Lecture tours, cultural propaganda and policy mobilities: an exploration of architect-planner William G. Holford’s wartime visit to Sweden

This article explores the performance, motivations and geopolitical context of a 1942 British Council-organised lecture tour of Sweden by the British architect-planner, William Holford. It engages with the policy mobilities literature – in particular studies on (1) the learning/educating within policy circulation and (2) the temporalities of policy circulation. It uses Holford’s tour and lectures – which projected a bright future for the UK to Swedish audiences as a covert means of countering German influence in Sweden – to make the case for closer academic attention to the political dimensions of learning/educating and the role of the future within policy circulation.