Taking Place: Reflections from the Fieldworker

This issue of Writingplace Journal moves into the field, exploring the moment when reflection turns into action, and questions how knowledge produced via research is appraised and applied on the ground. In the articles, authors reflect upon their concrete experiences where insights regarding the city and its narratives have been made operational...

Delft: Views on Delft

Around 1661, Johannes Vermeer painted what has become one of the most famous city views: the View of Delft. The city of Delft is depicted from across the water of the River Schie. We see the city as a collection of brick buildings with lower and higher towers, peaking into the sky, and being reflected in the water of the river. The light looks...

Skopje Brutalism Trail: Rebuilding Social Fabric through Architecture and Performance

The article reflects the city of Skopje from the perspective of the workshop Skopje Brutalist Trail held in late September 2022 as a part of the activities focused on fieldwork within the COST Action Writing Urban Places. The workshop departs from the general topics of brutalist architecture and solidarity, both highly relevant and related to...

Infraestructuras ocultas que apoyan los procesos migratorios en América del Sur

Refugee Shelters done Differently: Humanist Architecture of Socialist Yugoslavia

Ethics of dust: visual essay on the artistic works by Jorge Otero-Pailos

The works of artist and preservation architect Jorge Otero-Pailos on experimental preservation provoke deep reflections about some of the fundamental questions dealing with heritage: temporality of objects, changeability of inscribed cultural values, the greater purpose of architectural preservation as a cultural practice, and the societal role...

Designing affordances of future heritage: a conversation with Ronald and Erik Rietveld of RAAAF

In this interview article, we present a unique marriage of architecture heritage design and fundamental philosophy exemplified in the built works by Rietveld Architecture-Art-Affordances (RAAAF), a studio that works at the intersection of visual art, experimental architecture, and philosophy based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The conversation...

Embodiment and meaning-making: interdisciplinary perspectives on heritage architecture

This article introduces the special issue — ‘Embodiment and Meaning-making: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Heritage Architecture’ — which aims to incite a dialogue across different disciplinary approaches to understanding how heritage architecture is experienced, registered, and produced. Here, heritage architecture is investigated by taking...

Remote Spatial Investigations: Constructing the Virtual Map of Belgrade

As architecture is considered a projective discipline, its underlying intents are always geared towards acting in and on the world. In other words, even if its discursive actions(evaluations, assessments, critiques, theorizations) are mostly reflexive, architecture aims to transform ‘reality’ both spatially and materially. In order to understand...

Media propaganda vs public dialogue: the spatial memorialisation of conflict in Belgrade after the 1999 NATO bombing

Two events marked the turn of the millennium in what remained of former Socialist Yugoslavia: the NATO bombing of Serbia, and to a smaller extent Montenegro, in 1999 and the fall of Slobodan Milošević’s regime in 2000. This was the infamous epilogue of the turbulent 1990s, a decade of successive violent conflicts that torn the federal state...

Sense and Sensibility of Affective Atmospheres

How to spatially mediate conflicts?

Various forms of violence and conflict continue to shape our habitats. What historically has been straightforward and even obvious two-way dependency, in recent years took more subtle and covert form due to sophisticated technological advancements in the fields of media, surveillance and armament. Recognising the detrimental effects of these new...

Refugee shelters done differently: Humanist (and global) architecture of socialist Yugoslavia