Germany

Discover Trailblazing Thinkers at the Forecast Forum

Achitectural gifts are everywhere: libraries funded by wealthy philanthropists, shelters donated by humanitarian organizations, farms paid for with development grants, mosques financed by Islamic foundations, and stadiums handed over as part of diplomatic charm offensives. Embedded in religious and imperial traditions of gift-giving, architectural gifts shape the urbanization process across the world. Humanitarian, developmentalist, and diplomatic building-gifts have become ubiquitous in rapidly expanding African, Asian, and South American metropolises and their hinterlands. In North American and European cities, philanthrocapitalists invest in cultural, social, and educational facilities passed down by the dwindling welfare state.