PERSPECTA 38 - ARCHITECTURE AFTER ALL

The profession of architecture is increasingly characterized by divergent architectural ideas and divergent political, social, technological, and economic agendas. Much of current practice focuses on the process of architecture (its how) rather thanits meaning, effect, or reason for being (its why). This issue of Perspecta--the oldest and most distinguished student-edited architectural journal--explores the practice of architecture after the breakdown of consensus. Designers, theoreticians, andscholars investigate an architectural landscape devoid of a dominant ideology or ethos. Their essays take specific points of departure--globalization, urbanism, pedagogy, irony, as well as form, theory, and ideology--to address broader questions about the social, economic, and political fallout from these modes of practice, considering whether the lack of an overriding ethos in architecture is liberating or limiting for the profession. And, after all, is it conceivable, or desirable, to returntoan architecture derived from a single, dominant mode of operation?