanjay Puri Architects integrates provides a reinterpretation of court architecture as a natural, social, and energy-efficient environment.
Pala, Kerala, where the residential house was to be located, has contrasting climates and a high altitude. Because of its
Godavar, in his essay about the unfinished and lost films, focusses on how these incomplete works offer glimpses into unrealised creative visions and possibilities. While digital restoration and AI present new opportunities, he presents the beauty and the ability of unfinished cinema to inspire imagination and alternative storytelling.
Sanjay Prakash, Managing Principal of SHiFt, writes about his unbuilt project that shaped SHiFt’s design philosophy, serving as prototype that informed future work. Decades later, IIT Jodhpur embodied these evolved ideas, highlighting unbuilt designs’ enduring role in architectural innovation.
Rupali Gupte is an architect and urbanist based in Mumbai, Professor at the School of Environment and Architecture (SEA) and a partner at BARDStudio. Her work often crosses disciplinary boundaries and takes different forms – writings, drawings, mixed-media works, story telling, teaching, curation, walks and spatial interventions.
Her works include extensive research on contemporary Indian urbanism with a focus on architecture and built environment; tactical practices; housing; and urban form. In 2013, she co-founded the School of Environment and Architecture (sea.edu.in). SEA is envisaged as an experimental academic space for research and education in architecture and urbanism. She has a wide range of publications, has delivered lectures and been on juries across the world. Her works in collaboration with her partner Prasad Shetty, have been shown in several exhibitions including the 56th Venice Biennale, X Sao Paolo Architecture Biennale, Seoul Biennale of Art and Architecture, at Manifesta 7 in Bolzano, at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona and at galleries such as Project 88, Devi Art Foundation and the Mumbai Art Room. She has recently curated an exhibition involving artists and architects titled ‘When is Space? Conversations in Contemporary Architecture’ at the Jawahar Kala Kendra.
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