For thousands of years, human beings have dreamt of perfect worlds, worlds free of conflict, hunger, and unhappiness. But can these worlds ever exist in reality?

Our ancestors embodied these dreams in spiritual buildings, in hopes of turning those dreams into a reality, until the appearance of sacred architecture. As a result, many utopian communities and cities have now emerged.

IEREK organizes the international conference on Utopian and Scared Architecture Studies to be hosted in one of the most spiritual cities, the city of Naples. Naples contains a real-life model of sacred architecture, spiritual buildings and sites such as Pompeii, Amalfi Coast, Ravello, etc. To optimize the benefits of going through such an experience, visits to these cities will be designed alongside the conference's main activities.

Moreover, this conference aims to explore the theories and practices stimulated over the last five centuries in a wide range of areas of thought, historiography, political sciences, social sciences, literary and art studies, social activism and in the conception of possible worlds. Thus, it is a chance to address directly the controversy surrounding Utopia and its successors from its origin to our present and explore the impact on and by the utopian religious, and cultural ideals.

This is an appropriate time for reflection on the notion of utopia; whether that of the past, today or the future. IEREK, in collaboration with the architecture department, Università degli Studi della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli - Naples, is working to encourage and leave room for dreams and new ideas to inspire a selection of historical utopias, the architecture of cities, utopian ideals, and the impact of religion and culture.

This conference encourages an exchange of knowledge and ideas as a way to question the ups and downs of a visionary approach to life and considers the different ways in which utopias from the past might help us think about the world today. Utopia offers a variety of approaches for facing the encounters of today by reaching out to the "Next-City".

Selected papers of the conference will be published in a book series by Springer in a book series titled Advances in Science, Technology & Innovation. Others will be published in the Resourceedings journal by IEREK Press.