Morecambe Nightview, 1991. Birds Portchmouth Russum Architects. © Birds Portchmouth Russum Architects.

Gleaming in the middle of Salford Quays, The Lowry is perhaps the perfect spot for an exhibition entitled Fantasy Architecture.

A show of imagined buildings, structures and schemes, Fantasy Architecture (on until September 19) offers a taste of how the world might look today had the politics, economics, technical possibilities and tastes of our predecessors been different.

Whether in ink and wash drawings or computer animations, architects have, over the years, created visions to enthuse and convince clients or simply as private fantasies.

Design for the Imperial Monumental Halls and Tower, London, 1904. John Pollard Seddon (1827-1906) and Edward Beckitt Lamb (1857-1934). RIBA Library Drawings Collection.

From designs for palaces by medieval masters to futuristic film sets, Fantasy Architecture offers a chance to see paintings, models, film and computer renderings of designs for buildings by the likes of Inigo Jones, Joseph Paxton, Robert Adam, Edwin Lutyens, Archigram and Foreign Office Architects.

Divided into eight sections, the exhibition looks at architectural visions for every aspect of our lives.

In Private Worlds, domestic environments are transformed by the likes of Softroom, whose 1998 commission for Wallpaper magazine shows an alternative vision for 21st century domesticity.

Designs by counter-cultural group Archigram, as well as the NASA Ames Research Center scheme for a space settlement developed in the 1970s, give things a futuristic flavour in The Appliance of Science.

World Trade Centre, New York, 2002. Foreign Office Architects. © Foreign Office Architects.

Megastructure includes a recent design for a New York Virtual Stock Exchange, as well as Joseph Paxton's 1855 vision for a monumental 10-mile Great Victorian Way, combining shops, hotels and restaurants with an elevated railway.

Vertical Visions shows un-built plans for a new World Trade Center and a design for a huge tower commissioned by Gordon Selfridge in 1918 to perch atop his London department store.

In Past Perfect visions of imaginary landscapes vie with panoramas inspired by legend and archaeological evidence, while City Futures offers a glimpse of things to come.

Design for a tower for Selfridge’s department store, Oxford Street, London, 1918. Philip Armstrong Tilden (1887-1956). RIBA Library Drawings Collection.

All the World's a Stage offers the lavishly ornamented Renaissance set designs of the Galli Bibiena Family and a sketch for a Fun Palace of 1974 by Cedric Price.

The final section, In Memoriam, is at once serious and humorous. Designs include a Princess Diana Memorial Bridge by FAT and Claes Oldenburg's 1966 maquette for a monument to the mini-skirt.

Organised by the Hayward Gallery in collaboration with the Royal Institute of British Architects, Fantasy Architecture is a National Touring Exhibition.

From Salford it sets off for the New Art Gallery Walsall (October 1 – November 21) and the Harris Museum and Art Gallery in Preston (January 29 2005 – April 9).