Concrete Dreams

The Farrell Centre presents Concrete Dreams—an eight-month project comprising exhibition, installations, events and an education programme exploring how Newcastle was transformed in the 1960s and 1970s and how we might reimagine the city of today.

From the celebrated architecture of the Newcastle Civic Centre and vast infrastructure projects like the Central Motorway, to the everyday world of new schools, libraries, civic amenities and housing—the urban transformations of the 1960s and 1970s have left an indelible, if much contested mark on Newcastle and the rest of Tyneside.

Concrete Dreams explores the ideals and aspirations that drove these transformations and the ways they continue to shape how we use and understand the city of today. Underpinning the project is the question of how, amid the many challenges facing us today, we might build upon their legacies and remake Tyneside—and the world—once again.

Brasília of the North
September 19, 2024–June 1, 2025

During the 1960s, policymakers, planners and architects imagined Newcastle being transformed into the “Brasília of the North”—a shining north European equivalent to the futuristic new Brazilian capital city then emerging from the Cerrado savanna.

This evolving exhibition explores the ideas, personalities and broader social, cultural and political climate that shaped these aspirations. It brings together a range of objects, drawings, documents and images relating to the city’s 1960s and 1970s transformations, including the 6m-long city model dating originally from 1963 and the original model for Gateshead’s Trinity Square Carpark.

Alison’s Room: An Extended Reality Archive by Paula Strunden
September 19–December 20, 2024

Artist and researcher, Paula Strunden, presents an immersive reality experience of the re-created work room of the architect, Alison Smithson (1928–93). Along with her husband Peter, Alison became a key figure in post-war British architecture, after both studied at Newcastle in the 1940s. The installation combines the spatial experience of a number of influential designs by Alison with objects, furniture and a talking cat, reflecting Strunden’s research into the possibilities of combining immersive experiences with history-based design knowledge.

The installation was first presented at the Nieuwe Instituut in November 2022, as one of the prototypes for a Virtual CIAM Museum, a collective archive-based project of Het Nieuwe Instituut, the Jaap Bakema Study Centre, and TU Delft initiated by Dirk van den Heuvel.

This Was The Future
A series of events with expert speakers tackling the big questions and key issues around Tyneside’s 1960s and 1970s transformations. 

Newcastle Dreaming: September 26, 2024
Exploring the modernist city as a site for imagining and enacting radical futures.

T. Dan Smith—Hero or Villain?: October 24, 2024
Examining the motivations and legacies of the still controversial local politician.

Vertical Cities: November 7, 2024
Skywalks, megastructures, towers and tunnels—reimagining the city vertically.

Concretopias—schools project
As part of Concrete Dreams, the Farrell Centre is working with three local schools to explore in detail three significant architectural sites from the 1960s and 1970s: Trinity Square in Gateshead, Felling Swimming Baths and the Byker Estate.

Students will work with geographer Dr Michael Jefferies, artist Tim Shaw, oral-historian Silvie Fisch and the theatre group Cap-a-Pie to explore the roles of these architectural projects in shaping their local areas, creating maps, drawings and recording oral histories.

Material Change—Masters Studio
Concrete Dreams provides a thematic backdrop to teaching taking place across the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape at Newcastle University. Directly inspired by the project is Material Change—an MArch studio led by Dan Burn and Graham Farmer—which will focus on the central and eastern fringes of Newcastle city centre as the starting point for exploring how to learn from old ideas in applying new themes and materials to reimagine spaces for today.

Further elements of the Concrete Dreams project will be unveiled over the next eight months.

Concrete Dreams has been conceived and curated by the Farrell Centre curatorial team: Lorna Burn (Assistant Curator, Public), Hannah Christy (Assistant Curator, Participation) and Owen Hopkins (Farrell Centre Director). The visual identity and exhibition design is by Spreeeng (Carlos Romo-Melgar and John Philip Sage).