We present the 110th edition of ARQ magazine. Titled 'Decolonizing,' the issue opens a discussion around a simple question: What does it mean to decolonize architecture?

+ 1

This book is a compilation of essays in which architect Uriel Fogué reflects, through the lens of architecture, on some of the most urgent challenges of our time. In an era threatened by climate change, ecological challenges, and the looming horizon of a potential end of the world, architecture emerges as a crucial framework—not (only) for finding solutions, but for exploring, experimenting with, and testing other fantastic potentials for life, driven by desire.

The decline of monasticism as a historical movement coincides with what Hannah Arendt proposes as the fundamental paradigm shift upon which modernity was built: "The inversion of the hierarchical order between the vita contemplativa and the vita activa." By elevating action to the highest state of the human condition, contemplation lost its traditional meaning and surrendered its honorary position as a source of access to truth.

This work offers a panoramic record of the life and work of architect Javier Lisímaco Gutiérrez (1928–1972), spanning Chile, Cuba, and Bolivia. Most of the material is previously unpublished, gathered through the collaboration of institutions and numerous individuals who have generously shared their memories and experiences.

“From the perspective through which we conceive and carry out our work, architectural projects convey sensations to some and ideas to others, with each observer or user decoding them to engage with and assimilate them. Hence the impetus behind editing a book that seeks, for the first time, to establish a convergence between dialogue and the built work.

Flavio Bevilacqua applies segments of Gilbert Simondon's philosophy of technology to architectural theory and design research. Consequently, this book can be viewed as the first extensive transfer of Simondon's theoretical approach to these fields. The French philosopher critiques the hylomorphic model, moving away from it to propose a "theory of individuation." The book’s central argument follows this trajectory: non-hylomorphic morphogenesis exists within architecture and design.

“Donde la Arquitectura No Llegó / Where Architecture Did Not Reach” is the first book (Spanish/English) in our “Open Conversations” series. In it, América al Cuadrado discusses with Grupo Talca their trajectory in creating architecture outside of conventional settings.

Over the past few years, through a process of citizen participation and dialogue between various public and private stakeholders, CREO Antofagasta has developed a Master Plan aimed at guiding the city's growth in alignment with the vision its residents hold for 2035.

Rescuing the architectural and cultural value of the Churches of Chiloé, concluding the series on Modern Architecture in Uruguay, and addressing interculturality within the territory, geography, and heritage are all part of the contents of the 45th edition of the Association of Architecture Offices (AOA) magazine, which was recently presented.

"Baldosas en Valparaíso, oficio y patrimonio" [Tiles in Valparaíso: Craft and Heritage] is a research project aimed at safeguarding the craft of hydraulic tiles—a trade with over a century of tradition in the Valparaíso Region, utilizing an artisanal technique that has remained unchanged for over 150 years of global production.

Above all, this book is an invitation. An invitation to discover a new way of seeing and thinking about the world, which in turn entails a new way of seeing and thinking about architecture. Drawing on complexity science and Edgar Morin’s complex thought, David Obon opens the door to knowledge that transcends disciplinary boundaries. It is a form of knowledge capable of recognizing the multidimensionality of our discipline—a knowledge that does not simplify, but rather reconnects, articulates, and clarifies. It is a knowledge that speaks to us of order and disorder, but above all, of creation. These insights have germinated across multiple disciplines to construct a new emerging paradigm: the paradigm of complexity.

Interior architecture today operates at the intersection of physical and mediated spaces, such as those of mass communication, digital platforms, or the visual arts. If we consider any form of representation as potential architecture—from writing to photography, from drawing to film—this essay addresses contemporary interiors as "expanded media" platforms that belong to different places and temporalities, reaffirming the role of interior architecture in the construction of contemporaneity.

"Everyone knows that myths never really happened, yet they are always happening. Now, they continue not only through the adventures of ancient heroes but also by making their way into the ubiquitous and most popular stories of contemporary film, games, and literature." - Olga Tokarczuk.

In this collection of essays, architect Josep Llinàs experiments with new formats, such as Instagram stories, answering to no one but the heroes featured in his narrative. Ever-present is the work of Josep Maria Jujol—who dents, twists, and blurs everything he touches—a body of work far removed from any Calvinist work ethic, which Llinàs links to folk wisdom and, ultimately, to the behavior of a child. Beyond Jujol, other figures emerge: from Alejandro de la Sota to José Antonio Coderch, from David Lynch to Peter Handke, from his grandson to his parents, and from there to his great-grandparents... Meanwhile, never losing his smile, he draws, cuts paper, builds models and collages, and writes stories for the sheer joy of it—his status as a septuagenarian having liberated him from work as a form of punishment—only to channel them back into his architectural practice.

Straddling theory-fiction, speculative fabulation, audiovisual research, and dramaturgy, Teatro Della Terra Alienata imagines a fictional scenario of territorial secession. It addresses the urgency raised in the 2018 UN IPCC report, which identified the decline of the Great Barrier Reef as part of a "wicked problem" that demands radical political action, as well as new imaginaries and aesthetic paradigms.

URBANBATfest is a festival that acts as a laboratory—or a laboratory that evolves into a festival. It is a research process focused on urban transformations and an environment for learning, experimentation, and collective creation designed to drive urban innovation.

In this new edition of URBANBATfest, under the theme "No future," we are opening a space for reflection on the future of cities. We are examining the responsibility of architecture and urban planning within this context of multidimensional crisis, their complicity and forms of resistance, their possibilities and limitations, their tools and working methodologies, their relationship with other disciplines, their areas of intervention, their capacity to create new imaginaries, and how to cohabit the present and the future.

Harquitectes is one of the most compelling architecture firms on the current international scene. While their work has been extensively published—in various monographic magazine issues, among other publications—less attention has been paid to the thinking that underlies the nearly twenty years of work by these Catalan architects.
This book compiles a series of texts and interviews that offer moments of reflection and unprecedented, long-awaited theoretical construction regarding Harquitectes' architectural production and their professional attitude. It provides broad context regarding the firm as a project in itself, as well as insights into the specific character of their work.

This book brings together, for the first time in Spanish, more than twenty writings and lectures by British architect Cedric Price. Drawn from diverse sources, Price’s texts reveal an exceptional understanding of architecture, filtered through a critical and complex—yet honest and ironic—personality.