Editorial 1/2

Continuing with the year-long reflection on The Form of Form, Issue II invites you to analyse the current form of the city with The Architecture of the City. A Palimpsest, guest edited by Victoria Easton, Matilde Cassani and Noura Al Sayeh

The issue’s  conception coincides with the exhibition The books of the Architecture of the City, curated by Victoria Easton, Guido Tesio and Kersten Geers, at the Istituto Svizzero in Milan, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Rossi’s seminal book.

While the previous issue, How to Learn Better, guest edited by Bureau A, discussed the conception of form through the questioning of pedagogical approaches in architecture, this second issue, focuses on the form of the city itself through the lens of a palimpsest of Aldo Rossi’s pivotal oeuvre.

Revisiting The Architecture of the City seemed a necessary exercise in a moment where drastic changes in the way we read and form the city make it necessary to question the current state of architecture in the same way that Rossi questioned the modernist doctrine back in 1966.

This palimpsest  proved that the ideas embodied through the 33 chapters are as valid and lucid as they were 50 years ago. Their flexibility and, at times, ambiguity provided a fertile soil for reflections that not only seem pertinent but also urgently necessitated by the contemporary city, which becomes more and more abstract yet complex with the passing of time and the ever-changing nature of society.

Reflecting on form through the revisiting of Rossi’s oeuvre enriches our cycle on The Form of Form, suggesting another way in which form and Architecture relate, while pointing to our final issue of the cycle, where we will confront form, city and architecture from yet another parallel perspective.