Igor Marjanović, William Ward Watkin Dean of the Rice University School of Architecture, served as guest editor of the fifth issue of AR/Architecture Research: Dialectics of Pedagogy. In his foreword, titled “Toward a Planetary Practice,” he calls for an investigation of the evolving relationship between academia and the professional practice of architecture.
Taking Karl Marx’s claim that “all social life is essentially practical” as an entry point, Marjanović extends this theory to academia to promote an expanded field of contemporary practice and to pose the critical question, “What does it mean for academia to be practical today?” As he explains in the foreword, “this issue of AR seeks to expand the notion of practice of architecture as a whole beyond the static coursework, the legislative and curricular diagrams, by embracing the diversity and creative potential of our world—in particular, that of our students as they seek to define their vision and place within the multifarious practice(s) of architecture.” He continues, suggesting that “the most cogent dialectic between academia and practice today is perhaps that of planetary thinking and the ensuing global solidarities it creates.”
Contributors to this issue include Mia Roth-Čerina, Carolina Dayer, Aki Ishida, Ephraim Joris, César A. Lopez, Robert M. MacLeod, Robert McCarter, Franco Pisani, Nancy M. Sanders, Nasrine Seraji, and Miron Tee.
AR/Architecture Research is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal published yearly by the University of Ljubljana Faculty of Architecture. AR is a critical platform for research and explorative writing at the highest level of creative scholarship. The journal’s integrative format presents diverse correspondences between some of the most creative contemporary voices in architecture and associated fields.
This issue of AR was released in December 2023 and is available on the AR website.