Roads

Film still from Home (2008) directed by Ursula Meier

Earlier this year, news broke that levels of fine particulate matter in Paris had dropped by an astounding 55 per cent since 2005. Through a combination of regulation and public policy, the city has vastly reduced the number of cars on its streets, introducing bike lanes and public green spaces in the place of around 50,000 parking spaces.

This issue is dedicated to roads and the architectures that support them. Cities around the world are reckoning with 20th-century car-oriented urban planning, as epitomised by Robert Moses’s New York (p36). Existing roads are increasingly repurposed for broader uses, prioritising pedestrians, cyclists and other forms of movement. São Paulo’s Minhocão has been gradually reclaimed by residents, and the restoration of a historical promenade in Reus is inclusive for all. Meanwhile, OMA’s new bridge in Bordeaux is designed to host public events – as well as six lanes of motorised traffic.

Elsewhere, automobile infrastructure continues to expand; in Bahrain, four new car parks stand largely empty, and a roadside service station in Colombia is yet to be occupied. Roads promise prosperity and progress, often with expansionist ambitions; as Nadi Abusaada writes, ‘The road is both the myth and mechanism of the colonial frontier’.

Electric vehicles are now heralded as the future of transport, but as Nelo Magalhães writes in this issue’s keynote, ‘EVs do nothing to change the mass of roads or the issue of their maintenance’. The shift needed is more radical and wide‑reaching.

1522: Roads

Cover image of the Architectural Review June issue on roads, on a coloured background. The cover is a photograph of a wide freeway in Los Angeles cutting through the city's suburbs

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cover (above)
Photographer Edward Burtynsky’s Highway #5, Los Angeles, California, USA (2009) is part of Edward Burtynsky: The Great Acceleration, an exhibition on view at the International Center of Photography in New York City until 28 September. In it, a motorway bulldozes its way through suburbia, sending out smaller branches that further subdivide it. Credit: © Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Flowers Gallery, London

folio (lead image)
Ursula Meier’s 2008 film Home follows a family living in a house next to an uncompleted motorway, who reclaim it, temporarily, as an extension of their home. Credit: Album / Alamy

keynote
How much does your road weigh?
Nelo Magalhães

building
Malecón de Villahermosa by Taller de Arquitectura Mauricio Rocha, TaAU and Alejandro Castro in Villahermosa, Mexico
Laure Nashed

building
Simon Veil bridge by OMA and Michel Desvigne Paysagiste in Bordeaux, France
John Bingham-Hall

reputations
Robert Moses
Andy Battle

building
Control and operations centre by El Equipo Mazzanti and ContraFuerte in Bolombolo, Colombia
Felipe Walter

essay
Cape to Cairo
Sara Salem

essay
A short history of the roadblock
Jan-Werner Müller

outrage
The Amazonian road to COP30
Martha Dillon

revisit
Schlangenbader Straße estate in Berlin, Germany
Sophie Lovell

essay
Living with the Big Worm
Richard J Williams

building
Passeig de Boca de la Mina by Batlleiroig in Reus, Spain
Blanca Pujals

essay
Taking Norway’s scenic routes
Tomà Berlanda