After decades spent sensitising his own field of work to themes concerning people’s respect for nature, Mario Cucinella has collected his memories of ten journeys to cities and other places. Each one of them provided him with food for thought that was neither exotic nor “stylistic,” but rather pragmatically environmental, and helped him to reflect on the rational exploitation of available energy resources – a common practice in the vernacular traditions of every culture, from Iran to China, and from Maghreb to Ireland. The stories included in The Future is a Journey to the Past. Ten Stories About Architecture projects us forward.