Infrastructural Imperialism

A bridge spanning the sea between Hong Kong and Macau. A city of marble highrises at the edge of the Karakum Desert. A canal linking the Marmara and Black seas. These are all megaprojects, infrastructures whose size and scope are an intrinsic part of their meaning and justification. They are fantastic, futuristic, or mind-bending projects, ones that promise to boost economies and to satisfy a political desire for world recognition. Yet in large parts of the world, such spectacular projects are being built not by one’s own state but by other states, what the INFRAEMPIRE project calls global ‘big brothers.’ These are ambitious powers who use infrastructural largesse to showcase their own generosity and greatness. Today, rising economic powers with global ambitions such as China and Turkey rely on building other states’ infrastructure to drive reconstruction in their own capitals and to create ‘soft power’ empires.

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Workshop – Istanbul, 25-27 June, 2026

“Projects of the Century”: Empire, Epochs, and Infrastructure

In recent years, representatives of the Turkish government have used the epithet “project of the century” to refer to numerous megaprojects, from an undersea pipeline delivering fresh water to north Cyprus to the renewal of water and sewage pipelines in Yozgat or the mass building of housing in the aftermath of the 2023 earthquake—the latter labeled “the construction of the century.” The Turkish government, however, is not the first or only to use this label. In the 1970’s, it was the label given to a Soviet nuclear reactor project developed in Cuba. In the Philippines, the government has used the phrase for Manila’s new subway project. And perhaps most significantly today, it is also the moniker that Chinese President Xi Jinping has given to that country’s globe-spanning Belt and Road Initiative.

This workshop asks what this epochal temporality, which gestures to the past while pointing towards the future, tells us about the relationship between infrastructures and empire.

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Public Keynote – Istanbul, 25 June 2026

Building histories, engineering futures

by Prof. Tim Winter

Projects of the century are about delivering futures. In this talk, we also learn of the way grand ambition calls upon histories of grandeur. Through the experiences of Turkey, Greece, and Egypt, we see how futures are engineered as a revival of civilisational glory. From Cold War dams, to belts, roads, and blockades, the talk reveals the fascinating way Projects of the Century are also engines of history, remaking and reconstructing the past to fit the geopolitical present.

 

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