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Idea by

Ian Erickson

ian erickson

http://ianerickson.space

516 Dolores Place, San Francisco, United States of America
Ian Erickson is currently an assistant curator of Architecture as Measure, the Turkish Pavilion at the 2020 Venice Biennale of Architecture. He has previously collaborated with NEMESTUDIO and The Open Workshop and his writing has been published in Yale’s Paprika, Cambridges’ Scroope, and Vestoj: The Platform for Critical Thinking on Fashion, among others. He has presented his research internationally in Sweden and the United States at symposia organized by UCLA, and the Bartlett UCL.

Call for ideas 2020

Modeling Utopia


The Other World Kingdom

Modeling Utopia


The Other World Kingdom
An essay exploring the future of utopian projects in Europe through the study of a femdom micronation.
File under
Type of project
  • Site-specific cases

Through an investigation of the social, psychological, and architectural spaces of the Other World Kingdom (OWK)—a femdom micronation occupying a renovated 16th century castle in the rural Czech Republic (1998-2006, 2018-present)—this paper will explore the future of utopian projects based around alternative socio-spatial practices in Europe. As a simultaneously digital and physical environment—both an immersive website and a castle complex—the techno-spatiality of the OWK prefigures and dramatizes our increasing digital mediation. As a self-described female utopia the OWK is ruled as an “absolute matriarchy” according to ritualistic BDSM principles. Alongside an explication and investigation of these tenants and their spatial effects, the paper will pay attention to the mechanisms which were used to actualize and legitimize the OWK—legal, economic, and otherwise—relating the project to other micronations and utopian experiments since Thomas More looking forward to the future.


Modeling Utopia


The Other World Kingdom

Modeling Utopia


The Other World Kingdom
An essay exploring the future of utopian projects in Europe through the study of a femdom micronation.
File under
Type of project
  • Site-specific cases

Through an investigation of the social, psychological, and architectural spaces of the Other World Kingdom (OWK)—a femdom micronation occupying a renovated 16th century castle in the rural Czech Republic (1998-2006, 2018-present)—this paper will explore the future of utopian projects based around alternative socio-spatial practices in Europe. As a simultaneously digital and physical environment—both an immersive website and a castle complex—the techno-spatiality of the OWK prefigures and dramatizes our increasing digital mediation. As a self-described female utopia the OWK is ruled as an “absolute matriarchy” according to ritualistic BDSM principles. Alongside an explication and investigation of these tenants and their spatial effects, the paper will pay attention to the mechanisms which were used to actualize and legitimize the OWK—legal, economic, and otherwise—relating the project to other micronations and utopian experiments since Thomas More looking forward to the future.



Idea by

Ian Erickson
ian erickson
516 Dolores Place
San Francisco
United States of America
Ian Erickson is currently an assistant curator of Architecture as Measure, the Turkish Pavilion at the 2020 Venice Biennale of Architecture. He has previously collaborated with NEMESTUDIO and The Open Workshop and his writing has been published in Yale’s Paprika, Cambridges’ Scroope, and Vestoj: The Platform for Critical Thinking on Fashion, among others. He has presented his research internationally in Sweden and the United States at symposia organized by UCLA, and the Bartlett UCL.