‘Logic will take you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere’, famously stated Albert Einstein. Imagination empowers us to explore creative narratives, uncover concepts, and consciously envision the unconventional – transcending the predictable spatial realisms of everyday. It is imagination that has enlightened us with the floating, walking and flying speculations of Buckminster Fuller, Archigram, the Metabolists et al. Yet, narratives – the curious driving force behind imagination – are often overlooked in design education and practice. Rem Koolhaas’s ‘Delirious New York’ and Italo Calvino’s ‘Invisible Cities’ remind us of narrative’s transformative power, while Roland Barthes aptly observes that ‘narrative is present in every age, in every place, in every society; it is simply there, like life itself’. cj lim IMAGINARIUM invites you to explore your design aspirations through a kaleidoscope of speculative lenses – the clue to the future is to imagine narratives we have yet to experience.

CJ Lim is a transformative educator, a visionary influencer and the founder of cj lim IMAGINARIUM.

With over 30 years of academic and design experience, CJ Lim is the Professor of Architecture & Urbanism at The Bartlett, UCL, and has held key leadership positions including Director of International & Admissions, and Vice-Dean, as well as serving as Pro-Provost of UCL. He has also held Visiting Professorships in Australia, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Norway, South Korea, Spain, Sweden including the National University of Singapore (2019–2022), and in Aarhus School of Architecture in Denmark (2012–2019). He is a recipient of the Royal Academy of Arts London ‘Grand Architecture Prize’, and a four-time recipient of the Royal Institute of British Architects President’s Medal for contribution to architecture education – the highest number ever awarded to a single individual.

Lim has authored 12 books and 4 edited books including his award-winning bestsellers ‘Smartcities, Resilient Landscapes + Eco-warriors’ (2010, 2019), ‘Food City’ (2014) and ‘Inhabitable Infrastructures: Science fiction or urban future?’ (2017) which explore climate-responsive urbanism addressing fundamental human requirements: protection, provision and participation. Continuing the narrative-driven tradition of ‘Sins + Other Spatial Relatives’ (2001), ‘Virtually Venice’ (2006), and ‘Short Stories – London in two-and-a-half dimensions’ (2011), his latest authored books ‘Once Upon a China’ (2021) and ‘Dreams + Disillusions’ (2024) expand his fascination with architectural storytelling, idiosyncratic speculations, and the creative magic of imagination.