The journal studies in History and Theory of Architecture (sita.uauim.ro), published by the Department of Architectural History & Theory and Heritage Conservation at «Ion Mincu» University of Architecture and Urbanism in Bucharest, Romania, invites submissions for the 2016 issue.
We envisage this 4th issue of sITA as an opportunity to bring the "margins" in the center of the architectural debate. We believe that approaching their architecture, delving into local circumstances, rationale, mechanisms of configuration and historiography could fruitfully annotate the grand architectural narratives.
In the context of this volume, margins are understood not as mere limits, but as ambiguous grounds, split and constantly disputed between "empires" or stranded at their extremities, exposed to and shaped by intermittent or continuous influences of all kinds. They relate to provisional "centers", neither remote enough to be completely ignored, nor close enough to be wholly accepted. Such territories seem to ceaselessly reinvent themselves across actual or virtual frontiers, transforming this unsettled state into cultural effervescence or resilience.
Architecture could be a significant witness to the specific condition and cultural dynamics of these territories, or effectively act upon them. Be it the work of important architects or of anonymous builders, this "marginal" architecture is particularly sensitive to fertile encounters, to the increasing or diminishing authority of a center, or, on the contrary, it establishes other cultural geometries. It could also reveal and define local specificities, often unexpectedly enduring, which history has ignored or mislabeled by taking for granted the arbitrary identities conferred by frontiers.
Although the subject foremost points to frontiers and borderlands, it does not exclude other kinds of margins that have been generated through historical or theoretical schematizations that sometimes entrap our reading of architecture.
Consequently, we invite contributors to reflect on the meaning of the margin in and for architecture, by examining:
- relevant architectural and planning aspects in marginal areas and approaches thereto;
- architecture and planning as instruments of political assertion (colonization, nation-building, official architecture vs. minor architecture, etc.);
- connections, mechanisms of interference, transfers of models (accepted or contested);
- identities in the wake of frontiers, the inertia of borders, "phantom borders", leftovers of margins;
- margins set by the established historiography and their fallacies;
- specific narrative and theoretical perspectives, interpretation, etc.
We encourage theoretical reflections and critical approaches to such issues, anticipating surprising encounters between distant architectural experiences and their readings, significant associations between physical, conceptual and imaginary cultural geographies. Thus, we expect to contribute to a more comprehensive outline of our built environment and raise new questions for the further investigation of this inexhaustible subject.
A preliminary abstract of 150 - 200 words should be submitted by April 20, 2016. Selected contributors will be notified by e-mail on May 1. The final article should be submitted for review by July 1.
Contributions will undergo a double-blind peer review procedure by independent reviewers.
All correspondence should be addressed to sita at uauim.ro, to the attention of Dr. Arch. Toader Popescu. Please see detailed guidelines for authors at sita.uauim.ro .