Call for Papers

Issue 29 "Architectures under construction"

Deadline for submission of articles: 25 January 2027
Expected publication date: December 2027

Call Text:

"I know not whether the view of this house was more admirable and of a newer and more joyful aspect when it was being built than now, when we see it perfect and finished." Fray José de Sigüenza, 1605 

A splendid panoramic bird's-eye view dated 1576, known as the Hatfield drawing, depicts the monastery of El Escorial in the midst of its construction^[1]. This particular moment aroused the admiration of Father Sigüenza, a direct witness to the works, who confessed he knew not whether the sight of the house was more admirable “when it was being built”, or when it already appeared “perfect and complete”^[2]. This 1578 reflection sets the starting point for this issue of ZARCH: the consideration of the architectural work under construction not as an intermediate state of imperfection, but as a powerful stimulus for the architectural imagination. 

Today, the Hatfield drawing is considered one of the oldest and most vivid representations of a work of architecture under construction. This genre, according to experts, dates back to the Roman Empire and has evolved from medieval miniatures and Flemish paintings to modern time-lapses and the use of drones. This issue thus explores an architecture that reveals itself only in the interval between the drawing and the completed work, when the building exists as a skeleton of promises, provisional balances, and raw reality.

This issue vindicates the value of the physical process of project execution. As the imagined begins to take shape on the building site, intellectual tribulations are rendered material. On the building site, the immense collective effort required to give real substance to the project becomes evident. The project's initial assumptions confront the resistance of materials and unforeseen circumstances that may alter what had originally been envisaged on paper. Yet this is also the moment when the exposed structural frame, stockpiled materials, temporary works, and provisional supports reveal an aesthetic order of their own—one that is sometimes more evocative and inspiring than the completed building itself, and capable of opening up new directions for architectural design[3].

Interest in construction processes and their intermediate stages has a strong historiographical tradition. In 1873, The Art of Building in Rome by Auguste Choisy revealed, through analytical axonometric drawings, the internal logic of materials and construction techniques, establishing principles that would later inspire the masters of the Modern Movement. For Choisy, the formal evolution of architecture derives directly from structural coherence and the process of construction: constructive logic determines form.

In the twentieth century, Sigfried Giedion became the foremost visual chronicler of the architectural avant-garde, elevating the aesthetic of the structural frame to the status of art through photography. By arguing that construction becomes form, he drew upon industrial structures and images of unfinished works to endow the space under execution with a modern identity in which technique becomes aesthetics^[4]. In 1930, Richard Neutra consolidated this perspective in Amerika^[5], analyzing the evolution of American architecture through a graphic apparatus of works under construction. In this way, Neutra demonstrated how mass production and industrial assembly systems were defining the architectural avant-garde, indissolubly linking technique with the new aesthetic.

This conceptual framework invites scholars to reconsider the building under construction not as a mere transitional state, but as the most authentic expression of architectural beauty. A stage in which the physical process of construction and the load-bearing structure alone define the identity of the architecture.

The reappraisal of the construction process has found significant resonance within contemporary institutional and museum practice. In 1989, the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) inaugurated its Montréal headquarters with the exhibition and accompanying catalogue Architecture and Its Image: Four Centuries of Architectural Representation ^[6], which explored diverse modes of representation, including the outstanding examples of this graphic genre presented in the section “Construction: Transformation Recorded”. In 1995, the CCA organised an exhibition devoted entirely to the photography of buildings under construction, Architects of the Image: Photography in the Heroic Age of Construction^[7], which proposed critical parallels between the process of designing structures and constructing photographic images. Photographers likewise recognized the visual potential of the transitional stages of the construction process. In 2018, under the direction of Valérie Nègre, the Cité de l’architecture & du patrimoine in Paris presented the exhibition and accompanying publication L’art du chantier. Construire et démolir du XVIe siècle au XXIe siècle^[8]. As a result of a collaboration between historians of art and technology, the project examined the many technical, social, political, and artistic challenges of a work under construction. In this context, the book Intermediate States^[9], published by the University of Zaragoza in the same year, 2018, further explored the cultural, aesthetic, and documentary significance of the transitional stages between the architectural project and the completed building.

As a synthesis and culmination of this conceptual evolution, the voices of contemporary architects themselves reaffirm this understanding of architecture under construction. For Renzo Piano, the construction site is not merely a technical phase, but rather “an extraordinary place where everything is constantly in motion, in a continuous process of discovery and invention […] the construction site is never finished; like buildings and cities, it is an endless, unfinished workshop”^[10]. In this sense, the transitory condition of the construction site is understood not simply as a prelude to the completed building, but as architecture itself in its condition as an endless, living, and continually evolving workshop.

ZARCH 29 revisits this theme and explores the documentation of the intermediate states of architectural construction through the following approaches:

1. UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Narrating the physical transformation of a place. The temporal sequence that records the process of change—from the setting out of the site and the laying of the foundations to the completed building, and even the occupied building—offers the possibility of uncovering additional and complementary interpretations.

The aesthetics of intermediate states. Throughout the successive stages of the construction process, unexpected states of equilibrium emerge, along with provisional configurations of remarkable plastic value and unforeseen formal opportunities that inspire new architectural projects.

The factory on site. Analyzing the impact of industrialization on the transformation of construction processes can demonstrate how the transition from traditional construction to serialized, prefabricated production redefines both architectural practice and the construction site itself. The building site ceases to be an artisan workshop, transforming instead into a factory.

The construction site as a laboratory. The construction process constitutes a space for testing techniques and verifying intentions previously expressed through drawings, as well as a setting in which unforeseen circumstances, unexpected discoveries, or constraints may emerge, leading to changes in the direction of the project.

Paradoxes of appearance. The moment of construction can reveal similar appearances that conceal different structures and, conversely, analogous skeletons hidden behind dissimilar presences. This highlights the extent to which constructive aspects impact architecture governed by representative concerns or, in other words, discerns the relationship between the technical and aesthetic conception of the building.

Adaptive reuse. For Louis Kahn, a building reaches its greatest beauty at two specific moments: when it is under construction and when it lies in ruins. In both of these transitional states, architecture reveals its structure. In the current context, the building’s lifecycle is being extended through adaptive reuse. Intermediate states no longer merely precede the completed work; they also emerge through the transformation of existing structures.

Constructing the city. The notion of the architectural fragment under construction can be extended to the urban scale, giving rise to a dual perspective that oscillates between a poetic and social gaze —exemplified by the film En construcción by José Luis Guerín— and a strictly disciplinary approach. This latter perspective aligns with the urban planning culture established since the 1970s, particularly through the debates and practices surrounding the “Reconstruction of the European City” in urban laboratories such as Berlin, Madrid, and Barcelona, where the city is understood as an unfinished urban fabric in a constant state of transformation.

2. GRAPHIC RECORD AND DOCUMENTARY ARCHIVE

Documenting construction. Alongside photography, documents such as construction drawings, site sketches, construction details, three-dimensional models, and digital representations are essential to both the development and the understanding of a building. Beyond their instrumental function, they record decisions and adjustments of considerable technical and expressive value.

Unpublished documentation. This type of documentation is often relegated to a secondary status or restricted access; however, it remains fundamental for gaining a deeper understanding of the architectural project. At certain moments in history, particularly during periods of intense debate on modes of construction, these documents appeared in journals and magazines, although they have generally been overlooked in architectural interpretations and historiography.

3. DISSEMINATION, MEDIA, AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES

Under construction. This topic addresses the presence of images and drawings of buildings under construction in architectural journals and professional publications, as well as the dissemination and promotion of technological innovations.

Formats of recording and representation. From nineteenth-century photography and aerial photography to cinematography and the impact of contemporary technologies —such as sensors, 24-hour monitoring systems, drones, artificial intelligence (AI), Building Information Modelling (BIM)— the documentation of the act of building has been significantly expanded, opening up new possibilities for the teaching and dissemination of architecture, as well as for a contemporary understanding informed by cultural and environmental values.

Cristina Gastón Guirao, Jaime J. Ferrer Forés and Noelia Cervero Sánchez