thereof. Folio thus sets out not only to meet an important need as a peer-reviewed journal of architecture with a particular emphasis on design research, but does so at an important intersection of theory, practice, and pedagogy. This is a unique and uniquely adventurous proposition, and I will be watching with keen interest to see how it asserts its place in Johannesburg, on the continent, and in the world at large. As Robert Hughes famously reminded us, ‘nothing dates faster than people’s fantasies about the future’, and never more so in this hyper-connected world in which we
live. Folio nonetheless declares an optimistic stake in the future of Africa and African scholarship, urging us to rise to the challenge of engaging the multiple notions of identity and ability to dynamically construct ourselves that our hyper-connected world enables. Speculative architecture and design are, after all, by their very nature in the game of imagining new communities: they challenge us always to find the next horizon, never to accept easy answers, and to find dynamic ways of shaping the kind of world we want to live in and want to leave behind.
DEAN'S ADDRESS FOLIO 11