‘I don’t agree with the idea of paradise, ‘Sir Peter Cook as soon as informed me. Coming from the co-founder of Archigram, the 1960s avant-garde cumulative that practically defined the architectural fictional, these words took me by surprise. But Cook, ever the pragmatist among dreamers, clarified: ‘It’s usual to state there is the utopian world, and then there is the real world. But I don’t believe there is a dividing line.’
This belief reminded me of an Oscar Wilde observation:
‘A map of the world that does not include Paradise is unworthy even glancing at, for it neglects the one country at which Humanity is constantly landing. And when Humanity lands there, it keeps an eye out, and, seeing a better nation, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias.’
What Wilde understood, and what Cook was likewise recommending, is that paradise is not a location that exists somewhere beyond truth. It is a method of thinking about the present. A tool for dismantling what currently exists to make room for what might be. As Frederic R. White described in his intro to Famous Utopias, progress is born from humanity’s ‘everlasting discontentment with things as they are and the eternal desire to make them better.’That impulse, part review, part radical imagination, lies at the heart of utopian thought. It was also the most important takeaway from my discussion with Cook. Utopia might be dismissed as unreachable, however the desire to imagine what lies beyond accepted limitations can end up being a powerful directing force. Pursued with adequate conviction, those ideas can, eventually, improve reality.In numerous methods
, this is also the story of designboom.
When designboom was established in 1999, it was a bet on the early, utopian perfect of the Web. The world’s very first online magazine was launched under the facility of a horizontal distribution of culture, connecting creatives across borders at a time when exposure was a protected benefit. Long before social networks or international digital networks became commonplace, designboom offered a platform where designers, artists, and designers from all over the world might share ideas with unprecedented openness.For years it helped
form the digital cultural landscape as we understand it today. A place where understanding, experimentation, and visionary thinking were freely available to anybody with an internet connection. A place where a moonshot idea from an unidentified trainee brought the same weight as a masterwork from Milan. Optimistic in spirit and deeply human in its method, designboom cultivated a worldwide creative neighborhood that extended far beyond the conventional circles of professional recognition.
Twenty-seven years later, that landscape looks really different.The media environment
that designboom helped leader has become saturated with platforms contending for attention. Material travels instantly, frequently detached from its source. Social network benefits speed and virality over reflection. Algorithms feed on polarization, and Artificial Intelligence produces a ruthless tide of content that often blurs the line between authentic creativity and simple noise.< img src= "image/gif; base64, R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP/// yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7"alt="utopia, applied, or, why we need to change to stay the same-2 "width= "818"height= "967" data-src="https://static.designboom.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/designboom-editors-letter-utopia-applied-then-and-now-2.jpg"/ >
‘I need to change to stay the exact same’ neon indication on the WdKA facade in Rotterdam
During
my
years in Rotterdam, a neon sign outside my school read: ‘I need to alter to remain the exact same.’ This quote by Willem de Kooning has stuck with me ever since, and today becomes the driving force to transform our technique. In order for the objective on which designboom was built to remain important, we must evolve.As we recalibrate, designboom returns to the location where it has actually always felt most at home: the intersection of creativity and development. We believe imagination remains among the most powerful forces for change, and that style, when directed by interest, experimentation and care, has the capacity to form the world in tangible methods. It is these positive narratives we want to highlight now more than ever, assisted by styles and concerns on style’s inherent utopian nature and the options we can develop together to outperform the darkness. For this first chapter of our brand-new journey, Paradise, Then and Now
,
we ask: What if Utopia was never a destination, but a method?After all, the word
itself stems from the Greek ou topos, suggesting’no place’.
So rather, we are analyzing Paradise’s function in the past, present and future, as a way of imagining a much better way of being: with ourselves, with each other, and with the non-human entities that share our world. We are trying to find an ideal truth that is within reach: an eutopia, or rather, an Utopia, Applied.In the true spirit of designboom, this journey is not a monologue, it is a collective endeavor. I welcome you to join us in this next chapter. Reach out, contribute your tasks, thoughts and concepts, and help us shape a future worth thinking in.