Searching for Voices: On the history of OASE, Journal for Architecture

Abstract

Founded in 1981 by a group of students from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, OASE started as a stapled journal called O, referring to the threefold editorial content it aimed for: design, research and pedagogy (in Dutch: ontwerp, onderwijs, onderzoek). Over the past four decades, O turned into an internationally acclaimed bilingual journal, while holding onto many of the editorial choices originally made by the students. The particular epistemological positioning of the journal makes it a rather atypical example of an editorial model, shared between academic, theoretical, critical and sensitive approaches. On the basis of archival research, interviews with the first editors of the journal, and cross-readings of the journal’s 110 issues, this article uncovers the history of OASE. While presenting its many editorial continuities since 1981, the article also situates the challenges the journal might face in the future.