Abstract
Prefiguration and (urban) experimentation are two distinct, though partially overlapping approaches seeking to manifest the future in the present. The chapter uses Car-Free City Life as a case study for exploring the prefiguration-experimentation nexus. The Car-Free City Life project was an attempt to establish a car-free city centre in Oslo, Norway’s capital. The project strategy had a clear prefigurative orientation: the project would ease Oslo’s citizens into a low-carbon future by letting them experience a car-free city centre. This future was materialised via experimental interventions in the urban fabric, many of which were later made permanent. The project faced contestations: first, some interventions had unintended consequences; second, the project was made a target in the broader “culture war”. However, over time, the unintended consequences were addressed, and the controversy lost momentum. Car-Free City Life suggests that prefigurative strategies and experimental practices may be pursued within institutional politics with some success. Simultaneously, it points to a potentially unresolvable challenge of prefiguration: though the project brought the future into the present, this present only became acceptable—or at least tolerable—in the future, thus pointing to how socio-material, mental, and normative landscapes are transformed asynchronously.