“The greatest thing a human being ever does in this world is to see something... To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion all in one.”  ― John Ruskin

Architectural creation, its representation, interpretation, and associated activities more often than not are seen as processes of revelation. However, one can argue that architecture hides as much as it reveals. The Purloined Letter, a detective story written by Edgar Allen Poe, describes the chase to look for a stolen letter with confidential information. The story revolves around the search for a letter hidden by being left out in the open. Allen Poe highlights a complicated relationship between visibility, revelation, clarity and its complementary hiding, concealing, camouflaging. 

In the realm of architecture, are there examples of ‘hiding’ in teaching, representing, knowing, writing and building architecture? If so, how do those manifest themselves? How is hiding practiced under other terms that obscure the practice of concealment? What does it result in? What sources does it emerge from and who operates it? 

This call for papers and works encourages the exploration of ideas revolving around the theme of hiding. We invite proposals that examine ‘hiding’ in varied manifestations – camouflage, censorship, omission, curation, dissolution, fragmentation, simulacrum, silence, secrecy... We envision this symposium as an opportunity to question the boundaries of architecture seeking inter-disciplinary contributions that interrogate topics such as:

  • The apparatuses for hiding: language, artifacts, discourses, buildings…
  • The modes of hiding: leaving in plain sight, camouflaging, burying, wrapping, censorship, disguising, omission...
  • The temporalities of hiding : fragmentation, dissolution, continuity, discontinuity...
  • The motives for hiding: the ulterior (hidden) motive for hiding, obvious reason for hiding, an act of subversion...
  • The materialities of hiding: joints, glass, wall, serving/served spaces, water and mechanical structures, locksmithing...

This symposium aims to explore processes of hiding which can take representational, material and theoretical forms.