The Past in the Light of the Future – A Case Study in Speculative Architecture

In 2019 a new museum opened in Berlin. The Futurium is a museum of the future or, more accurately, a museum that showcases mostly scientific and technological ways of preparing for, mastering, or shaping the future. One might expect that such a museum acknowledges with the benefit of hindsight the visions of the future that were developed in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. This is not included, however. Envisioning the future comes with the risk of these visions sooner or later becoming an object of the past. And so, the creators of the Futurium are already laying the foundation of a Preterium – and they know, of course, that this is what they are doing. In a fittingly speculative manner, the following text consists mostly of an envisioned speech at the future opening of the Preterium in 2100, reflecting on the complicated loops that connect future, present, and past. Intratextually, the speaker of the Preterium opening invites reflection on this temporal interconnectivity. Speaking intertextually, the text encourages consideration of the differences in the reception of scientific versus literal futures.