Architectural Magazines Research Articles

SHATTERING THE GLASS CEILING Women’s Roles and Images in Iranian Architectural Magazines (1946-2001)

This paper examines the evolution of Iranian architectural magazines, focusing on discernible shifts in the involvement and portrayal of women during three distinct periods spanning from 1946 to 2001. From 1946 to 1969, female contributions to the magazines were markedly scarce initially, with depictions limited to non-progressive representations of women in traditional roles and endorsements directed towards the Queen. Along with the modern cultural initiatives of the Pahlavi state in the 1970s, the magazines transitioned from a prior disregard for female figures to occasionally recognising them as equally capable professionals. In contrast to this shift and the gradual growth in the number of educated and professional women before and after the 1979 revolution, the Islamic Republic embarked on a systematic effort to marginalise women and censor their images from public view. Challenging the post-revolutionary moments of limitation and censorship, few charismatic figures succeeded in redefining their roles and images in architectural magazines, especially after the revivals of 1991 and 1998 that were marked by the publication of two ground-breaking magazines. This study, supported by a comprehensive historical review, employs Theo van Leeuwen’s discourse analysis, revealing the intricate interplay of four discursive strategies in shaping women’s representation in Iranian architectural magazines across the three periods. The text underscores the impact of pre- and post-revolutionary societal and political changes. It highlights how the resilience of Iranian women led to an unprecedented redefinition of female professional roles in the 1990s.

Eclecticism, openness and reflection. Interior design through Spanish architecture magazines 1925-1936

With the arrival of modernity, the architect assumed a leading role in the interior design and furniture scene. New proposals from Europe designed by international architects, began to be introduced in Spain through architectural periodicals. The national magazines echoed these contents and became the vehicles for the dissemination of the new forms. This research, based on a study of articles published in eleven Spanish architectural journals between 1925 and 1936, aims, on the one hand, to provide a global perspective on the evolution of interest in interior design in Spain in that period, on the other hand, to reflect on the role of the architect in the development and dissemination of modern interiors and furniture.

Designing for Modern Living

This study delves into the evolving landscape of modern living in South Korea, which has the widespread apartment complexes that have emerged from the efficiency centric approaches of industrial capitalism. It explores the paradigm shift in the 21st-century capitalist society, which now values creativity and individual expression over functionality and uniformity. This shift has led to a noticeable disparity between the monotonous spatial composition of mass-produced housing and the dynamic, creative lifestyles of contemporary residents. The research method involves a comprehensive analysis of both lifestyle and architectural magazines, providing insights into the changing preferences and lifestyles of residents, as well as the perspectives of professionals. The study aimed to highlight the changing nature of residential spaces and the design strategies, moving away from the conventional utility-focused designs, towards environments that foster creativity and reflect the individuality of inhabitants. Key findings indicate a growing public preference for residential spaces that are versatile, creatively stimulating, and aligned with the multifaceted nature of modern lifestyles. Contrasting these views, architectural experts emphasize the fundamental values of living, advocating for spaces that connect residents with nature and enrich everyday experiences through sensory engagement. The study concludes that while there is a divergence in perspectives between the general public and architectural specialists, both recognize the necessity for sustainable housing solutions. These solutions should cater to contemporary societal changes while preserving essential life values, thereby overcoming the limitations of the prevalent apartment centric urban housing model in South Korea.

The Shift of Philippine Architectural Media toward Digitalization (2018-2023)

This research examines how Philippine architectural communication experienced a renewal after the pandemic crisis. First, through a shift from the country’s flagship architectural magazine, BluPrint, toward a personally initiated digital platform, Kanto. Since BluPrint started to become digital in 2018, the publishers aimed at more aggressive targets for new articles. When Covid hit the Philippines in the beginning of 2020, it made BluPrint suffer and confused. The publisher company focused on the business side to diminish the encountered deficit. They started reaching out to a common lifestyle market but the journalists wished to continue addressing architects and the public interested in architecture. As the company wanted to broaden the target, the journalists felt that most of their content did not fit for that expansion. As result of the tension, in December 2020, most of BluPrint’s former staff decided to leave and “migrate” for Kanto. Kanto, a digital platform was created out of the former personal blog of one the migrant journalists to be an intellectual venue for art and architecture advocacy. Upon this departure, BluPrint’s publisher noticed that not only the magazine could not be published for a whole year in 2020 but also, it lost its journalists for a new competitor. Thus after a significant interruption, the publisher decided to renew BluPrint with a fully new staff. This marks the second shift, the complete digital transition of the originally printed, then blended BluPrint. These dynamic communication aspects of architecture, construction and built environment have not yet been sufficiently investigated, unlike their physical aspects. In order to elaborate findings, after a review of literature on worldwide shifts towards digital media, this paper matches observations on the institutional history and performance of BluPrint and Kanto with a second line of premises, qualitative statements. It reviews how former BluPrint, now migrant journalists are successful on the digital platform Kanto, in a fully different organizational and financial system. It also presents how BluPrint also experienced a renewal with its fully new staff. Behind both shifts, an underlying dilemma between financial success and content success became sharper in times of the increasing and now almost obligatory digitalization. Events and festivals are strongly needed by both online publications to create a tangible and interactive basis for gathering experiences of architecture lovers among themselves and with their “star architects”. In summary, the digitalization established a wider variety of journalistic forms which appear in more spontaneous, less focused presentations. While BluPrint strives after a wider viewership with an entertaining character, Kanto tries to deliver more depth in the profession embedded in a variety of artistic and cultural forms. As conclusion, in both shifts, content curation strategies prevailed over technological skills. The described genre shifts propelled deeper changes in both the content and nature of architectural discourse in the Philippines. The shifts also drew up a new relationship pattern between practicing architects, contractors and architectural media.

Materiality of architecture expressed through onomatopoeic words in text description of buildings

AbstractText descriptions of buildings using onomatopoeic words are a form of communication frequently used by Japanese architects to express their design intent. The onomatopoeic word describes a building vividly and sensually as if it has life and expresses connotative architectural meanings imbued through building posture and gestures, as depicted by the architect. This paper investigates the materiality of architecture through a text analysis of onomatopoeic expressions used to describe architectural works in the Japanese architecture magazine Shinkenchiku (新建築), identifies 24 aspects of architectural materiality reflected in the onomatopoeia used by architects, and typifies their views of architecture as a physical object.

Reinventing Work Nature: The Changing Work Landscape in Malayalam Architecture Magazines in the Post-COVID-19 Pandemic Era

The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly impacted various industries, including the field of architecture magazines. This study aims to analyze the ramifications of the pandemic on the work nature of architecture magazines, with particular attention given to the editorial, business, and mechanical departments. By utilizing a qualitative research approach involving in-depth interviews with experts, this research investigates the changes that have transpired within the nature of work in architecture magazines as a direct response to the pandemic. Many changes have occurred. Findings from this study contribute to a deeper understanding of the changes and transformations within the architecture magazine industry, shedding light on the evolving work nature, strategies, and practices in the post-pandemic era. The insights gained will inform the key players such as stakeholders and advertisers to navigate the multifaceted challenges within the media landscape, reinforcing the resilience of magazine organizations and paving the way for sustained growth in the future.

A New Vanguard. Notes on the Current Condition of Architecture

The architecture of the age of globalization, the age characterized by a geopolitical system that seems to be heading towards its decline, is dominant today. Almost all architecture magazines, including some of the most prestigious ones, which in recent years have played an important role in carefully reading and presenting works in their pages without propagandistic intentions; many architects and many historians and critics; a large number of simple architecture observers and even a large group of its users consider the season of building as an exciting, advanced period capable of making the future present. Everything that is not classifiable as globalization architecture is considered traditional, backward, unable to express contemporary values and achieve important objectives. For many years, I have realized that this opinion on global architecture does not correspond to what is considered an innovative, prophetic reality with extraordinary meanings. What has been realized in cities and metropolises in the last thirty years is very similar to the architecture of Eclecticism, which in the last years of the 19th century and until the early years of the next century transformed all the cities of the West and some in the East, giving them a hybrid identity like in an Esperanto, an incoherent mosaic of different linguistic fragments. From here, hybrid, casual, gratuitous works, devoid of their own necessity expressed by the Albertian idea, which in true architecture should not add or remove any element. Therefore, I believe that the true current avant-garde is not that of global architecture but a completely alternative conception of building. This conviction has been suggested to me by an observation that I believe cannot be considered inaccurate or just the result of a subjective view. This conviction consists of believing that architecture, in its first principles, which I will explain shortly, and in the authentic values that they produce, are invariant. [...]

The Beginnings of 1980s Soviet ‘Paper Architecture’ and the Circumstances of its Existence

History of Soviet ‘Paper Architeture’ of 1980s is mostly oral: its fragments are scattered in architecture magazines, critical articles and interviews. It seems that it has come from nowhere — this phenomenon has a very weak connection with what was going on in ‘built’ architecture. Nevertheless, Paper Architecture is a prominent part of Soviet culture of 1980s that is impossible to neglect. Conceptual architecture in the 20th century has certain regularity: to totalitarian myths of 1940s and once again as the part of the ‘Space Age’ aesthetics of 1960s. Paper Architecture wasn’t supported by ‘real’ architecture except from a very small number of projects; nevertheless it has answered the postmodernist challenge — to make architecture talk. Restoration of events chronicle may be the key to understanding the development of Paper Architecture: its duality between art and architecture, weak interest of its authors in ‘real’ building and disbanded nature of working groups can be explained by outer circumstances, not some program of the group. This article tries to connect this puzzle from recollections and events to describe the beginnings of this phenomenon.

Autonomous Houses and Architecture of Cybernetics in the 1970s: Towards Limits and Undeveloped Potentials of the Sustainable

In 1969, English researcher Gordon Pask published an article named “The Architectural Relevance of Cybernetics”, defining a theoretical framework concerning a cybernetic theory of architecture. Throughout the 1970s, the Cambridge Research Group designed the Autonomous House, a self-sufficient dwelling in terms of energy and food. Part of the Cambridge group approach relates to cybernetics. However, the group did not regard several aspects of cybernetics described in the theoretical framework of Pask. Through a literature review primarily focused on 1970s architectural magazines, this paper analyses which cybernetic aspects were not regarded in the Cambridge Autonomous House and other similar houses as case studies. Through an innovative analytical method, it demonstrates that some limitations of the house design, such as the main focus on costs and technologies, could have been reduced if aspects of cybernetics had been more incorporated. Using cybernetics as a lens represents a method which can be beneficial also in analysing today’s examples of sustainable and autonomous architecture.

Interrogating photography as the site of architectural experience: reflections on photography in Der Baumeister

Recent scholarship on architectural photography has highlighted the tension and ambiguity in architecture’s relationship with photography and the discrepancy between architecture’s reliance on photography and its common disregard of photographic images as objects in their own right. Further expanding on this re-evaluation, this article examines references and comments on photography from the 1920s and early 30s that appeared in the German architectural magazine Der Baumeister, that suggest their authors were highly attentive towards the photographs they worked with. Their remarks on the expressive qualities of specific photographs included in their articles and photographic depiction of architecture more generally acknowledge the photographs as objects in their own constructive right. Through a close reading of these remarks in conjunction with each other, this article develops the proposition that they reveal a process of negotiating the adequacy of photographs to represent a building and its three-dimensional experience, while signalling a shift in what is understood as an authentic perception and experience of a building. Thus, the article argues for the emergence of a new site of experience that sits in-between of and in tension with both architecture and photography.

Foucault’s Relation With Architecture: The Interest of His Disinterest

For over half a century, the works of Michel Foucault have famously exerted tremendous influence upon practicing architects and theoreticians alike. But what of the role architecture played for the French philosopher, who rarely addressed architecture exclusively or primarily as a topic in itself? The following pages assemble a coherent outline of Foucault’s understanding and utilization of architecture, based on his fragmented dealings with and remarks on the subject in what may be considered his three most well-known writings among architectural audiences: a lecture to architects, “Of Other Spaces” (1967); an interview for an architecture magazine, “Space, Knowledge, and Power” (1982); and a book that rendered an old architectural typology famous, Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison (1975).

THE “SCHOOL-MACHINE” THROUGH THE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINES OF THE SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES

If we retrace the fundamental stages of the history of education, we notice how school, with “Distance Teaching”, seems to be in a kind of zero degrees of education. From the one-to-one relationship of Socrates with his students, we find ourselves today in a situation similar to the first, but in which the teacher and the pupil disappear from the physical space, to appear on the screen of a technological device. However, much of the student's education passes through the school space as an educational environment, both because of the social relationships it brings with it and because of the space's intrinsic capacity to encourage or hinder well-being. The research reflects on the concept of "school-machine", born in the sixties, where technology is not applied a posteriori to the building, but the building itself is conceived as a technological-typological device at the service of learning. To clarify this definition, school projects have been catalogued by methodically scanning the international architecture magazines of the 1960s and 1970s. These examples want to be presented to stimulate a reflection on the way the school can be rethought for the post-COVID era as strategic infrastructure, illuminating the many analogies between that season and ours.

Rereading St Ann’s Hill

Among the earliest and most celebrated examples of modern landscape architecture is St Ann’s Hill (1935–1937). Christopher Tunnard designed the landscape and he worked closely with architect Raymond McGrath on the house, St Ann’s Court. The project graced the pages of numerous architecture magazines in the 1930s and 1940s and it made several appearances in Tunnard’s highly influential book Gardens in the Modern Landscape (1938/1948). While the project was designed exclusively for Tunnard and his male lover, there have been no analyses of the project regarding the role that sexual subjectivity played in its design. The following offers a rereading of the project through the lens of queer theories in architecture and domesticity, revealing that St Ann’s Hill hides in plain sight while challenging conventions of the time and likely pays homage to a couple who lived on the site previously and whose relationship also demanded secrecy.

Readings on multifamily housing: models, discourses, and aesthetics in A Arquitectura Portuguesa (1908–1958)

This article approaches architectural magazines both as a reflection of their particular context and as a vehicle for debate. It focuses on the ideas of ‘modernity’ and ‘dwelling’ implied in the published articles in A Arquitectura Portuguesa from 1908 to 1958. But it also examines the published (Portuguese and foreign) projects, in order to underline their hypothetical interest as reference tools for architects at the time. As such, this analysis demonstrates the standards that were in widespread use in the first half of the twentieth century in Portugal in terms of aesthetics, construction, and spatial configuration. Taken together, these standards formed the housing models that were disseminated through the specialised publications. The research seeks to clarify the connections between the circulation of these magazines and the development of multifamily housing theory and practice in Lisbon, whilst drawing attention to some of the echoes of this discussion in Porto.

The Functions of Housing in Response to Changed Lifestyles in Korean Residential Spaces: A Comparative Analysis of the Cases in Lifestyle and Architectural Magazines

The housing type of apartments, spread widely across South Korea, has penetrated deep into its domestic housing culture, thanks to their advantages in terms of convenience, resulting from the mass production of industrial capitalism, which prioritizes functionality and efficiency. However, capitalist social structures have been undergoing transformation in the 21st century. Under a new paradigm emphasizing creativity over functionality and efficiency, the characteristics of everyday life are also changing. We started with the question of apartment spaces, which featured there are only basic minimum functions with simple combinations of similar rooms, without being able to capture the current changed lifestyle. Therefore, this study focuses on newly emerging lifestyles resulting from this transition of social structures and the characteristics of residential spaces at present, centering on the “function of housing”. Based on these considerations, we aimed to establish the essential function of housing that is prioritized by this era. To this end, we first looked at the changes in the functions of housing before and after modern times. We found that the functions of housing that were complex in traditional society have been differentiated and that houses have changed into a more private space along with the post-modern advent of urban public areas. However, the recent shift in social structure has led to the emergence of new lifestyles, which has also called for new functions of housing. Therefore, in this study, through the analysis of recent lifestyle magazines and architectural magazines, we compared the general public’s and architectural experts’ perspectives on the changed functions of housing and the characteristics of the required residential space. Accordingly, this research analyzed articles containing interviews with residents in lifestyle magazines and articles of architects and critics in architectural magazines. In addition to our previous literatures on changes in “characteristics of residents” and “relationship between individual and family”, this study will ignite discussions on contemporary urban housing from diverse and multi-layered levels as an attempt to achieve sustainable housing where residents’ everyday lives and their residential spaces match.

The Mediterranean and Modern architecture: the dissemination of a myth in architectural media

This article reviews the influence of the media on the configuration and international dissemination of certain architectural models inspired by Mediterranean vernacular architecture. Exhibitions and catalogues, architecture books and magazines, as well as trips and personal contacts of architects, writers, artists, and intellectuals contributed to forging a mythical image of the ways of life, traditions, and popular architecture of the countries of the European South. This interest in popular culture peaked in the context of global efforts to recover an anti-elitist dimension of the discipline. New concepts such as humanisation, democratisation, and organicism, which were devised to render the ‘crisis’ of Modern architecture productive, began to displace Rationalist and functionalist references. This was when interest in popular culture, the vernacular tradition, and the domestic spaces of Mediterranean architecture were instrumentalised. The experiences of architects such as Josep Lluís Sert, Gio Ponti, or Bernard Rudofsky were intertwined with those of intellectuals from Northern Europe who sought a way of dwelling in the South that would afford ethical meaning and social values to life, in contact with the local community, nature, and history itself.

Outdoor Living Room

In the 1940s and 50s, Florida modernist architects developed a regional house—The Florida Tropical Home—that the Miami architect Robert Law Weed (1897–1961) inaugurated with his design of the Florida Tropical Home at the 1933 Century of Progress Fair in Chicago. One of the attributes of the Florida Tropical Home was the unification of indoor and outdoor spaces, through a fusion of landscape architecture and the interior of the house. Architects deployed multiple design strategies to achieve this fusion of indoors and outdoors. An annual architecture magazine—Florida Architecture—documented the increasing unification of indoor-outdoor spaces from the 1940s into the 50s. The magazine’s editorial advisory board comprised progressive architects such as—Weed, Wahl Snyder (1910–1989), Igor Polevitzky (1911–1978), Robert Little (1915–1982), and Alfred Browning Parker (1916–2011)—whose projects were featured as experiments in tropical homes. This paper will investigate how the Florida Tropical Home in the 1940s and 50s redefined the relationship between indoors and outdoors— from one of separation to one of unification. Through an analysis of the homes published in Florida Architecture, this study concludes that the architects developed a Florida regional architecture that was based on new relationships between indoors and outdoors.

The aspects of modern Korean architectural discourses observed by applying MEME theory

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to measure and observe memes in Korean modern architectural discourse. Here, a meme is understood as a cultural gene or in other words, a popular architectural concept or practice that is passed from one generation to the next by imitation. After extracting memes from the text of the leading architectural magazine in Korea titled SPACE magazine, we used network analysis to investigate them. The findings of this study were as follows. First, by researching 601 issues of SPACE magazine published between 1967 and 2018, the total number of memes extracted was 708. These memes were divided into 291 types of memes, which were then classified into 24 memeplexes (groups of memes with similar contents). Second, because of analyzing the influence of these memeplexes over time, we found that the “Tradition” memeplex had great influence in the past, while philosophy-related memeplexes such as “Sense of place,” “Phenomenology,” “Philosophy of Becoming,” and “Post-structuralism” have been influential. However, the “Modernism” memeplex has been the most durable, having the greatest influence on Korean architects from past to present.

Senses of Place: An Architectural Historian Before and During COVID-19

Senses of Place: An Architectural Historian Before and During COVID-19

Japan and Modern Architecture, 1945–1970. Discourse in the mid-20th-century Europe. 1960s: Emancipation, Criticism

This text is based on a section from the author’s dissertation titled Japan and Modern Architecture, 1945–1970. Discourse in the mid-20th-century Europe, examining the ideas about Japanese architecture in Western, mainly European discourse between 1945 and 1970. The dissertation maps the discourse on Japan from a comparative perspective. Building on sources from different countries, it identifies the main topics that were associated with Japan in the architectural context and shows their broader significance in the global architectural debate. It deals with the image of another culture: the focus is on both the history of ideas and visual representations, mainly photography. The sources are mostly printed media: architectural magazines and books on architecture in Western languages: English, German, French, Italian, Norwegian and Czech. What follows are excerpts from chapter II.6. of the original dissertation thesis. They introduce the change in perception of Japan that followed after 1960, and a case study of the writings on Japan by Bernard Rudofsky.