Dear Colleagues,

Architecture is physically anchored to its site. Its material existence bounds it to the particularity of a place. By default it is unmovable. Those who commit to having a first-hand experience of an actual space must embark on a pilgrimage to get there with the one-sided assumption that they will have full access to it. Photography is the messenger of the building's reality beyond its immediate surroundings. It broadcasts this metaphorical new-born in the built environment to all corners of the world. The photographer is granted a temporary visa to enter the premise and memorialize through the camera what s/he is able to read of that space. In this narrow window of opportunity, architecture is given new birth in media. The transition of architecture from three-dimensional artifact to images is a rite of passage with paramount consequences for discourse. To a large extent, those effects have remained largely unexamined increasing gaps of misreading. This special issue of Arts is devoted to gathering a cluster of competing points of view on the role and (mis)use of architectural photography in critical and historical research. Contributions are solicited on a range of sub-topics under the umbrella of the main subject from scholars of disciplines whose internal discourse architectural photography has a detectable impact on. Suggested, but not limited to, themes range from the ethics of spectatorship, visual rhetoric, identity formation, long-term memory construction, canon formation, forms of historiography, manufacturing professional consent.

Dr. Pierluigi Serraino
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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