‘Architecture in the Age of Digital Reproduction’

This special themed issue of the Journal of Visual Culture has two aims. First, to present a collection of essays and shorter provocations about the failure of contemporary architecture to address the full complex of issues engaged by visual culture studies. Second, these lines of inquiry are meant not merely to critique architecture and its discursive conceits, but rather any critique is only valid to the degree that it identifies what is significant and vital about architecture for visual culture. This is a critical examination of architecture (as both object and discourse) in contemporary visual culture: its failures, blind spots, refusals, and symptoms, yes, but also its successes, minor discourses, and alternative models of practice. In short, the contributors to this issue are invested in discovering an ‘outside’. A passage beyond ‘starchitect’ vanity/ideological projects in favor of a critical—vital—interest in architecture as a socio-cultural and historical means of transmitting unforeseen aesthetic possibilities and modes of knowledge.