What is Infraempire?

In places as far-flung as Addis Ababa and Astana, Dakar and Dushanbe, high-speed railways and shiny new city centres promise to boost economies and give a better life, as well as to boost a nation’s position in geopolitical hierarchies. Yet, in large parts of the world it is not one’s own state but rising economic powers with global ambitions such as China and Turkey who fund and build these new futures. These global ‘big brothers’ employ infrastructural largesse to showcase their own generosity and greatness, as well as to drive construction in their own capitals and to create ‘soft power’ empires. We call this infrastructural imperialism, or INFRAEMPIRE.
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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

Projects of the Century: 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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