Concrete Dreams
19 September 2024 – 1 June 2025
The Farrell Centre presents Concrete Dreams – an eight-month project comprising exhibition, installations, events and an education programme exploring how Newcastle was transformed in the 1960s and 1970s and how we might reimagine the city of today.
From the celebrated architecture of the Newcastle Civic Centre and vast infrastructure projects like the Central Motorway, to the everyday world of new schools, libraries, civic amenities and housing – the urban transformations of the 1960s and 1970s have left an indelible, if much contested mark on Newcastle and the rest of Tyneside.
Concrete Dreams explores the ideals and aspirations that drove these transformations and the ways they continue to shape how we use and understand the city of today. Underpinning the project is the question of how, amid the many challenges facing us today, we might build upon their legacies and remake Tyneside – and the world – once again.